Hunger and Hormones

Hunger and Eating

Brain regulates hunger, not the stomach

  • The hypothalamus has a function in hunger

    • Lateral Hypothalamus: Initiating hunger

    • Ventromedial Hypothalamus: Stopping eating (Lesions in this area may lead to non-stop eating)

Hormones

Ghrelin: Produced by the stomach and communicates with the hypothalamus to increase hunger

CCK: Counteracts the effects of ghrelin to decrease hunger

Leptin: Tells the hypothalamus to lower our appetite to increase energy used

Weight Gain and Obesity

Genes play a role in obesity and it likely a combination of many different genes

Malanocortin-4 Receptor Gene: People with a mutation that makes them never seem to feel full

What can make a person gain weight?

  1. Portion Distortion

  2. Idimic Bias

  3. Internal-External Theory: Obsese people are motivated to eat more by external cues than internal cue

    1. Internal Cue: Paying attention to our bodily signals

    2. External Cue: Taste and smell of food

    3. Sensory: Smell and taste

    4. Normative Cue: How much the people around you are eating. When one sees people around you are eating a lot, you are more likely to eat more

Eating Disorders

Bulimia Nervosa: Engagement in recurrent binge eating followed by efforts to minimizing weight gain

  • Physically hazardous

  • Most common eating disorder (1-3% of population)

  • Primarily female

Anorexia Nervosa

  • Morality rate (5-10%)

  • Very hard for clinical psychologists to get patients with eating disorders treated

  • Physical symptoms: loss of periods, hair loss, heart problems, severe electrolyte imbalances, and fragile bones.

Attraction and Love

Attraction and Relationship Formation

Major Influences:

  1. Proximity: How physically close you are will influence relationship formation

    1. Sitting next to someone in class will more be friends with them

  2. Similarity: We tend to be friends or date someone who is similar to us

  3. Reciprocity: We expect in our relationships to be equity and fairness (Liking someone and them liking us too)

  4. Level of physical attraction

    1. Heterosexual males place more emphasis on looks and younger mates

Theories

  1. Evolutionary Theory: Parental investment

    • Males have a lower parental investment (males can spread millions of sperm vs females having one egg a month)

    • Females have to be more pickier about who they have sex with

  2. Social Role Theory: Men who don’t bare children are more likely to have more opportunities to pursue high-status positions.

  3. Gender Roles: Accepted attitudes and behaviour for males and females in society

    1. More acceptable for men to have more sexual partners

Physical Attraction

“Just Average Experiment”

  • The more average a face is, the more highly rated it is as attractive

Why?

Evolutionary Theory: Average faces may indicate lack of genetic mutations or diseases

We also prefer averageness in lots of stimuli

What does love consist of?

Hatfield And Rapson’s Theory:

  1. Passionate Love: Love marked by powerful, overhwleming, and longing for ones partner

  2. Compassionate Love: Love marked by a sense of deep friendship and fondness for ones partner

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love: There are three components of love

  1. Intimacy

  2. Commitment

  3. Passion

Consummate Love: The right and perfect balance of love