Emotion and Motivation - Lecture Notes

Theoretical Perspectives on Motivation

• Motivation: The driving force behind behavior that leads us to pursue some things and avoid others.
  • Two components: what people want to do and how strongly they want to do it.
  • Motives reflect biological and psychosocial needs.

Psychodynamic Perspective

• Emphasizes the biological basis of motivation.
• Freud argued that we are motivated by internal tension states (drives) that build up until satisfied.
  • Two basic drives: sex (love, lust, intimacy) and aggression (control, mastery).
• Subsequent psychodynamic theorists argue for:
  • Need for relatedness to others.
  • Need for self-esteem.

Unconscious Motivation

• Freud argued that a person can be unaware of their own motives for their behaviors.
• Motivation can be unconscious (implicit) and conscious (explicit) at the same time.
• Unconscious motivation can be assessed using projective tests.
  • Example: Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).
    • Motives coded from TAT are highly predictive of long-term behavior patterns.

Behaviorist Perspective

• Behaviors are governed by the environment.
• Needs reflect a requirement such as food and water.
• Drives are states of arousal that accompany an unfulfilled need (e.g., hunger, thirst).
• Drive reduction theory argues that we behave in order to satisfy needs and reduce drives.
• Drives can be primary (innate) or secondary (learned).
• Drives motivated by incentives (external stimulus or reward).

Drive Reduction Theory

• Homeostasis: A state of biological equilibrium.
• Biological Need (water, food) --> Need gives rise to drive (internal state of tension) --> Organism motivated to satisfy drive --> Goal-directed behavior (action taken) --> Drive reduced --> Balance is restored.

Cognitive Perspective

Goal-Setting Theories

• Suggests conscious goals regulate much of human behavior or action.

• Particularly relevant to performance tasks.

• Outcomes are viewed as goals which are established through social learning.

• Intrinsic motivation refers to the enjoyment of and interest in a behavior for its own sake.

• Self-determination theory:

  • There are three innate needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
  • Fulfillment increases intrinsic motivation.

• Implicit motives are those which are activated and expressed outside of conscious awareness.

Humanistic Perspectives - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• From bottom to top:
  • Physiological (e.g., hunger, thirst).
  • Safety (e.g., housing, money).
  • Love or belongingness (e.g., intimacy).
  • Esteem (e.g., respect from peers).
  • Self-actualization (e.g., creative art, service to others).

Evolutionary Perspective

• Behavior governed by instincts - fixed patterns of behavior produced without learning.
• Key assumption: motivational systems serve functions that may have evolved independently in response to particular evolutionary pressures.
• Maximizing inclusive fitness: Animals engage in activities related to reproduction and survival.
• Contemporary theorists argue that there are multiple motivational systems related to survival and reproduction.

How is Behavior Regulated

Eating

• Eating is a behavior in which we consume food to supply energy, minerals, and vitamins.
• Metabolism: process by which body transforms food into energy.
• Ingestion of food leads to a sequence of metabolic events:
  • Absorptive phase: Food is ingested, energy is extracted and stored as either glycogen or fat.
  • Fasting phase: Glycogen is converted to glucose for use by the body.

Metabolism Phases

• (a) Absorptive phase
  • Ingestion of food --> Glucose level rises --> Hypothalamus activates pancreas --> Pancreas secretes Insulin --> Insulin facilitates storage of glucose by liver & allows cells to metabolize glucose --> Liver converts glucose to glycogen for storage & Fat storage in cells throughout the body.
• (b) Fasting phase
  • Glucose level falls --> Hypothalamus activates pancreas --> Pancreas secretes glucagon --> Glucagon facilitates breakdown of glycogen stored in liver --> Glucose metabolized by cells for fuel --> Liver converts glycogen to glucose.

Homeostasis

• The tendency of the body to maintain constancy of the internal environment.
• Eating is part of a complex homeostatic process with:
  • Set points: Biologically optimal level system tries to maintain.
  • Feedback mechanisms: e.g., receptors to monitor level of sugar in blood.
  • Corrective mechanisms: these restore system back to set point when needed.

What Turns Hunger On?

• Physiological hunger is caused by dropping levels of glucose and lipids in the bloodstream (detected by brain and liver).
• Hypothalamus plays a central role:
  • Lateral hypothalamus plays role in switching 'on' eating behavior.
  • Ventromedial hypothalamus plays role in switching 'off' eating.

The Role of External Cues in Eating

• Food palatability: tasty foods can motivate eating.
• Food variety: exposure to the same food day after day can reduce intake.
• Time of day: if eating is at the same time each day (habit) then conditioning can occur.
• Presence of others: meal size increases as the group size increases.

What Turns Hunger Off?

• Mechanisms of satiety: detection of nutrients in stomach and intestines.
  • Also occurs through taste and smell.
• Difficulty in regulating eating behaviors can lead to obesity or eating disorders (e.g., bulimia, anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorders).
• Obesity: characterized by body weight of 15% or more above the ideal for one’s height and age.

Sexual Motivation

• Sex drives are universally based in biology, however, sexual expression is governed by culture.
• Expression of sex varies between cultures (i.e., ways sexual acts are carried out and what is deemed acceptable).
• Sexual behavior driven by hormones and the brain (e.g., attitudes and subsequent sexual practices).

The Sexual Response Cycle

• Sexual response cycle: Excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution.
• Criticized for linearity and not accounting for psychosocial factors (e.g. attitudes and culture).

Biology and Sexual Motivation

• Female sex hormones: oestrogen and progesterone.
• Male sex hormones: androgens (testosterone).
• Hormones have two effects on the nervous system and behavior:
  • Organizational effects: prenatal exposure to androgens alters the neural circuits in brain and spinal cord.
  • Activational effects: alteration of adult levels of hormones can alter the intensity of a behavior that is modulated by that hormone.

Sex and Gender

• Sex: Assigned at birth based on anatomy
  • Intersex: children born with variations in sex characteristics (non-binary)
• Gender identity: internal sense of gender (e.g., male, female, agender, gender fluid, non-binary)
• Cisgender: gender identity aligns with birth sex
• Transgender: gender identity different to birth sex
• Gender non-conforming

Sexual Identity

• Sexual orientation (sexual identity): direction and degree of enduring direction of emotional, romantic or sexual attraction
• Queer theory: argues sexual orientation lies on a continuum rather than gender basis (strictly male or female)
  • Aims to normalise LGBTIQA+ people and communities
  • Break down institutional practices that promote differences and stigmas

Psychosocial Motives

• Personal and interpersonal motives (e.g., achievement, intimacy, etc)
• Less biological but rooted in evolution
• There are two major clusters of goals people pursue:
  • Relatedness: connectedness with others
  • Agency: motives for self-oriented goals

Needs for Relatedness

• Attachment Motivation refers to the desire for physical and psychological proximity to another (comfort and pleasure)
• Intimacy is closeness characterized by self-disclosure, warmth and mutual caring (adult relationships)
• Affiliation is interaction with friends or acquaintances (communication and support)

Need for Achievement

• Need for Achievement refers to the need to do well, to succeed, and to avoid failure
• Persons who have a high level of need for achievement tend to:
  • Choose moderately difficult tasks
  • Enjoy being challenged
  • Avoid failure
  • Work more persistently
  • Enjoy success

Components of Achievement Motivation

• Performance goals are motives to achieve a particular outcome
  • Performance-approach goals: motivated to attain goal
  • Performance-avoidance goals: motivated by fear of not attaining goal
• Mastery goals are motives to increase skills and competencies
• These three different types of goals predict different outcomes

Theories of Emotion

Emotion

• Emotion is an evaluative response to a situation that typically includes:
  • Physiological arousal
  • Subjective experience
  • Behavioural or emotional expression
• Emotion differs from affect and mood
• Emotion can be positive or negative feeling or response

Theories of Emotion: Physiological Components

• (a) James-Lange theory
  • Emotion-inducing stimulus --> Behavioral and bodily responses --> Subjective interpretation of arousal as emotion
• (b) Cannon-Bard theory
  • Emotion-inducing stimulus --> Behavioral and bodily responses & Experienced emotion

Subjective Experience

• Emotional intensity varies along a bell curve
• At the upper end are people with severe personality disorders (too intense anger and sadness)
• At the lower end are people who appear not to have emotional states (Alexithymia: a condition in which a person does not experience emotional states)
• Can have negative connotations (e.g., related to loneliness)
• Social networking sites contemporary mediate emotional disclosure

Feeling Happy

• Happiness is an emotional state characterized by a positive valence
• Research shows that happiness is:
  • Related to cultural values (individualistic v’s collectivist cultures)
  • Highly correlated with long-term democracies
• Happiness is NOT related to gender, age or wealth
• Positive psychology: subjective experience of happiness related to measurable experiences of wellbeing

Emotional Expression

• Emotional expression: overt, behavioural signs of emotion (e.g., facial expression)
• Evolutionary link between the experience of emotion and facial expression of emotion:
  • Facial expressions serve to inform others of our emotional state
• Different facial expressions are associated with different emotions
• Facial expression can alter emotional experience

Creating Fear in the Face

• Participants instructed to (a) raise their eyebrows and pull them together, (b) then raise their upper eyelids and (c) stretch their lips back towards their ears showed physiological changes consistent with fear.

Culture and Emotional Display Rules

• Cross-cultural studies have identified six facial expressions recognized by people of every culture that was examined: surprise, fear, anger, disgust, happiness and sadness
• Display rules: emotional displays considered appropriate within a specific culture

Gender and Emotional Expression

• Females
  • Experience more intense emotional states
  • Are better able to read emotional cues in others
  • Express emotions more intensely and openly than do males
• Gender differences in emotional expression may reflect differing socialization patterns and adaptation to historical gender roles

A Taxonomy of Emotions

• How many basic emotional states exist?
• Between 5 and 9 basic states
• The common 5 include anger, fear, happiness, sadness and disgust
• Additional emotional states include surprise, contempt, shame, guilt, joy, trust, interest and anticipation

Positive and Negative Affect

• Positive affect: pleasant emotions, drives approach type behavior
• Negative affect: unpleasant emotions, drives avoidant type behavior
• Distinction discovered through factor analysis studies
• Within these two factors, emotions are substantially inter-correlated
• People who experience one negative emotion (e.g., anxiety) tend to experience others (e.g., sadness, guilt)

Neuropsychology of Emotion

• Three areas that are particularly important:
  • Hypothalamus – link in circuit that converts emotional signals into autonomic and endocrine responses
  • Limbic system – Amygdala plays central role in linking sensory stimuli with feelings
  • Cortex – allows assessment of whether stimulus is safe or not, interpretation of meaning of peripheral responses (e.g., dry mouth) and regulation of facial displays

Neuropsychology of Emotion Diagram

• Sensory Information goes from Thalamus --> Amygdala & Cortex
  • Amygdala affects the Hypothalamus, which controls the endocrine system & autonomic nervous system.

Psychodynamic Perspective

• People can be unconscious of their own emotional experience
• Unconscious emotional processes can influence thought, behavior and health
• We regularly delude ourselves about our abilities and attributes to avoid unpleasant emotional experiences

Cognitive Perspectives

• Schachter and Singer (1962): Cognitive judgements (attributions) are a critical part of emotional experience
• Later research has shown that cognitive appraisals influence emotion
• Mood and emotion can affect thought and memory

Schachter-Singer Theory of Emotion

• Emotion involves two factors: physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation
• Argued that a cognitive judgement or attribution is crucial to emotional experience

Evolutionary Perspective

• Emotions serve an adaptive purpose (Darwin)
• Emotions serve as important signals to other members of the species
• Basic emotional expressions are wired into the organism and are recognised cross-culturally

Summary

• Motivation refers to the force that energises behaviour and includes two components: what people want to do and how strongly they want to do it
• Different theoretical perspectives (e.g., evolutionary, cognitive) suggest different reasons for motives
• Emotion is an evaluative response that typically involves subjective experience, physiological arousal and behavioural expression