Unit VIII. Motivation and Emotion 1

Emotions are our body’s adaptive response of the whole organism. Emotions involve physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience..

■ Darwin speculated that our ancestors communicated with facial expressions in the absence of language.
Nonverbal facial expressions led to our ancestors survival.
– Surprise widens our eyes, enabling us to take in more information.
– Disgust wrinkles the nose, closing it to foul odors.

Theorist
Plutchik
Arnold
Ekman, Friesen, and Ellsworth
Frijda
Gray
Izard
James
McDougall
Mowrer
Oatley and Johnson-Laird
Panksepp
Tomkins
Watson
Weiner and Graham
Basic Emotions
Acceptance, anger, anticipation, disgust, joy, fear, sadness, surprise
Anger, aversion, courage, dejection, desire, despair, fear, hate, hope, love, sadness
Anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise
Desire, happiness, interest, surprise, wonder, sorrow
Rage and terror, anxiety, joy
Anger, contempt, disgust, distress, fear, guilt, interest, joy, shame, surprise
Fear, grief, love, rage
Anger, disgust, elation, fear, subjection, tender-emotion, wonder
Pain, pleasure
Anger, disgust, anxiety, happiness, sadness
Expectancy, fear, rage, panic
Anger, interest, contempt, disgust, distress, fear, joy, shame, surprise
Fear, love, rage
Happiness, sadness
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1) Does physiological arousal precede or follow your emotional experience?
2) Does cognition (thinking) precede emotion
(feeling)?

• I see a bear -> I tremble -> I am afraid
• Perception -> physical response -> emotion
• Emotions are a response to what is happening to the body
• Value
– – first attempt to explain the process
– - includes an interpretation aspect

• Cannon and Bard challenged James-Lange theory
• Emotions do not come about as a response to physical responses
– Emotions and physical responses occur at the same time
– I see a bear -> I am afraid and tremble
• Value
– Early scientific look at emotions
– Advanced understanding of process
• Problem
– Doesn’t include interpretative
– part of the process

– Schachter-Singer
• Emotions we feel depend on
– Out internal physical state
– The external situation
– Psych Files

• Limbic System (Amygdala)-Flight or fight responses
– -evidence-lesioning (cutting) or electrically stimulating parts of the lymbic system
• Reticular Formation-Located in brain stemworks w/thalamus and amygdala to monitor info
– In detecting threats, the ret.form sets off heart accelerate, respiration increases
Unit VIII. Motivation and Emotion 4

■ Central focus of emotion
■ Interprets events and associates them with memories and feelings
■ Lateralization of emotion
– Right hemisphere—negative emotions,such as anger and depression
– Left Hemisphere—positive emotions

Physical responses, like finger temperature and movement of facial muscles, change during fear, rage, and joy.
Activity of the left frontal lobe (happy) is different from the right frontal lobe (depressed) for emotions. Observing activity in the amygdala, we can distinguish between anger and rage.

■ Sympathetic—startling or unpleasant emotions
– Ie-A car coming towards you
■ Brain alerts the body by means of messages carried along pathway sof the sympathetic system
■ Messages direct adrenal glands to release stress hormones, raise heart, and blood pressure
■ Directs certain blood vessels to constrict, diverting energy to the voluntary muscles and away from the stomach andintestines (the “knot” in your stomach)

Physiological responses related to the emotions of fear, anger, love, and boredom are very similar.
Excitement and fear involve a similar physiological arousal.

What is the connection between how we think
(cognition) and how we feel (emotion)?
Can we change our emotions by changing our thinking?

A subliminally presented happy face can encourage subjects to drink more than when presented with an angry face (Berridge & Winkeilman, 2003).
The amygdala sends more neural projections up to the cortex than it receives back, leading our feelings to often hijack our thinking.
Emotions are felt directly through the amygdala (a) or through the cortex (b) for analysis.

Analysis of emotions are carried on different levels.

Venting anger through action or fantasy achieves an emotional release or “catharsis.”
Research has not supported the catharsis hypothesis.
Expressing anger breeds more anger, and through reinforcement it is habit-forming.

1. Boys respond to anger by moving away from that situation, while girls talk to their friends or listen to music.
2. Anger breeds prejudice. The 9/11 attacks led to an intolerance towards immigrants and
Muslims.
3. The expression of anger is more encouraged in cultures that do not promote group behavior than in cultures that do promote group behavior.

People who are happy perceive the world as being safer. They are able to make decisions easily, are more cooperative, rate job applicants more favorably, and live healthier, energized, and more satisfied lives.

When we feel happy we are more willing to help others.

Our positive moods rise to a maximum within 6-7 hours after waking up. Negative moods stay more or less the same throughout the day.

A stressor is a thing that causes a person to experience stress.
Stress is not merely a stimulus or a response. It is a process by which we appraise and cope with environmental threats and challenges.
When short-lived or taken as a challenge, stressors may have positive effects. However, if stress is threatening or prolonged, it can be harmful.

Our initial stress response is a fight-orflight response:
•epinephrine and
norepinephrine from the inner adrenal glands,
• increasing heart and respiration rates,
•sugar and fat mobilized
• natural pain killers released

According to Selye, a stress response to any kind of stimulation is similar. The stressed individual goes through three phases.
Long term stress, exhaustion, etc…

A psychophysiological illness is any stress-related physical illness such as hypertension and some headaches.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a developing field in which the health effects of psychological, neural, and endocrine processes on the immune system are studied.

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Motivation is a need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it towards a goal.
Aron Ralston was motivated to cut his arm in order to free himself from a rock that pinned him down.
Ralston describes it
Aron Ralston

• Achievement motivation is defined as a desire for significant accomplishment.
• Motivation to achieve differs from person to person.
• People with a high need to achieve tend to:
• choose tasks that allow for success, yet
• still require skill and effort, and
• keep persisting until success is achieved.

 Drive-Motivation that is assumed to have a strong biological component.
Important in reproduction and survival
 Ie-Hunger and thirst
 Motive-learned urges-achievement or playing video games
 Intrinsic V. Extrinsic motivation
 Engages in an activity for their own sake without any outside reward
 Rewards for actions

Four perspectives used to explain motivation include the following:
1. Instinct Theory (replaced by the evolutionary perspective)
2. Drive-Reduction Theory
3. Arousal Theory
4. Hierarchy of Motives

Instincts are patterns of behavior that are inherited and unlearned.
Instincts generally serve to help survival.
Examples:
■ Salmon swim upstream to reproduce – survival of species.
■ Rooting of human infants – survival of individual.
Evolutionary Theory of Motivation
 Under Darwin’s influence, early theorists viewed motivation as resulting in purposeful behavior that is ultimately directed toward the fundamental goal of evolutionary fitness, and as being controlled by instincts.
 When it became clear that people were naming, not explaining, various behaviors by calling them instincts, this approach fell into disfavor.

When the instinct theory of motivation failed, it was replaced by the drive-reduction theory.
Drive-reduction theory says:
 a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.
 Our goal is homeostasis, internal stability.
Incentive
•Our needs push our behavior
•Incentives pull us toward behavior that reduces our drives.
•Incentives are positive or negative stimuli

Human motivation aims to seek optimum levels of arousal, not to eliminate it. Young monkeys and children are known to explore the environment in the absence of a need-based drive.

Abraham Maslow (1970) suggested that certain needs have priority over others. Physiological needs like breathing, thirst, and hunger come before psychological needs such as achievement, self-esteem, and the need for recognition.
(1908-1970)

When do we eat?
When we are hungry.
When are we hungry?
When there is no food in our stomach.
How do we know when our stomach is empty?
Our stomach growls. These are also called hunger pangs.

 Levels of glucose in the blood are monitored by receptors (neurons) in the stomach, liver, and intestines.
 These receptors send signals to the hypothalamus in the brain.
 Hypothalamus produces the hormone orexin.
Rat Hypothalamus
• Reminder:
Hypothalamus directs maintenance activities like eating, drinking, body temperature, and control of emotions.

The lateral hypothalamus (LH) brings on hunger (stimulation).
Destroy the LH, and the animal has no interest in eating. The reduction of blood glucose stimulates orexin in the LH, which leads rats to eat ravenously.
The ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) depresses hunger (stimulation). Destroy the VMH, and the animal eats excessively.

The hypothalamus monitors a number of hormones that are related to hunger.
Hormone Tissue Response
Orexin increase Hypothalamus Increases hunger
Ghrelin increase Stomach
Insulin increase Pancreas
Increases hunger
Increases hunger
Leptin increase Fat cells
PPY increase Digestive tract
Decreases hunger
Decreases hunger

Manipulating the lateral and the ventromedial hypothalamus alters the body’s “weight thermostat.” Heredity influences set point and body type.
If weight is lost, food intake increases and energy expenditure decreases. If weight is gained, the opposite takes place.

Memory plays an important role in hunger.
Due to difficulties with retention, amnesia patients eat frequently if given food (Rozin et al.,
1998).

Anorexia Nervosa: A condition in which a normalweight person (usually an adolescent woman) continuously loses weight but still feels overweight.

1. Sexual Abuse: Childhood sexual abuse does not cause eating disorders.
2. Family: Younger generations develop eating disorders when raised in families in which weight is an excessive concern. Family also tends to be highly competitive, highachieving and protective.
3. Genetics: Twin studies show that eating disorders are more likely to occur in identical twins rather than fraternal twins.

A disorder characterized by being excessively overweight. Obesity increases the risk for health issues like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, and back problems. For women, obesity is linked to late-life Alzheimer’s and brain tissue loss.

When women applicants were made to look overweight, subjects were less willing to hire them.
• Obesity, especially among women, have a
25% increase in likelihood of depression and anxiety.
• 9 in 10 surveyed that were once obese said they would rather have a leg amputated than be obese again .

Sexual motivation is nature’s clever way of making people procreate, enabling our species to survive.
To understand sexual motivation we must consider both the internal and external stimuli.

Masters and Johnson (1966):
 382 female voluteers, 312 male volunteers agreed to participate in a study in which they were observed in a laboratory setting during masturbation and sexual intercourse.
 Their results were used to gather information about the human sexual response cycle

Masters and Johnson (1966) describe the human sexual response cycle as consisting of four phases:
Phase Physiological Response
Excitement
Plateau
Orgasm
Resolution
Genitals become engorged with blood. Vagina expands secretes lubricant. Penis enlarges.
Excitement peaks such as breathing, pulse and blood pressure.
Contractions all over the body. Increase in breathing, pulse & blood pressure. Sexual release.
Engorged genital release blood. Male goes through refractory phase . Women resolve slower.

 Female animals “in heat” express peak levels of estrogen.
 Female receptivity may be heightened with estrogen injections.
Sex hormones may have milder affects on humans than on animals .
• Women are more likely to have sex when close to ovulation
(increased testosterone )
• Men show increased testosterone levels when socializing with women.

Hunger responds to a need. If we do not eat, we die. In that sense, sex is not a need because if we do not have sex, we do not die.

Our imagination in our brain can influence sexual arousal and desire. People with spinal cord injuries and no genital sensation can still feel sexual desire.

■ In studies, both men and women become sexually aroused when browsing through erotic material.
■ Can sexually explicit material have adverse effects on its viewers?

 Depictions of women being strong-armed into sexual situations and consequently enjoying it, increase male viewers willingness to be sexually aggressive with women.
 After viewing sexually explicit images or videos, men and women report:
 Feeling less attracted to girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband.
 Feeling less satisfied with their own sexual partner.

Sexual orientation refers to a person’s preference for emotional and sexual relationships with individuals of the same sex, the other sex, and/or either sex.
Homosexual Heterosexual Bisexual

Homosexuality is more likely based on biological factors like differing brain centers, genetics, and parental hormone exposure rather than environmental factors.
Homosexual parents