Kristin Wakin
HRS 325
Writing Summary
27 February 2008
“Motivation and emotion” by S. J. Gaulin and D. H. McBurney
Gaulin and McBurney (2004) describe motivation as the study of the directional and energizing aspects of behavior. Psychologists use this concept as a means to explain why animals behave differently in an environment that does not undergo any changes. By working, animals are able to satisfy motives, which are most likely to change internally and independently of the surroundings. One underlying component of motivation is emotion, which is commonly defined as an affective response to environmental information that either threatens or advances different goals. Since motivation is the study of how goals are acquired, then it cannot be separated from emotion. Although several motives, such as breathing, are often accomplished without emotion, emotion is still necessary for motivation to solve any possible threats posed by the environment.
From an evolutionary perspective, motives and emotions most likely evolved in order to organize and stimulate behavior to solve problems that our ancestors faced in the Pleistocene.
Psychologists tend to divide them into two categories, basic and derived. However, Gaulin and
McBurney (2004) suggest that all motives are equally biological since they are all produced by evolution. In order to support this idea, they cite Harlow’s experiments with rhesus monkeys, which we discussed in class. In his study, Harlow demonstrates that infant monkeys base their attachment on contact comfort, which is just as important to them as food. Attachment then must have evolved since women would hold children close in an effort to keep them out of danger. As a result, children became attached not necessarily to their biological mothers only but also to the women who cared for and comforted them most during their early development. This reasoning can even be applied to Dr. Brown’s discussion of the fosterage practices in Namibia. Children

who are raised by fictive kin do not strictly consider either their biological or foster parents to be their family, but they view multiple parenthood as an additive relationship and feel attached to their parents who gave them life and the sponsors who support them financially.
Discussion Questions
1. Gaulin and McBurney (2004) suggest that higher levels of testosterone indicate more dominant and antisocial behaviors, which lead to increased status. In a previous chapter on human mating, they also say that men produce testosterone in order to attract possible mates.
How, then, are men with higher levels of testosterone able to attract more mates if they behave antisocially? Is testosterone used primarily to gain status among other men or to attract mates?
2. Gaulin and McBurney (2004) say that men die five years earlier than women because they produce more testosterone in order to attract women, which negatively affects their immune systems. However, they also attribute antisocial behavior to high testosterone levels. Gaulin and
McBurney (2004) suggest that ancestral people who were antisocial were less likely to survive since they did not have anybody to help them in dire situations. Then, could antisocial behavior, and not mating strategies, be a more probable, evolutionary explanation as to why men die earlier?
3. What criteria do you believe Ekman fails to include when determining whether an emotion is basic? What are some other key proponents that are necessary to define basic emotions?