Chapter 10
Motivation and Emotion
Defining Motivation, and a Model
• Dynamics of behavior that initiate, sustain,
direct, and terminate actions
• Model of motivation
– Need: Internal deficiency; causes drive
– Drive: Energized motivational state (e.g.,
hunger, thirst); activates a response
– Response: Action or series of actions
designed to attain a goal
– Goal: Target of motivated behavior
Incentive Value
• Goal’s appeal beyond its ability to fill a need
• Example: taste in addition to food as fuel
• Style in addition to basic clothes protecting us
from the elements
Needs and incentives interact to determine drive
strength. (a) Moderate need combined with a highincentive goal produces a strong drive. (b) Even when
a strong need exists, drive strength may be moderate
if a goal’s incentive value is low. It is important to
remember, however, that incentive value lies “in the
eye of the beholder”
Fig. 10-1ab, p. 321
No matter how
hungry, few
people would
be able to eat
the pictured
grub worms.
Fig. 10-1 (photo), p. 321
Types of Motives
• Biological motive: Innate (inborn) motives
based on biological needs that must be met
to survive e.g., hunger, thirst
• Stimulus motive: Needs for stimulation and
information; appear to be innate, but not
necessary for survival, overcoming boredom
• Learned motive: Based on learned needs,
drives, and goals e.g., blogging, facebook
updates
Homeostasis
• Steady state of body equilibrium; balance
• We are generally trying to seek this in some
format when we alter our state of being or
consciousness
Circadian Rhythms
• Cyclical changes in bodily functions and arousal
levels that vary on a schedule approximating a 24hour day, one way to assess circadian rhythms
• Our body temperatures change gradually when we
are in deep sleep, we get a few degrees colder
• Pre-adaptation: Gradual matching of sleep-waking
cycles to a new time schedule before an anticipated
circadian rhythm change
– e.g., trying to adjust to new time zone to avoid jet
lag
• Melatonin: Hormone produced by pineal gland in
response to light (production suppressed) and dark
(production increased)
Jet Lag
• Disturbed body rhythms caused by rapid
travel east or west
• Major time shifts (5 hours or more) can cause
very slow adaptation
• Direction of travel affects adaptation, and
thus, severity of jet lag
– Much easier to go east to west than west
to east
Hunger
• Hypoglycemia: Low blood sugar
• Hypothalamus: Brain structure; regulates
many aspects of motivation and emotion,
including hunger, thirst, and sexual behavior
• Feeding system: Area in the lateral
hypothalamus that, when stimulated, initiates
eating
• Satiety system: Area in the ventromedial
hypothalamus that terminates eating
• keeps blood sugar levels steady by starting and
stopping eating
Fig. 10-5, p. 324
More on Eating Behavior
• Neuropeptide Y (NPY): Substance in the
brain that initiates eating; works on
paraventricular nucleus in hypothalamus
• Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1): Substance
in brain that terminates eating
• Set point: Proportion of body fat that is
maintained by changes in hunger and eating;
point where weight stays the same when you
make no effort to gain or lose weight
Fig. 10-6, p. 325
Damage to the
hunger satiety
system in the
hypothalamus can
produce a very fat
rat, a condition
called
hypothalamic
hyperphagia (hiper-FAGE-yah:
overeating).
Fig. 10-7, p. 325
The Final Word on Eating Behavior
• Leptin: Substance released by fat cells that
inhibits eating
• External eating cues: Signs and signals
linked with food
Taste
• Taste aversion: Active dislike for a particular
food
– VERY difficult to overcome
• Bait shyness: Unwillingness or hesitation by
animals to eat a particular food
Behavioral Dieting
• Weight reduction based on changing exercise
and eating habits and not on temporary selfstarvation
• Some keys
– Start with a complete physical
– Exercise
– Be committed to weight loss
Behavioral Dieting (cont)
• Observe yourself, keep an eating diary, and
keep a chart of daily progress
• Eat based on hunger, not on taste or learned
habits that tell you to always clean your plate
• Avoid snacks
• Learn to weaken personal eating cues
What is the
operational
definition for
“obese”?
A near epidemic of obesity has occurred in the
United States during the last 20 years, with 65
percent of all Americans now classified as
overweight
Fig. 10-8, p. 326
Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa
• Active self-starvation or sustained loss of
appetite that seems to have psychological
origins
– Control issues seem to be involved
– Very difficult to effectively treat
– Overwhelmingly affects adolescent
females
• About 10% are male
Eating Disorders: Bulimia Nervosa
• Excessive eating (gorging) usually followed
by self-induced vomiting and/or taking
laxatives
– Difficult to treat
– Prozac and Zoloft approved by FDA to
treat bulimia nervosa
• Affects more females than males
– About 25% are male
Table 10-1, p. 330
Causes of Anorexia Nervosa and
Bulimia Nervosa
• Anorexics and bulimics have exaggerated
fears of becoming fat; they think they are fat
when the opposite is true
• Bulimics are obsessed with food and weight;
anorectics with perfect control
• Anorexics will often be put on a “weight-gain”
diet to restore weight
• Treat with cognitive-behavioral techniques
Thirst
• Extracellular thirst: When water is lost from
fluids surrounding the cells of the body
• Intracellular thirst: When fluid is drawn out of
cells because of increased concentration of
salts and minerals outside the cell
– Best satisfied by drinking water
Pain Avoidance
• An episodic drive
• Occurs in distinct episodes when bodily
damage takes place or is about to occur
Tolerance for
pain and the
strength of a
person’s
motivation to
avoid
discomfort
are greatly
affected by
cultural
practices and
beliefs
p. 332
Sex Drive
• Sex drive: Strength of one’s motivation to
engage in sexual behavior
• Estrus: Changes in sex drives in animals,
which creates a desire for sex; females in
heat
• Estrogen: A female sex hormone
• Androgens: Male hormones
• Non-homeostatic drive: Independent of bodily
need states or physical deprivation cycles
Non Sexual-Stimulus Drives
• Reflect needs for information, exploration,
manipulation, and sensory input
• Arousal: Activation of the body and nervous
system
• Hypo-stress: not enough arousal can make
you bored, or tired, example with jobs
Yerkes-Dodson Law
• If a task is simple, it is best for arousal to be
high; if it is complex, lower levels of arousal
provide for the best performance
• Arousal theory: Assumes people prefer to
maintain ideal, or comfortable, levels of
arousal
• Sensation seeking: Trait of people who prefer
high levels of stimulation, adventurers
Monkeys happily open locks
that are placed in their cage.
Because no reward is given for
this activity, it provides evidence
for the existence of stimulus
needs.
Fig. 10-10, p. 333
The general relationship between arousal
and efficiency can be described by an
inverted U curve. The optimal level of
arousal or motivation is higher for a simple
task (b) than for a complex task (c).
Fig. 10-11, p. 335
Test Anxiety
• High levels of arousal and worry that
seriously impair test performance
• How to Cope With Test Anxiety
• Preparation
• Relaxation
• Rehearsal
• Restructuring thoughts
Learned Motives
• Opponent-process theory: Strong emotions
tend to be followed by an opposite emotional
state; strength of both emotional states
changes over time
• Social motives: Acquired by growing up in a
particular society or culture
Some Needs
• Need for achievement (nAch): Desire to meet
some internal standard of excellence
• Need for power: Desire to have social impact
or control over others
Abraham Maslow and Needs
• Hierarchy of human heeds: Maslow’s
ordering of needs based on presumed
strength or potency; some needs are more
powerful than others and thus will influence
your behavior to a greater degree
Maslow’s Needs
• Basic needs: First four levels of needs in
Maslow’s hierarchy
– Lower needs tend to be more potent than
higher needs
• Love and belonging
• Need for esteem and self-esteem
• Growth needs: Higher-level needs associated
with self-actualization
• Meta-needs: Needs associated with impulses
for self-actualization
Fig. 10-13, p. 338
Types of Motivation
• Intrinsic motivation: Motivation coming from
within, not from external rewards; based on
personal enjoyment of a task or activity
• Extrinsic motivation: Based on obvious
external rewards, obligations, or similar
factors
Emotions
• State characterized by physiological arousal
and changes in facial expressions, gestures,
posture, and subjective feelings
• Adaptive behaviors: Aid our attempts to
survive and adjust to changing conditions
• Physiological changes (in emotions): Include
heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration, and
other involuntary responses
More on Emotions
• Adrenaline: Hormone produced by adrenal
glands that arouses the body
• Emotional expression: Outward signs of what
a person is feeling
• Emotional feelings: Private emotional
experience
Primary Emotions and Mood
(Plutchik, 2003)
• Eight primary emotions
– Fear
– Anger
– Surprise
– Anticipation
– Sadness
– Joy
– Disgust
– Trust
Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)
Door
• Neural system that connects brain with
internal organs and glands
– Activity’s automatic, not voluntary
• Sympathetic branch: Part of ANS that
activates body for emergency action
• Parasympathetic branch: Part of ANS that
quiets body and conserves energy
– Parasympathetic rebound: Overreaction to
intense emotion
The
parasympathe
tic branch of
the ANS
calms and
quiets the
body. The
sympathetic
branch
arouses the
body and
prepares it for
emergency
action.
Fig. 10-17, p. 343
Lie Detectors
• Polygraph: Device that records changes in
heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and
galvanic skin response (GSR); lie detector
• GSR: Measures sweating
Questions Asked While Taking a
Polygraph
• Irrelevant questions: Neutral, nonthreatening,
non-emotional questions in a polygraph test
• Relevant questions: Questions to which only
someone guilty should react
• Control questions: Questions that almost
always provoke anxiety in a polygraph (e.g.
“Have you ever taken any office supplies?”)
(a) A typical polygraph includes devices for measuring heart rate, blood pressure,
respiration, and galvanic skin response. Pens mounted on the top of the machine
make a record of bodily responses on a moving strip of paper.
Fig. 10-18a, p. 344
(b) Changes in
the area marked
by the arrow
indicate
emotional
arousal. If such
responses
appear when a
person answers
a question, he or
she may be
lying, but other
causes of
arousal are also
possible.
Fig. 10-18b, p. 344
Body Language (Kinesics)
• Study of communication through body
movement, posture, hand gestures, and facial
expressions
• Facial blends: Mix of two or more basic
expressions
Three Basic Dimensions of Facial
Expressions
• Pleasantness–unpleasantness
• Attention–rejection
• Activation: Degree of arousal a person is
experiencing
Chameleon Effect
• Unconsciously imitating the postures,
mannerisms, and facial expressions of others
as we interact with them
Detecting Lies
• Illustrators: Gestures people use to illustrate
what they are saying
– Tend to decrease when person is lying
• Emblems: Gestures that have widely
understood meanings within a particular
culture
– Tend to increase when person is lying
Theories of Emotion
James-Lange Theory
• Emotional feelings follow bodily arousal and
come from awareness of such arousal
• Schachter’s Cognitive Theory Emotions
occur when physical arousal is labeled or
interpreted on the basis of experience and
situational cues
• Cannon-Bard Theory Activity in the
thalamus (in brain) causes emotional feelings
and bodily arousal at the same time
Fig. 10-21, p. 349
Attribution
• Mental process of assigning causes to
events; attributing arousal to a certain source
• Facial Feedback Hypothesis Sensations
from facial expressions help define what
emotion a person feels
• A Modern View of Emotion Emotional
appraisal: Evaluating personal meaning of a
stimulus or situation
• Emotional intelligence: Ability to perceive,
use, understand, and manage emotions
Table 10-2, p. 350