Chapter 10
Achievement
motive
The need to master difficult challenges, to outperform others, and to meet high standards of
excellence.
Androgens
The principal class of gonadal hormones in males.
Argument
One or more premises used to provide support for a conclusion.
Assumptions
Premises for which no proof or evidence is offered.
Bisexuals
Persons who seek emotional-sexual relationships with members of either sex.
Body mass
index (BMI)
Weight (in kilograms) divided by height (in meters) squared (kg/m2).
Display rules
Cultural norms that regulate the appropriate expressions of emotions.
Drive
An internal state of tension that motivates an organism to engage in activities that should reduce
the tension.
Emotion
A subjective conscious experience (the cognitive component) accompanied by bodily arousal (the
physiological component) and by characteristic overt expressions (the behavioral component).
Estrogens
The principal class of gonadal hormones in females.
Galvanic skin
An increase in the electrical conductivity of the skin that occurs when sweat glands increase their
response (GSR) activity.
Glucose
A simple sugar that is an important source of energy.
Glucostats
Neurons sensitive to glucose in the surrounding fluid.
Hedonic
adaptation
An effect that occurs when the mental scale that people use to judge the pleasantnessunpleasantness of their experiences shifts so that their neutral point, or baseline for comparison,
changes.
Heterosexuals
Persons who seek emotional-sexual relationships with members of the other sex.
Homeostatsis
A state of physiological equilibrium or stability.
Homosexuals
Persons who seek emotional-sexual relationships with members of the same sex.
Incentive
An external goal that has the capacity to motivate behaivor.
Lie detector
See Polygraph.
Motivation
Goal-directed behavior.
Obesity
The condition of being overweight.
Parental
investment
What each sex invests—in terms of time, energy, survival risk, and forgone opportunities—to
produce and nurture offspring.
Polygraph
A device that records autonomic fluctuations while a subject is questioned, in an effort to
determine whether the subject is telling the truth.
Premises
The reasons presented to persuade someone that a conclusion is true or probably true.
Refractory
period
A time following orgasm during which males are largely unresponsive to further stimulation.
Set-point theory The idea that the body monitors fat-cell levels to keep them (and weight) fairly stable).
Settling-point
theory
The idea that weight tends to drift around a level at which the constellation of factors that
determine food consumption and energy expenditure achieve an equilibrium.
Sexual
orientation
A person’s preference for emotional and sexual relationships with individuals of the same sex, the
other sex, or either sex.
Subjective wellIndividuals’ perceptions of their overall happiness and life satisfaction.
being
Vasocongestion Engorgement of blood vessels.