Unit V – Motivation and Emotion
• Memory/Cognition –
What we know about the
world
• Learning – How we make
associations between
causes and effects
• Motivation – What effects
do we really desire
Learning
• The studies of how learning works are some of
the earliest of psychology and are the most
informative of the debate of the soul.
Habituation
• Habituation – the simplest and most basic form of learning
• It is the decline in the tendency to respond to a stimuli
after repeated exposure.
• Not only do our senses tune out constant stimuli, but we
also consciously learn to ignore them.
• Habituation is an adaptive advantage as organisms need to
function without constantly reacting to threatening stimuli
Habituation works closely with
memory:
• Short-term habituation – responses to stimuli
decrease quickly after repeated exposures over a
short time. Eg. 300 loud sounds over 5 hours.
• Spontaneous recovery – after an extended delay,
short term habituation is extinguished and the
response returns.
• Long term habituation – responses to a stimuli
decrease gradually after repeated exposures over
a long time. Eg. 1 loud sound per day for 1
month.
Classical Conditioning
• Habituation is the recognition of events as familiar,
learning is the relationship between events and
circumstances. These relationships are called
associations.
• Experimental study of associations did not begin
until Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
Pavlov’s Dog
• A dog was prepared for this experiment by having a small
operation exposing the salivary gland to the surface, which
made it possible to measure salivation automatically.
Then the dog, which is fastened by leashes such that he
cannot move, is given food while ringing a bell. This
procedure was repeated several times.
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Before training
US (food in mouth) ------------ UR (salivation)
CS (bell ringing) -------------- No response
Training
CS (bell ringing) + US ( food in mouth)
After training
CS (bell ringing) ---------------- CR (salivation)
formerly the UR
• Once the training is finished, the dog will now
salivate at the sound of the bell, which previously
had no effect on the dog.
The Reflex
• Unconditioned reflex – The innate relationship between
stimuli and involuntary responses. Composed of an
unconditioned stimulus (US) and an unconditioned
response (UR)
• Conditioned reflex – Relationships between stimuli and
responses that result from experience. Composed of a
conditioned stimulus (CS) and a conditioned response (CR)
Reinforcement
• Through training, the unconditioned stimulus is
paired with the conditioned stimulus.
• Trials where the US occurs with the CS are
reinforced
• Trials where the US occurs without the CS are
unreinforced
• The tendency of the CS to elicit the CR, and the
strength of the CR, go up the more often they are
reinforced – this can be plotted on the learning
curve.
The Learning Curve
• Learning curve: Learning is proportional to prediction
error (received-predicted reward) and reaches an
asymptote as the prediction error approaches zero.
=prediction, and are learning constants, =reward.
Unlearning
• Extinction – the greater the number of
unreinforced trials, the weaker the strength of
the CR until it no longer occurs.
• Reconditioning – extinct CRs can be
reconditioned through further reinforced
trials. Reconditioning a CS takes fewer trials
than the initial conditioning.
• Spontaneous recovery – an extinguished CR
will reappear after a rest interval.
Response Strength
• There are 3 ways to measure the strength of the CR:
• Response amplitude – The intensity of the response.
Eg. How much saliva the dog produced.
• Probability of response – The proportion of trials in
which the CR occurred when the CS was presented
alone. Eg. The number of times the dog drooled
when hearing the bell alone
• Response latency – the time from the presentation
of the CS to the CR. Eg. The amount ot time it took
the dog to drool after hearing the bell alone.
The implications of Pavlov’s discoveries has
been instrumental in many different fields
eg. Advertising
• Generalization – the CS does not have to be
identical in every trial, a range of variation will still
elicit a CR even though the strength is reduced,
this reduction is called generalization decrement.
• Discrimination - subjects can be conditioned to
distinguish between very small differences in
stimuli.
• pairing slightly different stimuli with reinforced
trials, and others with unreinforced trials
• Discrimination is important because it shows that
learning is taking place. It takes multiple trials to
get the subject to remember which is the right CS
and which is the unreinforced CS.
Fear
• Studies in fear have been linked with classical
conditioning from its inception
Phobias
• When a negative stimulus (an electric shock) is
paired with a CS (a light going on) any learned
behaviour will cease; this is called response
suppression.
• Many fears that adults have is closely linked
with classical conditioning. If the fears are
intense enough, they can be deemed phobias.
CR and UR
• Fear highlights an important relationship between
the CR and the UR: the CS (the bell) is a signal for
the US (the food) but is not a substitute for it.
• The CS causes the subject to prepare for the US and
the subsequent CR. This occurs unconsciously and
involuntarily.
Compensatory Reaction
• Compensatory reaction – The conditioned response
works opposing the unconditioned response
• When diabetics receive insulin shots, their bodies react
to the CS of the needle and the injection process by
raising its blood sugar level.
• The same will occur in drug addicts – the drug heroin
induces feelings of euphoria, relaxation, and relief from
pain. Therefore the CS of the drug needle and the usual
injection procedures can cause the body to ache, to
become restless, and depressed.
• This requires the
addict to raise the
dose of the injection
to attain the same
effect each time they
inject.
• However, in the
absence of the usual
CS, the body will not
compensate and the
same dosage will be
fatal.
Journal
• What makes horror movies so frightening?
• Explain how they work (sights and sounds) to
make changes occur to your body and
behaviour.
Instrumental Conditioning
• Studies in Instrumental Conditioning began
before Pavlov with the development of the
theory of evolution by Charles Darwin – were
we just a type of ape? Or was mankind special
in some way?
E.L. Thorndike
• E.L. Thorndike became one of the most
important figures in the history of science
with his work with problem solving and
animals.
• Thorndike placed a cat in
the cage and observed
how the cat learned to
escape. The cat was then
put back in the cage and
Thorndike timed how long
it would take for the cat
to master the solution to
the box (his chosen
measure of learning).
• Thorndike plotted a
learning curve for the
cat’s speed of success.
The learning curve
• What would be expected to happen IF the cat was
intelligent?
• The cat would learn quickly – sudden insight
• What would be expected to happen IF the cat was
NOT intelligent?
• The cat would learn gradually – trial and error
The Law of Effect
• Based on his results, Thorndike
proposed his Law of Effect:
• “The consequences of a
response determine whether
the tendency to perform it is
strengthened or weakened. If
the response is followed by a
satisfying event (e.g., access to
food), it will be strengthened; of
the response is not followed by
a satisfying event, it will be
weakened.”
• When introduced to a
new environment, a
subject will produce
infinite random
behaviours. As some
behaviours lead to
success and others to
failure, certain
behaviour patterns will
dominate and others
become extinguished.
Note the absence of
reason or intelligence.
B.F. Skinner
• Most of the early research on instrumental
learning was performed by B. F. Skinner.
Skinner proposed that instrumental learning
and classical conditioning were fundamentally
different processes.
Classical vs. Instrumental Conditioning
• Because the response precedes the
reinforcement, rather than follows it.
• Because the response is voluntary, it must be
selected from an infinite number of possible
actions.
Operant Conditioning
• Instrumental Conditioning – also called
Operant Conditioning – The learning process
through which the consequence of an operant
response affects the likelihood that the
response will be produced again in the future.
Skinner Box
• Skinner devised a box in
which a mechanism can be
operated to produce a
reinforcer. The animal can
be left in the box to
respond however it
chooses. Skinner measured
the number of responses
as an indication of
learning.
Man vs. Animal
• Skinner argued that everything we do can be
attributed to this process of reinforcement
whether we are aware of the consequences of
our actions or not.
Skinner identified three consequences
for behaviour:
• 1) Positive Reinforcement - Any stimulus that
increases the probability of a behaviour
• 2) Negative Reinforcement - Any stimulus whose
removal increases the probability of a behaviour.
• 3) Punishment - Any stimulus whose presence (or
absence in negative reinforcement) decreases the
probability of behaviour.
• Skinner thought that punishment was the least
effective of the 3 possible consequences for learning.
• Shaping – reinforcing behaviours that are
increasingly similar to the desired responses.
2 important facts:
• The larger the reinforcer, the more rapid the
extinction.
• The greater the number of training trials, the
more rapid the extinction.
Reinforcement schedules
• Continuous Reinforcement: every response is
reinforced
• Partial Reinforcement: only some responses
are reinforced.
• Learning is faster with continuous
reinforcement but extinction takes longer
with partial reinforcement.
Four basic schedules of partial
reinforcement
• Ratio schedules: reinforcer given after some
number of responses.
• Interval schedules: reinforcer given after some
time period.
• Fixed: the number of responses or time period
is held constant.
• Variable: the number of responses or the time
period is varied.
Resulting behaviour
• Fixed-Ratio: bursts of responses.
• Variable-Ratio: high, steady rate of
responding. (Slot machines work on a V-R
schedule).
• Fixed-Interval: pauses with accelerating
responses as the time approaches.
• Variable-Interval: after training, a slow, steady
pattern of responses is usually seen.
Cognitive Learning
• Opposing the mechanical view of learning and
emotions depicted by Skinner, Thorndike and
Pavlov were other scientists who believed that
there was more going on than simple trial and
error; they felt that even the simplest animals
were forming knowledge.
Edward Tolman
• Edward Tolman believed that
animals were acquiring
knowledge about their
surroundings he called
cognitions.
• He found that rats being
transported around his
laboratory were showing
evidence that they had
learned something about the
space in later tests.
Test subjects were forming relationships
between the CS and US based on 2 factors:
• Contiguity – togetherness in time; studies showed
that there was an optimum amount of time that
should pass between the CS and the US for
conditioning.
• Contingency – the occurrence of the US depends on
the CS; there are a multitude of stimuli that occur
before the US that could also be interpreted as the
CS. Subjects learned which of these stimuli signalled
the coming of the US by experiencing the absence of
the CS and the corresponding absence of the US.
These studies indicated that the animals were
reasoning that the CS was a probable indicator
of the US more than other stimuli occurring in
the environment at the time.
Fear vs. Anxiety
• When these ideas are applied to negative stimuli
(electric shocks) they highlight the difference
between fear and anxiety.
• When a tone precedes an electric shock 60% of trials,
subjects would react to the tone with tension and
response suppression - fear.
• When there was no stimuli that would predict that a
shock was coming reliably, the animal constantly
shows fear and suffers long term physiological
consequences – anxiety
Response Control
• Subjects that were tested in conditions where
they could respond to avoid their negative
stimuli developed response control
• Infants who can control the movement of their
crib mobiles show more interest in them.
• Subjects tested in conditions where they could
not respond to avoid negative stimuli
displayed learned helplessness – an acquired
sense that environmental control is not
possible so no efforts are made.
• Two groups of dogs were strapped into
hammocks and subjected to electric shocks
after the presentation of a 3 second tone. The
dogs in group A were given to ability to avoid
these shocks by pressing a level with their
nose. The shocks of the two groups were
linked, if the dogs in group A avoided the
shock, so would their partners in B. Each group
of dogs received the same level of shocks but
only the dogs in group A could control them.
• When the dogs were then placed in a shuttle box (a
cage divided in half by a low partition) A tone would
precede a shock through the floor of the cage. The
dogs from group A quickly learned to jump the
divider at the tone to avoid the shock; the dogs in
group B simply laid down on the floor of the cage and
took the shocks.
• Learned helplessness has been linked to
depression because they both carry the same
symptoms (suppressed immune systems,
weight loss, excessive sleep, etc.)
Motivation
• Motivation – the needs, wants, interests, and
desires that propel people in certain directions
Humans display a huge range of goal-directed behaviour.
These behaviours can be highly complex and their
dynamics known only to the agent
• These can be divided into two main
categories:
• Biological motives – originate in bodily needs
such as hunger or excretion.
• Social motives – originate in social
experiences such as achievement
Biological Motives
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Hunger
Thirst
Sex
Temperature
Excretion
Sleep
Activity
Aggression
Social Motives
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Achievement
Affiliation
Autonomy
Nurturance
Dominance
Exhibition
Order
Play
Attribution Errors
• Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) - The bias to
attribute behaviour to stable internal causes rather than
external ones
FAE expression factors:
• What if we tell people what behaviours they must
express?
• This has been shown to be consistent even when observers
ascribe the participants into their opinion groups
themselves. (Gilbert and Jones 1986)
• What if we find out that there might be some kind of
agenda explaining someone’s behaviours?
• Some dispositional factors have also been shown to impact
FAE.
• When observers are informed that the opinion of a
participant matches that of an authority figure who could
control rewards or punishments in the participants future –
FAE diminishes. (Fein 2001)
Gilbert and Malone (1995) – have shown that
FAE involves a two step attribution process:
• First - We observe behaviour and make an
automatic and unconscious inference toward
disposition
• Second - We make a controlled and conscious
process inquiry into the situational factors that
could explain the behaviour
• FAE’s occur when we do not proceed to the
second step.
– We are distracted by other tasks
– We believe that our first explanation based on
dispositional inferences is a sufficient explanation
Self-serving bias – attributing our successes to internal
dispositional factors and blame failures on external
situational factors
• Johnson et al
• Aims – to investigate the effect of performance
improvements on the perceptions of teachers assessments
of their abilities.
• Methods – Participants were asked to teach students how
to multiply by using a one-way intercom in two stages. The
control group performed well in both phases, the first
experimental group showed no improvement from the first
to the second phase, the second group showed
improvement. The participants were then asked to explain
the improvement in the second phase
• Conclusions – When there was no improvement in the
student, the participants ascribed it to a lack of ability in
the student, when there was improvement, the
participants ascribed this to their abilities as teachers.
Some exceptions to the SSB:
• We are more likely to rely on SSB when we fail in domains in which
we cannot improve but we are more likely to attribute failure to
internal dispositions if there is something we can improve on in the
future.
• Abrahamson (1989) found that people with depression often rely
on an attributional style that links success to external and failure to
internal factors
• Zuckerman (1979) meta-analysis of SSB studies show that the effect
stems from a desire to maintain self-esteem
• Hiene (1999) found less desire to seek self-esteem reinforcing
experiences in collectivist cultures and therefore found less SSB’s
occurring in that culture.
• Miller and Ross (1975) SSB has rational uses apart from self-esteem
enhancement. Logically, effort changes with success. If increased
effort does not increase performance then the conclusion must be
the nature of the task, if increased effort yields increased results,
then the success is attributable to the self.
Social Identity Theory (Tajfel et al. 1979)
• Based on four interrelated concepts:
– Social categorization
– Social identity
– Social comparison
– Positive distinctiveness
Social Categorization
• Divides the environment into two groups:
– Ingroup
– Outgroup
• This has the effect of category accentuation
effect:
– reducing perceived variability in the ingroup
– reducing perceived variability in the outgroup
– increasing perceived variability between the
ingroup and the outgroup
Social Identity
• Our self-concepts formed by being members of
various social groups – based on intergroup
behaviours rather than interpersonal ones.
People can have several of these
– Where do student-teacher relationships fit in here?
Social Comparison
• We continuously compare our ingroups to
relevant outgroups to maintain positive social
identities.
Positive distinctiveness
• The need to show that your ingroup is superior to
an outgroup
Explain these concepts as they are
expressed in the film The Breakfast Club
These lead to intergroup behaviours
with some general characteristics:
• 1) Ethnocentrism
– Positive behaviours by ingroup members attributed to dispositions
– Negative behaviours by ingroup members attributed to situational
factors
– Positive behaviours of outgroup members attributed to situational
factors
– Negative behaviours or outgroup members attributed to dispositions
• 2) In group favoritism
• 3) Intergroup differentiation - altered behaviour to emphasize
group differences
• 4) Stereotypical Thinking – ingroup members and outgroup
members are perceived according to stereotypes
• 5) Conformity to ingroup norms – acting according to defined
behaviours
Minimal Group Paradigm – Tajfel et al (1971)
• Aims – To determine the effect of group membership on behaviours
• Method – participants were divided into groups randomly but told
that their group membership was based on personal taste in artists.
They were then asked to assign points to other members of the
study according to predetermined rules.
• Conclusions – the participants exhibited strong SIT tendencies such
as favoring members of their own group and assigning points in
such a way as to enhance the difference between the groups rather
than increase the benefit to their own group.
• Despite criticisms of demand characteristic validity issues these
findings have proven consistent in real-life situations and when
participant do not know they are being observed.
• Mummendey and Otten (1998) - The effect is more powerful when
distributing rewards than when distributing punishments.
• Dobbs and Crano (2001) – the effect is diminished when subjects
must justify their reward strategies afterwards.
Stereotypes
• Stereotypes – widely held evaluative
generalizations about a group of people.
• Assigns similar characteristics to all members
of a group despite variability
• Has all the properties of schemas
• Based on defining characteristics: gender, age,
race, etc.
• Are persistent across cultures
Formation of stereotypes
• Four theories of the structure and function of
stereotypes:
1. Social-cognitive theories
2. SIT
3. Systems-justification theory
4. Social representation theory
Stereotype formation – social
cognitive theories
• Limited capacities for cognitive processing
• Complex world – increasing complexity
• Social categorization simplifies cognitive
processing
• Social categorization – stereotypes
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Energy-saving devices
Automatically activated
Stable and resistant to change
Affect behaviour
Stereotype Formation – Social Identity
Theory
• Stereotypes – based on category accentuation
effect and positive distinctiveness.
• Sherman et al (2009) – we pay more attention
to those ingroup and outgroup members that
maximize positive distinctiveness.
• Ethnocentrism leads biased attributions to
behaviours of ingroup and outgroup
members.
Stereotypes – Systems justification
theory
• Jost and Banaji (1994) – stereotypes are used
to justify social and power relations in society.
eg. rich vs. poor
• SIT and social-cognitive approaches to
stereotyping cannot explain negative selfstereotyping – internalization of negative
stereotype attributes in disadvantaged groups
Stereotypes – Social-representations
theory
• Moscovici (1984) – Stereotypes emerge from
group beliefs shared by a society rather than
by individual schema activation.
• Both SJT and SRT emphasize negative
perceptions – stereotypes have been shown to
be predominantly negative (Fiske and Taylor
2008)
Stereotypes and performance
• Stereotype threat effect – performance impairment
that results when individuals asked to carry out a task
are made aware of a negative stereotype held against
them regarding their group’s ability to perform that
task well.
• Spencer et al (1999) – informing females that they
perform statistically worse than men on math tasks
prior to taking a math test lowered their scores
• Steele and Aronson (1995) – performance of AfricanAmericans on verbal skills tasks was lower when they
were asked to indicate their race prior to beginning.
Origins of Personality
• Although people have a limited number of
biological needs (10 – 15) they can be
socialized to have an unlimited number of
social needs.
• The strength of each need varies from person
to person and becomes a crucial factor in
defining identity and personality.
Biological needs - hunger
• Early research into hunger showed a string
correlation between stomach contractions and
hunger – researchers thought that hunger was
caused by stomach contractions
• But patients who have had their stomachs
removed for medical reasons continued to
experience hunger
3 causes of hunger
• Brain regulation
• Blood sugar levels
• Hormones
Brain regulation
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The experience of hunger is controlled in the hypothalamus
Lateral Hypothalamus – turned hunger off
Ventromedial Hypothalamus – turned hunger on
Paraventricular Hypothalamus – works with both
Glucose regulation
• Glucose – a simple sugar that is an important source
of energy
• Most of what we consume is converted into glucose
• Low blood sugar levels are associated with hunger
• High blood sugar levels are associated with satedness
• Glucostatic theory – neurons sensitive to glucose in
the surrounding fluid send signals to the brain to
stop/start eating
Digestive Regulation
• Vagus nerve – sends
signals to the brain when
the stomach walls are
stretched
• Other nerves carry signals
that depend on how rich
in nutrients the contents
of the stomach are.
Hormonal regulation
• Insulin – hormone secreted in the pancreas. It must
be present for cells to extract glucose from the
blood.
• High insulin – hunger
• Low insulin – no hunger
• Leptin – produced by fat cells throughout the body.
Provides information to the hypothalamus about the
body’s fat levels
• High leptin – low hunger
• Low leptin – high hunger
What are the key environmental
factors governing eating?
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Learned preferences
Food-related cues
Stress
How does classical conditioning play a
role in eating?
• Preferences in taste are learned through
associations created in classical conditioning.
If you force a child to eat, will they
eventually like it? Why or why not?
• Coercion tends to have a negative effect on
preference for a food. They have learned an
aversion to the food from the unpleasant
association created when they were exposed
to it.
How does memory influence eating?
• A key component to hunger is our memory of
the last time we ate. The appropriate duration
between meals is learned through
socialization.
What effect does the sight of food
have?
• The sight and smell of food trigger hunger.
This includes its appetizingness, the effort
required to eat it, and its availability.
How are stress and eating related? Is
this relationship the same for men
and women?
• The arousal related to stress, rather than
stress itself, leads to more eating. This is
common in women more than in men.
Define obesity.
• The condition of being overweight, more than
20% above the ideal weight.
• What are the negative effects of obesity?
• Overweight people are susceptible to
diabetes, high blood pressure, respiratory
problems, stroke, arthritis, and back problems.
What has brought on obesity in
modern times?
• Only recently have humans stopped eating
wild foods and switched to domesticated, high
sugar foods. Our bodies have not adapted to
the new diet.
How common is dieting?
• 24% of men and 40% of women diet
Can you be born to be fat? Explain.
What have scientists studied to
answer this?
• Scientists have discovered through studying
adopted children and twins raised in different
families that people can be born with a
vulnerability to obesity. Genetic factors
account for 61% of the variation in weight of
women and 73% in men.
Define body set point. Can you change
your body’s set point?
• Set Point – a natural point of stability in body
weight. Long term excessive eating can raise
the body’s set point but it is very difficult to
lower it.
Achievement vs. Affiliation
• Achievement – the need to master difficult
challenges, to outperform others, and to meet
high standards of excellence.
• This becomes more prominent in competitive
situations and can be measures for entire
societies through studying literature or
movies.
The tendency to pursue achievement
depends on the following factors.
• The strength of the motivation to achieve.
• The estimate of the probability of success
• The incentive value of success.
Affiliation
• Affiliation – the need to associate with others
and maintain social bonds.
• Also included the fear of rejection, jealousy,
and depression.
TAT Test
• Achievement and affiliation levels in people
can be measured with a Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT) in which subjects are
shown stimuli with ambiguous meaning. They
are then asked to construct a fictional
narrative for the image. These narratives can
be analyzed for their achievement or affliative
content.
Journal
• Observe the following image carefully.
Construct a narrative (a story) that could
explain the scene you are observing.
• Bring in your narrative and exchange it with a
partner. Analyze each narrative for its
affiliative or achievement motives.
Emotions
• There are 3 elements to emotional
experience:
• 1. subjective conscious experience (cognitive)
• 2. bodily arousal (physiological)
• 3. characteristic overt expression (behavioral)
The cognitive component
• Emotions happen to us rather than something
that we make happen
• Some degree of emotional control is possible
(emotional intelligence)
• People’s conscious appraisals of situations are
key determinants of emotions – evaluation of
an emotion as good or bad
The physiological component
• The biological reaction to situations involves
structures of the brain, neurotransmitters, and the
endocrine system.
• Autonomic Nervous System – regulates the activity
of the glands, smooth muscles, and blood vessels. –
fight or flight response
• Galvanic Skin Response – the change in electrical
conductivity of the skin that occurs when the sweat
glands of the skin increase their activity.
Autonomic Responses
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Sympathetic
Pupils dilated
Dry mouth
Goose bumps
Sweaty palms
Dilated lungs lungs
Increased heart rate
Adrenal activity
Inhibited digestion
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Parasympathetic
Pupils constrict
Salivating mouth
No goose bumps
Dry palms
Constricted lungs
Decreased heart rate
Decreased activity
Stimulated digestion
Brain Activity
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The emotional centers of the brain are the:
Hypothalamus
Amygdala
Limbic system
The amygdala plays a central role in
processing emotional stimuli
The Amygdala
• The thalamus process emotional stimuli
immediately and passes them on to the
amygdala or the cortex.
• If the amygdala detects a threat then it
triggers the hypothalamus to create an
autonomic and endocrine response.
The behavioral component
• Emotions are expressed in “body language” or
nonverbal behavior.
• When evaluating photographs of facial expressions,
subjects successfully identify 6 emotions:
• Happiness
• Disgust
• Sadness
• Fear
• Surprise
• Anger
Facial responses
• Evidence suggests that facial muscles send
signals to the brain that help the cortex
interpret emotional stimuli
• Subjects asked to adopt a facial expression will
report feeling that emotion
• Subjects who have been blind since birth still
adopt facial expressions like everyone else.
Theories of emotion
• James-Lange Theory – the perception of arousal
leads to the conscious experience of fear – different
patterns of autonomic activation lead to different
emotions
• Cannon-Bard Theory – emotion occurs when the
thalamus sends signals directly to the cortex and the
autonomic nervous system.
• Schachter’s Two-Factor Theory – Emotion depends
on two factors 1) autonomic arousal 2) cognitive
interpretation of that arousal. You feel a certain way
and search for reasons why.
Emotions
• Darwin – emotions developed because of
their adaptive value. Emotions are innate
reactions to specific stimuli. They are
recognizable without thought.
Innate emotional vocabulary
• Humans are born with 6 – 10 emotions that
originate in the subcortical brain:
• fear, anger, joy, disgust, interest, surprise.
• All other emotions are the result of
• 1) variations in intensity of emotions
• 2) blending of several different emotions.
The Nature of Personality
• Personality is the consistent disposition to
behave a certain way in a variety of situations.
Personality can be described according to 5 Factors:
• Agreeableness – people who are sympathetic, trusting, cooperative,
modest, and straightforward vs. People who are suspicious,
antagonistic, and aggressive
• Openness to experience – people who are curious, flexible, vivid
fantasy, imaginative, artistic, and unconventional - a key determinant
of political attitudes.
• Neuroticism – people who are anxious, hostile, self- conscious,
insecure and vulnerable. It is also called negative emotionality.
• Extraversion – people who are outgoing, sociable, upbeat, friendly,
assertive, and gregarious. Also called positive emotionality.
• Conscientiousness – people who are diligent, disciplined, wellorganized, punctual, and dependable. It is also called constraint and is
associated with success and high productivity.
Personality theory
• The 5 Factors can describe behaviour, but they
don’t account for it’s development and
processes.
• There are 4 main groups of personality
theories
• Psychodynamic theories
• Behavioural theories
• Humanistic theories
• Biological theories
Psychodynamic Theory
• Based on the work of Sigmund
Freud
• Psychodynamic theory explains
motivation, personality, and
disorders by focussing on the
influence of early childhood
experiences, unconscious
motives and conflicts, and
coping with sexual and
aggressive urges.
Freud proposed three components of personality:
behaviour was the result of interactions between these
three parts.
• Id
• Ego
• Superego
Id
• Id – the primitive, instinctual component that
operates according to the pleasure principle –
it demands immediate gratification of raw
biological urges. It’s thinking is primitive,
illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented.
Ego
• Ego – the decision-making component that
operates according to the reality principle,
which seeks to delay gratification of the id’s
urges until the socially acceptable moment
can be found. It’s thinking is rational, realistic,
and problem solving.
Superego
• Superego – the moral component that
incorporates social standards about right and
wrong. It emerges from the ego at approx. 3
to 5 years old.
Freud believed that there were 3
levels of awareness
• the unconscious – thoughts. Memories, and
desires that are below the level of
consciousness but exert a large effect on
behaviour
• the preconscious - material just beneath the
level of consciousness but that can be easily
retrieved.
• the conscious – everything one is aware of at
any given moment.
Anxiety
• Anxiety is caused by conflict between the 3
components of personality. We deal with this
anxiety with defense mechanisms –
unconscious reactions that protect a person
from unpleasant emotions (eg. Anxiety or
guilt)
Defense Mechanisms
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Repression – keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried
in the unconscious.
Projection – Attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, or
motives to someone else.
Displacement – Diverting emotional feelings from their
original source to a substitute target.
Reaction formation – Behaving in a way that is exactly
opposite of one’s true feelings
Regression – A reversion to immature patterns of behaviour.
Rationalization – Creating false but plausible excuses to justify
unacceptable behaviour.
Identification – Bolstering self-esteem by forming an
imaginary or real alliance with some person or group.
Behavioural Perspectives
Albert Bandura
• Albert Bandura – believed in much
of Skinner’s ideas of conditioning
but added environmental factors in
a theory called reciprocal
determinism – the idea that
internal mental events, external
environmental events, and overt
behaviour all influence one
another.
• In essence, people can control
their own conditioning.
Observational Learning
• Observational learning occurs when an organism’s responding
is influenced by the observation of other models – a person
whose behaviour is observed by another (often people who
are attractive or powerful).
• People are more likely to follow a model’s behaviour when
they see it leads to positive outcomes.
Humanistic Perspectives
• Humanism is a theoretical orientation that
emphasizes the unique qualities of humans
especially for their potential for growth and freedom
• The person’s subjective view of the world is more
important than objective reality
Carl Rogers
• Carl Rogers – believed in the construct of the
self – a collection of beliefs about one’s own
nature, unique qualities, and typical
behaviour.
• People tend to distort their experiences to
promote a favourable self-concept
Incongruence
• Incongruence – the gap between the self concept and actual
experience
• Experiences that are conflicting with our self concept cause
incongruence and are the primary source of anxiety.
• Individuals behave defensively to avoid anxiety and
incongruence. They will ignore, deny, and distort reality to
preserve or enhance their self-concept.
Abraham Maslow
• Abraham Maslow – Proposed that human motivation can be
organized into a hierarchy of needs – a systematic
arrangement of needs according to priority in which basic
needs must be met before less basic needs.
• The satisfaction of basic needs leads to the activation of
needs at the next level up. Humans have an innate drive to
achieve a higher state of being – progression, and feel anxiety
when lower needs are not being met – regression.
Physiological needs
Safety and security needs
Belongingness and love needs
Esteem needs
Cognitive needs
Aesthetic needs
Self-actualization
Regression
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Progression
7 Levels of needs:
Self-actualization
• Self-actualization – the need to fulfill one’s
potential. Persons who achieve selfactualization have exceptionally healthy
personalities, marked by continuous personal
growth.
Characteristics of self-actualized individuals
• Clear perception of reality and comfortable relations with it
• Spontaneity, simplicity, and naturalness
• Problem centering (having something outside themselves they
must “do” as a mission)
• Detachment and need for privacy
• Continued freshness of appreciation
• Mystical and peak experiences
• Feelings of kinship and identification with the human race
• Strong friendships, but limited in number
• Democratic character
• Ethical discrimination between good and evil
• Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor
• Balance in polarities of personality