Chapter 9
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Motive
 Specific need or desire, such as hunger, thirst, or
achievement, that prompts goal-directed
behavior
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Emotion
 Feeling, such as fear, joy, or surprise, that
underlies behavior
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Inborn, goal-directed behavior that is
characteristic of an entire species and
unlearned
Human behavior is not easily explained by
instincts because
 Most important human behavior is learned
 Human behavior is rarely inflexible
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Human behavior is directed by both
physiological needs AND by psychological
wants
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Theory that took the place of instinct theory
Drive
 A state of tension or arousal caused by bodily needs
Drive Reduction Theory states that motivated
behavior is an attempt to reduce a drive and return
the body to homeostasis
 Sequence of events: lack of homeostasis, need,
drive, motivation to act, homeostasis
 Primary drive: Unlearned drive, such as hunger, based on
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a physiological state
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Secondary drive: Learned drive, such as ambition
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People are motivated to seek an optimal level
of arousal for a given moment
Yerkes-Dodson law
 States that there is an optimal level or arousal for
best performance on any task
 The more complex the task, the lower the level of
arousal that can be tolerated without interfering
with performance
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External stimuli that prompt
goal-directed behavior
We are often unaware of the
incentive
Examples
 Aroma of food may cause us to
eat even when not hungry
 Advertisements can lead us to
buy a product
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Intrinsic motivation
 Motivation for a behavior is the behavior itself
 Children playing is an example
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Extrinsic motivation
 Behavior is performed in order to obtain a reward
or to avoid punishment
 A bonus program is an example
 Dangers of providing extrinsic motivation for
intrinsically motivated activities?
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Physiological needs
Safety needs
Belongingness needs
Esteem needs
Self-actualization
needs
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Hunger appears to be regulated by
regions in the hypothalamus
 Lateral hypothalamus (LH) acts as a
hunger center, triggering the onset of
eating
 Ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH)
acts as a satiety center, stopping
eating behavior
 Paraventricular nucleus (PVN)
influences the drive to eat specific
foods
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In addition, areas in cortex and
spinal cord also play a role
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Changes in blood glucose level, fats,
carbohydrates, and insulin signal need for
food
Leptin, a hormone released by fat cells, can
signal satiety
Receptors in the stomach and a hormone
released by small intestine also signal brain
about satiety, but it takes 20-30 minutes!
EAT SLOWLY!
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OB-1/Chromosome 15
 15th chromosome may carry a gene that predisposes some
people to obesity
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Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
 How quickly you burn calories may be genetically influenced
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Set Point Theory
 Body has a “set” weight it wants to be.
 Body has a set number of fat cells which shrink with weight
loss and enlarge with weight gain, but the number does not
change.
 Efforts to go below this are seen by body as a threat, and
body will compensate by slowing metabolic rate
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Responses to food are governed by learning
and social conditioning
 For example, time of day can trigger the body to
become hungry
 Even the SMELL of food may trigger biological
processes that instigate hunger!
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Culture also influences what we choose to eat
and how much we consume
 Social facilitation – we eat when others are eating
 Unit bias – what is a “serving size?”
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Anorexia nervosa
 Intense fear of weight gain
 Distorted body image
 Refusal to maintain minimal normal body weight
 Absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles (for
women)
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About 1% of adolescents afflicted
Approximately 90% of those are white upper- and
middle-class females
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Bulimia nervosa
 Recurrent episodes of binge eating
 Recurrent behaviors to prevent weight gain, such as self-
induced vomiting
 Behaviors must occur at least twice a week for three
months
 Body shape and weight overly influence self-image
 Symptoms occur independent of anorexia
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About 1-2% of female adolescents afflicted
Dying to be Thin Clip (“Ana” and “Mia”)
Binge Eating Disorder – binging without purging
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Considered by U.S. Surgeon General to be the
most pressing health problem today
An estimated 66% of Americans are obese
Obesity can lead to increased risk for
 Hypertension
 Cardiovascular disease
 Diabetes
 Sleep apnea
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Tendency may be inherited
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Both internal and external cues can trigger
the thirst drive
 Internal cues include level of fluids inside body
cells and amount of fluids outside body cells
 External cues can include advertisements and
weather conditions
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Excitement
Plateau
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Orgasm
Resolution
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Hypothalamus controls the release of luteinizing hormone
from the pituitary gland, which in turn controls the release of
androgens and estrogens.
Testosterone
 Important in both men and women in early development
 Men and women seem to need some to be interested in sex, but as long
as it is there its role in regulating sexual activity is minimal
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Estrogens
 Female hormones that peak during ovulation
 Interestingly, when charting sexual activity, women are more receptive
to sex during ovulation
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Pheromones
 Scents secreted which can promote sexual readiness, particularly in
animals
The Psychology of Sex
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Human sexual motivation is much more dependent on
experience and learning than on biology
There are many reasons why people have sex
External Stimuli
 Both men and women tend to become aroused when exposed to
sexually explicit material
 Repeated exposure to the same stimuli lessens arousal over time
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Imagined Stimuli
 Sexual arousal while dreaming in both sexes
 Sexual fantasies are prevalent, but may not be indicative of desires in
real life
The Psychology of Sex
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The Kinsey Reports
 Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
(1948)
 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
(1953)
 Kinsey Scale and human sexuality (0 to 6
the “X” was added later for asexual)
 Controversial methods?
▪ Prison population
▪ Male prostitutes
 10% ??
The Psychology of Sex
Biological influences:
Psychological influences:
• sexual maturity
• sex hormones
• sexual orientation
• exposure to stimulating
conditions
• sexual fantasies
Sexual
motivation
Social-cultural influences:
• family and society values
• religious and personal values
• cultural expectations
• media
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Teen Pregnancy
 US has a relatively high rate of teen pregnancy and
abortion
 Some explanations include a lack of knowledge about sex
and birth control, substance use, and lack of media
reinforcement of protected sex
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Sexually Transmitted Infections/STDs
 For reasons listed above, STIs are also prevalent amongst
young people (2/3 of all new infections occur in population
under 25)
 Many people do not know the risks of certain sexual
practices and do not think about the number of partners
their partner has had
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Refers to the direction of an individual’s sexual interest
 Heterosexual
▪ Sexual attraction to opposite sex
 Homosexual
▪ Sexual attraction to same sex
 Bisexual
▪ Sexual attraction to both sexes
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Approximately 3-4% of men and 1-2% of women are
gay/lesbian.
Sexuality is enduring over time and cannot be “changed”
Women’s sexuality seems to be more “fluid” than men’s
(“erotic plasticity”)
Nature and nurture explain human sexuality
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Stimulus motives push us to
investigate or to change our
environment
Example stimulus motives include:
 Exploration and curiosity
▪ E.g. Where does that path lead? How
does the internet work?
▪ Why? An emotion? An acceptable
expression of sex drive? Part of the drive
to find the meaning of life?
 Manipulation and contact
▪ E.g. DO NOT TOUCH signs – why are they
necessary?
▪ The need to touch, handle, or play with
objects to feel satisfied.
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Harry Harlow (1958) wanted to
find out why infant monkeys
bonded with their mother.
Was the bond driven by a need
for food (nursing) or something
else?
 Harlow’s experiment
 Impact of denying infant
monkeys physical comfort from
their mother
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Illustrates contact motive
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Social motives are those which involve
how we are driven to relate to others.
They include the following:
 Aggression
 Achievement
 Affiliation
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Intent is a key element of aggression –
behavior is aimed at DOING HARM to
others
Why are we aggressive?
 Aggressive behavior may be innate,
although learning clearly plays a role
 Frustration-Aggression Theory?
 Social Learning?
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Aggression and culture
 Collectivist cultures are less aggressive than
individualistic cultures
 Crime in the US?
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Gender and aggression
 Males are more physically aggressive
 Nature…or nurture?
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Motivation to excel at a task
Desire is for achievement for
its own sake
Work and Family Orientation
Scale (WOFO)
 Work orientation, mastery,
competitiveness
 Highest GPA – high mastery and
work orientation, lower
competitiveness – WHY?
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Motivation to be with
others
Rats, monkeys and
humans in stressful
situations all feel a
reduction in anxiety and
fear when in the
presence of another
member of their species
Evolutionary value?
Learned behavior?
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Emotion includes the following:
 A subjective conscious experience or cognitive
component
 Bodily or physiological arousal
 Overt or behavioral expressions
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Emotional reactions are linked with the
Autonomic Nervous System
 Sympathetic/parasympathetic NS
 Autonomic responses accompanying emotion are
controlled by the brain
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Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)
 GSR measures increased electrical
conductivity of skin that occurs when
sweat glands increase activity
 GSR used to measure autonomic
arousal and therefore emotional
reactions
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Polygraph/Lie Detector
 Assumes there is a link between lying
and emotions
 Measures respiration, heart rate,
blood pressure, and GSR
 Does not detect lies, but rather
nervousness
 Only accurate about 2/3 of the time –
some people do not become nervous
when they lie!
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Plutchik proposed that there are eight
basic emotions
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Fear
Surprise
Sadness
Disgust
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Anger
Anticipation
Joy
Acceptance
Other (secondary) emotions are the
composites of primary emotions
Surprise + Sadness = Disappointment
 Fear + Acceptance = Submission
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Some have criticized Plutchik’s model as
applying only to English-speakers
Revised model of basic emotions includes:
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Happiness
Surprise
Sadness
Fear
Disgust
Anger
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James-Lange theory
 Environmental stimuli bring on physiological
changes that we interpret as emotions
 EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley
late at night. You hear footsteps behind you
and you begin to tremble, your heart beats
faster, and your breathing deepens. You notice
these physiological changes and interpret them
as your body's preparation for a fearful
situation. You then experience fear.
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Cannon-Bard theory
 Environmental stimuli elicit emotions and
bodily responses simultaneously
 EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley
late at night. You hear footsteps behind you
and you begin to tremble, your heart beats
faster, and your breathing deepens. At the
same time as these physiological changes occur
you also experience the emotion of fear.
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Schachter-Singer Theory/2-Factor
 Environment gives us clues that help us
interpret physiological reaction
 EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley
late at night. You hear footsteps behind you
and you begin to tremble, your heart beats
faster, and your breathing deepens. Upon
noticing this arousal you realize that is comes
from the fact that you are walking down a dark
alley by yourself. This behavior is dangerous
and therefore you feel the emotion of fear.
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Izard’s Facial Feedback Theory
 Cognitive feedback is NOT necessary: emotion
provoked by the faces/body posture that results from
an environmental stimulus
 Based on five different “universal” facial expressions:
happiness, anger, disgust, sadness, and fear-surprise
 EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley late at
night. You hear footsteps behind you and you begin to
tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing
deepens. You make a shocked face and the movement
of these muscles sends signals to your brain to perceive
this as fear.
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Voice quality
Facial expression and Ekman’s work
Body language
 Posture
 The way we move communicates
information
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Personal space
Explicit acts
 Slamming doors
 Destroying stuff
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Emblems
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Men and women feel emotions equally, but
express them differently (role of language)
Men and women may experience different
emotions in the same situation
Anger
 Men tend to direct their anger outward
 Women tend to direct their anger inward
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Women are more skilled at understanding
nonverbal components of emotion
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Expression of emotion can be influenced by
cultural norms
Some emotional displays are universal
Display rules
 Culture-specific rules that govern how, when, and
why expressions of emotion are appropriate
 Etre et Avoir clip (1:11)
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Intensification-emphasizing
deintensification – less intense display
masking- expressing one, feeling another
neutralizing- no display
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Stress is the manner in which we respond to
events perceived as threatening or
challenging
 Stress has an impact on our mood, our behavior
and our health
 Behavioral medicine integrates what we know of
human behavior and medicine to better
understand health and disease
 Health psychology involves the contribution of
psychology’s contribution to behaviorla medicine
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Stress Appraisal (Threat or Challenge)
Cannon’s fight-or-flight response
 Epinephrine and norepinephrine released from adrenal glands
 Sympathetic nervous system kicks in
Hypothalamus and pituitary control cortisols released
from adrenal cortex
 Withdrawal- pull back and become paralyzed
 “Tend and befriend” (Shelley Taylor).. Oxytocin?
 Gender and stress
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 Women more likely to nurture and band together
 Men more likely to withdraw and turn to alcohol
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Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
 Phase 1: Alarm (prepare to cope)
 Phase 2: Resistance (actual coping)
 Phase 3: Exhaustion (resources depleted)
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Catastrophes and PTSD
Change and the SRRS
Pressure
Frustration
Conflict
 Approach-approach
 Approach-avoidance
 Avoidance-avoidance
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“Type A” vs. “Type B” (Friedman and Rosenman)
 Type A: reactive, competitive, impatient, motivated, aggressive
and easily angered – susceptible to Coronary Heart Disease
 Type B: easy going, mellow – much less susceptible to CHD
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Pessimism makes you twice as likely to develop CHD
Depression also increases CHD risk
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
 Studies relationship between nervous, endocrine and immune
systems
 Stress and AIDS
 Stress and cancer
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Perceived feelings of control
Optimism
Social support
Exercise
Relaxation/Meditation
Biofeedback
Spirituality
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Think of an example of something that you
are intrinsically motivated to do, then think of
an example of a behavior that you are
extrinsically motivated to do.