Chapter 9 Motivation and Emotion

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Chapter 9Motivation and Emotion
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Motivation

• Definition Dynamics of behavior that initiate,
  sustain, direct, and terminate actions

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A Model of Motivational Activities

• Model of how motivated activities work
• Need Internal deficiency causes
• Drive Energized motivational state (e.g.,
  hunger, thirst) activates a
• Response Action or series of actions designed to
  attain a
• Goal Target of motivated behavior
• Incentive Value Goals appeal beyond its ability
  to fill a need

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Types of Motives

• Primary Motive Innate (inborn) motives based on
  biological needs we must meet to survive
• Hunger, thirst, pain avoidance, air, sleep
• Stimulus Motive Innate needs for stimulation and
  information
• Secondary Motive Based on learned needs, drives,
  and goals
• Wealth, fame, collectables
• Motives are internal vs. Incentives which are
  external
• Hunger is a motive Food is an incentive

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Figure 9.2
FIGURE 9.2 In Walter Cannons early study of
hunger, a simple apparatus was used to
simultaneously record hunger pangs and stomach
contractions.
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More on Eating Behavior (Hungry Yet?)

• Stomach not necessary to feel hunger!
• Hunger signals follow low blood sugar
• Liver also sends hunger signals to the brain
• 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

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Hunger Big Mac Attack?

• Homeostasis Body equilibrium balance
• Hypothalamus Brain structure regulates many
  aspects of motivation and emotion, including
  hunger, thirst, and sexual behavior
• Lateral Hypothalamus If turned on, an animal
  will begin eating if destroyed, an animal will
  never eat again!
• Ventromedial Hypothalamus Stops eating behavior

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Figure 9.3
FIGURE 9.3 Location of the hypothalamus in the
human brain.
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The Final Word on Eating Behavior

• Leptin Substance released by fat cells that
  inhibits eating helps maintain upper end of
  set-point
• However
• External Eating Cues External stimuli that tend
  to encourage hunger or elicit eating these cues
  may cause you to eat even if you are stuffed
  (like Homer Simpson, who eats whatever he sees!)

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Behavioral Dieting

• Weight reduction based on changing exercise and
  eating habits and not on temporary
  self-starvation
• Starving yourself and yo-yo dieting lower your
  metabolism making it HARDER to stay lighter!
• Some keys
• Start with a complete physical
• Exercise
• Be committed to weight loss

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Behavioral Dieting (cont'd)

• 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.
• Reward yourself if you change eating habits and
  punish yourself if you do not.

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Eating Disorders Anorexia Nervosa

• Active self-starvation or sustained loss of
  appetite that seems to have psychological origins
• Control issues seem to be involved
• Self-evaluation based on weight
• Very difficult to effectively treat
• Affects adolescent females overwhelmingly

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Figure 9.6
FIGURE 9.6 Women with abnormal eating habits were
asked to rate their body shape on a scale similar
to the one you see here. As a group, the chose
ideal figures that were much thinner than what
they thought their current weights were. (Most
women say they want to be thinner than they
currently are, but to a lesser degree than women
with eating problems.) Notice that women with
eating problems chose an ideal weight that was
even thinner than what they thought men prefer.
This is not typical of most women. Only women
with eating problems wanted to be thinner than
what they thought men find attractive
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Eating Disorders Bulimia Nervosa (Binge-Purge
Syndrome)

• Excessive eating usually followed by self-induced
  vomiting and/or taking laxatives
• Difficult to treat
• Prozac approved by FDA to treat bulimia nervosa
• Affects females overwhelmingly

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Causes of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa

• Anorectics and bulimics have exaggerated fears of
  becoming fat they think they are fat when the
  opposite is true!
• Unrealistic media images!
• Overestimate own body size!
• Bulimics are obsessed with food and weight
  anorectics obsessed with perfect control.
• Anorectics will often be put on a weight-gain
  diet to restore weight.

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Pain is different

• (Skip thirst)
• Pain Avoidance An episodic drive as opposed to
  cyclic
• Distinct episodes when bodily damage takes place
  or is about to occur
• No need for something missing

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Sex Drive

• Primary Motive? Not necessary for individual
  survival, but necessary for group survival
• Estrus Changes in animals that create a desire
  for sex females in heat
• Males almost always ready. Drive aroused by
  receptive females
• Human estrus is hidden evolutionary argument
  keep males guessing / keep them around
• Sex encourages love both parents around to
  raise kids

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Stimulus Drives

• Reflect needs for information, exploration,
  manipulation, and sensory input
• Try to maintain optimal (moderate) level of
  arousal
• Too low bored Too high overstim / wired
• Sensation Seeking Trait of people who prefer
  high levels of stimulation (e.g., the contestants
  on Eco-Challenge and Fear Factor)

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Stimulus Drives Arousal

• Arousal Performance Relationship The
  inverted-U
• Too little arousal dont care, low energy, less
  attention
• Moderate care, plenty of energy, good attention
• Too much arousal worry, nervous energy / tense,
  tunnel vision
• BUT
• Yerkes-Dodson Law If a task is simple, it is
  best for arousal to be high (sprint) if it is
  complex, lower levels of arousal provide for the
  best performance (free throw)

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Figure 9.11
FIGURE 9.11 (a) 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).
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How to Cope With Test Anxiety

• Test Anxiety Physiological arousal (nervous /
  anxious Worry (distracting thoughts)
• Preparation!!!! Over prepare! (to control both)
• Relaxation (to control physio arousal)
• Rehearsal (to control both)
• Restructuring thoughts (to control worry)

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Self-confidence

• Belief you can succeed at a task
• When first acquiring a skill, the goal should be
  to make progress in learning. Set specific,
  attainable goals lots of success.
• Find a good model emulate their performance.
• If you fail, regard it as a sign that you need to
  try harder, not a lack of ability
• As you learn, set more challenging goals.

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Learned Motives

• Social Motives Acquired by growing up in a
  particular society or culture
• Need for Achievement (nAch) Desire to meet some
  internal standard of excellence
• High nAch moderate to moderately high risk
  takers
• Low nAch take low risks (sure thing) or high
  risks (impossible) so they can discount failure
• Need for Power Desire to have impact or control
  over others
• Needs for love, belongingness, approval, status
  Acquired!?!?!?!?! (next chapter)

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Abraham Maslow and Needs

• Hierarchy of Human Needs Maslows ordering of
  needs based on presumed strength or potency some
  needs are more powerful than others
• Basic Needs First four levels of needs in
  Maslows hierarchy
• Lower needs tend to be more potent than higher
  needs
• Deficiency motives
• Growth Needs Higher-level needs associated with
  self-actualization

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Figure 9.14
FIGURE 9.14 Maslow believed that lower needs in
the hierarchy are dominant. Basic needs must be
satisfied before growth motives are fully
expressed. Desires for self-actualization are
reflected in various meta-needs (see text).
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Types of Motivation

• Intrinsic Motivation Motivation coming from
  within, not from external rewards based on
  personal enjoyment of a task
• Extrinsic Motivation Based on obvious external
  rewards, obligations, or similar factors (e.g.,
  pay, grades)
• Rewards encourage extrinsic motivation and may
  reduce intrinsic motivation (doing it for the
  payoff, not just fun)
• Behavior will drop off in absence of reward
• Example you must be proud of yourself vs. Im
  so proud of you.

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Emotions

• States characterized by changes in physiological
  arousal, facial expressions, action readiness,
  and subjective feelings
• no one unique thing or indicator
• Physiological Changes Include heart rate, blood
  pressure, perspiration, and other involuntary
  bodily responses
• Facial Expression Outward signs of what a person
  is feeling
• Action Readiness Physiological and cognitive
  changes support a likely behavior (ex. fight or
  flight)
• Subjective Feelings Private emotional experience

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Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange Theory Emotional feelings follow
  bodily arousal and come from awareness of such
  arousal.
• Cannon-Bard Theory The thalamus (in brain)
  causes emotional feelings and bodily arousal to
  occur at the same time.
• Schachters Cognitive Theory Emotions occur when
  a label is applied to general physical arousal.
  Ridiculous!!!
• Attribution Mental process of assigning causes
  to events reasons for arousal emotions.
• Plutchik (p. 359) Ignore

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Figure 9.21
FIGURE 9.21 Theories of emotion.
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Basic Emotions Theory

• Evolutionary adaptations Aid our attempts to
  survive and adjust to changing conditions (But
  can be wrong)
• Functional fear harm avoidance
• Amplify the significance of events
• Direct attention
• Provide information (bad in a particular way)
  gut feel
• Discrete categories (6-10)
• FAMILY FUNCTION
• Fear avoid harm
• Anger change unfavorable situations
• Sadness elicit help from others
• Disgust avoid poisons, disease
• Shame maintain status / acceptance
• Joy encourage goal attainment
• Interest encourage learning

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But We Experience So Many!

• Intensity mild to intense
• e.g., irritation to rage are all in the anger
  family
• Context where/how it happened
• e.g., grief sadness due to loss of a loved one
• Blends like primary colors they can be mixed
• e.g., jealousy fear anger ?

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Facial Expression

• Darwin (1872) The Expression of the Emotions in
  Man and Animals
• Discrete families of emotions each have a unique
  expression
• Emotions and expressions shared w/ other animals
• Evolutionary adaptations Universal (Darwins
  studies)
• Silvan Tomkins (1962), Paul Ekman (1972)
• Universal cross-cultural studies
• Blind people infants express emotions like we
  do
• Duchennes studies cadavers and electrical
  stimulation
• Muscles under involuntary control serve no
  function other than expression

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Facial Expression

• WHY?!?!?
• Facial Feedback Hypothesis involuntarily making
  the expression sends a distinct feeling back to
  the brain
• Empathy based in part on our unconsciously
  mimicking others FF
• Aids Theory of Mind (ToM) Understanding other
  peoples thoughts and intentions
• Signal Value Examples
• Fear expression induces fear in others and they
  follow your gaze
• Anger expression induces fear in others and they
  fixate on you
• Sadness expression induces sadness in others
  (sympathy) and elicits help
• Shame expression communicates submission and
  acknowledgment of status / wrong doing reduces
  attack / exclusion from others

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Figure 9.19
FIGURE 9.19 When shown groups of simplified faces
(without labels), the angry and scheming? faces
jumped out at people faster than sad, happy, or
neutral faces. An ability to rapidly detect
threatening expressions probably helped our
ancestors survive.
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Primary Motivational System

• Emotions more powerful than drives, needs,
  reasons
• Hunger strikes
• Suicide bombers
• Emotions amplify drives, needs
• Eating vs. dining? Sex w/ and w/o love?
• Emotions amplify everything
• Degrees of Freedom Emotions can be attached to
  anything
• The hedonist loves pleasure
• The Puritan hates pleasure

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A Modern View of Emotion

• Emotional Appraisal Evaluating personal meaning
  of a stimulus (i.e., cognition drives emotion)
• Only partially correct. Studies show that
  appraisal may be minimal or even absent!!!
• Emotion often drives cognition! Ex. Scared
  walking down the dark alley much more likely
  to perceive threat! Ex. Depressed people have
  depressing thoughts
• Emotional Intelligence Combination of skills,
  including empathy, emotion-regulation,
  emotional-awareness, sensitivity to feelings of
  others, persistence, and self-motivation

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Figure 9.23
FIGURE 9.23 A contemporary model of emotion.
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Brain and Emotion

• Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Neural system
  that connects brain with internal organs and
  glands
• Sympathetic Branch Part of ANS that activates
  body for emergency action (adrenaline) fight or
  flight
• Parasympathetic Branch Part of ANS that quiets
  body and conserves energy

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Lie Detectors

• Polygraph Device that records heart rate, blood
  pressure, respiration, and galvanic skin response
  (GSR)
• lie detector?? Polygraph many writings
• Cant differentiate between lies, fear,
  excitement!!!
• Irrelevant Questions Neutral, emotional
  questions in a polygraph test
• Relevant Questions Questions to which only
  someone guilty should react by becoming anxious
  or emotional
• Control Questions Questions that almost always
  provoke anxiety in a polygraph (e.g. Have you
  ever taken any office supplies?)
• False positives vs. Misses unfavorable odds

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Lie Detectors

• An alternative based on an understanding of
  universal facial expressions VIDEO

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Happiness

• Subjective Well-Being (SWB) When people are
  satisfied with their lives, have frequent
  positive emotions, and have relatively few
  negative emotions
• Are these factors related to happiness?
• Life events Minimally lottery winners often
  return to baseline
• Wealth Minimally
• Education Not really
• Marriage Minimally social support?
• Religion Minimally social support?

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Happiness Factors (cont'd)

• Aging Happiness does not decline with age.
• Sex Men and women do not differ in happiness.
• Work Minimally
• Personality If you have a sunny disposition,
  you are more likely to be happy. Baseline.