Emotion and motivation 2

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Emotion and motivation 2 3

• Homeostatic motivational mechanisms
• Why do we eat, drink
• and become addicted?

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• Theories of motivation
• What are the reasons for our behaviour?

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Approach and avoidance theory

• Basic goals from biological perspectives
• reproduction (approaching)
• avoiding danger
• Individual differences
• some people guided rather by avoiding things,
  some rather by approaching (Higgins prevention
  and promotion)

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Fundamental problems of contemporary theories of
motivation

• What helps us adapt to the environment?
• Conflict of motives does survival always goes
  first?
• Where do persistence in achieving goals come
  from?
• What is the role of emotion?
• Individual differences in motivation
• Self-regulation mechanism do we have free will?

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Ethological theory

• instinct
• fixed pattern of behaviour activated by natural
  triggering stimulus
• adaptive
• genetically determined
• natural triggering stimuli

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Freud's theory

• drives (Eros and Thanatos)
• energy connected to a drive is cumulated and is
  the source of tension
• a person seeks an object to reduce this tension
  (it can be real or symbolic)
• if it is impossible and the drive is blocked the
  tension can come back in the for of neurotic
  anxiety

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Theory of homeostasis

• Physiological homeostasis - process of activity
  of an individual aimed at obtaining the balance
  of inner biological environment the balance of
  liquids and substances in an organism
• Homeostatic needs
• Eating
• Drinking
• Need of oxygen
• Need of sleep
• Need of sensual stimulation
• Permanent deprivation of homeostatic needs can
  result in illness or death
• The satisfaction of those needs is not a matter
  of choice but a necessity

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Theory of homeostasis

• Psychological homeostasis - personality can be
  seen as configuration of processes that should
  stay in balance, similarly to biological
  organism. There are data indicating that we need
  some king of psychological balance n order to
  survive and stay healthy
• perceptual consistence phenomena
• clinical data self-defence mechanisms and
  obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Zaigarnick effect
• Here, if the basic needs cannot be satisfied we
  can suffer from mental or somatic disorders.

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Need theories Maslow's theory

• D needs (deprivation)
• physiological needs (hunger, thirst, etc.)
• safety needs (to feel secure, safe, out of
  danger)
• belongingness and love needs (to affiliate with
  others, be accepted and belong)
• respect and esteem needs (to achieve, be
  competent, gain approval)
• B needs (being)
• self-actualization and self- fulfilment to
  become who someone we should and must become (to
  realize ones potential)
• aesthetic needs (symmetry, order and beauty)
• cognitive needs (to know, to understand, to
  explore)
• transcendence needs

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What is addiction?

• Taking substances we take advantage of the
  systems that are built in us for other reasons
• Main system system of gratification/system of
  reward (dopaminergic system) that causes euphoria
  
• This system is activated when we undertake risky
  but adaptive actions (hunting) most probably it
  was aimed at rewarding risky behaviour in our
  predecessors it helps concentrate on activity
  that we are about to begin
• All substances/drugs activate this system
• (some more easily than others, some have more
  side effects than others)

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What is addiction?

• According to WHO
• the state of short term or chronic intoxication
  resulting from taking certain substance
• it can be described as
• intense desire or need to take a certain
  psychoactive substance permanently and to get it
  no matter how
• need of increasing the dose
• disadvantages for life of an addict and society
• suffering form syndromes of abstinence
• This definition refers only to the final stage of
  addiction....

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What is addiction?

• Physical and psychological addiction
• physiological our organism needs the specific
  substance to live normally as it is needed for
  mechanisms of homeostatic motivation to work
  properly
• psychological we need substance to feel good and
  be able to do what we want (ex. depression or
  anxiety when people are not under the influence
  of it)
• Substance abuse as likeliness of using too large
  quantities of a substance (more than prescribed
  or more than organism can absorb)

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What is addiction?

• All the substances cause physiological and
  psychological (mood, consciousness) changes
• Tolerance (Solomon model of tolerance as an
  opposed process) emotional state caused by the
  substance gets shorter every time when we take it
  and emotion that is opposed (felt when it is
  already gone) gets stronger
• After giving up the symptoms can be so unpleasant
  that people take the next dose of the substance
  because of fear of those symptoms (conditioning)
  very often they cannot do anything but try to get
  the substance
• (some people need high level of intoxication
  habits and motives conditioning)

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Why do people become addicted?

• Approach and avoidance
• studies show that addictions are more probable in
  people who take a certain substance because they
  want to get rid of negative emotional state than
  in those, who do it to multiply the positive
  sensations and emotions
• avoidance is a strong motivation aimed at
  survival, and maybe that is why people taking
  painkillers or tranquilizers get addicted so
  easily
• the studies on alcohol abuse show that
  expectations connected to consequences of
  drinking (ex. that it reduces stress) are more
  important than the real consequences

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What behaviours/actions do you find specifically
human?
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Theory of transgression

• Transgressions actions aimed at exceeding
  the previous experience, seeking novelty,
  creating ideas that will help achieve new goals
• natural transgressions modifying natural
  environment
• intellectual transgressions culture, art,
  science
• social transgressions new forms of social life
• auto transgressions changes in Self
• examples of transgressions?

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Two types of motivation

• Transgressions are the basis for heterostatic
  motivation
• voluntary
• aimed at achieving distant goals
• typical for people but not for other animals
• serves growth and development
• no veto rule
• Homeostatic motivation
• compulsory
• veto rule
• common in people and other animals
• serves survival
• aimed at sustaining balance

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Heterostatic motivations seeking pleasure and
novelty

• Hedonic motivation
• intensifying positive feelings (Young, 1961)
• animals wanted to get sweet foods that did not
  have any nutrition value

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Heterostatic motivations seeking pleasure and
novelty

• Self-Efficiency motivation
• we want to be competent be able to effectively
  interact with our environment
• children learn how to sit, walk even when they
  have all homeostatic needs satisfied
• the need to control the environment to be able
  to influence situations (sometimes we
  overestimate this ability illusion of control)
  as children who laugh when they manage to turn
  the radio on and off

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Heterostatic motivations seeking pleasure and
novelty

• Fear and hope motivation (Mowrer)
• fear appears in case of increase of drive or need
  deprivation and we want to reduce fear
• hope appears in case of need satisfaction and we
  want to continue the behaviour
• disappointment appears when hope was not
  satisfied while relief, when fear is reduced

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Specifically human mechanisms of motivation
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Intrinsic motivation

• tendency to start and continue activities no
  matter what the external consequences are (the
  activity in itself is important)
• extrinsic rewards cause that spontaneous
  activities are less frequent (apes, children)
• the rule of decreasing (Kelley 1972) the more
  factors influence our behaviour, the smaller is
  the influence of each of them (true especially
  with very salient rewards)
• if the reward has informative value it does not
  decrease the strength of intrinsic motivation
  (Deci Ryan 1985)
• reward that is exogenous to the activity decrease
  the level of intrinsic motivation and one that is
  endogenous, increases it

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Achievements motivation

• Tendency to achieve and overcome standards of
  perfection connected to experiencing positive
  emotions in situations of tasks understood as
  challenges
• Atkinson's model
• 1. Tendency to be successful
• Our belief in success (subjective probability)
• Gratification value of success
• 2. Tendency to avoid failure
• Level of task difficulty (average level
  attractive for people with strong 1. and not for
  those with strong 2.)
• Attribution model
• People prefer tasks of average difficulty level
  as they are most diagnostic give information
  about their abilities and skills

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Do people try to get information that is
adequate and objective or positive for them?
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Motivation referring to self-image

• Natural need to evaluate our opinions, beliefs
  and abilities (Festinger 1954) social
  comparisons
• 1. People seek diagnostic information as they
  want to reduce the uncertainty (Trope, 1975)
  both information about your skills and about your
  weaknesses are equally attractive
• 2. People seek information that supports the
  information they already have rather than to
  verify it
• 3. People seek information that confirms their
  positive attitude towards themselves (to have a
  positive self-esteem)

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Self-actualization and self-development
motivation

• Maslow's characteristic of self-fulfilment
• more objectively perceive reality and have more
  harmonic relations with outside world
• lack of neurotic sense of guilt
• self-acceptance
• being able to take advantage of simple pleasures
  of life
• authentic need of contact with other people
• autonomy
• peak experiences
• those people are not perfect...

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Self-actualization and self-development motivation

• Rogers's characteristics of self-actualization
• unconditional love and acceptance
• self-acceptance
• openness to new experience (no biases n
  perception of reality)
• concentration on here and now
• being able to trust intuition and to recognize
  bodily signals
• sense/feeling of freedom
• creativity