Emotion and Motivation: Study Notes

• Study notes for Emotion and Motivation are provided.

Motivation

• External gain by engaging in a behavior is extrinsic motivation. For example, when a child gets $5 for reading a book.
• Internal factors that bring joy drive intrinsic motivation. For example, when a child reads because they like to use their imagination.
• Incentives can undermine intrinsic motivation when motivations interact.
• The overjustification effect pertains to motivation interaction.

Instincts

• Instincts are behaviors that do not have to be taught or learned.
• Sucking, grasping, crying, and smiling are innate behaviours in humans.
• Anger, sympathy, fear, play, curiosity, sociability, intimacy, and jealousy may be instincts.

Drive Reduction Theory

• Certain drives motivate actions that minimize aversive states.
• Hunger, thirst, and sexual frustration drives action.
• Maintaining a level of psychological homeostasis is a key aspect.
• Motivation is a pull toward a specific behavior that satisfies a drive.
• For example, in the case of hunger, one can cook, order food, or ask someone else to cook.

Arousal Theory of Emotion

• Optimal level of arousal should be maintained.
• Underarousal leads to boredom and the seeking of stimulation.
• Overarousal causes behaviours to reduce arousal.
• Performance is best when arousal is moderate.

Yerkes-Dodson Curve

• Graphs arousal by level of performance for easy and difficult tasks.

Self-Efficacy and Social Motivation

• Self-efficacy represents an individual's belief in their own capability to complete a task.
• According to Albert Bandura, self-efficacy plays a role in motivating behavior.
• Expectations held about the consequences of behaviors motivate actions.
• Beliefs about abilities determine what we do and the goals we set for ourselves.
• Social motives include the need for achievement, affiliation, and intimacy.
• Needing achievement drives accomplishment and performance.
• Needing affiliation encourages positive interactions with others.
• Needing intimacy causes people to seek deep and meaningful relationships.

Abraham Maslow

• Maslow proposed a theory of motivation spanning biological, individual, and social motives.
• Lower-level needs must be satisfied before addressing higher ones.
• Someone without food, water, or shelter won't focus on relationships or the judgement of others.

Hunger and Eating

• Several internal mechanisms control hunger and satiety.
• Stomach volume and content trigger neural and hormonal responses.
• Blood-glucose levels tells the pancreas to produce or stop producing insulin, as well as telling the brain whether to initiate or stop feeding.
• The hypothalamus communicates with the other processes.
• Hunger and satiety are also controlled via several external mechanisms.
• Operant conditioning involves positive reinforcement (tastes good) and negative reinforcement (reduce stress/"emotional eating").
• Classical conditioning produces cues associated with food such as sights, smells, and images.
• Social and cultural factors family meals, working lunches, romantic dinners, also influence eating.

Sexual Behavior

• People have sex for the purposes of hormones, pleasure, and visual cues.
• Sexual desire (libido) is influenced by genes, biology, and social/cultural factors.
• The hypothalamus contributes to the ability to have sex.
• The nucleus accumbens and amygdala motivate sex.
• During the late 1940s, Dr. Alfred Kinsey launched a large-scale survey to address the lack of empirically based information on sex.
• Behaviors thought to be rare were revealed to be much more common than previously thought.
• The study was Influential in shaping future research on human sexual behavior and motivation.
• Women are as interested and experienced in sex as men.
• Both males and females masturbate, without negative health consequences.
• Homosexual acts are fairly common.
• Masters & Johnson conducted a study of physiological responses during sexual behavior and observed people engaging in sexual behaviors.
• They measured physiological variables (e.g., blood pressure and respiration rate)
• They measured sexual arousal (e.g. vaginal lubrication and penile tumescence).
• Sexual orientation is a relatively stable characteristic of a person that is not a choice.
• Between 3% and 10% of the adult population identifies as homosexual.
• Previously, homosexuality was thought to be caused by different socialization and familial experiences.
• It is now known that it is caused by Genetic and biological mechanisms - differences in brain structure and function between heterosexuals and homosexuals.
• Homosexual behavior has been documented in over 450 species.
• APA perceives same-sex attraction as a normal variation of human sexuality
• APA does not support the use of therapy to change orientations.
• Gender identity is one's sense of being male, female, both, or neither.
• Gender identities correspond to biological sex (i.e., cisgender) but not always (i.e., transgender).
• Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis describing individuals who do not identify as the gender that most people would assume they are.
• To be diagnosed, gender dysphoria must persist for at least six months and result in significant distress or dysfunction.
• Some transgender individuals make social, medical, and/or legal transitions to live in a way that is aligned with their gender.

Emotions

• A mood is a prolonged, less intense, affective state that does not occur in response to something you experience and may not be consciously recognized or intentional.
• Emotion is a subjective state that is relatively intense, occurs in response to an experience and has a physiological arousal.
• Emotions have psychological appraisal, and subjective experiences, and are informed by experiences, backgrounds, and cultures.

Neural Underpinnings

• The limbic system mediates emotional response and memory.
• The hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system (part of an emotional reaction).
• The thalamus is a sensory relay center whose neurons project to both the amygdala and higher cortical regions for further processing.
• The amygdala plays a role in processing emotional information, especially fear and anxiety.
• The hippocampus integrates emotional experiences with cognition.

Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange Theory
• Physiological arousal causes the experience of emotion
• Cannon-Bard Theory
• Emotional and physiological reactions occur simultaneously
• Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory
• Emotions are composed of physiological arousal and cognitive label
• Lazarus' Cognitive-mediational Theory
• Emotions are determined by our appraisal of the stimulus

LeDoux's Contributions

• The cortex is not necessary to process fear.
• Some emotions are processed unconsciously.

Universal Emotions

• Humans experience a small number of distinct emotions, even if they combine in complex ways.
• Secondary emotions can be derived from basic ones.
• Some emotions seem to be universally recognized.
• Biologically programmed with evolutionary functions.
• Cultural display rules are culturally specific standards that govern the types and frequencies of displays of acceptable emotions.
• Individuals from the U.S. express negative emotions like fear, anger and disgust both alone and in the presence of others
• Individuals from Japan only express these emotions alone. Recognition and production of facial expressions of certain emotions are universal despite cultural display rules.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

• Facial expressions can influence our emotions.
• Smiling may cause happiness, not the reverse.
• Depressed individuals reported less depression after paralysis of their frowning muscles with Botox injections.
• Emotional stimulus → facial expression arousal → emotional experience.

What Makes Us Happy?

• Being married, having many friends, being educated, being deeply religious, having a political affiliation or level of gratitude, giving to others, and good sleep quality.
• Having a sense of mastery, extraversion, self-esteem, individualism, physical health, and productive jobs.

Affective Forecasting

• People are very bad at affective forecasting, displaying a consistent durability bias.
• Moods tend to adapt to external circumstances (hedonic treadmill).
• Happiness bounces up and down around a “set point” but rarely move for good
• Generic and personality factors are important