Homeostasis and Motivation

Homeostasis Fundamentals

• Satiated state leads to physiological deprivation, bodily need, psychological drive, goal-directed behavior to satisfy the drive, consummatory behavior, and reduced drive.
• Physiological need indicates a deficit in an essential condition and is usually not conscious.
• Psychological drive is a conscious manifestation of an unconscious physiological need, which can energize and direct behavior.

Key Terms

• Homeostasis refers to the body's tendency to maintain stable conditions around a set point.
• Set point refers to a desired bodily state that is ideal for survival.
• Allostasis refers to making changes in the set point to cope with expected environmental demands.
• Alliesthesia refers to changes in the body that determine which behaviors feel pleasant or unpleasant, based on the current need.

Negative Feedback Systems

• Negative Feedback is a system where a drive activates behavior and negative feedback stops it.
• Negative feedback operates similarly to how a furnace or air conditioner works.

Thermoregulation

• The body temperature set point is at 37°C/99.6°F.
• Body temperatures vary among individuals.
• Involuntary actions like shivering and voluntary actions like putting on a sweater occur when temperature deviates from the set point.

Thirst

• Water is a physiological need, where a deficit in hydration is a physiological need as well.
• The body is about ½ water, which is needed within cells and to carry cells (ex: blood).
• Death can occur without water for 3 days.
• Thirst is a psychological drive that regulates water intake.
• The conscious need for water is the psychological drive, which dictates the more dehydrated tastes better.
• Drinking is driven by taste and social norms.
• Too much water can be toxic (water intoxication)
• Negative feedback systems in the mouth, stomach, bloodstream, and cells stop you from drinking too much water.

Food and Energy

• The body requires energy for all functions.
• Energy requirements are broken down into resting (basal) metabolism, thermic effects, and physical activity.
• Resting (basal) metabolism fuels basic life functions, thermic effects enable digestion and storage of food, and physical activity accounts for voluntary and spontaneous movement.

Energy Homeostasis

• Energy homeostasis is a long-term balance between energy intake and expenditure.
• Balance is maintained over the long-term; daily intake and expenditure will vary
• The body operates based on a set point of optimal body fat as the best source of stored energy that helps protect organs, and plays a role in hormone regulation.
• Too much body fat can increase risk for diabetes, heart disease, physical stress
• Energy intake (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) balances energy expenditure (resting metabolism, thermal effects, physical activity).
• Imbalances in energy intake and expenditure lead to the more energy intake (eating) than expenditure, which increase in energy stored as fat.

Metabolic Adjustments

• When body fat deviates from set point, metabolic adjustments will occur
• Higher than set point will decrease one's appetite, and increase one's energy expenditure,
• Lowering one's set point will increase one's appetite and decrease one's energy expenditure.
• Changes in weight make metabolism decrease with weight loss, and increase with weight gain.
• Heavier individuals need to burn more calories doing the same activity as lighter individuals because smaller bodies require less energy, and bigger bodies require more energy.

Further models

• Set point theory implies that body weight should remain relatively constant over time
• People's weight tends to increase over their lifetime, which is criticism of set point theory, causing the body's weight to not be regulated around a set point, and instead fluctuating between a specific range.
• Dual intervention point model states body weight settles between an upper and lower boundary, and addresses weakness set point theory.
• Lower boundary defines minimum weight for survival.
• Upper boundary increases risk for predation

Homeostasis regulation

• Energy Homeostasis is dictated on a day to day basis
• Energy levels monitored by the hypothalamus
• Glucose is a form of simple sugar obtained from carbohydrates and marks the first source of energy after a meal.
• The brain monitors glucose levels to know how much energy is needed.
• A hunger drive is activated when glucose levels are low.
• Energy homeostasis is also regulated by different hormones like excitatory and inhibitory hormones.

Hormones

• Excitatory hormones increase hunger.
• Ghrelin is released by the stomach and stimulates feelings of hunger, signaling a lack of energy, and makes stomach growl.
• Inhibitory hormones decrease hunger.
• Cholecystokinin (CCK) is released by the small intestine and regulates short-term feelings of satiety.
• Leptin is released by adipose tissue and regulates long-term energy homeostasis; more leptin increases basal metabolic rate and decreases hunger.

Hunger vs Satiety

• Feelings associated with hunger include anxiety, dizziness, dry mouth, headache, stomachache, stomach growling, and weakness.
• The more hunger one feels, the more one eats in a mea.
• Prolonged ignored feelings of hunger to not increase, but eventually disappear.
• Satiety marks feeling full, decline in pleasure as food provides
• Satiety is based on the quantity/weight of food rather than energy content.
• Negative feedback system notes stomach distention inhibit eating.
• Feeling full is an indicator of satiety

Food Characteristics

• How much one eats is based on the following food characteristics listed below:
• Cephalic responses is a physiological response to the smell/taste of food to increase appetite.
• Saliva, gastric juices, and insulin increase because because the body has cephalic responses
• Increases with visual quality of food
• Palatability: the pleasantness of food can increase appetite
• This is determined by variety, texture, temperature, aroma, and flavor, depends on flavor intensity, and has a curvilinear effect of sugar and fat content.
• Quantity of food: the amount of food available is associated with appetite
• An increase of food correlates with the larger appetite, hence more food. More is eaten when one has more plate size increases
• Variety of foods and their impact on blunting appetite Sensory specific satiety occurs when repeatedly eating the same foods.
• It is an evolved mechanism to ensure people eat a variety of nutritionally balanced foods.
• Food preferences arise from interaction between innate dispositions and experiences.
• *Heredity and the environment impacts food preferences
• Nature and nurture impact these
• Innate preferences are for sweet & salty foods and an aversion to sour
• Exposure to foods through our environment and culture increases preference.

Other Factors

• There is the mere exposure effect when one likes foods we are exposed to
• Food preferences can also be conditioned:
• Adding sugar to foods can increase liking and eventual acceptance of that food without sugar
• Taste aversion following a negative experience with food is most likely to occur with taste rather than texture/ appearance.
• Likely to develop with unfamiliar food or less-preferred food.
• The source of illness doesn't matter, as long as it's attributed to food, which can result from overindulgence.

Boundary Model of Eating

• This model addresses when eating begins (hunger) and stops (satiety)
• The zone of biological indifference is the range between the lower and upper bound where social factors and palatability influence how much is eaten
• The zone is larger for restrained eaters (dieters) because they impose more external rules of their eating patterns

Restrained Eaters

• Restrained eaters impose external rules on when and what they can eat instead of following hunger cues
• Dieting makes one more susceptible to binge eating
• Tendency to eat more when restraint is lifted
• Restraint may be reduced by stress and positive mood
• Common habits of all-or-nothing, perfectionist thinkers

Anorexia Nervosa

• Characterized by persistent energy intake restriction as well and is associated with intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat.
• It is a Persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain; and a disturbance in self-perceived weight or shape.
• More likely among women, though it can and does occur in men
• More likely among people with traits of: anxiety, perfectionism, obsessive compulsiveness
• Environmental factors like media, peers, and family can impact diagnosis

More Symptoms

• Body dysmorphia
• Excessive exercise
• Inability to read internal cues of hunger and fullness
• Refeeding syndrome is a possible condition due to body loses ability to digest food after long period of starvation, causing intestines to become intolerant to food and experience digestive problems.
• Drastic changes in some minerals can be life-threatening

Psychological Needs

• Include psychological drives and needs in addition to physiological needs
• Physiological needs result from deviations in homeostatic conditions
• Psychological drive is a conscious response to a psychological need and motivates behavior to reduce drive intensity

Contrasting Needs

• Psychological needs indicate a deficit in a person's set point level of some incentive, activity, or experience
• Needs loosely linked to physiology and exist as a result of evolutionary or personal history
• Only become apparent when unfulfilled

Redintegration

• Redintegration is the process by which an environmental stimulus activates a psychological need.
• The stimulus is associated with need in the past like holidays and loneliness
• Two functions of Psychological needs needs motivate behavior to satisfy the need by removing negative feelings and negative reinforcement and provide pleasant experiences by adding positive feelings and positive reinforcement

Needs

• Fulfilling the need for relatedness removes feelings of loneliness and depression and adds feelings of warmth and intimacy.
• Traits - individual differences in needs
• States - situational differences in needs based on environment (e.g., need for relatedness in general vs. following ostracism)
• Unfulfilled psychological needs can be harmful for psychological well-being like unfulfilled physiological needs can be harmful for physical well-being.

Needs Table

• If achievement is unmet, this can lead to sadness, frustration & shame.
• If autonomy is unmet, this can lead to depressive feelings.
• If relatedness is unmet, this can lead to loneliness, hurt feelings, depressive feelings.
• If competence is unmet, this can lead to subjective and physical well-being declines
• Meaning distress, depression, and anxiety
• If self-esteem is unmet, aggression and antisocial behavior can manifest.

Motivation

• Motives can be explicit or implicit and are internal sources
• Explicit motives: a psychological need that is conscious, readily accessible, and verbally stated and it means conscious awareness, which can be directly and clearly stated and measures objectively.
• Implicit motives: a psychology need that is implied or inferred from the person's characteristic thought, emotions, and behavior and it means unconscious, which is observed in people's actions and reactions and measured with implicit, projective measures

Examples

• An example of implicit and explicit motives is that → motive for achievement
• Explicit questionnaires may read:
• "Do you have a strong need for achievement"
• ‘Do you love challenges?”
• "Do you persist in the face of failure?” People's answers may not predict their behavior
• Implicit: What does a person actually do when faced with a challenge?
• How do they feel when working towards a goal? These questions better measure the motives and are more likely to predict behavior

Needs demonstration

• It must show that needs motivate behavior How do we know that needs motivate behaviors? Measuring psychological needs must be followed Operationally define the need Procedure used to measure the existence of a need Projective tests for implicit motives and objective measures for explicit motives Testing whether need intensity is associated with need-satisfying behavior
• Ex: does an increase in loneliness predict increases in phone calls made or text messages sent?
• Once measured the need, does it predict what is expected to happen?

Testing methods

Projective tests using the Thematic apperception test (TAT) will ask the patients:

• "What is happening? Who are the people?"
• "What led to this situation?" What is being thought of by each person?
• "What will happen?"
• Used to measure implicit motives.

Limitations of tests

Issues with projective tests such as low reliability across pictures, low reliability across time, necessitate use of implicit measure, but there are issues with the measures there are Objective measures can be captured using self-report scales of basic psychology, making it a way to scale one's needs It is also a way of measuring explicit motives.

Hierarchy of Needs

• Psychological needs are a human universal.
• Needs must occur one before meeting the next
• After meeting a need, one never return to that section in the pyramid.
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs includes physiological and safety needs. Physiological: food, water, warmth, rest (most basic/most important) The revised pyramid Keeps basic needs the same. Safety: security and safety Belongingness: intimate relationships and friends Esteem: prestige and feelings of accomplishment (hardest to reach)

Hierarchy factors

• Revised to include Maslow's original hierarchy has been revised in light of new theory and evidence
• The revised pyramid Keeps physiological needs, safety, belongingness the same, making it a way to measure different needs and overlap and can move back and forth between needs at any given time.
• Differing perspectives on what goes at the top of the pyramid include: - Evolutionary psychologist believe reproductive goals should be at the top - Innate desire to search for meaning/purpose of life - Pursuit of happiness that promote contentment

Achievement factors

• Achievement motivation theory is composed of the motive to achieve success and a motive to avoid failure
• Motive to achieve success is defined as a Disposition to engage in task-oriented behavior to surpass a high standard of excellence
• Motive to avoid failure defines the opposite of the need to achieve, anxiety, and fear about failing inhibits people from attempting tasks, leading to the case where patients not trying things is due to the fear of failure

Other Factors

• Probability of achieving the task: what are the chances I can do it?
• Incentive value of the task: what is the value of doing it?
• As the probability of success decreases, incentive value increases.
• Persistence in attempts to achieve a task (how determined am I to do it?):
• High achievement motivation = more persistence.
• Key need in self-determination theory
• Pursuance defined by doing what want or the ability to control your own future We feel better about our lives when we control them from doing those said pursuances.
• We like to work harder if you choose your own major

Further Needs

• Need for competence
• Key need in self-determination theory Feeling capable and successful in one's environment
• We are more likely to stick with a habit when it makes us feel competent Likely to choose things that have a higher likelihood of success to make us feel good about ourselves
• Need to belong is also another key aspect
• Key need in self-determination theory
• Maintaining a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal
• Need for closure is another, where the patient is likely to have: A desire for a definite answer and an intolerance for ambiguity with no grey areas. Look for definite answers
• High in need for closure have an aversion to uncertainty, are quick to make decisions, and form conclusions
• Defense mechanism for these people is seize and freeze, which is the tendency to reach a conclusion and make it permanent.
• Low in the need for closure favors inconclusiveness and are slow to commit
• Need for cognition will allow: A desire to understand one's experience and things in the world through thinking
• High in the need for cognition enjoys thinking, solving complex problems, mental effort, and often continue their education
• People low in the need for cognition does not enjoy thinking in their free time and don't want to expand mental efforts
• when evaluating arguments/ advertisements
  • High NFC - prefer prefer verbal complexity, persuaded by arguments based in reason
  • ○ Low NFC- prefer verbal simplicity, persuaded by arguments based in emotion
• Need for meaning and the drive to have a Need to understand how you relate to your current environment

Traits for Meaning

• Trait vs. state need for meaning
• Trait: a continual desire to obtain deeper understanding of meaning
• Meaning-making model: finding meaning in disruptive life events
• Counterfactual thinking as a way of finding meaning is an example that dictates that Considering alternatives to the current situation
• Need for power that dictates:
  • he wish to influence the lives of other individuals, to be in command, to have high status, and to be noticed
• High need for power impacts people:
  • More likely to choose a career that involves status and influence over others (e.g., teacher, executives, psychologist, journalist
  • Put themselves in positions to be noticed/visible
• More invested in material goods associated with power/status

Final Note

• Need for self-esteem requires Comparison of current self to possible selves of who we could be Self-esteem with success is based on success in domains that are important to you Contingencies of self-worth will also dictate that success or failure in a domain only impacts your self-esteem if that domain is important to you

Explore the concepts of homeostasis, allostasis, and motivation that plays a crucial role in maintaining internal balance. Understand the difference between psychological drives and physiological needs. Learn about feedback loops and set points in homeostatic regulation.