Motivation, Personality and Sexual Behavior

Key Figures in Psychology

• Konrad Lorenz asserted that aggressive impulses are innate and behaviors/traits result from natural selection.
• Abraham Maslow stated that human are motivated by a conscious desire for personal growth
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs highlights that basic needs must be met before self-actualization can be achieved, and human behavior aims towards drive reduction or survival.
• Alfred Kinsey is known for his studies on human sexuality in the 1940s, revealing wide variations in "normal" sexual practices and the commonality of premarital sex via Kinsey Reports
• The Kinsey Scale presents sexuality as a spectrum from homosexuality to heterosexuality.
• Soloman Asch conducted a study of conformity based on judgements of line length; confederates were used to pose as a subject
• Stanley Milgram focused his research on obedience through a shock experiment.
• Subjects consisted of mild, moderate, and severe groups.
• Two-thirds of real subjects complied with the experiment
• Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Study, which was initially approved by the Institutional Review Board.
• The results showed that the role someone plays greatly impacts their behavior, known as the Lucifer Effect.
• Without authority figures to reinforce proper behavior, regular guards turned into aggressive tormentors.
• Hazel Markus explored stability vs. malleability of self-schema, noting that the central self-schema is more stable.
• Harold Kelly discusses consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency in attribution.
• If consensus increases in a group, attribution is external, but if it decreases, it's internal.
• Increased distinctiveness leads to external attribution, while decreased distinctiveness leads to internal attribution.
• Increased consistency results in internal attribution, and decreased consistency leads to external attribution.
• Lee Ross noted the tendency to attribute others' behaviors to dispositional (internal) factors while ignoring other explanations.

Motivation

• Motivation is a need or desire that serves to energize behavior, guided by physiological and psychological needs/desires.
• Motives are hypothetical states that activate behavior; the three types are biological needs (food, water, oxygen, sleep, pain avoidance), and stimulus needs (inborn needs for info/learning/stimulation), and learned needs for social approval
• Drive is a condition of arousal associated with a need, experienced as psychological/physiological tension caused by some need.
• Primary drives include hunger, thirst, and pain.
• Acquired drives are gained through experience, helping to fulfill primary drives.

Five Major Theories of Motivation

• Instinct/Evolutionary Perspective (Natural Selection) refers to inherited, unlearned patterns of behavior that are mostly common in species outside of humans (e.g., imprinting).
• Many animals are naturally pre-wired to respond to situations a certain way, providing survival value.
• This perspective doesn't meet the complexity of most human behavior, but may be a result of kin selection - altruism for relatives.
• Drive Reduction Theory (Clark Hull) suggests that physiological (biological) needs create tension states (drives) which motivate the organism to satisfy the need.
• For example, thirst creates tension leading to a water-seeking behavior.
• Primary drives get satisfied, creating homeostasis for biological needs. It, however, cannot explain secondary / acquired drives.
• Incentives Theory proposes that a positive or negative ENVIRONMENTAL stimulus motivates behavior, apart from the "need” to reduce drives.
• This is a positive reinforcement (money, ect)
• Has external stimulus and incentivizes object/person/situation that can satisfy a need externally
• This can satisfy secondary drives (money) but does not account for the original (primary) motives.
• Arousal Theory states that individuals perform tasks at different levels of arousal (wakefulness/stress) and seek an optimal level of arousal to perform tasks and avoid boredom.
• People with high levels of optimal arousal may be more susceptible to thrill-seeking activities, and those with low levels may seek more relaxing quiet activities
• Arousal theory does not explain complex social needs.
• Yerkes-Dodson Principle of Arousal (inverted-U graph): basic/general tasks are completed best with a moderate level of arousal.
• Difficult tasks need less arousal for concentration; endurance tasks benefit from most arousal.

Sexual Motivation

• Androgens and estrogens play a key role in determining sex
• Hormones like estrogens and testosterone activate sexual fertility, increasing sex drives and causing physical changes.
• Females become sexually receptive when estrogen peaks during ovulation when an egg is released.
• Testosterone affects sex drive in males and females.
• The hypothalamus controls the pituitary gland, which regulates growth hormone, puberty, and menarche, while also monitoring hormones.
• Around half of the high school students in the US report having sex.
• Rates are higher in Western Europe but lower in Arab or Asian countries.
• Only about one-third of sexually active teen males use condoms due to ignorance, guilt around sex, lack of communication, alcohol use, or media norms of unprotected promiscuity.

Sexual Orientation

• Sexual orientation is an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one's own gender (homosexual orientation) or the other gender (heterosexual orientation).
• Homosexuality affects 3-4% of the population.
• Homosexuality is often recognized around 20 years old.
• Exposure to hormones during pregnancy, genetics (according to twin studies), biological differences in the hypothalamus, and larger cell clusters in heterosexual males are potential influences, but is NOT a result of parenting
• Simon Levay discovered that there's a cluster of cells in the hypothalamus that’s larger in heterosexual men than in heterosexual women or homosexual men.
• Psychologists believe that sexually explicit materials can have negative effects from modeling impractical expectations
• If one identical twin is homosexual, the other twin has about a 50% chance of being gay (compared to about 20% for fraternal twins).

Hunger

• Biological theories say that stomach contractions (hunger pangs) accompany feelings of hunger.
• Hunger comes from the brain, not the stomach.
• The hypothalamus controls the production of hunger.
• Lateral hypothalamus stimulates hunger, and hunger is stimulated by ghrelin (the hunger hormone).
• Ventromedial hypothalamus makes you feel full, stimulated by leptin and inhibits hunger.
• Lesion to the ventromedial hypothalamus, you will always be hungry.
• Glucose (blood sugar) affects hunger.
• Low glucose levels mean low blood sugar, triggering hunger.
• High glucose = high blood sugar (Type II Diabetes).
• With constant eating, insulin cannot keep up with glucose levels.
• The hormone insulin is the primary regulator of glucose levels.
• Like glucose, neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin influence hunger.
• Low neurotransmitters lead to high appetite.
• High neurotransmitters lead to decreased appetite.
• The number of fat cells is determined by genetics to a certain extent.
• Set Point is the body's ideal weight as set by its 'weight' thermostat
• Basal Metabolic Rate refers to the body's resting rate of energy expenditure.
• Memory of last meal can affect the schedule of eating habits
• Habits are encouraged, creating a correlation to eating habits
• OPERANT CONDITIONING leads to habits like parents eating junk food.
• People also develop taste aversions by association
• CLASSICAL CONDITIONING ex: Chemotherapy patients
• Imitation of healthy or modeling eating can affect the eating habits of children

Eating Disorders

• Preferences for sweet and salty foods are genetic and influenced by Western eating trends.
• Individuals with anorexia nervosa diet despite a normal weight, fearing weight gain
• Risks are premature osteoporosis, hair all over body, severe constipation.
• Bulimia Nervosa includes excessive eating and purging

Obesity Theories

• Obesity Theory #1: Obesity and Set Point (Genetic) is the theory that obese people have a higher set point, which causes them to eat more to feel satisfied
• Obesity Theory #2: Obesity and External Cues (Environment) states that Obesity is based on oversensitivity to social cues
• Obesity Theory #3: Obesity and Settling Point (Genetics and Environment) states that there is a rapid rise in obesity
• Permanent changes/reasonable goals are important

Emotion

• Schacter's Two Factor Theory of Emotion states that physiological responses are labeled - which produces out emotions
• Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion is the physiological response and emotions are experienced at same time
• James-Lange Theory of Emotion is the process of a Physiological Response, thus causing emotion
• Emotion refers to the mix of : Physiological arousal/ Expressive Behaviors/ and Concious Experience
• Biology of Fear : learning/enacting center is in amygdala ;loss or damage to amygdala causes fearlessness in pts.
• Adaptation-Level Phenomenon is judging using situations and situations that you have recently experienced.

Happiness

• Feel-Good-Do-Good Phenomenon makes you helpful when you're in a good mood
• Happiness is indicated through physical as well as economic indicators
• Plutchick's Psychoevolutionary Theory adds anticipation and trust along with adaptive survival
• Different levels of intensity that can combine to form complex emotions and moods.

Personality

• A person's unique and subjective patterns of Behavior/Characteristics/Thoughts/ and Emotions
• Humanistic Perspective says there's free will - not determinism
• Carl Rogers' Person Centered Approach believes that all humans have potential for growth( Genuineness (truthful/sincere), and Acceptance (unconditional positive regard)
• Trait Perspective looks to Describe personalitity in terms of fundemental traits:
• Genetically -> no psychoanalysis/ Raymond Cattell states that the source is 16 traits
• Most widely used personality test ;Purpose was to identify emotional disorders but is also now used for screening purposes for employment

Two Dimensions of Personality.

• Hans Eysenck analysis reduced the dimensions of personality
• Introverted and Stable

NEO PI-R

• Big Five Personality traits : to experience, measures factors of active imagination, and preference Cognitive: social/society influences you
• Inward (self-worth). B.F. Skinner says that there's No Free will
• Personality and society

Reciprocal Determinism Perspectives

• Give priorities rather Personal over rather attributes
• Locus of control (Julian Rotter theory) depends on your level/ how you view the controller external

3 Levels of Social Analysis

• Conciousness aware, easy to access. Sublimate :directing an acceptable urge with social value (fighting = joing WFC

Psychodynamic Perspective

• Oral Sage can cause Oacting/smoking /anxiety
• Anal stage includes the 8 stages of develpment in your life
• Carl lung says Becoming fully aware of"true sel" by assimilation
• Culture/ Social influeces throughout life influence the development of personality
• Issues in childhood could cause neuroses as adulthood
• Inferiority Complex: OVERcompensation by Alfred Adler
• Stress can be external (bills) / personal Procrastination)
• Biology of Stress = Hans selye discovered cycle

12 stages of alarm

• 1 Alarm: Activation of sypathetic ervous system; 2 : Attempt coping; 3 Exaution: Body break down
• "Mind-Body illnesses" illnesses/ phychosomatic
• social context behavior
• "Schemas"
• favoritism with feeling due to admirations
• Top 20 by the top perofmers
• Larry Sprinkle

Theory of Attrubution

• understanding ourselves while trying to understanting others
• Internal v external
• Stable v Unstable
• Attrubution - Smart or Dumb
• Errors in attribution