Introduction To Psychology Chapter 5 (Motivation and Emotion)

Question 1

Define motivation

Answer 1

Motivation refers to the inside and outside factors that cause an individual to behave in a particular way at a particular time

Question 2

Explain what a drive is

Answer 2

A drive is a mental state that initiates behaviour.

It orient’s an individual toward a specific goal and can change in strenght

Question 3

What’s a incentive

Answer 3

It is the demanded object that exists in the external enviroment
They are also called reinforcers or rewards

Question 4

How do drives and incentive complement and influence one another

Answer 4

If the drive is weak, the incentive must be strong to motivate behaviour and action. It also works the other way.
They also influence one another as a strong drive can make a weak drive stronger.

If you are very hungry (strong drive), even bad food (weak incentive) is motivating

Question 5

What are the five classes of drives

Answer 5

1. Regulatory drive: promote homeostasis
2. Safety drive: promote safety and avoid danger
3. Reproductive drive: promotes sex and
4. Social drive: promote cooperation
5. Educative drive: promote playing and exploring

Question 6

Explain the central state theory of drives

Answer 6

Different drives have to have different neuronal sets in the brain. One set is called central drive system.
It is believed that the hypothamalus is the hub of most central drive systems.

Question 7

What are the 3 components of reward

Answer 7

1. Liking: the subjective feeling of pleasure and satisfaction of a reward
2. Wanting: the desire to obtain the reward
3. Reinforcement: the effects of promoting learning, which helps the subject to find the reward easier

Question 8

What brain areas are associated with rewards.

Answer 8

The medial forebrain bundle and the nucleus accubens (part of basal ganglia).
Rats would do everything to stimulate these areas and damaging these areas results in no motivation of eating or mating.

Question 9

How is dopamine associated with wanting

Answer 9

The neurotransmitter dopamine doesn’t influence the liking part of a reward, but it motivates a subject to work for a reward.
Dopamine blockage means animals don’t work for a reward, even though they like it.

Question 10

How is endorphine associated with liking

Answer 10

Injection of endorphine increases the rate of liking and also increases the amount of food an animal eats.
Drugs like opiates stimulte endorphine levels

Question 11

What is the role of dopamine in learning

Answer 11

When a reward is unexpected, dopamine is released when the reward occurs to find an association and indication for the reward. If the reward is expected, dopamine is released as soon as the expectation starts, to find more prediction for the expectation (classical conditioning)

Question 12

Why are drugs and gambeling so adictive

Answer 12

Drugs produce dopamine each time they are taken, which causes sort of “super learning”
In gambeling, games with chance of winning money produce a lot of dopamine each time money is won, as the body tried to find cues to winning.
The dopamine level normally gets smaller when a reward becomes predictable

Question 13

Why do people become obese?

Answer 13

In evolution, the barrier to overeating was much smaller than the one for hunger. Food scarcety used to be a lot more rare than food overabundance in contrast to today

Question 14

What area in the brain is associated with appetite regulation and how

Answer 14

The arcuate nucleus is a feedback based appetite control center.

Question 15

What does eating a large meal cause in the body

Answer 15

It causes many changes, like more blood sugar or size of stomach, but the most important one is the release of PYY, which influences the arcuate nucleus and reduces hunger.
Obese people have fewer PYY

Question 16

What is the role of leptin

Answer 16

Leptine is produced by far cells and is released when overeating. It stimulates the arcauate nucleus to reduce food intake

Question 17

What is sensory specific satiety

Answer 17

When presented a new kind of food, appetite is prolonged and the subject eats More, as it is a cue that signals the availability of food

Question 18

Is obesity a result of genetics or cultural differences

Answer 18

Both.

For example genetics code how much fat to store in cells by how bad the mothers nutrition was during pregnancy

Question 19

What is the best form of dieting

Answer 19

Less high fat food and more exercise

Only dieting often results in lower basal metabolism, which means the body uses fats in food more.

Question 20

Explain the sleep cycle

Answer 20

There are 4 stages and REM
Stage 1 has high freqency and low amplitude, stage 4 the opposite.
During the night a person a person cycles from stage 1 to 4 but instead of one there is REM, which means very high frequency and low amplitude (like awake and concentrated state) where also dreams occur. The more the night progresses, the less deeper stages occur, which means more REM. There are 4 to 5 cycles per night.

Question 21

What are the functions of dreams

Answer 21

Dreams may function to maintain brain circuits and deepen new learning (like learning)

Question 22

What are the two theories on function of sleep

Answer 22

1. Preservation and protection theory: sleep preserves energy and keeps the animal safe. This is supported because some animals almost don’t need sleep while others need more
2. Body restoration theory: the body needs sleep to recover from the day. This is supported because sleep deprivation damages health

Question 23

What area in the brain is responsible for sleep cycle and how is it manipulated

Answer 23

The suprachismatic nucleus controlles the circadian cycle by controlling hormones like melatonin. This is manipulated by light

Question 24

What is an emotion

Answer 24

An emotion is a subjective feeling towards an object.
It is always accompanied by an action tendency.
The affect can vary in degree of arousal and in positive or negative

Question 25

What are the functions of emotions

Answer 25

They have adaptive functions, which means they helped us to adapt of enviroment . They motivated us to do stuff and helped to communicate
For example, fear makes us avoid something. When angry we approach something to change it.

Question 26

What are the three theories of how emotions are caused

Answer 26

Common sense (wrong): emotion causes body reactions 
James theory: body reactions cause emotions
Schachters theory: perception of stimulus makes type of emotion, but strenght is set by body reactions 

Emotions can also be caused by mimiking the reactions

Question 27

What is the brain mechanism for emotion

Answer 27

The amygdala processes the information it recieves from other parts and puts it into body actions.
It gets information directly from the thamalus (1), and produces a rapid reaction before it is even properly analysed by other parts.
Only after that it gets processed information by other parts like the visual cortex (2) which can tell it to chill or not.
Seeing a spider results in rapid shock, but then chilling.

Question 28

What is psychic blindness

Answer 28

When a subject doesn’t have a amygdala.
It then has no evaluation if psychological indifference, which means it doesn’t have fear or emotions. They also can’t distinguish between good and bad.

Question 29

Which part of the brain is associated with the concious part of emotions

Answer 29

While the amygdala is associated with unconscious emotional responses, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for a full conscious experience of emotions and also in a way to act deliberately on them.

Question 30

How do right and left prefrontal cortexes differ in emotional responses

Answer 30

Right one may be more associated with negative emotions, but it is more about withdrawal.
Left one may be more associated with positive emotions, but it is more about approach.

Question 31

What’s sensitivity and specifity and false positive and false negative

Answer 31

When for example in a test
Sensitivity: a condition is existing and diagnosed
False positive: the condition is not existing but diagnosed
False negative: the condition is existing but not diagnosed
Specificity: a condition is not existing and not diagnosed

Question 32

What is the Bayes theorem

Answer 32

With it you can flip the conditional probability

P(B|A) x P(A)
——————— = P(A|B)
P(B)