Introduction To Psychology Chapter 5 (Motivation and Emotion) Flashcards
Define motivation
Motivation refers to the inside and outside factors that cause an individual to behave in a particular way at a particular time
Explain what a drive is
A drive is a mental state that initiates behaviour.
It orient’s an individual toward a specific goal and can change in strenght
What’s a incentive
It is the demanded object that exists in the external enviroment
They are also called reinforcers or rewards
How do drives and incentive complement and influence one another
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
What are the five classes of drives
- Regulatory drive: promote homeostasis
- Safety drive: promote safety and avoid danger
- Reproductive drive: promotes sex and
- Social drive: promote cooperation
- Educative drive: promote playing and exploring
Explain the central state theory of drives
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.
What are the 3 components of reward
- Liking: the subjective feeling of pleasure and satisfaction of a reward
- Wanting: the desire to obtain the reward
- Reinforcement: the effects of promoting learning, which helps the subject to find the reward easier
What brain areas are associated with rewards.
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.
How is dopamine associated with wanting
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.
How is endorphine associated with liking
Injection of endorphine increases the rate of liking and also increases the amount of food an animal eats.
Drugs like opiates stimulte endorphine levels
What is the role of dopamine in learning
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)
Why are drugs and gambeling so adictive
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
Why do people become obese?
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
What area in the brain is associated with appetite regulation and how
The arcuate nucleus is a feedback based appetite control center.
What does eating a large meal cause in the body
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
What is the role of leptin
Leptine is produced by far cells and is released when overeating. It stimulates the arcauate nucleus to reduce food intake
What is sensory specific satiety
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
Is obesity a result of genetics or cultural differences
Both.
For example genetics code how much fat to store in cells by how bad the mothers nutrition was during pregnancy
What is the best form of dieting
Less high fat food and more exercise
Only dieting often results in lower basal metabolism, which means the body uses fats in food more.
Explain the sleep cycle
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.
What are the functions of dreams
Dreams may function to maintain brain circuits and deepen new learning (like learning)
What are the two theories on function of sleep
- 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
- Body restoration theory: the body needs sleep to recover from the day. This is supported because sleep deprivation damages health
What area in the brain is responsible for sleep cycle and how is it manipulated
The suprachismatic nucleus controlles the circadian cycle by controlling hormones like melatonin. This is manipulated by light
What is an emotion
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
What are the functions of emotions
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.
What are the three theories of how emotions are caused
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
What is the brain mechanism for emotion
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.
What is psychic blindness
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.
Which part of the brain is associated with the concious part of emotions
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.
How do right and left prefrontal cortexes differ in emotional responses
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.
What’s sensitivity and specifity and false positive and false negative
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
What is the Bayes theorem
With it you can flip the conditional probability
P(B|A) x P(A)
——————— = P(A|B)
P(B)
