Lecture 6 - Biological Sources of Motivation

Question 1

What is motivation?

Answer 1

Why individuals initiate, choose or persist in specific actions in specific circumstances.

Question 2

What are the characteristics of motivation?

Answer 2

• a necessary condition of behaviour
• an energising effect on behaviour
• Most importantly: a temporary state that can vary over time –> different from learning

Question 3

What is Hebb’s analogy? Explain

Answer 3

See slide 4 if unsure.

Movement of car = behaviour of the individual

engine = motivation --> provides power 
steering = innate or learned --> determines direction

Question 4

what is ethology?

Answer 4

Ethologists usually study species in own natural environment, rudimentary experiments as opposed to comparative psychology.

Question 5

what is a sign stimulus. Give an example what is important to note?

Answer 5

This is a simple feature of a complex stimulus that can elicit a FAP.

e.g. red belly (opposite to what occurs for swollen belly) makes the male stickleback react with violence in mating season

NB: may be called releaser, however releaser is used for a stimulus that has evolved to facilitate communication between conspecifics. Whereas ss is used for a feature of an animal’s environment that elicits a particular response

Question 6

what is supernormal stimuli? Give an example

Answer 6

exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved.

e.g. a bird will attempt to take a football painted like an egg, they still pick it because it is larger

Question 7

What is a fixed action pattern? (4 characteristics)

Answer 7

1) The same behaviour is displayed by all members of the species in response to the
same stimulus

2) A set sequence of behaviours, not a reflex

3) Often regulated by specific biological state
– Breeding season, nesting, development
(this is where motivation comes into play)

4) Can be the sign stimulus for a reciprocal
response in another individual:
– Mating rituals, appeasement signals, etc.

Question 8

How is stickleback mating behaviour characterised? (4 characteristics)

Answer 8

1. Specific to breeding season (biological state)
   – hormonal changes,
2. Initiated by sign (or key or releasing) stimuli
   – red belly of other males, full belly of females,
   behavioural triggers,
3. Filtered [ by an innate releasing mechanism
   which activates action specific energy, or
   central pattern generator (dont need these terms) ]
4. Results in a characteristic behaviour called the
   fixed action pattern.

Question 9

What is the relationship between instincts and motivation. what is important to note?

Answer 9

• Fixed action patterns (and instincts
generally) are not directly motivated by
a consideration of the end goal
• Instead they are elicited by a
combination of environmental and
biological circumstances 

NB: The link is gated by the biological state, only occurs if that motivation is there

Question 10

In studying human instincts, how do we tell if a behaviour is instinctive? (5 points)

Answer 10

1. Biological basis
2. Cross-species similarity
3. Cross-cultural similarity
4. Separated identical twin-studies
5. Developmental studies

Question 11

What is nonverbal communication an example of? How has it been examined?

Answer 11

Example of cross-cultural similarity to see whether behaviour is instinctive

Eibl-Eibesfeldt & his side-viewing
camera to capture human facial
expressions

Question 12

What are some problems with instincts? Explain with examples

Answer 12

1) Circularity - Kangaroos mob together
Why? Maybe because of ‘mobbing instinct’. How do we know this? Because they mob together?
–> applies to a “flirting instinct” also

2) Proliferation - people tend to proliferate instincts whenever they find a certain behaviour that they cant’t explain. They try to say that certain things that we do are based on instincts.

Question 13

What are drives?

Answer 13

flexible systems that organise behaviour around a basic need.

Question 14

What do specific drive theories suggest? what may be an example of a system in which these theories manifest?

Answer 14

• the drive sensitises the individual to stimuli important to satisfy/reduce the drive,
• They then motivate the individual to behave in
  a way to satisfy (reduce) the drive

The id.

Question 15

What is (and by who) a different approach to drive theories?

Answer 15

A “general drive theory” by Clark Hull, behaviourist

• Organisms suffer deprivations
• Deprivation produces needs
• Needs activate drives
• Drives activate behaviour
• Behaviour is determined by learning (behaviour is random but becomes steadily less random)
• Reduction of drive is reinforcing (perform in successful way –> reduction of drive)

Question 16

What 2 roles did Hull point out motivation plays in behaviour? what is important to note about the roles?What is the relationship between them.

Answer 16

1) Reinforcement boils down to drive reduction

2) But also drive provides the impetus to respond later on when you have learned the responses
NB: if SR connection has been formed in the learning then this is likely to happen again when drive provides impetus to respond later.

→ Habit is the learning, drive is the motivation. I.e. behaviour strength = habit x drive.

Question 17

what are some Advantages of general drive theories?

Answer 17

1) Specific drive theories suffer from
circularity & the “homunculus” problem
- The homunculus problem is one of infinite regress. I.e. Who makes the decision for the homunculus, does he have a homunculus inside his head?
→ not really explaining how a decision is made, rather putting it off to an earlier stage of decision making.

2) General drive theories explain reinforcement as drive reduction
– the organism learns to reduce drive
– not necessary to infer specific drives for
each biological need
- behaviour is random. The learning that occurs as a consequence of observing outcome (of experiencing drive reduction) is that which actually starts that connection between motivation and behaviour.

Question 18

explain non-homeostatic drives with an example. (3 points)

Answer 18

• Immediate biological needs ->
Homeostatic drives, e.g. hunger or thirst
• But not all behaviour is motivated to
satisfy an immediate biological need
• Some (very strong) drives are not relevant
to the survival of the individual
- e.g. Sex drive

Question 19

Describe the drive for sex and how it fits into drive theories. (3 points)

Answer 19

1) Most drive theories incorporate sex-drive
2) Where does sexual drive come from?
– There is no immediate biological need for sex
– Sex as a non-homeostatic drive
3) Sex drive becomes sensible if we think
about genetic success as a distal motivator (i.e. it does not benefit the organism but the species).

Question 20

What is evolutionary fitness and how does it relate to drive?

Answer 20

1) “The survival of the fittest”
– Limited resources / competition for resources
– Individuals who are best suited to their
environment will tend to survive
2) Fitness to reproduce
– Darwin recognised ability to produce progeny
as critical factor in natural selection
– Physical and behavioural characteristics
passed to offspring (via genes)

–> Darwin: a species which does have a sex drive is more likely to survive. It is the continuation of a species rather than “survival of the fittest”.

Question 21

How are sex drives an inherited trait?

Answer 21

“psychobiological drives” are deterministic:
– behaviour isn’t pulled towards a future possibility
– it is driven by events that occurred in the past

e.g. NOT…
You have a sex drive in order to pass your genes
onto the next generation.

–> but rather…
You have a sex drive because having a sex drive
helped your parents to successfully reproduce,
and you inherited this trait from them.

Question 22

What are proximal and distal biological sources of motivation

Answer 22

Proximal

• maintaining homeostasis
• facilitating survival of the organism

Distal

• maintaining reproductive success
• facilitating survival of the species

Question 23

What are 3 problems with drive theories?

Answer 23

1) Drive reduction is not necessary for
reinforcement (events or outcomes that don’t reduce a drive are still reinforcing)
e.g. artificial sweeteners which don’t reduce hunger

2) Stimulating a drive can be reinforcing
- aggravating a drive (making it worse) is reinforcing: meet someone in bar and dont go home with them. Male quail sees female quail but no physical contact –> reinforcing.

3) Ignores role for qualitative differences
between reinforcers (e.g. liking)

Question 24

What did Harlow’s experiment show? What principles are evinced?

Answer 24

Even though biological needs, i.e. hunger were satisfied via the wire surrogate, the monkeys preferred the cloth surrogate.

–> Needs extend beyond the biological
• Maternal deprivation: The pure reduction
of a drive is not the only motvation for behaviour