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Motivation part 2 Flashcards

1
Q

Sexual Motivations: Evolutionary perspective:

A

sexual behaviour is shaped by natural selection

Motivated to engage in behaviours that increased reproductive success for our ancestors (fooled us to enjoy sex to make us reproduce)

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2
Q

Reproductive success

A

passing genes to next generation to continue passing genes on

Large number of offspring, low investment (fish, amphibians)
Small number of offspring, high investment (birds, mammals)

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3
Q
  • Sex can cause Bonding:
A

Can cause intense emotional bond
Neurotransmitters: endorphins and oxytocin are released during sex (related to pleasure)
May facilitate co-parenting

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4
Q

Humans motivated to engage in sex without reproduction

A

Genes ‘want’ us to reproduce

We have developed workarounds
§ Birth control
§ Condoms etc.

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5
Q

Human cultures restrict sexual behaviour

A

Social groups have rules regarding sex

The rules can vary between societies

  • Some tend to restrict sexual behaviour of women and low-status men
  • Some are more permissive toward sexuality

Humans have intense moral (or disgust) reactions to sexual behaviour that violates their values

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6
Q

Sexual Behaviour

A

Sexual behaviour has complex effects
- Related to our values and morals
- Affects emotions and relationships
- Physical health effects
Older people who have more sex tend to me healthier
Improves cardiovascular functioning
BUT: can have STIs and pregnancy

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7
Q

Gender differences

A

Male sexuality (based on self reports)

  • Stronger and more specific sex drive
  • More arousal, sexual fantasies, masturbation, porn
  • More infidelity, difficulty staying faithful
  • More permissive attitudes toward sex

Female sexuality (based on self reports)

  • Sex behaviour more changeable and concealed
  • Open to bisexual behaviour
  • Physical arousal to wider variety of stimuli
  • Reported arousal does not correspond to physical arousal
  • Under-report sexual experiences
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8
Q

Explanations for gender differences

A

Biological

  • Testosterone levels
  • Concealed (female) vs obvious (male) physical responses may explain arousal report diffs

Evolutionary: sexual selection
- Women need to be more careful about sex while men can have as much as they want with no consequences

Social role
- Cultures are more concerned with controlling female sexuality like slut shaming etc.

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9
Q

Sexual orientation

A
  • Heterosexual
    • Homosexual
    • Bisexual

Orientation is not influenced by:

  • Being reared by gay parents
  • Parenting style
  • Childhood sexual experimentation
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10
Q

Origins of sexual orientation

A

Homosexual behaviour is common in non-human animals e.g. dolphins
In some cultures/subcultures, homosexual behaviour is not associated with a person’s identity
Estimates of non-heterosexual orientation range from 2-10% in humans
Sexual orientation appears to be multiply caused

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11
Q

Orientation is related to

A

Genetics - considered heritable
- About 50% of both MZ twins to be gay (very heritable!)

Corpus callosum (in the brain)- it is larger in gay men

Prenatal hormones (high-T women): women exposed to a lot of testosterone while they’re in the womb tend to turn out gay

Social factors (gender non-conforming behaviour in childhood) can lead to gay behaviour later in life

These are mostly just correlations and does not mean causation.

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12
Q

What is sexual behaviour

A
  1. Action that makes fertilization possible
  2. Behaviour involving sexual response of the body
  3. Behaviour that is especially intimate and personal
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13
Q

Kinsey’s (1948) research

A

Non-presentative samples: but its very difficult to get people to do these experiments

Suggested that many people were engaging in a variety of sexual behaviours that had been considered ‘perversions’ (sex which is abnormal/unacceptable)

Made study of sexual behaviour more acceptable

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14
Q

Human sexual response pattern

A

Masters and Johnson

  • Observed and measured masturbation and intercourse
  • They debunked earlier notions that vaginal lubrication originated from the cervix and found that some women were multi-orgasmic

LOOK AT PIC IN NOTES
Arousal: rising muscle tension and blow flow to genitals
Plateau: muscle tension, erection, vaginal lubrication, increased BP,HR, breathing, penile/clitoral erection
Orgasm: pleasure response, involuntary muscle contractions
Resolution: decreased arousal. Men have refractory period following orgasm (can’t ejaculate for a while) and women don’t

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15
Q

Human Sexual Response

A
  1. Not always linear and can stop at any point
  2. Roughly similar for men and women
  3. Women’s response takes longer (on average)
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16
Q

Sex and psychological well-being

A 
Motivation for sex in young people
		○ To connect
		○ Improve self-esteem
		○ Gain partner's approval
		○ Avoid feeling distressed or lonely

People who had sex to promote intimacy had fewer partners, less unsafe sex, more stable relationships

Benefits for adults having sex
○ Greater life satisfaction
○ More satisfied with their relationship

Sex and depression

  • Breakups of relationships which can lead to depression
  • Teen relationships may not be taken seriously by adults
  • Can end suddenly

Sexuality intensifies bonds between people which can make it more difficult to go through a breakup

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17
Q

self regulation

A

Process where an organism controls behaviour to pursue other objectives

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18
Q

Situations that require self regulation:

A
  • Conflict in motivations

- Can involve conscious goals

19
Q

Resisting temptations

A

Delay of gratification

  • Putting off pleasurable experience for a future payoff
  • Difficult because immediate rewards tend to be valued more than delayed rewards

How to do it

  • There is hot emotion (want of immediate reward) and cold cognition (wait for later)
  • Reduce motivational characteristics (place reward out of sight)
  • Internal distraction (focus attention away from reward)
  • External distraction (toy in the room to distract)
  • Imagery (cool characteristics of the reward) think of it objectively
20
Q

Factors in Goal Success

A 
Specific goals (not something broad) e.g. I want above this mark in this class
Moderately challenging 
Long term purpose of goal and also short term steps 
Behavioural intentions: 'when BLAH happens, i will do BLAH'
21
Q

Implemental Intentions (Peter Gollwitzer)

A

Bring pple into a lab and think about a goal they have
Then list 5 most important steps to accomplish goal
Then plan in accomplishing each step
Consequence:
These things actually impact people’s lives
E.g. Eat low fat diet, public transport use etc.

22
Q

Other factors in goal success

A

Monitoring progress: physical fitness apps, weigh in everyday

Commitment: make it public

23
Q

How to define emotion

A

Consists of neural circuits, response systems and feeling state that motivates and organises cognition and action

- Emotion communicates to others 
- Emotion regulates our responses

A psychological state that can involve changes in physiological arousal, conscious experience, motivation and behavioural expression
- Physiological arousal: refers to Autonomic Nervous System
Sympathetic nervous system –> arouses
Parasympathetic nervous system –> calms

24
Q

Conscious experience

A

Emotions are experienced as positive or negative in valence
○ Positive emotion: joy, contentment, calm etc.
○ Negative emotions: fear, anger etc.

25
Emotion and arousal
Can be associated with different degrees of arousal - High arousal emotions: fear, anger, joy, desire - Low arousal emotions: contentment, calm, sadness, boredom
26
Emotion and motivation
Can be associated with different motivational directions ○ Approach-related emotions: anger, joy, desire ○ Avoidance related emotions: fear, disgust
27
Theories of Emotion
James-Lange Theory Emotion is the result of physiological arousal that occurs Stimulus --> physiological arousal --> emotion Body responds to the environment Individual's perception of these responses is emotional feeling LOOK AT PIC IN NOTES Cannon's criticisms Questioned this Performed experiments on cats Suggested that bodily responses are not necessary Reponses are same for all emotions Insensitive internal organs and feedback Responses are too slow to cause feeling Evidence: artificial inducement of arousal into animal did not cause feeling Cannon's Emergency Theory Emergency reaction to need for energy Called this flight or fight (one response in the brain) Autonomic nervous system ○ Sympathetic --> energy expended ○ Parasympathetic --> storing energy for future Body's role less important than in James-Lange Theory All emotions have the same physio
28
Two-Factor Theory (Schachter/Singer)
Physiological arousal (bodily arousal) Cognitive labelling - When u have bodily arousal, Need the label to cause emotion - Arousal --> interpret external cues --> label emotion LOOK AT PIC
29
Schatcher and Singer Experiment
Cover story: test ability of vitamin supplements Injected participants with either epinephrine or a placebo They either ○ informed symptoms to participant ○ Misinformed symptoms to participant ○ Ignorant: didn't tell participant anything Left them alone for 20 mins Then manipulated the situation Confederate Acted very angry or euphoric about what they need to do in the study Then ask participant to report their emotion Result: - Ignorant and misinformed showed more emotional feelings and behaviour than informed of side effects of epinephrine - Plabebo didnt differ from ignorant Their experiment and two factor theory led to lots of excitement in this field
30
Excitation Transfer
When arousal occurs, it takes time to decay During decay period, person may incorrectly identify source of arousal and transfer arousal to another source. Misattribution of arousal to incorrect source Transfer occurs when persons are less aware of arousal Cantor, Zillman, Byrant - Physical exercise to increase arousal - View erotic film for 1, 5, 9 min after exercise - Result: 5 min group rated film as more sexually arousing - This is bc at 5 mins, they do not realise they are aroused from exercise while at 0mins they think it is bc of exercise. Capilano River Bridge Study - Had people walk across a high suspension bridge vs a low bridge - Male participants met a woman on bridge - Rated attractiveness and more likely to call woman was higher on suspension bridge than on lower bridge
31
Synopsis of 2 Factor Theory
- What generates arousal? | - Cognitive interpretations
32
Autonomic Differences (Levenson, Ekman & Friesen 1990)
Didnt believe that all emotions look the same in the body Got people to pose facial expressions, while in that expression, they noted their physical arousal. Emotional facial expressions cause subjective experience of emotion Heart rate was more accelerated with anger, fear and sadness than with disgust and surprise Happiness accelerated heart rate more than surprise Skin Conductance --> fear and disgust were larger than happy and surprise Finger temp was greater in anger than in fear. ALSO Higher quality voluntary facial configurations associated with stronger autonomic differences Self-reported emotion not necessary for autonomic differences EXTENSIONS These experiments have been performed all over the world for all ages and cultures
33
summary of emotion theories
LOOK AT PIC
34
Cognitive interpretations
Primary Debate- which comes first: feeling or thinking Lazarus: appraisals (thoughts) determine feelings - Its not the situation that affects our emotions, it is our interpretation of the situation Zajonc: emotional experience may occur before appraisals
35
Emotion and the Brain | - Amygdala
Fear system: activated through two neural pathways (direct and indirect pathway) Direct pathway is fast but not detailed Revealed that there is a direct pathway between the sensory thalamus and the amygdala Emotional stimulus also at the same time sent to sensory cortex for high level cognitions like appraisals and interpretations. And then fed back to amygdala to either reduce or increase the fear. - This pathway is slower but also more detailed. Amygdala is important for many emotional responses Studied extensively in relation to fear Projects to many other regions of the brain
36
Face Feedback Hypothesis
Pple form sad vs happy expressions Then viewed a funny clip Happy expressions caused people to view the clip to be more funny THUS Facial expressions can influence emotions Supports James-Lange theory of emotions (the body's responses infleunce our experience Supports primacy of emotion (Zajonc) - Facial expressions influence emotion even when persons are unaware that they are making an emotion expression Also experiments holding pen in mouth with lips OR with teeth (smiling)
37
Emotions motivate behaviours
- Instrumental behaviours | - Facial and bodily expressions
38
Families of emotions
Classes of emotion states that share any characteristics in terms of subjective feelings. Behavioural expressions May be subtle differences within family/class Anger: linguistic exemplar of irritation, rage, fury ○ Irritation may be a lowkey version of anger ○ Fury may be high key version of anger
39
Emotional expressions
Anger: high approach, teeth bared to bite, warning to back off Joy: moderate approach, communicates attraction Sadness: reduced approach motivation, conserves energy for body, communicates sympathy/social support Disgust: avoidance motivation, expelling bad food, closes off sense organs (nose), communicates to others a warning signal to go away bc nasty here. Suprise: high arousal, takes in sensory info (see better), communicates to others to pay attention. Fear: avoidance motivation, takes in sensory info (see better), communicates don't hurt me or watch out! Contempt: ○ Condescension toward object of contempt, ○ When others violate social conventions ○ Feelings of moral superiority ○ Motivates them to Exclude wrong doers ○ Comminucates to others that 'you are wrong' Embarrassment: ○ When violates social conventions ○ Motivates u to hide or withdraw ○ correcting mistakes, repairing relationships ○ Communicates to others 'im sorry' Pride: ○ Motivates actions toward self-goals ○ Instrumental: alerts others that person deserves group acceptance/status ○ Communicates to others that 'i'm dominant, but still your friend, don't attack'
40
FACS Coding
Only comprehensive anatomically based system for scoring facial movement
41
Behavioural Expression
- Facial expressions most often studied - Other expressions of emotion ○ Touch ○ Full body displays (pride for example) ○ Sound (voice and music)
42
Hormones and Emotions in Humans
Oxytocin (the love drug): involved in affiliation, trust Testosterone: angry aggression, low empathy Cortisol: involved in stress, anxiety Rarely 1 to 1 relationship between psychological and physiological variables ○ Oxytocin does not only cause affiliation ○ Affiliation is caused by more than oxytocin
43
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
An oscillating voltage recorded on scalp surface ○ Reflects large number of neurons ○ Right prefrontal cortex (RFC) --> withdrawal ○ Left prefrontal cortex (LFC) --> approach
44
Sociocultural Factors
Basic emotion expressions are universal. Basic emotion expressions are innate (blind and children) Display rules vary across cultures

Psych1001 (10 decks)

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