Task 1 Concepts of emotion and motivation

Question 1

What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid?

Answer 1

theory of motivation
- states that 5 categories of human needs dictate individual behaviour
- pyramidic shape => people can only move up if basic needs are fulfilled

Question 2

Maslow’s needs in hierarchical order

Answer 2

1. Physiological needs
2. Safety needs
3. Belongingness/love needs
4. Esteem needs
5. Self-actualization needs

Question 3

Limitations of Maslow’s hierarchy

Answer 3

• culture centred
• gender-biased

Question 4

drive theory

Answer 4

posits that certain things are required by all human beings for continuation

Question 5

drive

Answer 5

activity of total organism resulting from persistent disequilibrium
- need that arises from lack of something that is essential to an organism’s existence or well-being
- there is no set of valid/reliable measures that are designed to assess the five needs or satisfaction of needs

Question 6

Physiological needs (1)

Answer 6

lack of internal or environmental conditions necessary for the body to survive
–> extended absence of these things could lead to psychological stress or physical death

Predictors:
- family emotional support
- traditional values
- overall health
- number of siblings
- marital status

Question 7

Safety-security needs (2)

Answer 7

lack of protection (e.g., shelter) from environmental danger, personal protection from physical harm, financial protection from destitution, legal protection from attacks on right to peaceful existence, or lack of stability in personal life

=> increase in satisfaction of former need should be associated with increase in satisfaction of latter need

Predictors:
- satisfaction of physiological needs
- family emotional support

Question 8

Belongingness need (3)

Answer 8

lack of close, lasting, emotionally pleasant interactions with other people (groups and intimate dyads) that yield personal relationships characterized by mutual affective concern

Predictors:
- family emotional support
- traditional values
- education
- monthly income (neg. predictor)

Question 9

Esteem needs (4)

Answer 9

lack of respect a person has for themselves or lack of respect a person receives from others

Predictors:
- traditional values
- anxiety/worry
- employment

Question 10

Self-actualization needs (5)

Answer 10

people’s desire for self-fulfilment/the tendency to become more what one idiosyncratically is

Predictors:
- number of children

Question 11

Early motivation psychologists view on emotions

Answer 11

• sources of motivation shifted from viscerogenic needs (hunger, thirst) to psychogenic desires (status, affiliation, etc.)
• questioned goals of achievement-related behaviours were and how quality/magnitude could be determined –> association with affect
  the relative value of anticipated coming emotions determines choice/direction of behaviour

Question 12

Attribution theory

Answer 12

• concerned with how individuals perceive information, interpret events, and how these form causal judgements

cause-emotion relations are central to attribution approach to the study of affect

Question 13

attribution view of emotion

Answer 13

feelings are determined by thoughts and beliefs about causality

Question 14

Causal properties: Causal locus

Answer 14

• causes are perceived as residing within or outside of the person
• all causes can be characterized on continuum anchored with internal and external poles
• internal attribution is seen as necessary for the experience of pride

Question 15

Causal properties: Causal stability

Answer 15

• some causes are stable and remain in place whereas other causes are perceived to fluctuate over time
• causal stability plays an important role in expectancies of future success –> linked with emotional experience of confidence, hope, hopelessness, and helplessness

Question 16

Causal properties: Causal control

Answer 16

• amenability of cause to volitional alteration
• shares overlap with locus and stability
• relates closely to judgements of responsibility

Question 17

Limitations of attribution theory

Answer 17

• theory cannot address most fundamental issues in motivation: predictions regarding behaviour of subjects in deprived state
• proposed conceptual linkages are simply common sense
• theory cannot explain help-giving/prosocial behaviour
• theory overemphasizes the rationality of emotional life –> does not take into account unconscious motivation

Question 18

Law of situational meaning

Answer 18

emotions arise in response to events that are important to us
- events that satisfy individual’s goals yield pos. emotions
- events that harm or threaten individual’s concerns yield negative emotions
- emotions change when meanings change

Question 19

Law of concern

Answer 19

emotions arise in response to events that are important to individual’s goals, concerns, or motives

Question 20

Law of apparent reality

Answer 20

emotions are elicited by events appraised as real and intensity corresponds to which this is the case

vividness effect: symbolic information has weak impact compared to impact of pictures and events actually seen
- law accounts for weakness of reason compared to strength of passion:
reason: consideration of satisfaction and pains are symbolically mediated
passion: effect of the present

Question 21

Law of change, habituation, and comparative feeling

Answer 21

a) Law of change:
- emotions are not elicited by presence of favourable or unfavourable conditions, but by actual or expected change in favourable or unfavourable conditions

b) Law of habituation:
- continued pleasures wear off, continued hardships lose their poignancy

c) Law of comparative feeling:
- the intensity of an emotion depends on the relationship between an event and some frame of reference against which the event is evaluated

Question 22

Law of affective contrast

Answer 22

loss of satisfaction does not yield neutral emotions but misery
loss of misery does not yield a sense of normality but happiness

Question 23

Law of hedonic asymmetry

Answer 23

• pleasure is always contingent upon change and disappears with continuous satisfaction
• pain may persist under persisting adverse circumstances

–> emotions exist to signal states of the world that we need to respond to or that no longer need action
- adaptation can be counteracted by being aware of how fortunate one’s condition is (but does not come naturally)

Question 24

Law of conservation of emotional momentum

Answer 24

• emotional events retain their power to elicit emotions indefinitely unless counteracted by repetitive exposures that permit extinction or habituation

Question 25

Law of closure

Answer 25

emotions tend to be closed to judgements of relativity of impact and to requirements of goals other than their own
–> causes of emotions are relative to indivdiual frame of reference but an emotional response does not know this relativity

control precedence of action readiness:
- action readiness is the primary phenomenon of emotion and tends to override other concerns, goals, actions, or considerations of long-term consequences

Question 26

Law of care for consequence

Answer 26

every emotional impulse elicits a secondary impulse that tends to modify it in view of possible consequences

• we are often capable of controlling our emotional response
• control is maintained/elicited by stimuli
• inhibition is triggered by anticipation of possible consequences

deindividuation theory: mass violence/enthusiasm are consequences of decreases in self-monitoring and of focusing attention on leader/common objective

Question 27

Law of lightest load and greatest gain

Answer 27

a) Law of lightest load:

• whenever a situation can be perceived in alternative ways, a tendency exists to minimize negative emotional load

b) Law of greatest gain:
- whenever a sitaution can be perceived in alternative ways, a tendency exists to maximize emotional gain

Question 28

wanting vs. liking: dopamine pleasure hypothesis

Answer 28

mesolimbic dopamine signals are translated into hedonic messages we experience as pleasure, euphoria, or yuminess

Question 29

wanting vs. liking: anhedonia hypothesis

Answer 29

dopamine antagonist drugs cause tasty food and other rewards to lose hedonic impact because they produce extinction mimicry: animals or people gradually stop to pursue the reward

Question 30

wanting vs. liking: expectancy hypothesis

Answer 30

dopamine causes heightened energization of animals searching for and expecting reward –> functions as motivational/hedonic incentive mechanism

Question 31

wanting vs. liking: study and findings

Answer 31

• facial expression of liking vs. disgust are shared by apes, primates, and rats
• drug disruption of dopamine failed to reduce facial “liking” reaction to sweetness
• complete removal of all dopamine in rats left sweetness “liking” completely unimpaired while eliminating all “wanting”
• stimulating mesolimbic systems with electrode to promote dopamine release turns on “wanting” but not “liking”

Question 32

current view on dopamine

Answer 32

increases of human dopamine do not reliably cause enhancement of subjective ratings of pleasure (“liking”) but many rewards induce dopamine release as a consequence of pleasure –> controls subjective wanting ratings to attain more of the reward

Question 33

drive and drive reduction

Answer 33

drive: aversive state that guides behaviour into action to reduce unpleasant drive

drive reduction: reward in motivational framework: neg. reinforcement sense of eliminating the aversive drive

–> motivation is mostly to esscape unpleasant states

Question 34

Incentive motivation theory: study and theory

Answer 34

study:
- pavlovian cues for hunger fail to elicit eating unless these cues were additionally paired with opportunity to eat while hungry

theory: motivation is directed toward affectively positive incentives and brain systems modulate those incentive values

Question 35

hedonic hotspots

Answer 35

anatomically small pleasure-generating islands of brain tissue within larger limbic structures: respond with hedonic amplification to opioid and other neurotransmitter signals

• limbic areas of PFC
• OFC
• subcortical structures

–> function together as functionally interconnected network

Question 36

incentive wanting vs. cognitive wanting

Answer 36

a) incentive wanting:
- cue-triggered as temporary peak of desire
- makes reward cues attractive and attention-grabbing
- responsible for many incentive motivation phenomena

b) cognitive wanting
- based on declarative memories and cognitive expectations of action-outcome relation
- less tied to mesolimbic dopamine-related systems

often go together: incentive salience gives motivationally compelling quality to cognitive desire and helps motivate action to obtain goal