Task 1: Concepts of emotion and motivation Flashcards
Need
Lack of something creates a need (e.g. lack of food creates need for eating)
Maslow’s theory of emotion
- Biological/physiological needs (e.g. lack of water, food, sleep, health, temperature —> necessary for body to survive)
- Safety/security needs (e.g. lack of safety, financial, personal, legal protection, stability)
- Belongingness (e.g. lack of emotional interactions (family, friends, partner), relationships, mutual affection) –> lack of belongingness often cause of anxiety
- Self-esteem (e.g. lack of respect for self and respect from others)
- Self-actualization - Process of becoming the person you really are and not what society wants you to be (other-oriented)
–> Lower-level needs need to be satisfied in order to attempt to satisfy higher-level needs
Study by Taormina & Gao (2013) - Methods
Aim: Test whether maslow’s theory is still valid today
Method:
1. Test satisfaction of each need
2. Test expected correlations
- with each other: expect positive correlations between satisfaction of needs
- with social and personality measures: Family emotional support, traditional values, anxiety/worry, life satisfaction
3. Ability of satisfaction level of each need to predict satisfaction of next higher-level need
Study by Taormina & Gao (2013) - Results
- -> Maslow’s theory supported
1. Reliability and validity of all 5 needs
2. Correlations: - Positive correlations among the 5 scales –> The more lower-level need satisfied, the more next level need satisfied
- Correlations with social and personality measures: Positive correlation for all, except worry/anxiety (–> negative correlation)
3. Predictive validity: Satisfaction of higher level need was statistically predicted by satisfaction of the need immediately below it
History of attribution approach
- Early theories of motivation - pleasure/pain principle
- Atkinson’s theory of achievement motivation - achievement behaviors determined by pride and shame –> only intrinsic
- Later attribution theories - feelings are determined by causal beliefs and direct behavior
Attribution approach of success and failure (Fritz Heider)
- Causal locus/ location = internal vs. external cause
- Causal stability = stable/permanent vs. changeable
- Expectancies of future success, linked to confidence, apprehension, hope and helplessness - Causal control = Changeable by agent or not
- judgment of responsibilities and moral emotions (guilt, remorse, anger and sympathy)
Causal stability and causal locus together
Stable/Internal: low self-esteem –> hopelessness
Unstable/Internal: low self-esteem –> hope
Stable/External: Same self-esteem –> hopelessness
Unstable/External: Same self-esteem –> hope
Happiness
- Happiness always after success
- Attribution independent, outcome dependent
- Induces positive motivation
Relief
- Attribution independent, outcome dependent
- Always, except when expectation of success very high
Pride
- When internal attribution for success (does not matter whether controllable or uncontrollable)
- Can lead to envy or admiration depending if controllable or uncontrollable
Gratitude
- Success due to external cause, that is controllable by others (action must be freely provided by giver & valued by recipient)
Surprise
Success or failure external and unstable (unexpected)
Confidence
If success stable
Apprehension, Uncertainty
if success due to unstable cause (luck), then one does not expect it in the future
Unhappiness
- Always after failure
- Motivational consequences can be positive or negative
Shame
- Internal, uncontrollable of failure
- Negative motivational consequences (e.g. social withdrawal)
Guilt
- Internal, controllable cause of failure
- Promotes positive behaviors
Sympathy, pity and scorn
- Other directed emotion
- Pity: uncontrollable, internal or external
- Sympathy: Internal, uncontrollable (e.g. physical disability)
- Scorn (verhöhnen): Internal, uncontrollable –> Downward social comparison
Anger (other-directed)
- Failure due to external cause
- Other-responsibility
helplessness, hopelessness, hope
Helplessness = Internal and stable Hopelessness = failure always stable and uncontrollable Hope = Unstable cause of failure
Schadenfreude
First succeeds due to external cause and then fails due to internal cause
Mostly, if we do not like other person
(Limitations) of attribution approach
- Cannot explain predictions regarding deprived rats
- Based on common sense – Whats new? –> systematizes common sense
- Cannot explain helpgiving (pro-social behavior) –> Yes, not completly, but control and sympathy also play role
- Theory explains reaction to moral transgression with anger, but evidence suggest that reaction is disgust –> However, anger has mitigators, disgust does not
- Overemphasized rationality –> but unconsious mechanisms might be activated in making causal conclusions
Laws of emotion (Frijda)
Emotions are lawful –> Emerge, increase and decrease according to rules in a determined fashion
Emotions are result of causal mechanism, but often of involuntary nature
Action readiness
Emotions are defined by how the evoke the urge to do something or not to do something
- -> Correspond with behaviors
- Innate e.g. crying
- facial expressions e.g. smile
- physiological response
Laws that describe emotion elicitation: Law of situational meaning
Emotions arise depending on how the situation is perceived (meaning) –> The same situation can elicit different emotions
- Can be overriden by conscious control
Laws that describe emotion elicitation: Law of concern
Emotions arise in response to events that are important to the individual’s goals, motives and concerns
Laws that describe emotion elicitation: Law of apparent reality
Emotions are elicited by events appraised as real, and their intensity correspond to the degree to which this is the case
Laws that describe emotion elicitation: Law of change, habituation and comparative feeling
Law of change: Emotions are elicited not so much by the presence of favorable or unfavorable conditons, but by actual or expected changes in favorable and unfavorable conditions –> Greater change –> Stronger emotion
Law of habituation: Continued pleasure wears off, continued hardships lose their intensity
Law of comparative feeling: The intensity of emotion depends on the relationship between an event and some frame of reference against which the event is evaluated
Laws that describe emotion elicitation: Law of hedonic asymmetry
Pleasure is always contingent upon change and disappears with continious satisfaction. Pain may persist under persisting adverse conditions
Laws that explain emotion responses: Law of closure (Control precedence)
Emotions tend to be closed to judgements of relativity of impact and to the requirements of goals other than their own (–> Feelings are absolute)
Laws that explain emotion regulation: Laws of care for consequence
Every emotional impulse elicits a secondary impulse that tends to modify it in view of its possible consequences (response modulation and response inhibition)
Laws that explain emotion regulation: Law of lightest load & law of greatest gain
Law of lightest load: whenever a situation can be viewed in alternative ways, a tendency exists to view it in a way that minimizes negative emotional load
Law of greatest gain: Whenever a situation can be viewed in alternative ways, a tendency exists to view it in a way that maximizes emotional gain
Subjective feelings vs. objective features of motivation/emotion
- -> Emotional reactions occur as core affective processes and can occur with conscious feelings or unconsciously. However, they have objective consequences and features that can be detected in phyiology and behavior
1. We can never know with certainty whether infants or animals have subjective feelings, but also do not know it about anyone but ourselves –> Science is about reducing uncertainty and not demanding certainty
2. Resolving whether emotions are necessarily feelings - A priori, available evidence from unconscious emotions (Some emotions cannot be accessed via introspection),
Do we share emotions with animals?
No proof whether animals have subjective feelings, we cannot tell how they feel, but animals and humans express similar affective reactions and physiological processes that are related to actions –> Some, but not all things from animal studies can be transferred to humans
Wanting vs. Liking
Dopamine does not mediate ‘liking’ bur rather ‘wanting’
Evidence:
1. When rats did not have any dopamine it did not reduce liking of food, but wanting to eat it
2. Dopamine suppressors did not reduced liking but wanting of a drug in drug addicts
Drive-reduction theory
Motivation –> drivers: guide action to reduce ‘aversive’ states (hunger, thirst etc.)
Reward –> drive reduction: Negative reinforcement –> Taking aversive stimuli away
Fall of Drive reduction theory
It has been shown that when mesocorticolimbic system is stimulated, rats show ‘wanting’ of natural incentives (eating, drinking, having sex) and rats wanted to continue stimulation
- -> This proofs that rewards are not simply drive reductions (reducing hunger)
- -> Incentive cues, such as tasty food can lead to motivation of eating, even when there is no driver (hunger)
Incentive-motivation theory
Motivation is directed towards affectively positive incentives and the brain can modulate the incentive value –> Drive states, such as hunger can increase the value of eating and magnify reward (cue-state interaction (salt water experiment)
Incentive-salience theory ‘wanting’
Incentive salience is a form of ‘wanting’ and is cue-triggered –> Temporary peak of desire to obtain reward; reward cues are more salient and therefore drive motivation
- mediated by dopamine
- Generated by large, robust mesocorticolimbic circuit
hedonic impact ‘liking’
Generated by small, functionally fragile brain circuit (‘hedonic hotspots’) which form an integrated network
- hedonic hotspots: limbic areas (NA, ventral pallidum), OFC, insula
- Stimulating one hotspot causes increase in other hotspots
- Mediated by opioid, endocannabinoid and neurotransmitter signals
Wanting vs. Fear
Although psychological opposites, these reactions share overlapping brain circuits
- Nucleus Accumbens: Arranged like a valence key board –> Anterior site: strong wanting; Posterior site –> strong fear
- Both external-stimulus attention driven and motivationally meaningful
