U10: Motivation and Emotion Flashcards
Motivation
A need or desire that serves to energize or direct behavior
Primary drives
Hunger, thirst, sleep and reproduction
Secondary drive
The desire to obtain learned reinforcers (money or social acceptance)
Olds and Milner
Noticed the interaction of brain and motivation by discovering that rats would press a bar in order to send a small electrical signal pulse into certain areas of their brains=intracranial self-stimulation
Instinct theory
supported by evolutionary psychology
states that the learning of species specific behavior motivates organisms to do what is necessary to ensure their survival
example: cats have instinctive motivation to react to movement in their environment to protect themselves and their offspring)
Arousal theory
the main reason people are motivated to preform any action is to maintain an ideal level of physiological arousal
Yerkes-Dodson Law
tasks of moderate difficulty (not too hard or too easy) elicit the highest level of performance
also states that high levels of arousal for difficult tasks and low level of arousal for easy tasks are detrimental and the vis versa is preferred
opponent process theory
states that we start off at a motivational baseline at which we are not motivated to act then we encounter a stimulus that feels good (drug), the pleasure we experience is the result of neuronal activity in the pleasure center of brain (nucleus accumbens)
we now have acquired a motivation to seek out the stimulus that made us feel good
our brains however revert back to a state of emotional neutrality over time
this reversion is a result of an opponent process which works in opposition to the initial motivation toward seeking the stimulus (we are motivated to seek stimuli that make us feel emotion after which an opposing motivational force brings us back to the baseline)
after repeated exposure to a stimulus, the emotional effects wear off, the opponent process overcompensates producing withdrawal
drive reduction theory
states that psychological needs put stress on the body and that we are motivated to reduce this negative experience
homeostasis
state of regulatory equilibrium
set point
the preferred level of functioning (temp)
ventromedial hypothalamus
sends messages to the brain to eat less and to exercise more
lateral hypothalamus
sends message to the brain to eat more and exercise less
hypothalamus
controls feeding
leptin
plays a role in the feedback loop between signals from hypothalamus and those from stomach
released in response to a buildup of fat cells when enough energy has been consumed, this signal is interpreted by satiety center in the hypothalamus to decrease feelings of hunger
glucostatic hypothesis
the theory that short-term regulation of food intake is governed by the rate of glucose metabolism rather than by overall blood levels of glucose
insulin
a hormone produced by pancreas to regulate glucose
lipostatic hypothesis
states that fat is measured and controlled substance in the body that regulates hunger
anorexia
an eating disorder causing people to obsess about weight and what they eat
body dysmorphia
distorted body image
bulimia
alternating periods of binging and purging
pituitary gland
important in controlling growth and development and the functioning of the other endocrine glands
androgens and estrogens
primary sexual hormones in males and females
biological theory
suggests that motivation levels are regulated by neural pattern recognition events. Subconscious drives impel people to achieve excellence, or to spend exceptional energies on services to humanity
