Unit 8

Question 1

Motivation

Answer 1

A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

Question 2

Instinct

Answer 2

A complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned.

Question 3

Physiological need

Answer 3

A basic bodily requirement.

Question 4

Drive-reduction theory

Answer 4

The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.

Question 5

Homeostasis

Answer 5

A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level.

Question 6

Incentive

Answer 6

A positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior.

Question 7

Yerkes-Dodson law

Answer 7

The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases.

Question 8

Hierarchy of needs

Answer 8

Maslow’s pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active.

Question 9

Glucose

Answer 9

The form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues. When its level is low, we feel hunger.

Question 10

Set point

Answer 10

The point at which your “weight thermostat” may be set. When your body falls below this weight, increased hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may combine to restore lost weight.

Question 11

Basal metabolic rate

Answer 11

The body’s resting rate of energy output.

Question 12

Obesity

Answer 12

Defined as a body mass index (BMI) measurement of 30 or higher. (Overweight individuals have a BMI of 25 or higher.)

Question 13

Asexual

Answer 13

Having no sexual attraction to others.

Question 14

Testosterone

Answer 14

The most important male sex hormone. Both males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of the male sex organs during the fetal period and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty.

Question 15

Estrogens

Answer 15

Sex hormones, such as estradiol, that contribute to female sex characteristics and are secreted in greater amounts by females than by males. Estrogen levels peak during ovulation. In nonhuman mammals, this promotes sexual receptivity.

Question 16

Sexual response cycle

Answer 16

The four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson–excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

Question 17

Refractory period

Answer 17

In human sexuality, a resting period that occurs after orgasm, during which a person cannot achieve another orgasm.

Question 18

Affiliation need

Answer 18

The need to build relationships and to feel part of a group.

Question 19

Ostracism

Answer 19

Deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups.

Question 20

Narcissism

Answer 20

Excessive self-love and self-absorption.

Question 21

Achievement motivation

Answer 21

A desire for significant accomplishment, for mastery of skills or ideas, for control, and for attaining a high standard.

Question 22

Grit

Answer 22

In psychology, passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals.

Question 23

Emotion

Answer 23

A response of the whole organism, involving

1. physiological arousal
2. expressive behaviors
3. conscious experience

Question 24

James-Lange theory

Answer 24

The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to an emotion-arousing stimulus: stimulus —> arousal —> emotion.

Question 25

Cannon-Bard theory

Answer 25

The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers

1. physiological responses
2. the subjective experience of emotion

Question 26

Two-factor theory

Answer 26

The Schacter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must

1. be physically aroused
2. cognitively label the arousal

Question 27

Polygraph

Answer 27

A machine used in attempts to detect lies that measures several of the physiological responses (such as perspiration, heart rate, and breathing changes) accompanying emotion.

Question 28

Facial feedback effect

Answer 28

The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness.

Question 29

Behavior feedback effect

Answer 29

The tendency of behavior to influence our own and other’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Question 30

Stress

Answer 30

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

Question 31

General adaptation syndrome (GAS)

Answer 31

Selye’s concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in three phases–alarm, resistance, exhausation.

Question 32

Tend-and-befriend response

Answer 32

Under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend).

Question 33

Health psychology

Answer 33

A subfield of psychology that provides psychology’s contribution to behavioral medicine.

Question 34

Psychoneuroimmunology

Answer 34

The study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health.

Question 35

Coronary heart disease

Answer 35

The clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in many developed countries.

Question 36

Type A

Answer 36

Friedman and Rosenman’s term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people.

Question 37

Type B

Answer 37

Friedman and Rosenman’s term for easygoing, relaxed people.

Question 38

Catharsis

Answer 38

In psychology, the idea that “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges.

Question 39

Aerobic exercise

Answer 39

Sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; also helps alleviate depression and anxiety.

Question 40

Mindfulness meditation

Answer 40

A reflective practice in which people attend to current experiencces in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner.

Question 41

Feel-good, do-good phenomenon

Answer 41

People’s tendency to be helpful when in a good mood.

Question 42

Positive psychology

Answer 42

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive.

Question 43

Subjective well-being

Answer 43

Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people’s quality of life.

Question 44

Adaptation-level phenomenon

Answer 44

Our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience.

Question 45

Relative deprivation

Answer 45

The perception that one is worse off relative to those with whome one compares oneself.