Week 8

Question 1

What are the four sources of motivation?

Answer 1

physiological, emotional, cognitive and social.

Question 2

Explain the instinct doctrine and its descendants

Answer 2

Instinctive behaviours are automatic, involuntary behaviour patterns that are triggered by particular stimuli.
Referred to as model action patterns as they can vary among individuals.

Question 3

What is the contemporary view of the instinct doctrine and descendants?

Answer 3

behaviour of humans and other animals may be motivated by inborn tendencies, but it is not necessarily entirely ‘genetically determined’.

Question 4

What is the evolutionary view of the instinct doctrine and descendants?

Answer 4

behavioural predispositions we see in humans and other animals today have evolved in part because they were adaptive for promoting individual survival.

Question 5

Explain the instinct doctrine and mate selection

Answer 5

The evolutionary approach suggests that inborn desires pass on our genes cause women to focus on men’s ability to amass resources and men to focus on women’s reproductive capacity. Surveys have supported this hypothesis; however, mate selection patterns may reflect social and economic influences, not an innate biological need

Question 6

What forces or factors do evolutionary psychologists acknowledge in mate selection?

Answer 6

Evolutionary theorists acknowledge the role of cultural forces and traditions in shaping behaviour, but emphasise the role of genetic predisposition and innate tendencies. They focus on the ultimate, long-term reasons behind what we do and the circumstances in which evolved predispositions are, or are not, expressed.

Question 7

Explain Drive Reduction Theory

Answer 7

Homeostasis is the tendency to keep physiological systems at a steady level, or equilibrium. According to drive reduction theory, an imbalance in homeostasis creates needs, biological requirements for wellbeing. The brain responds to needs by creating a psychological state called a drive, a feeling of arousal that prompts one to take action to restore balance and reduce the drive. Primary drives stem from inborn physiological needs, such as for food or water, that people do not have to learn. Secondary drives are learned through experience and they motivate us to act as if we have unmet basic needs.

Question 8

Explain Arousal Theory

Answer 8

Many behaviours cannot be explained by drive reduction theory, including curiosity-motivated behaviours and those that are done just to cause an increase in physiological arousal, a general level of activation that is reflected in the state of several physiological systems. Arousal theory states that people are motivated to behave in ways to maintain or restore their optimal level of arousal, increasing arousal when it is too low and decreasing it when it is too high. In general, people perform and feel best when arousal is moderate. Optimal arousal levels vary from person to person.

Question 9

Explain Incentive Theory

Answer 9

According to incentive theory, behaviour is goal-directed; we behave in ways that allow us to get desirable incentives and avoid negative incentives. The value of a goal or incentive is influenced by biological, cognitive, and social factors.

Question 10

What do motivation theorists believe regarding the incentive theory?

Answer 10

Motivation theorists distinguish between wanting and liking. Wanting is the process of being attracted to incentives, whereas liking is the immediate evaluation of how pleasurable a stimulus is experienced. These two systems appear to involve activity in different parts of the brain and involve different neurotransmitters. The wanting system can compel behaviour to a far greater extent than the liking system.

Question 11

Define hunger

Answer 11

Hunger is the state of wanting to eat; satiation is the satisfaction of hunger; satiety is the state of no longer wanting to eat.

Question 12

Explain the signals received from the stomach.

Answer 12

Stomach cues affect eating, but they do not play a major role in the normal control of eating. The cues may operate mainly when people are very hungry or very full. In addition, the small intestine is lined with cells that detect the presence of nutrients and send neural signals to the brain about the need to eat.

Question 13

Explain the signals received from blood.

Answer 13

The brain constantly monitors the level of food nutrients absorbed into the blood from the stomach and the level of hormones released into the blood in response to nutrients and stored fat. Short-term blood-borne signals that tell us when to start and stop eating are called satiety factors. One satiety factor comes from cholecystokinin (CCK), a neuropeptide that regulates meal size. Nutrients the brain monitors include glucose, the main form of sugar used by body cells. When glucose levels rise, the pancreas releases insulin, a hormone that most body cells need in order to use the glucose they receive. Insulin may amplify the brain’s response to CCK and it may also provide a satiety signal by acting directly on brain cells. The long-term regulation of fat stores involves a hormone called leptin. When leptin levels are high, hunger decreases, and vice versa. Leptin is not effective for treating obesity, severe overweight, because it appears that in most common cases the brain becomes less sensitive to leptin signals.

Question 14

Regions of which part of the brain detect and react to the blood’s signals about the need to eat?

Answer 14

hypothalamus
At least 20 neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, substances that modify the action of neurotransmitters, convey hunger or satiety signals to other parts of the hypothalamus and the brain.

Question 15

Where does activity come from to signal there is no need to eat?

Answer 15

Activity in the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus signals that there is no need to eat.

Question 16

Activity where stimulates eating?

Answer 16

Activity in the lateral hypothalamus stimulates eating.

Question 17

Which neurotransmitter stimulates increased eating of carbohydrates?

Answer 17

Neuropeptide Y

Question 18

Which neurotransmitter suppresses carbohydrate intake?

Answer 18

Serotonin

Question 19

Which neurotransmitter motivates eating high-fat food?

Answer 19

Galanin

Question 20

Which neurotransmitter reduces eating high-fat food?

Answer 20

Enterostatin

Question 21

Which neurotransmitter simulate eating in general?

Answer 21

Endocannabinoids

Question 22

Which neurotransmitter causes the feeling of fullness?

Answer 22

Peptide YY3-36

Question 23

Psychological explanations for obesity include?

Answer 23

factors such as learning and maladaptive reactions to stress.

Question 24

Psychological factors of anorexia nervosa?

Answer 24

include a perfectionist personality and an obsession with thinness.

Question 25

Psychological factors of Bulimia Nervosa?

Answer 25

perfectionism, low self-esteem, stress, a preoccupation with thinness, depression and other emotional problems.

Question 26

Human sexual behaviour was extensively studied by?

Answer 26

Alfred Kinsey using questionnaires in the 1940s and 1950s and by Masters and Johnson using laboratory observations of the human sexual-response cycle in the 1960s.

Question 27

People with a high need to achieve set?

Answer 27

Challenging but realistic goals. They are interested in their work, actively seek success, take risks when necessary, are intensely satisfied when they succeed, and, if they have tried their best, are not too upset by failure.

Question 28

People with low achievement needs seem to?

Answer 28

seem to enjoy success because they have avoided failure.

Question 29

People with learning goals are?

Answer 29

Concerned with getting better at something, they tend to be more persistent and less upset when they do not immediately perform well

Question 30

People with performance goals tend to?

Answer 30

Be more concerned with how well the perform compared with others than how to improve performance.

Question 31

Achievement motivation is learned?

Answer 31

in early childhood, largely from parents

Question 32

Parents of children who scored high on tests of achievement motivation.

Answer 32

Encouraged children to take on difficult tasks

Offered praise and other rewards

Encouraged children to find ways to succeed

Prompted children to go onto the next, more difficult challenge.

Question 33

Workers tend to be more satisfied and productive if they are:

Answer 33

Encourages to participate in decision making

Given problems to sole on their own

taught more than one skill

given individual responsibility

given public recognition, not just money.

Question 34

Effective goals are:

Answer 34

Personally meaningful

Specific and concrete

Set by employees but encouraged and rewarded by management.

Question 35

Abraham Maslow proposed

Answer 35

That human behaviour reflects a hierarchy of needs or motives.

Question 36

Maslow’s hierarchy of motives are:

Answer 36

Self actualisation, fulfilling one’s fullest potential.

Esteem, the need to be respected as a useful, honourable individual.

Belongingness and love, the need to be part of groups and to have relationships.

Safety, such as the need to have a secure income and a safe place to live.

Biological, such as the need for food, water, air, and sleep

Question 37

The existence, relatedness, growth (ERG) theory places needs into three categories:

Answer 37

· existence needs, such as for food and water,

· relatedness needs for social interactions and attachments, and

· growth needs, such as for developing one’s capabilities.

Question 38

Discuss the four basic types of motivational conflicts.

Answer 38

1. Approach-approach conflicts exist when one must choose only one of two desirable activities.
2. Avoidance-avoidance conflicts force one to select from two unattractive choices.
3. Approach-avoidance conflicts occur when one activity has both attractive and unattractive features.
4. Multiple approach-avoidance conflicts involve a choice between two or more alternatives, each of which has both positive and negative features.

These conflicts are the most difficult to resolve, partly because the features of each option are often difficult to compare.

Question 39

Discuss the opponent-process theory

Answer 39

According to opponent-process theory, any reaction to a stimulus is automatically followed by an opposite reaction, called the opponent process. After repeated exposure to the same stimulus, the initial reaction weakens, and the opponent process becomes quicker and stronger. For example, before a first skydiving jump, people usually experience terror, followed by intense relief when they reach ground. With more experience, though, the terror becomes mild anxiety and the relief becomes a sense of elation that may begin to appear during the jump.