Motivation and Emotions: What Guides Our Behavior?

1. Motivation and Emotions: What Guides Our Behavior? The Big Picture: Why We Do What We Do

2. The Big Picture: Why We Do What We Do • Motive – tendency to desire, seek out positive incentives/rewards and to avoid negative outcomes • Motives serve to protect us – eat, drinks, engage in some detrimental behavior • When motives go astray • The story of Marya, a child with bulimia and anorexia

3. Theories About Motivation • Various ways motive has been explained • Instincts: inborn forces that direct behavior • Drives: uncomfortable biological states seek to change • Arousal: desire to maintain optimal level • Incentives: seek rewards from world • No one view complete in itself

4. Motivation as an Instinct • Influenced by Charles Darwin/theory of natural selection • William James, American psychologist, proposed that instincts motivate behavior • Form habits that fulfill daily needs

5. Motivation as a Drive • Drive-reduction theories: motivation comes from desire to reduce internal, uncomfortable, state (drive) when needs not fulfilled • Primary drives maintain homeostasis/equilibrium such as food, water • Negative feedback loop: information systems monitor bodily process, adjust accordingly • Secondary drives motivate behaviors not related to biological needs

7. Does Drive Reduction Theory Really Explain Our Behavior? • Does it sufficiently explain things like achievement or desire for love • Does it explain things such as overeating? Eating disorders? • At times motivated to increase (not decrease) arousal in bodies (riding a roller coaster); not explained by drive reduction

8. Arousal Theories of Motivation • Operate best at optimal level of arousal (often moderately aroused); too much or too little arousal weakens performance • Sensation seekers • Seek out levels of arousal higher than most • Zuckerman found low levels of monoamine oxidase (MAO) in sensation seekers • MAO affects dopamine release; may cause sensation seekers to seek intense arousal

10. Incentive Theories of Motivation • Incentives are things that motivate to action • Extrinsic motivation is behavior that is motivated from outside (praise, material items) • Intrinsic motivation are incentives that come from within (feeling good about self, pride in accomplishment)

11. Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Motivation – Which One Is Best? • Advantages of intrinsic motivation • No extrinsic incentives needed • Extrinsic motivators/tangible reinforcers lower motivation to engage in task • justification effect • Intangible reinforcers motivate without extrinsic incentives • Advantages of extrinsic motivation • Can help motivate when not intrinsically motivated

12. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs • Hierarchy of needs • Basic human needs: physiological, safety and security • Psychological needs: belongingness and love, esteem • Self-fulfillment needs: self-actualization and transcendence • Lower needs need to be met first before can meet higher need • Hierarchy not supported by research but still used in business, marketing, etc.

13. Hunger and Thirst: What Makes Us Eat and Drink • Eating is most fundamental motivation, ensures survival • Motivation to eat remains strong even when we fight it (e.g. eating disorders)

14. Hunger and Feedback in the Body • Hunger motivates us to eat when needed • Brain turns hunger off and on in order to maintain homeostasis (negative feedback loop)

15. Hunger and Feedback in the BodyFeedback from the Stomach • Stomach is one part of body that signals hunger (the balloon experiment) • Stomach also plays role in telling brains to stop eating • Receptors in wall of stomach measure nutritive value of food eaten; both quality and quantity • Rate at which food leaves stomach related to caloric content of food

16. Hunger Feedback from the Liver • Liver monitors glucose and glycogen levels • Glucose – sugar needs for energy; glycogen starch that is stored • Too much glucose, turns off hunger; if dip into energy reserves, turns on hunger

17. Hunger Feedback from Hormones • Insulin, made in pancreas, increases hunger • Cholecystokinin (CCK) released from small intestines, shuts off eating

18. Hunger Feedback from Fat Cells • Fat cells store fuel reserves that are mobilized when bodies need fuel • Also make and secrete chemical called leptin; informs brain about level of available fat reserves • If brain senses high leptin levels, hunger is reduced

19. Hunger Regulation in the Brain • Processes signals from stomach, liver and leptin • Glucoreceptors in hypothalamus measure glucose levels in bloodstream

20. Hunger Regulation in the Brain (continued) • Evidence supporting findings: • Lateral hypothalamus (LH) functions as “on switch”; destruction of LH creates starvation • Neuropeptide Y, appetite stimulant, affects part of brain outside of LH • Hypothalamus shuts off hunger; destruction of ventromedical hypothalamus (VMH) creates obesity; new set point reached

21. External Cues that Influence Eating: Culture and Consumerism • Sight or smell of food sparks hunger • Relate food to customs, holidays, celebration • Connect joy and food

22. What Causes Obesity: Nature and Nurture, Again • Two-thirds of Americans are considered overweight; one-third of those obese • Body mass index (BMI) one way of measuring obesity • Obesity causes multitude of health issues

23. Factors Controlling Eating

25. Behavioral Factors in Obesity • Poor diet • High fat diets • Emotional eating • More we diet, the harder it may be to lose weight; body fights against weight loss • May lead to bingeing • Emotional distress causes dieting slips • Lack of exercise • Exercise burn calories, more permanent weight loss

26. Biological Factors in Obesity • Low metabolic rate; gain more weight than normal people • Low metabolic rate may have been adaptive once; store reserves of food • Obese people may have more efficient digestive systems that use more of food eaten • Obese people may convert more food into fat

27. It’s a Diverse World: Obesity in White and Black American Adolescent Females • Over 33% of Black girls in one study were obese versus 20% of White girls • Why? • Lifestyle and demographic factors; more TV, less active • Social factors; attitudes about weight • Genetic factors; metabolic differences

28. Eating Disorders: Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa • Two types of disorder eating: bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa

29. Bulimia Nervosa • Alternating bouts of bingeing and self-starvation often including purging • Up to 20,000 calories at once and then starve or purge (laxatives, self-induced vomiting) • Average victim is young female of average weight • Socially isolating disorder • Takes physical and psychological toll

30. Anorexia Nervosa • Self-starvation, intense exercise and distorted image of body (see selves as fat) • Most often females from upper class families in industrialized countries where thinness is valued • Causes of anorexia • Correlated with perfectionism and faulty thinking about food • Biochemical abnormalities • Personality disorders • Genetics

31. Thirst • Fluid is critical to survival • How do we know when we’re thirsty? • Intracellular fluid: fluid stored inside cells • Extracellular fluid: fluid stored outside cells • Hypothalamus monitors both fluid levels and signals thirst • Specialized pressure receptors in heart, kidneys and blood vessels detect drop in blood pressure due to lose of fluid and signal thirst

32. The Puzzle of Destructive Motivation • Eating disorders, self-injury, suicide, and substance abuse

33. Why Do Some People Abuse Drugs? • Low self-esteem, boredom, depression • Operant conditioning: positive reinforcers causing feelings of pleasure and euphoria; negatively reinforces pain removal • Opponent-process theory: counteract effects of drugs by decreasing user’s arousal; user goes through withdrawal causing continued need

34. Why Do Some People Abuse Drugs? (continued) • Physical dependence developed • Causes drug tolerance: more drug is needed • Dependence and tolerance may be genetic

36. Other Destructive Behaviors • Self-injury: cut, burn, scratch, beat, mutilate, and harm • May have borderline personality disorder • Suicide • Depression • Multiple individual motives

37. Theories and Expression of Emotion • Definition – complex reaction to internal or external event that involves physiological and behavioral reactions, facial expression, cognition, and affective responses • Emotion is similar to motivation except that it have an affective component • Emotions are caused by things outside body

38. The James-Lange Theory of Emotion • Emotion is equal to pattern of physiological arousal person experiences during emotion • Emotion is physiological response to stimulus • Increased heart rate, increased respiration create emotion of fear

39. Walter Cannon’s Criticisms of the James-Lange Theory • Criticisms • Each emotion would have to have a different physiological bodily response • Sometimes bodily response follows emotion • Artificially created physiological responses don’t cause emotions • Cannon-Bard theory of emotion • Emotion originates in brain, not body

40. Some Validation of the James-Lange Theory • New research does show that some emotions involve different bodily reactions • Explains some but not all of James-Lange theory

42. The Facial-Feedback Hypothesis • Experience of emotion affected by feedback brain gets from facial muscles • Some research support • Possible explanation: configuration of facial muscles affects blood flow to brain, affecting temperature of brain releasing neurotransmitters • Smiles promote facial muscles that improves our mood

43. Facial Analysis

44. The Schacter-Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion • Emotions are product of physiological arousal and cognitive interpretations • Emotions cause diffuse, general physiological arousal • Use situational context to interpret meaning of arousal • Interpret cause of reaction based on context and label emotion • Research support – Schacter and Singer

45. Lazarus’s Cognitive-Mediational Theory of Emotion • Cognitive appraisal of situation determines emotion • All other components of emotions follow cognitive appraisal • Explains why different people react with different emotions in same situation • Not everyone agrees • Zajonc research – mere exposure effect: preferring things with which we’ve had most exposure; cognitive appraisal not a factor

46. Communicating Emotions: Culture, Gender, and Facial Expression • How could you communicate without words? Through facial expressions! • Emotions cross across cultural barriers • Basic emotions are emotions all humans have, regardless of cultural background • Genetically programmed • Cross-cultural studies support this belief • However, there still are cultural differences

47. Studying the Chapter: Are You Getting the Big Picture? • Motivation and emotion are intertwined and direct behavior • Both influenced by physiological states that are an important in emotions • Cognition and social factors play a role in motivation and emotion • Motivation and emotion allow us to function in variety of situations • Real life application: psychotherapists, doctors, teachers, managers