1) Motivation - a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

a. Result of nature-nurture
i. Nature pushes you; nurture pulls you.

Motivational Concepts:

2) Four theories surrounding motivation:

a. Instinct theory
i. Instinct – a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a
species and is unlearned.
ii. Instinct theory states that instincts are the sources of our motivations.
1. The motivation to survive is the most important motivation.
iii. This theory lacks a lot of backing and evidence.
1. More historical.
b. Drive-reduction theory – the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused
tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.
i. Aims to maintain homeostasis
1. Homeostasis – 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.
ii. Drive-reduction does not always work because physiological needs are not
the only things that “pull” us
1. We are also pulled by incentives (positive or negative
environmental stimuli that lure or repel us)
c. Curiosity Theory
i. Curiosity can be a motive.
ii. We feel a need to experience stimulation.
1. Lacking stimulation, we feel bored and look for a way to increase
arousal.
d. Yerkes-Dodson Law – moderate arousal leads to optimal performance
1. Graph usually looks like an upside-down u
a. However, easy tasks (gross motor skills) require high levels
of arousal, while difficult tasks (fine motor skills) require
much lower levels.
2. Optimal arousal – between bored low arousal and anxious
hyperarousal lies motivation
e. Hierarchy of Needs – Abraham 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.
i. Theorized that human needs are hierarchical, and some have priority over
others
 1. Physiological needs, safety needs, belonginess and love needs,
esteem needs, self-actualization needs, self-transcendence needs
a. Self-transcendence – striving for meaning, purpose, and
communion beyond oneself
i. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl worked with this and
theorized that the search for meaning is an
important human motive
ii. The hierarchy is not universally set
1. Things can also happen in life to knock you back down the
hierarchy
2. Culture also influences priorities
a. Collectivist societies may focus less on personal growth

Hunger:

3) 1950 – Ancel Keys studied semi-starvation among wartime volunteers who participated
in a challenging experiment as an exemption to military service.
a. Established a base-line diet and weight for each person.
b. After three months, he halved the food intake of 36 of them.
i. Eventually their body weights stabilized at about 25% below their starting
weights
ii. They also became food obsessed
4) Factors involved in hunger
a. Stomach contractions
i. Not the only factor, because when they removed the stomachs of rats, the
rats still ate food.
b. Glucose – the form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major
source of energy for body tissues.
c. Brain structures
i. Certain areas of the hypothalamus are responsible for the control of
hunger
1. Arcuate nucleus – a small structure in the base of the
hypothalamus. It plays a key role in the regulation of appetite and
body weight.
2. Later hypothalamus (LH) - sends the signals for hunger out
a. Releases a chemical called orexin
b. If this area is lesioned, an organism would not feel hunger
3. Ventromedial Hypothalamus (VMH) -- inhibits hunger
a. If this area is lesioned, you will not feel full
ii. Appetite Hormones
 1. Orexin – a hunger-triggering hormone produced by the
hypothalamus
2. Ghrelin – hormone secreted by empty stomach
a. Signals to the brain that a person is hungry
b. Causes the brain to release orexin
3. Insulin – hormone secreted by the pancreas; controls blood glucose
4. Leptin – protein hormone secreted by fat cells; when abundant,
causes brain to increase metabolism
5. PPY – digestive tract hormones; sends “I’m not hungry” signals to
the brain.
6. Ghrelin -> Orexin -> Insulin -> Leptin -> PPY
5) Set Point – the point at which your weight is set, or fixed.
a. Concerns on if it is completely accurate
b. Regulated through basal metabolic rate
i. Basal metabolic rate – the resting rate of energy expenditure for
maintaining basic body functions
6) Hunger is also influenced by psychology
a. Memory of eating also plays a huge role in hunger regulation
b. Culture influences what we find appealing and what we find unappealing
c. Our appetite can also be affected by the things around us
i. People tend to eat more when they are around other people
7) Body Mass Index – a measurement for body mass
8) Storing fat is an adaptive trait
a. Stored energy carried our ancestors through periods of famine
9) Sleep deprivation increases the release of ghrelin which stimulates the appetite and
decreases the release of leptin which reports body fat to the brain.
a. Increases in Ghrelin and a decrease in Leptin
10) Eating disorders:
a. Anorexia nervosa – an eating disorder in which a person (usually an adolescent
female) diets and becomes significantly (15% or more) underweight, yet, still
feeling fat, continues to starve.
b. Bulimia nervosa – an eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating,
usually high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or
excessive exercise.

Sexual Motivation:

11) Sex is not like hunger, because it is not an actual need. But it still motivates
12) Kinsey report
a. Kinsey interviewed 17,000 Americans concerning their sexual behavior. Initial
research into sexual behavior
 i. Research methods are questionable.
1. He convenient sampled
13) During the prenatal period, sex hormones direct our development as males or females
a. Testosterone – the most important of the male sex hormones. Both males and
females have testosterone, 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
i. If testosterone levels drop, so does sexual interest.
b. Estrogen – sex hormones, such as estradiol, secreted in greater amounts by
females than by males and contributing to female sex characteristics. In
nonhuman female mammals, estrogen levels peak during ovulation, promoting
sexual receptivity.
i. Women become sexually receptive when their estrogens peak at ovulation.
14) The surge of hormones that occurs during puberty triggers the development of sex
characteristics and sexual interest.
15) Sexual response cycle – the four phases of sexual responding described by William
Masters and Virginia Johnson in 1966
a. Phase One: Excitement
b. Phase Two: Plateau
c. Phase Three: Orgasm
i. Requires parasympathetic nervous system activity to move from phase 3
to 4
d. Phase Four: Resolution
e. Refractory period – a resetting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot
achieve another organism.
i. A woman’s refractory period is much shorter than a man’s.
16) Psychological influences
a. Exposure to stimulating conditions
b. Sexual fantasies
17) Social-cultural influences
a. Family and social values
18) Sexual orientation – an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one’s own
sex (homosexual orientation) or the other sex (heterosexual orientation).

The Need to Belong:

19) Affiliation Needs – the need to build relationships and feel part of a group; the need to
belong
a. Social bonds boosted our early ancestors’ chances of survival (evolutionary
perspective)
 b. Adults who formed attachments were more likely to survive, to reproduce, and to
co-nurture their offspring to maturity
c. Attachment bonds motivated caregivers to keep children close, calming them, and
protecting them from threats
d. Having a social identity – feeling part of a group – boosts people’s health and
well-being
e. By drawing a circle around “us”, the need to belong creates attachments to those
inside the circle, and hostilities to those outside.
20) Isolation can put us at risk for mental decline and ill health.
21) One study told have of the students that they were “the type likely to end up alone in life”
mor that the people they had met didn’t want them to be in a group that was forming
a. The other half were told the opposite.
b. Those who were ostracized were more likely to engage in self-defeating behaviors
and to act in disparaging or aggressive ways against those who had excluded
them.
22) Social media can serve as a social amplifier, and in times of crisis or stress, it provides
information and supportive connections
23) Narcissism – a personality trait in which people feel self-important, self-focused, and
self-promoting
a. “Self-esteem gone wild”
b. Normal range, and beyond that, there is a clinical range (narcissistic personality
disorder)
c. People with higher narcissism scores tend to be more active on social media sites.
24) There are also negative outcomes of social media use
a. Excessive online socializing and gaming have been correlated with lower grades
or increased anxiety and depression
25) Achievement motivation (NAch) – a desire for significant accomplishment, for mastery of
skills or ideas, for control and for attaining a high standard.
a. Researchers followed people in California in the top 1% for intelligence
i. Those with achievement motivation tended to be more successful
professionally
26) Grit – passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals
a. Academically, grit is more important than intelligence

UNIT 8B:

1) Emotion – a response of the whole organism involving physiological arousal, expressive

behaviors and conscious experience
2) Two Main Questions:
a. Does your bodily arousal come before or after your emotional feelings
b. How do thinking (cognition) and feeling interact
3) James Lange theory – the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our
physiological responses to an emotion-arousing stimulus: stimulus leads to arousal,
which leads to emotion.
a. Criticism:
i. Our arousal is the same all the time; it is too consistent to get dramatically
different emotions
4) Cannon-Bard theory – the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously
triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion
a. The thalamus plays a role in regulating this
b. Criticism:
i. The thalamus is more like the end of a road where there is a much of
different paths and you can decide where to travel; just a junction area
c. The amygdala is responsible for the instantaneous emotional response and the
cerebral cortex directs the response
i. Criticism: still doesn’t explain where emotion comes from
d. At the same time, the sympathetic nervous system sends signals to muscles and
other parts of the body
e. Schachter-Signer (or two factor) theory -
i. In the presence of a stimulus, two things happen
1. Physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal
ii. An emotional experience requires a conscious interpretation of arousal
iii. Spillover effect – arousal spills over from one event to the next
iv. Create an experience with four groups
1. The two control groups are injected with epinephrine, which helps
with vision. They are told it might cause arousal as a side-effect
a. Then they put these people in a waiting room with someone
who either acts very irritated or euphoric (one per each
group)
2. The other groups are injected with epinephrine, and told they it
helps with vision, but they are not told that it has any side effects.
They are then put in them in the waiting room with an irritated or
euphoric person.
3. Those who were told that there were no effects attributed the
emotion to the other person in the room.
f. On the other hand, Robert Zajonc believes that we actually have many emotional
reactions apart from, or even before, our conscious interpretation of a situation
i. Results from the high-road and the low-road of thinking
ii. Complex emotions like love travel a high road, where the signal travels
from the thalamus and the brain’s cortex
1. Here, thinking occurs before emotion
 iii. Simple emotions like likes, dislikes, and fears take a “low road” that
bypass the cortex
1. Emotion occurs before thinking
iv. This theory makes up the Zajonc-LeDoux theory
g. Richard Lazarus proposes that our brain processes a lot of information
unconsciously, and therefore, emotions can occur without conscious activity or
attention.
5) Brain regions can be responsible for different emotions
a. EX) the insula responds to negative social emotions, like disgust, lust, and pride.
i. On brain scans, it becomes active when people bit into disgusting food or
feel moral disgust at someone.
b. EX) in fearful situations, the amygdala becomes active
6) Polygraphs – measure emotion-linked autonomic arousal, as reflected in changed
breathing, heart rate, and perspiration.
a. Actually, measures arousal, which although may be linked to lying, does not
always work.
7) Non-verbal communication is important, like headshakes.
a. With angry faces, kids from abused households are faster to spot angry faces.
b. Reason why online communication may lead to more misunderstanding, because
we miss out on non-verbal cues
8) Still, with all our non-verbal communication, we struggle to detect lies
9) Duchenne – raised cheeks and activated muscles under the eyes suggest a natural smile
10) The amount of expression varies from culture to culture.
11) Facial feedback effect – the tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding
feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness.
a. If you smile, you will often feel happier
12) Stress – the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors,
that we appraise as threatening or challenging.
a. Stress is more the result of our appraisal than the event.
i. Threat – stressed to distraction
ii. Challenge – aroused/focused
b. Short-lived stress can be good for you
c. Pro-longed stress is not good for you
d. You have less stress as you get older
e. Three categories of stress:
i. Catastrophes – unpredictable large-scale events, like earthquakes, floods,
etc.
1. Suicide and mental health rates are affected
ii. Significant life changes – life transitions, like losing a loved one, can
become stressful life transitions
 iii. Daily Hassles – anything that impedes your progress on a task, reroutes
your plans, or causes you aggravation/anxiety
f. Stress is studying through spit tests that measure the hormone cortisol
g. Walter Cannon explains that we respond to stress with flight or fight
h. General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
i. Three stages
ii. If the stress is prolonged, we go through all three stages
iii. Alarm reaction, then resistance, and finally, exhaustion
13) Tend-and-befriend response – where women find comfort from stress in social situations
14) Health psychology – a subfield of psychology that provides psychology’s contribution to
behavior medicine.
15) Psychoneuroimmunology – the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine
processes together affect the immune system and resulting health.
16) Behavioral medicine – influences of behavior on stress
17) Stress doesn’t cause cancer, but it does refuse the efficiency of cells in the immune
system that fight off cancer.
18) Friedman and Rosenman discovered two types of personalities
a. Type A – the most reactive, competitive, hard-driving, impatient, time-conscious,
super-motivated, etc.
b. Type B – more easygoing and relaxed
c. More heart attacks were type A
19) When angry, certain physiological changes occur
20) Pessimists had double the change of coronary heart disease
21) Catharsis – an emotional release
a. Can as stress and anger management
b. However, some say it only makes us angrier
22) Social support – feeling liked and encouraged by intimate friends and family promotes
both happiness and health
a. Isolation is bad for us (ex. Pandemic)
b. Pet can provide social support
23) Exercise can help
a. Can lead to better brain development
24) Religiously active people tend to live longer than those who are not religiously active
a. More that religion fosters a community that reaches out
25) Feel-good do-good phenomenon
26) Positive psychology

Unit 10: