Biological and Social Motives and Emotion

Biological Motives Some behavior is determined by the internal, or physiological, state Humans have certain survival needs We have built-in regulating systems to help us maintain internal processes Body temperature Level of sugars in blood system Production of hormones This tendency for organisms to correct imbalances is known as homeostasis

Hunger What motivates you to seek food? Smell? Habit? Social calls? What is it that causes your body to respond? Lateral hypothalamus (LH) If stimulated an animal will eat, even after just having a large meal If removed, an animal will stop eating and eventually starve to death Thus, the lateral hypothalamus provides signals that tell you when to eat Ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) If stimulated, an animal will slow down or stop eating even if it has been kept from a meal If removed, the animal will eat everything in sight Thus, the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) provides the signal of when to stop eating

Other Factors Psychosocial hunger factors External cues that affect where, when and what we eat. Smell and appearance In a social group Social pressures Not eating so you can look like a model Boredom or stress Habits Eating at same time everyday Popcorn at the movies Can contribute to eating disorders

Obesity May include a genetic component of predisposition Defined as 30% or more above his/her ideal body weight Different than overweight, which is 20% over his/her ideal body weight ⅓ of Americans are obese Respond to external cues, not because they are hungry Normal weight individuals respond to internal cues Insufficient level of exercise Anxiety or depression not a factor due to similar conditions in both obese and normal weight individuals

Social Motives Learned from our interactions with others Measuring the need for achievement Concerns the desire to set challenging goals and to persist in trying to reach those goals despite obstacles This motivation has been well researched via David McClelland who sought to find a quantitative way of measuring social motives Developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT Test) Series of pictures that participants are told to tell a story for No right or wrong answers Ranked high or low based on achievement imagery Followed careers of participants and found 83% who became entrepreneurs scored high, while only 21% of the non entrepreneurs had scored high Critics claim TAT unreliable, difficult to score thoughts/feelings objectively

Fear of Failure While some are motivated through achievement, others fear failure Quitting music lessons when improvement seems difficult Displayed by people who choose easy tasks offering assured success or impossible tasks with no chance of success They will either success or blame the difficulty of the task People motivated by fear of failure often find excuses to poor performances Helps to maintain self-image Poor grade on a test is due to lack of sleep rather than lack of study

Fear of Success as a Motivation Matina Horner Study 89 men to write a story with this prompt: “After first term finals, John finds himself at the top of his medical school class.” 90 women were given the same task with the name Anne in place of John. 90% of the men wrote success stories/65% of the women doomed Anne Era of the study, women were raised to view women in a man’s occupation as a failure as a woman Replicated studies display too many confounding variables When readjusted to account for variances, studies showed both men and women expressed fear of success 45%-49% repectively

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Maslow, pioneer of humanistic psychology Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Fundamental base Second level are psychological needs Top level are self-actualizing needs

Emotions When we want to emphasize the need or desire that leads to goal-directed behavior, we use the word motivation. When we want to stress the feelings associated with these decisions, we use the word emotion. The two, however, are intertwined. Sometimes our emotions function like biological drives- our feelings energize us and make us pursue a goal. Other times we do things because we think it will make us feel good- anticipated emotions are an incentive for our actions. Many psychologists talk about emotional intelligence- the ability to perceive, imagine and understand emotions in order to use them in decision making.

Expressing Emotion An emotion is a subjective feeling provoked by real or imagined objects or events Emotions result from four occurrences: You must interpret some stimulus You have a subjective feeling (fear, happy) You experience physiological responses (increased heart rate) You display observable behavior (smile or cry) All emotions have 3 parts Physical- how it affects physical arousal of an individual Behavioral- outward expression of the emotion (body language, hand gestures) Cognitive- how we think or interpret a situation which affects our emotions (friendly, hostile)

Universal Emotion Charles Darwin “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” All people express certain basic feelings in the same ways Regardless of language Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth (1972) Study Showed photographs to people from 5 different cultures that depicted surprise, anger, sadness, and happiness Asked participants to indicate what the person in each photograph was feeling Majority of participants were able to accurately identify emotion Certain basic facial expressions are innate

Physiological Theories James-Lange Theory Bodily reactions (heart rate, tears) form the basis of labeling and experiencing emotions Critics of James-Lange Theory claim some emotions are not necessarily associated with different physiological reactions (fear and sadness may cause same bodily reaction) Cannon-Bard Theory Claimed the thalamus (part of lower brain) is the seat of emotion Certain experiences activate the thalamus, which sends messages to the cortex and other organs The brain sends two reactions- arousal and experience of emotion, but one does not cause the other Emotions, therefore, refer to the simultaneous burst of brain activity

Cognitive Theories Cognitive theories believe that bodily changes and thinking work together to produce emotions. Schachter-Singer Experiment Internal components of an emotion (such as ones produced by adrenaline) affect a person differently, depending on his/her interpretation of the social situation. When people cannot explain their physical reactions, they take cues from their environment Perception and arousal interact to create emotions Critics claim you do not need arousal to feel an emotion, stating that sometimes you feel an emotions and then your body reacts. If you realize your wallet was stolen, you become angry and then react with anger