UNIT PREVIEW
Motivation is a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior. Under the influence of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the popular view was that instincts control behavior. Drive-reduction theory maintains that physiological needs create psychological drives that seek to restore internal stability, or homeostasis. In addition, some motivated behaviors increase arousal, and we are pulled by external incentives. According to Maslow, some motives are more compelling than others.
Hunger seems to originate from changes in glucose and insulin levels that are monitored by the hypothalamus, as well as changes in the levels of leptin, ghrelin, orexin, obestatin, and PYY. To control weight, the body also adjusts its basal metabolic rate. Body chemistry and environmental factors together influence our taste preferences. Psychological influences on eating behavior are evident in those who are motivated to be abnormally thin. In studying obesity, psychologists have found that a number of physiological factors make it difficult to lose weight permanently. Those who wish to diet should set realistic goals, minimize exposure to food cues, exercise, and make a lifelong change in eating patterns.
Like hunger, sexual motivation depends on the interplay of internal and external stimuli. In nonhuman animals, hormones help stimulate sexual activity. In humans, they influence sexual behavior more loosely. One’s sexual orientation seems neither willfully chosen nor willfully changed; new research links sexual orientation to biological factors.
The need to belong is a major influence in motivating human behavior. Social bonds boosted our ancestors’ survival rates. We experience our need to belong when feeling the gloom of loneliness or joy of love and when seeking social acceptance.
Click on link below for a Crash Course on Motivation:
Motivational Concepts
A motivation is a need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it toward a goal. The perspectives useful for studying motivated behavior include (1) instinct/evolutionary perspective, (2) drive-reduction theory, (3) arousal theory, and (4) Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Under Darwin’s influence, early theorists viewed behavior as being controlled by instincts, complex behaviors that are rigidly patterned throughout a species and are unlearned. When it became clear that people were naming, not explaining, various behaviors by calling them instincts, this approach fell into disfavor. The idea that genes predispose species-typical behavior is still influential in evolutionary psychology.
Drive-reduction theory proposes that most physiological needs create aroused psychological states that drive us to reduce or satisfy those needs. The aim of drive reduction is internal stability, or homeostasis. Furthermore, we are not only pushed by internal drives but are also pulled by external incentives. When there is both a need (hunger) and an incentive (smell of freshly baked bread), we feel strongly driven.
Arousal theory states that rather than reducing a physiological need or minimizing tension, some motivated behaviors increase arousal. Curiosity-driven behaviors, for example, suggest that too little or too much stimulation can motivate people to seek an optimum level of arousal.
The fourth perspective is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs expresses the idea that, until satisfied, some motives are more compelling than others. At the base of the hierarchy are our physiological needs, such as for food and water. Only if these are met are we prompted to meet our need for safety, and then to meet the uniquely human needs to give and receive love, to belong and be accepted, and to enjoy self-esteem. Beyond this lies the need to actualize one’s full potential. Near the end of his life, Maslow suggested that some people reach a level of self-transcendence in which they strive for meaning and purpose that is beyond the self, that is, transpersonal.
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Hunger
Although the stomach’s pangs contribute to hunger, variations in body chemistry are more important. Increases in the hormone insulin diminish blood glucose, partly by converting it to body fat. We do not consciously feel this change in blood chemistry. Rather, our body’s internal state is monitored by the hypothalamus, which regulates the body’s weight as it influences our feelings of hunger and fullness. Orexin is a hunger-triggering hormone secreted by the hypothalamus. Other hormones are monitored by the hypothalamus, including ghrelin (which is secreted by an empty stomach), obestatin (secreted by a full stomach), leptin (secreted by fat cells), and PYY (a digestive tract hormone). Activity in the lateral hypothalamus (sides of the hypothalamus) brings on hunger; activity in the ventromedial hypothalamus (the lower mid-hypothalamus) depresses hunger. Some researchers have abandoned the idea that the body has a precise set point—a biologically fixed tendency to maintain an optimum weight—preferring the term settling point to indicate an environmentally and biologically influenced level at which weight settles in response to caloric input and expenditure. Human bodies regulate weight through the control of food intake, energy output, and basal metabolic rate—the body’s resting rate of energy expenditure.
Part of knowing when to eat is our memory of our last meal. As time passes, we anticipate eating again and feel hungry.
Our preferences for sweet and salty tastes are genetic and universal. Other taste preferences are conditioned. Culture also affects taste. For example, Bedouins enjoy eating the eye of a camel, which most North Americans would find repulsive. Most North Americans also shun dog, rat, and horse meat, all of which are prized elsewhere. With repeated exposure, our appreciation for a new taste typically increases, and exposure to one set of novel foods increases willingness to try another. Some of our taste preferences, such as the avoidance of foods that have made us ill, have survival value.
We eat more when eating with others (through social facilitation). In addition, the size of food portions (called unit basis) and even of bowls, plates, and eating utensils affects how much we eat.
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder in which a normal-weight person (usually an adolescent female) diets to become significantly (15 percent or more) underweight, yet feels fat and is obsessed with losing weight.
Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by private, binge-purge episodes of overeating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise.
Binge-eating disorder is marked by significant binge-eating episodes followed by remorse but not by purging, fasting, or excessive exercise. In these disorders, challenging family settings and weight-obsessed societal pressures overwhelm the homeostatic drive to maintain a balanced internal state. Those most vulnerable to eating disorders are also those (usually women) who most idealize thinness and have the greatest body dissatisfaction. Low self-esteem and negative emotions that interact with stressful life experiences are additional contributing factors. Twin studies suggest that eating disorders may also have a genetic component.
Fat is an ideal form of stored energy. It is a high-calorie fuel reserve that can carry the body through periods of famine. In fact, where people face famine, obesity signals affluence and social status. However, the tendency to eat energy-rich fat or sugar becomes dysfunctional in a world of easily accessible food. Combined with a lack of exercise, the abundance of high-calorie food has led to higher rates of obesity, which raises the risk of illness and shortens life expectancy.
Obesity affects both how you are treated and how you feel about yourself. Obese people, especially obese women, experience weight discrimination in job hiring, placement, promotion, compensation, and discharge. Similarly, they experience bias in searching for a romantic relationship and experience lower psychological well-being.
Although genes influence body weight, they do not determine it. Some people are genetically predisposed to have more and larger fat cells than others, but in an obese person, the original fat cells double or triple in size and then divide or trigger nearby immature fat cells to divide—resulting in up to 75 billion fat cells. Once the number of fat cells increases, it never decreases. People also differ in their resting metabolic rates, and once someone gains fat tissue, less energy is needed to maintain that tissue than is needed to maintain other tissue. Unquestionably, environmental factors such as sleep loss, social influence, often eating high-calorie foods, and living a sedentary lifestyle also matter, as comparisons of similar people from different generations or different locations indicate.
Research indicates that most people who succeed on a weight-loss program eventually regain most of the weight. Those who wish to diet should set realistic goals, minimize exposure to food cues, boost energy expenditure through exercise, eat healthy foods spaced throughout the day, beware of the binge, and make a lifelong change in eating patterns.
When finished, go to http://edmodo.com and take the Unit 8A: 2 Quiz
Sexual Motivation
Click on link below for a Crash Course on Sexual Motivation:
The human sexual response cycle normally follows a pattern of excitement, plateau, orgasm (which seems to involve similar feelings and brain activity in males and females), and resolution, followed in males by a refractory period, during which renewed arousal and orgasm are not possible.
The sex hormones direct the physical development of male and female sex characteristics and, especially in nonhuman animals, activate sexual behavior. Although testosterone and the estrogens (such as estradiol) are present in both sexes, males have a higher level of testosterone and females a higher level of estrogen.
In humans, the hormones influence sexual behaviors more loosely, especially once sufficient hormone levels are present. In later life, as sex hormones decline, the frequency of sexual fantasies and intercourse also declines.
External stimuli, such as sexually explicit materials, can trigger arousal in both men and women, although the activated brain areas differ somewhat. Sexually coercive material tends to increase viewers’ acceptance of rape and violence toward women. Images of sexually attractive men and women may lead people to devalue their own partners and relationships. Our imaginations also influence sexual motivation.
About 95 percent of both men and women say they have had sexual fantasies. Fantasizing about sex does not indicate a sexual problem or dissatisfaction. If anything, sexually active people have more sexual fantasies.
Although physical maturation fosters a sexual dimension to adolescents’ emerging identity, sexual expression varies greatly with time and culture. Compared with European teens, American teens have a lower rate of contraceptive use and thus a higher pregnancy and abortion rate. Reasons for this failure include a lack of knowledge about sex and sexual health and a tendency to overestimate the sexual activity of their friends. Guilt related to sexual activity sometimes results in lack of planned birth control. When passion overwhelms intentions, the result may be conception. Often, there is minimal communication about birth control, as many teenagers are uncomfortable discussing contraception with either parents or partners. Sexually active teens also tend to use alcohol, which can break down normal restraints. Finally, television and movies foster sexual norms of unprotected promiscuity.
Unprotected sex has also led to increased rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Teenage girls, because of their less mature biological development and lower levels of protective antibodies, seem especially vulnerable to STIs. Attempts to protect teens through comprehensive sexeducation programs include a greater emphasis on teen abstinence.
Teens with high rather than average intelligence more often delay sex. Religiosity, father presence, and participation in service learning programs are also predictors of sexual restraint.
Sexual orientation is our enduring sexual attraction toward members of either our own sex (homosexual) or the other sex (heterosexual). Studies in both Europe and the United States suggest that about 3 or 4 percent of men and 1 or 2 percent of women are homosexual. Estimates derived from the sex of unmarried partners reported in the 2000 U.S. Census suggest that 2.5 percent of the population is gay or lesbian. Such studies also tell us that sexual orientation is enduring. Women’s sexual orientation tends to be less strongly felt and potentially more fluid and changing than men’s. Women are somewhat more likely than men to feel and act on bisexual attractions.
There is no evidence that environmental influences determine sexual orientation. No links have been found between homosexuality and a child’s relationships with parents, father-absent homes, fear or hatred of people of the other gender, levels of sex hormones currently in the blood, or childhood sexual experience. On the other hand, biological influences are evident in studies of same-sex relations in several hundred species, straight-gay differences in body and brain characteristics, genetic studies of family members and twins, and the effect of exposure to certain hormones during critical periods of prenatal development. Men who have older brothers are also somewhat more likely to be gay, about one-third more likely for each additional older brother. The reason for this phenomenon—called the fraternal birth-order effect—is unclear. Because the physiological evidence is preliminary and controversial, some scientists remain skeptical. Rather than specifying sexual orientation, they suggest, biological factors may predispose a temperament that influences sexuality “in the context of individual learning and experience.”
When finished, go to http://edmodo.com and take the Unit 8A: 3 Quiz
The Need to Belong
Social bonds boosted our ancestors’ survival rate. Adults who formed attachments were more likely to come together to reproduce and to stay together to nurture their offspring to maturity. Cooperation in groups also enhanced survival. People who feel supported by close relationships live with better health and at lower risk for psychological disorder and premature death. When relationships form, we often feel joy. Most people mention—before anything else—close relationships as making life meaningful. Even our self-esteem is a gauge of how valued and accepted we feel.
Attachments can keep people in abusive relationships as the fear of being alone may seem worse than the pain of emotional or physical abuse. When something threatens our social ties, negative emotions overwhelm us. When ostracized, people may engage in self-defeating or antisocial behaviors and underperform on aptitude tests. Ostracism elicits increased activity in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex, which is also activated by physical pain.
Varstiy Tudor Flashcards:
https://www.varsitytutors.com/ap_psychology-flashcards/theories-of-motivation
https://www.varsitytutors.com/ap_psychology-flashcards/biological-motives
https://www.varsitytutors.com/ap_psychology-flashcards/social-motives
https://www.varsitytutors.com/ap_psychology-flashcards/other-motivation-concepts
*Work Cited: All summary notes come from *Myers Pyschology for AP, Lecture Guides (2011 Worth Publishers)