Week 7 - Chapter 8: Motivation and Emotion: What Guides Our Behavior?

What is a motive? A motive is the tendency to desire and seek out positive incentives and rewards and to avoid negative outcomes.

How Do Psychologists View Motivation? William James that most motives were inborn instincts. According to the drive reduction theory, primary drives maintain homeostasis. Arousal theories suggest that we all have different optimal levels of arousal. Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs in which some needs take priority over others.

Hunger: What Makes Us Eat? Receptors in the stomach monitor the intake of food and contractions of the stomach, and signal the brain when to make us hungry or to shut off hunger. Obesity can be caused by biological factors, such as a slow metabolism, as well as a number of behavioral factors, such as poor diet, excessive food intake, and emotional eating. Eating disorders:anorexia nervosa involves extreme concern about gaining weight and reduction in caloric intake that leads to drastic weight loss. Bulimia nervosa involves bingeing on food followed by purging or drastic reduction in caloric intake to rid the body of the extra calories. Binge eating disorder involves bingeing on food without compensatory measures to rid the body of extra calories.

Sexual Desire: is influenced by neurotransmitters, hormones, sensory ques, and cultural attitudes. The sexual response cycle includes excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution phases. Sexual orientation can be heterosexual (other sex), bisexual (both sexes), or homosexual (same sex). Homophobia is prejudice against homosexuals and bisexuals. \

Theories & Expression of Emotion Components of emotion include physiological reactions, behavioral reactions, facial expressions, cognition, and affective response. Theories of Emotion include the James-Lange theory (emotion is a physiological response to a stimulus) Cannon-Bard theory (emotion occurs in the brain, response to a situation), facial feedback hypothesis (emotion occurs by the feedback the brain receives from muscles in the face), two-factor theory (emotions are a product of both physiological arousal and cognitive interpretations of this arousal), and the cognitive-meditational theory (cognitive appraisal of a situation determines what emotion we feel). Basic emotions include happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are present across cultures. Display rules determine the appropriate expression of emotion in a culture. This week is continued on Week 7 - Chapter 9: How Do People Grow, Change, and Develop?

A Fun Little Diagram of Theories of Emotion :)
Courtesy of http://employees.csbsju.edu/ltennison/PSYC111/M&E.htm.