Motivation and Emotion

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Chapter 13

• Motivation and Emotion

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Game Plan

• Basically, this chapter (and my lectures) focus
  on two related
• issues motivation and emotion.
• With respect to motivation, we will discuss what
  it is, and how
• it is relevant to our basic biological needs such
  as eating, sex,
• and aggression.
• The pleasure center story
• We will then turn to emotion and try to
  understand what roles
• emotions serve, and how they make come about.

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What is Motivation?
Motivation is often seen as the driving force
that moves us to perform some action. Stimuli
previously associated with pleasurable
consequences encourage an approach response in
the future. Those that were associated with
negative consequences support an avoidance
response. If you ever are deprived of some
reinforcing stimulation, you become especially
motivated to engage in activities that
may provide it you become especially motivated.
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Basic Biological Needs
There are certain things we need to survive
basically these things are air, food, water,
vitamins minerals, and protection from extremes
in temperature. If we are deprived of any of
these for very long, we are VERY motivated to
satisfy them as the text says, people have
killed others for food and when food is scarce,
the strong take it. We all possess certain
regulator behaviours that work to keep these
needs in check such as eating, drinking, building
shelter. The purpose of this behaviours is to
achieve a level of homeostasis in our system
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The Regulatory System
In order to keep our system at or near a
homeostatic level we require a system that has
certain characteristics (think of a
thermostat). The system variable is the
characteristic we wish to regulate The set
point is the optimal level for that variable.
We need a detector that can tell what the level
of the variable is at any given time.
And finally, we need a correctional mechanism
that restores the system to the set point when
it gets too far away from it.
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The Drive Reduction Hypothesis
The drive reduction hypothesis was one of the
first theories linking motivation to
reinforcement. According to it The
physiological changes that go along with being
deprived of a biological need are unpleasant
(e.g., being hungry or cold). This unpleasant
state that serves as a drive to seek a
stimulus that will eliminate the unpleasantness
(e.g., food or heat). When such a stimulus is
found, the drive is reduced, and this reduction
of the drive serves as negative reinforcement for
the behaviour that caused the reduction. As a
result, that behaviour is likely to be repeated.
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Pictorially
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Beyond Survival Needs
Clearly, we are not only motivated by those most
basic biological drives we are also motivated
to perform behaviours that do things other that
satisfying our basic needs. For example, why do
people listen to music, watch soap
operas, exercise, read, go to psychology class at
9 am? One of our strongest drives is a drive to
have sex. Believe it or not, you would not die
without sex so why are most of us so motivated
to get it? Reinforcement may explain many of
these behaviours (when done right, sex gives
positive reinforcement) but the strong
drive reduction notion seems not to explain them.
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Other Problems with Drive Reduction
There are two other problems with the drive
reduction hypothesis. First, there is no
independent way to measure drive. Without some
independent way to measure it, it is very hard to
do proper experiments to test the
hypothesis. Second, many of our behaviours seem
not to be directly aimed at reducing drive. For
example, if drive reduction were the whole story,
there would be no foreplay foreplay increases
arousal (and drive), it doesnt decrease it.
Other behaviours also fall into this category,
all of which cause problems for drive reduction.
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Physiological Basis of Reinforcement
Clearly, from what weve talked about already,
motivation has a lot to do with
reinforcement. How does reinforcement work?
What makes us like or want certain experiences
over others? One answer to this lies in the
pleasure center things we typically
associated with being good tend to excite this
pleasure center somehow that center makes us
feel very good. It appears that a
neurotransmitter called dopamine may also play a
role as pleasureable experiences are typically
linked with a release of dopamine perhaps it is
the drug that causes excitation of the pleasure
center.
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Optimum-Level Theory
A potential complication in all this is that a
certain behaviour or activity may be highly
desirable sometimes, but not so desirable at
others. That is, there are times when we want to
do certain exciting activities (say, go out
dancing) and there are other times when we would
rather just relax. One explanation of this comes
from optimum-level theory which states that we
all have an optimum level of arousal when
our current level of arousal is below this level
we will seek stimulation, when our current level
is above the optimum we will avoid stimulation.
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Perseverance Learned Helplessness
Why do some people persevere in some tasks even
when they are seldom reinforced, whereas others
give up? The text mentions a number of ways in
which perseverance is linked to reinforcement
I will focus on just one section. A number of
studies with animals have shown that when an
animal is exposed to some unavoidable negative
experience (e.g., shock), it will learn that it
is helpless to avoid it. After it has learned
this helplessness, it will be less likely to
try to avoid future negative experiences, even
when those experience are avoidable it will
learn to be helpless.
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Detailed Examinations
At this point, the text goes on to examine the
link between motivation and a number of human
behaviours. Specifically, it focuses on eating
behaviour, sexual behaviour, and aggressive
behaviour. We will not be discussing all of
these in class rather, we will focus on the one
that is most likely to keep your attention and
get you thinking you guessed it SEX!
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Sexual Behaviour
Sexual behaviour is an interesting topic because
sex is one of the few things that we are strongly
motivated to attain, but that is not a basic
biological need. Why is does the motivation for
sex tend to be so strong? Well, although an
individual does not need to have sex to survive,
the species needs individuals to have sex if the
species is to survive. Thus, we are likely the
descendants of humans who, for some reason, were
motivated to have sex. Those individuals had a
much higher likelihood of reproductive success
and therefore played the strongest role in the
gene pool we come from.
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Those Dastardly Hormones
In humans, especially in men, sexual drive and
performance is largely the function of
testosterone levels. Early in development, this
hormone has organizational effects in that in
controls the development of sexual
organs. Post-puberty, it has what are called
activation effects, meaning in controls the
activation of the male genitals. Men with low
levels of testosterone have difficulties
obtaining erections, or orgasms. In no
testosterone is generated, sexual drive will
disappear.
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Testosterone, Women Homosexuals
Interestingly, testosterone also effects womens
sexual experience women who receive an
injection of testosterone prior to sex feel that
certain critical parts of their bodies are more
sensitive, and the general sexual experience is
better. What happens if you give a male
homosexual testosterone, will he suddenly become
interested in women? Not at all, he will feel
more driven to have a sexual interaction, but the
interaction he seeks will still be in line with
his sexual orientation
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Sex Women
For most animal species, the females are only
receptive to sex when that sex will have a good
chance of leading to conception sex is for
procreation purposes only. However, when the
female is ready for sex, she is often
the instigator for example female rats will
wiggle their ears at male rats which, apparently,
drives the male rats crazy! Human women (and
Dolphins at least) are not like this instead
they are sometimes willing to have sex for
pleasure. One theory says that this human female
perspective is critical for supporting monogamous
relationships.
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The Role of Female Hormones
While female sex hormones (e.g., Progesterone
Estrogen) do seem to play a role in the sexual
drive and behaviour of many animal species, they
do not seem to play as strong a role (if any) for
human females. One theory about this is that the
human female sexual response is so complicated
(i.e., it involves things like affection and
love) that other factors override the affects of
the hormones (all studies were conducted with
married couples). Perhaps these hormones would
have a stronger affect if tested on unattached
women seeking sex for pleasure.
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Sexual Orientation
Most humans have a natural attraction towards
members of the opposite sex which seems
reasonable if the goal is procreation. However,
some individuals are attracted to same-sex
partners. Such homosexual behaviour also occurs
in animals, though there is much less exclusive
homosexuality in animals instead the majority
of animals that engage in homosexual acts are
actually bi-sexual. In humans, more people
attest to being exclusively homosexual than to
being bi-sexual.
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Homosexuality Nature or Nurture

• Is an attraction towards same-sex partners
  something that people
• are born with or is it something that is either
  learned or chosen?
• A firm answer to this question is not yet
  available, but what
• evidence is available points to a biological
  foundation.
• incorrectness of parenting theories
• onset of feelings studies
• twin studies
• link to early gender-specific behaviours
• weird logic of the choice notion
• This all suggests that homosexuality is really
  just an alternate
• set-up of the human system and should not be
  viewed as wrong.

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Chapter 13 - Part 2

• Emotion

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Motivation Emotion
Throughout most of the chapter so far we have
been focussing on the issue of what motivates us
to perform certain behaviours. Typically,
motivating events also produce an emotional
reaction in addition to a motivational one. In
fact, the emotional reaction may go hand in hand
with the physiological changes (or, perhaps,
expected physiological changes) that serve as the
reinforcement underlying motivation. Thus,
emotion and motivation do go hand in hand for
the next little while we will focus on the
emotion side of this union.
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Emotion

• Emotions are clearly the spice of life it truly
  is better to have loved and lost than never to
  have loved.
• Usually when we think of emotions we think of
  feelings which are often very complex and
  difficult to describe
• compare being in love with winning the lottery
• Psychologist typically think of emotions as
  containing three
• components
• Behavioural component --gt muscular movements
• Autonomic component --gt sympathetic nervous
  system
• Hormonal component --gt work to support autonomic

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An Example of the Behavioural Component
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Conditioned Emotional Responses

• Many of our emotional responses are actually
  learned via
• conditioning.
• The textbook describes one example of this, but I
  will give you another my one time fear of dogs.
• Direct experience is not always necessary to
  condition emotional responses, sometimes stories
  or movies can do it as well.
• e.g., JAWS!
• Conditioned emotional responses can become
  unconditioned
• (i.e., extinguished) as can any conditioned
  response but they sometimes are harder to
  extinguish.

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Fear, Stress, the Amygdala
One brain region called the amygdala seems
especially important with respect to conditioned
fear or stress responses. Damage to this region
causes animals to no longer show any fear or
stress to stimuli that had been earlier paired
with aversive events. They also are more
comfortable being handled by humans and release
less stress hormones. Conversely, if the
amygdala is stimulated in some fashion, animals
show signs of fear, and are more likely to suffer
from stress related problems (e.g., ulcers)
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Emotion, Personality Orbitofrontal

• Another, now infamous, part of the brain related
  to emotional
• responses is the orbitofrontal cortex.
• The first case of a human with damage to this
  area is the story
• of a railroad worker from the 1800s named Phineas
  Gage.
• story emphasizing personality change.
• This area was then highlighted again as a result
  of a monkey
• study showing that removal of the frontal lobes
  appeared to reduce extreme emotional reactions in
  a rowdy monkey.
• This lead a neuropsychiatrist named Egas Moniz to
  suggest that
• a similar procedure might be used on humans ...

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Frontal Lobotomy
The refined version of Moniz procedure came to
be known as frontal lobotomy. The procedure
basically involves severing the frontal lobes
from the rest of the brain sometimes simply by
sticking a spatela up there and swishing it
around (nice thought eh?). This procedure was
very popular for a while (see One Flew Over the
Cuckoos Nest) as it most definitely does stop
any strong emotional reactions. However, it was
eventually discovered that it was not the
cure that was claimed patients have huge
problems with planning and with performing
socially appropriate behaviors despite seeming
to know what those behaviours would be.
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Lie Detectors
As mentioned earlier, emotions often go
hand-in-hand with physiological changes. This
leads to the possible of detecting emotions by
measuring physiological states. Thus, if people
feel bad, guilty, or threatened when they lie,
these emotions could lead to physiological
changes that could be detected (e.g., Hugh
Grant). This is the basic logic underlying
lie-detectors which measure such things as heart
rate and the electro-conductivity of the skin
(GSR) as potential perps are questioned.
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The Control Question Test

• One methodology used with lie detector apparatus
  is to first ask
• the suspect to give some set yes/no answer (say
  no) to simple
• questions where the correct answer is known.
• e.g. Monday is the day after Tuesday, right?
• With those control questions, the investigator
  can then, supposedly, identify the physiological
  patterns for a given individual when the lie
  versus when they tell the truth.
• They then ask them crime-related questions and
  compare their
• physiological responses when they answer to those
  associated
• with lying or telling the truth.

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Problems with Control Question Test
It seems that interpreting the data acquired
using the control question test is as much an art
as a science that is, deciding whether a
physiological response is more like a truth or a
lie. Often everyone appears to lie a fair amount
because pointed questions to someone hooked to a
lie-detector make them very nervous, and this
also leads to physiological changes that
may resemble those associated with lying. Not
surprisingly then, this technique produces a high
number of false alarms (concluding someone is
lying when they are not) hence the
inadmissibility of lie detector data.
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The Guilty Knowledge Test

• Recently, a new methodology has been devised that
  may provide quite convincing evidence of guilt in
  certain situations.
• In this test, the suspect is asked a number of
  multiple-choice
• questions about the crime with respect to
  evidence that only the crime investigators and
  the criminal would know about.
• e.g., hat left behind at crime scene
• If the suspect consistently shows the strongest
  emotional reaction to the correct alternative,
  that would suggest he is the criminal.
• Works best if conducted double-blind. That is,
  if the person
• asking the questions does not know the right
  answer.

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Theories of Emotion
Cannon-Baird Theory emotion comes at
same time as the physiological
response. James-Lang Theory emotion
comes AFTER the physiological response
in interpreted. Schacters two-factor
theory. This James-Lang notion is at least
partially supported by studies examining patients
with spinal cord damage the higher the damage,
the more the loss of emotion ... sort of.
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Emotional Homeostasis
Another notion I always liked that is not
presented in the textbook is the notion of
emotional homeostasis. The idea is that just
like many other things, we have some optimal
level of emotionality that we try to sustain. If
some event or stimulus pushes our emotionality
one way or the other, processes kick in that try
to counteract the effect. If the original
stimulus suddenly disappears, the counteracting
effect can then result in a temporarily reversed
emotional state. This idea was originally used
to explain risk-taking behaviours to me
like skydiving.
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Relevant Websites
For more on motivation http//choo.fis.utoront
o.ca/FIS/Courses/LIS1230/LIS1230sharma/motive1.htm
For more on emotion http//trochim.human.corn
ell.edu/gallery/young/emotion.htmemotions http/
/curly.cc.utexas.edu/ad382jv/ea/definition.html
http//zzyx.ucsd.edu/archer