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Psychology Chapter 5 - Mechanisms of Motivation and Emotion
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Psychology Chapter 5 - Mechanisms ofMotivation and Emotion
General principles of motivation - ANS-Motivation - the entire constellation of factors,
some inside the organism and some outside, that cause an individual to behave in a
particular way at a particular time.
A more precise label for the topic at hand is "motivational state", or "drive". Genes,
learning, physiological variables, perceptual and thought processes, developmental
variables, social experiences, and personality characteristics all have a role in
motivation.
Drives in psychology are considered hypothetical constructs because they can't be
directly observed.
How do drives and incentives (a) complement one another and (b) influence one
another in their contributions to motivation? - ANS-Motivated behavior is directed toward
incentives, the sought-after objects or ends that exist in the external environment.
Incentives are also called reinforcers, rewards, or goals.
The motivational state that leads you to stand in line at the cafeteria is presumably
hunger, but the incentive for doing so is the sandwich you intend to purchase. Drives
and incentives complement one another in the control of behavior; if one is weak, the
other must be strong to motivate the goal-directed action.
Drives and incentives not only complement each other but also influence each other's
strength. A strong drive can enhance the attractiveness (incentive value) of a particular
object: If you are very hungry, even a sandwich that isn't tasty might seem attractive.
Conversely, a strong incentive can strengthen a drive: The savory aroma of food might
increase your hunger drive as you wait in line, and this in turn might induce you to eat
something that previously wouldn't have interested you if, by the time you get to the
buffet table, your favorite sandwiches are gone.
Drives that help preserve homeostasis - how is the concept of homeostasis related to
that of drive? How is this relationship demonstrated in the case of a little boy who
craved salt? - ANS-Walter B. Cannon pointed out that maintaining homeostasis involves
the organism's outward behavior as well as its internal processes.
To stay alive, individuals must find and consume foods, salt, and water and must
maintain their body temperature through such means as finding shelter. Cannon
,theorized that the basic physiological underpinning for some drives is a loss of
homeostasis, which acts on the nervous system to induce behavior designed to correct
the imbalance.
Removal of the adrenal glands causes an animal to lose too much salt in its urine. This
loss of salt dramatically increases the animal's drive to seek out and eat extra salt,
which keeps the animal alive as long as salt is available (Stricker, 1973; (Stricker &
Verbalis, 2012).
The force of homeostasis in human behavior was dramatically and 366 poignantly
illustrated by the clinical case of a boy, referred to as "D. W.", who when 1 year old
developed a great craving for salt (Wilkins & Richter, 1940). When salt was denied him,
he would cry until his parents gave in.
D. W. survived until the age of 3 1/2, when he was hospitalised for other
symptoms/illness and placed on a standard hospital diet. The hospital staff would not
yield to his demands for salt, and he died within a few days. An autopsy revealed that
his adrenal glands were deficient; only then did D. W.'s doctors realize that his salt
craving came from physiological need.
What is the distinction between regulatory and nonregulatory drives? -
ANS-Psychologists distinguished between two general classes of drives: 1.
Regulatory drive - any motivational state that helps preserve homeostasis and is
necessary for survival.
2. Non-regulatory drive - any motivational state that serves some function other than
that of preserving some constancy of the body's internal environment.
A functional classification of mammalian drives - ANS-1. Regulatory drives - promote
survival by helping to maintain the body's homeostasis e.g hunger
2. Safety drives - motivate an animal to avoid, escape, or fend off dangers such as
precipices, predators, or enemies e.g fear, anger, sleep.
3. Reproductive drives - sexual drive and the drive to care for young once they are born.
Animals (including people) will risk their lives to mate and to protect their offspring. 4.
Social drives - mammals require the cooperation of others to survive. The social drives
include the drives for friendship and for acceptance and approval by the social groups of
which one is a part.
5. Educative drives - drives to play and to explore (curiosity). The young of nearly all
social mammals practice life-sustaining skills through play, and mammals of all ages
acquire useful information about their environment by exploring novel objects and
territories.
, Human drives that seem not to promote survival or reproduction: what are two possible
explanations of the universal human drives for art, music, and literature? - ANS-Humans
like to produce and experience art, music, and literature, etc. There is no firm answer as
to why we have these drives.
One view is that the pursuits of art, music, and literature are natural extensions of our
drives for play and exploration. They can exercise perceptual and motor skills,
imagination, and creative thinking in ways that may be useful in future real-life situations
and can also provide us with ideas for governing our own lives.
They help our minds to grow during periods when there are no more pressing survival
needs that must be fulfilled. It may also enhance one's status in a social group and
impress members of the opposite sex, which would have had survival value for our
ancestors.
A somewhat different (but not incompatible) view, presented by Steven Pinker (1997), is
that art, music, and literature appeal to us not because we have special drives for them
but because they tap into many of our already existing drives and proclivities, which
evolved for other purposes.
For example, a book or movie appeals to our drives for sex, love, social esteem,
parenting, achievement, and aggression. These pursuits enrich our lives immensely;
they extend us beyond evolution's narrow dictates of mere survival and reproduction.
Define central-state theory drives - ANS-Proposes that the most direct physiological
bases for motivational states, or drives, lie in neural activity in the brain. According
to most versions of this theory, different drives correspond to activity in different,
localisable sets of neurons.
Central drive system - ANS-According to the central-state theory of drives, a set of
neurons in the brain that, when active, most directly promotes a specific motivational
state, or drive
Drives as states of the brain - ANS-Although the central drive systems for different
drives must vary from one another, they may have overlapping components. For
example, because hunger and sex are different drives, the neural circuits for them
cannot be identical. If they were, hunger and sex would always occur in tandem; the
drives would always rise and fall together. But their respective circuits may share
components that produce behavioral effects common to both drives, such as increased
alertness.
In theory, what characteristics must a set of neurons have to function as a central drive
system? - ANS-For a set of neurons to serve as a central drive system, first, it must
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