Download VI. The Nature of Emotion

Psychology:
The Science of Behavior
By Carlson & Buskit, 5th ed.
Outline of Chapter 13:
Motivation and Emotion pp. 412-44
Outlined by Jeremy Cox
I.
Introduction
A. Olds and Milner 1973 (p414)
1. Investigating “Aversive Effects” of electrode stimulation in brain
2. Misplaced electrode had rewarding effects – more like addictive effects
B. Humans demonstrate inconsistency in behavior
1. These inconsistencies are demystified by considering motivation.
2. Book definition: Motivation is a general term for a group of phenomena that
affect the nature, strength, and persistence of the behavior. (p415)
a) nature of behavior
b) strength of behavior
c) persistence of behavior
3. Say What? Carlson considers two types of phenomena:
a) Stimuli that were associated with pleasant or unpleasant events
motivate approach or avoidance behaviors.
b) Deprivation of a reinforcer increases particular behaviors.
4. This explanation is awkward, backward, and overly verbose. We would all
think of motivation as the internal factor(s) affecting behavior. Carlson has said
this in a roundabout way, putting the details first.
5.
Motivation is
a) the internal representation of operant conditioning
b) the internal drive to fulfill needs (or to respond to “deprivation”).
6. Book admits a focus on behavioral and physiological aspects of motivation
a) external stimuli
b) internal changes
II. What is Motivation?
A. Opening comments
1. Motivation cannot be separated from reinforcement and punishment.
2. Motivation IS the drive to perform behaviors
a) to gain or keep from losing a reinforcer
b) to avoid or escape a punisher
B. Biological Needs
1. The book never defines need, but implies it:
Need – a behavior necessary to correct/return abnormal physical conditions to
homeostatic conditions. (see regulatory behavior)
2. Homeostasis is the process of detecting and correcting abnormal physical
conditions. (This triggers regulatory behaviors, or the needed behaviors.)
3. Biological needs are powerful motivators and include air, food, water,
nutrients, and protection from extremes in temperature.
4. Four parts to regulatory systems (Figure 13.1)
a) System variable
b) Set point (optimum value)
c) Detector
d) Correctional mechanism(s)
5. negative feedback – feedback (from increase) triggers a lowering of
response; this regulatory (p416)
a) contrast to positive feedback, where increase triggers an increase
response (like an immune response)
6. drive – a condition that energizes an organism’s behavior
7. drive reduction hypothesis – having needs is unpleasant, drives organism to
behavior (Figure 13.2)
8. d.r.h. criticized for two reasons
a) drive is difficult to measure
b) many behaviors increase drive (e.g. desire to continue talking with
friend, want to ride the rollercoaster again.)
C. Physiology of Reinforcement (Figure 13.3)
1. The brain system Olds and Milner tapped is the system that strengthens
connections between a stimulus and the operant response (for all reinforcers)
2. This system releases dopamine. All reinforcing stimuli seem to trigger the
release of dopamine. (See Figure 13.4)
D. Optimum Level Theory (p417)
1. Idea that drive reflects a return to an “optimum level of arousal”
a) Thus, increases and decreases in drive are both accommodated by
this theory
b) Arousal too high, lowering arousal is reinforcing
c) Arousal too low, increasing arousal is reinforcing
d) This accommodates the idea of satiety
2. Arousal and drive are hard to measure, as in drive reduction hypothesis.
E. Perseverance (p418)
1. perseverance – the tendency to perform a behavior when it is not being
reinforced
2. recall intermittent reward schedules require long times for extinction
3. conditioned reinforcement – stimuli that are associated with reinforcers can
become reinforcers themselves
a) a behavior is said to be self-reinforcing
b) similar to adage, “work is its own reward”
c) e.g. if you praise a child for writing nice letters, writing nice letters
will become its own reward
4. Overmeier and Seligman (1967) basic experiment of dog trapped and
receives shocks. Does not try to avoid shocks when no longer trapped (p419)
5. Maier and Seligman (1976) – learned helplessness (failure to persist?)
a) This case is unique because learning in this case is not about operant
behavior, but specifically a learned lack of behavior.
b) Learned helplessness is important because it is associated with
depression lower motivation in general
c) Critics say that learned helplessness is merely a failure to perceive
that the situation has changed. That is, the dogs are too stupid to realize
they are no longer tied up and can TRY to avoid the shock.
III. Eating (p420)
A. Opening Comments
1. Eating is very important, often very pleasurable. Powerful motivator.
a) Starving people often kill for food.
2. Large amounts of animal behavior is dedicated to eating
a) strong evolutionary force
3. We would expect eating to be the regulatory response triggered by a lower
amount of nutrients that is optimal, BUT this does not seem to be the case; many
factors trigger eating and the cessation of eating.
B. What Starts a Meal?
1. The same factors that start a meal are not the same as those that end it. Nor
are hunger and satiety the only two factors.
2. Cultural and Social Factors
a) Quantity & timing influenced by habit (not just biological need)
b) Hunger will wax and wane according to schedule (even if you miss a
meal!)
c) What is considered food is cultural (clotted seal blood loved by
Eskimos)
d) Environmental behavior triggers
3. Physiological Factors (p421)
a) Hunger is not related to how much one has eaten
b) Mayer, 1955: Glucostatic hypothesis
1) Neurons in brain (glucostats) trigger hunger based on blood
glucose levels.
2) Would be responsible for eating (corrective behavior)
c) Turns out there are two nutrient detectors: glucose, fatty acids
1) Glucose detectors in liver
2) Fatty acid detectors throughout the body
C. What Stops a Meal?
1. It takes longer than the time to feel full to begin to absorb nutrients
2. short term controls (to stop feeding/end a meal)
a) satiety main trigger to stop eating (a full stomach)
b) humans often learn to ignore biological signals
c) stomach can sense both its volume and the “quality” (chemical
nature) of its contents (p422)
d) e.g. injecting salt water or milk into rats’ stomachs will change how
much they eat (based on nutritional value alone, not volume)
3. long term controls (modulate overall eating behaviors)
a) exercise will lower nutrients, trigger more eating
b) eating more nutritious food will result in eating less
c) ob mouse (the monstrously obese mouse) (See Figure 13.6) (p423)
1) leptin identified as protein messenger that fat cells secrete to signal
how “fat” they are. High leptin decreses hunger and raises metabolism.
2) leptin appears to act in the brain
D. Obesity
1. Why doesn’t the leptin control work in obese people?
2. Obesity does not appear to be a symptom of depression, impulse, or any
other psychological factor
3. Overall, obesity is a metabolic disorder, not an eating disorder.
4. A slow metabolism is an evolutionary advantage that results in obesity in
an industrial (unlimited food supply) context (p424)
5. Diets actually INTENSIFY obesity – body learns to better conserve food –
the “yo-yo” effect
6. speculation that one cause of obesity is a deficient or inefficient leptin
receptor
E. Anorexia Nervosa
1. Anorexia Nervosa – eating disorder where fear of being obese decreases
eating behavior (although food related behaviors such as baking and collecting
recipes often increase.) *usually affects young women
2. Bulimia – eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by purging
(by vomiting or laxatives); usually associated with depression and guilt
3. 1 in 30 die of disorder; osteoporosis, ceasing to menstruate, loss of brain
tissue are other symptoms (p425)
4. Evidence supports hereditary factors, scientists suspect social factors
(stereotype of ultra-thin beauty)
5. Progesterone and estradiol can modulate feeding behaviors – not yet
demonstrated in humans
IV. Sexual Behavior (p426)
A. Opening Comments
1. Sex is powerful motivator
2. Sex is not a biological need
3. Behaviors based on some instinct, primarily experience.
B. Effects of Hormones on Behavior
1. Hormones regulate sexual processes in body (such as sperm production)
2. Hormones DO NOT cause behavior, they modulate motivation
3. Effects of Androgens
a) Organizational effect – a hormone acts (usually in prenatal
environment) and produces permanent changes that alter the
development of the organism
b) Activational effect – hormones activate sex organs and brain circuits
that have already developed
c) Testosterone is responsible for libido as well as its intensity
d) Testosterone does not determine “object of affection”
(homosexuality, etc.) (p427)
e) Environment can trigger changes in testosterone as can anticipation
f) In humans, sexual activity is not limited to coitus. (Caressing,
kissing, etc. still count. Foreplay and making out are examples.)
g) Woman are affected by Testosterone, increases libido and pleasure
of sexual experience
4. Effects of Progesterone and Estrogen
a) These hormones rise and fall, controlling menstrual cycle (estrous
cycle in non-primate mammals)
b) Estrous females will only allow copulation during high levels of
estradiol and progesterone, the female may even pursue (i.e. attempt to
“seduce”) mates
c) Primate females unique in receptivity to intercourse during anytime
during menstrual cycle.
1) Some suggest this is the evolutionary source of monogamy.
d) Research shows human female’s libido influenced only a small part
by progesterone and estradiol levels
1) Researches note this data comes primarily from married couples
2) Extraneous variable of “marital duties” come in
e) What if the human female were solely responsible for the choice to
engage in sexual behavior?
C. Sexual Orientation
1. What are the causes of heterosexual and homosexual attraction?
a) Prenatal
b) Genetic
2. Other homosexual behavior is observed in some animals, Humans are only
mammal to show exclusive homosexuality (# homosexuals > # bisexuals)
3. Psychoanalysis gave us the idea that homosexuality is a result of home
environment. (This does not seem to be the case, nor is research valid) (p428)
4. It is difficult to separate the confound of social treatment due to sexual
orientation from sexual orientation when measuring adjustment or other
“psychological health” indices
5. Bell, Weinberg, and Hammersmith:
a) Homosexuality seems to be predetermined to adolescence.
b) Homosexual adolescents find heterosexual contact unrewarding.
c) Strong relationship exists between gender nonconformity in
childhood and adult homosexuality
6. Seems to be due to biological factors.
a) Prenatal development suggested as cause
b) Brain regions (in hypothalamus) seem to be affected differently
7. Women (genetic males) with androgen insensitivity syndrome (p429)
a) Have female genitalia
b) Puberty is induced with supplements, women seem to be in all
respects normal, save lacking ovaries.
8. Homosexuality in twins
a) Concordant – second twin is homosexual like first (opposed to
discordant)
b) Identical twins – 52% concordant rate; fraternal twins – 22%
V.
Aggressive Behavior (p430)
A. Opening Comments
1. violence and cruelty major human problems
2. factors include: childhood, violence in media, peer pressure, hormones,
drugs, brain malfunction/abnormality
B. Ethological Studies of Aggression
1. Ethologists – zoologists who study behavior – give grounds for utility of
“harmful” aggressive behaviors for the survival of the species
2. Intraspecific aggression – aggression w/in a species
a) Disperses animals
b) Favors healthier, more vigorous animals
3. Threat and appeasement
a) Threat gesture – threat precedes actual violence
b) Appeasement gesture – submission made to avoid violence
c) Resolves conflict without violence
d) Seen in humans as well – at the bar, we probably would not look a
big burly guy in the eyes
C. Hormones and Aggression
1. Testosterone has organizational and activational effects on aggression in
most mammals and birds (just as in sexual motivation)
2. Especially in human males, testosterone influences aggression. Evidence ties
sexual violence to testosterone (p431)
3. Problems in establishing causation (androgens cause aggression) include that
violence often correlates with hormone release. E.g. adrenaline, an androgen, is
released
4. Some evidence supports social rank modulates testosterone levels. (Alpha
male or female would have higher testosterone levels)
5. Studies connect anabolic steroids to increased aggressiveness.
D. Environmental Variables That Affect Human Aggression
1. Imitation of Aggression
a) Children often imitate aggression of parents
b) Child abusers are often victims of child abuse themselves
2. Entertainment depicts violence as a glorified solution (p432)
3. For boys, a weak correlation was found between violent TV programming
and violent behavior. A stronger, though weak, correlation was found between
preference for violent programming at age 8 and violent behavior. Girls show no
effect.
4. It would appear the shaping of violent programming takes place preadolescence; denying favorite programs can cause more violence than permitting
them (if permitting them causes violence at all)
VI. The Nature of Emotion
A. Opening Comments
1. Emotions are more than just feelings.
2. Emotions are
a) evoked by certain situations
b) associated with approach/avoidance behavior
c) accompanied by expression
3. emotion – generally a display of feelings that are evoked by important events
that happen to us
4. emotions are brief (?) and are in response to events of motivational relevance
(p433)
5. emotions are the consequence of events that motivate us
B. Emotions as response patterns
1. ULTIMATE role of emotions is to provide patterns of behavior appropriate
to particular situations
2. All emotional responses have three components:
a) Behavioral – muscular movements
b) Autonomic – autonomic nervous system provide energy mobilization
c) Hormonal – enforce the autonomic response
3. Will now discuss overt emotional behavior and biological mechanisms that
accompany them; communicative emotions (smiles, etc) will be discussed later
4. Conditioned Emotional Responses (CER)– a classically conditioned response
that triggers an emotional response
a) If an organism learns a behavior that avoids contact or minimizes an
aversive stimulus, most of the nonspecific “emotional responses” will
disappear (i.e. an autonomic response will diminish.)
b) A behavior that reduces autonomic response is a coping response. It
effectively deals with the situation, eliminating the “need” for arousal
1) Afterthought: could we not perceive learned helplessness as the
organism similarly learning that any response is futile
c) Amygdala plays an important role in the expression of CER
1) The amygdala is a focal point between sensory systems and
behavioral, autonomic, and hormonal components of CER
d) Animals without amygdala show no signs of fear and are more tame
(p434)
e) Stimulation of amygdala produces agitation, fear, and (prolonged)
gastric ulcers => suggest amygdala plays role in stress (Chapter 16)
C. Social Judgments: Role of Orbitofrontal Cortex
1. Many emotions arise from complex perceptions; the right hemisphere is
thought to play an important role.
2. Oribitofrontal cortex, at the base of the frontal lobes, receives information
from the sensory system and frontal lobes that control behavior. It also
communicates with limbic system, particularly the amygdala.
3. Damage to this region decreases inhibitions and self-concern, essential
removal of emotional response, including no more suffering due to pain
4. Moniz’s prefrontal lobotomy -- he reasoned that no impairment came from
removal of frontal lobes, so it would make a good treatment for the emotionally
ill; it relieves emotional anguish. (p435)
a) This is no longer done, b/c of the personality side effects – they
become irresponsible and childish; unable to carry out plans and are
unemployable.
5. Orbitofrontal cortex’s role is to “translate [cognitive] judgments into
appropriate feelings and behaviors.”
D. Measuring Emotional Response: Lie Detection in Criminal
Investigation
1. How reliable are polygraphers in analyzing emotional response to detect lies?
2. Polygraphy is susceptible to suggestion; if told a camera is stolen, they will
not be able to discern that it was not stolen.
3. Polygraph measures heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and skin
conductance (sweating)
4. Two methods of questioning: control question and guilty knowledge
a) Control question asks subjects to tell deliberate lies for comparison;
it is important to have subject’s faith in test.
1) The problem with this test is that questions can evoke emotional
responses because they are relevant (say about a criminal activity), not
because of a lie; i.e. stress is mistaken for a lie
2) The control test has almost a 50% false positive rate (for lying!)
b) Guilty knowledge seems to be more reliable; it presents the subject
with multiple choice questions; if one has knowledge, will be more
nervous when the true choice is read aloud.
1) This is susceptible to poor questions
2) Done correctly, there is a 90% success rate and 3-4% false
positives (p437)
VII. Expression and Recognition of Emotions
1. Communication of emotions is advanced in an evolutionary perspective.
These expressions tell how we feel and what we are likely to do.
B. Social Nature of Emotional Expression in Humans
1. People are more likely to express happiness in presence of others than when
alone (suggests social meaning of emotions)
2. People’s emotional expression was increased when they knew they were
being watched; happiness from a strike intensifies when one turns to face friends
when bowling, for example (p438)
3. Emotional expression is aimed at expressing towards others.
C. Situations that Produce Emotions: Role of Cognition
1. Emotions are provoked by stimuli and can be triggered by cognition (e.g.
when we realize a compliment was really an insult an hour later.)
2. Our expression of emotion seems to parallel other animals, but the scope of
our stimuli is greater that can evoke emotions
(e.g. humans are frightened of a video camera’s “unseen audience”)
3. humans are susceptible to context (e.g. applause can be viewed as for me, for
my partner, or I might resent it, knowing my performance was bad.)
VIII.
Are Emotional Expressions Innate?
A. Darwin proposed that human expressions evolved from simpler
expressions that we see in animals.
1. To test this, groups of isolated peoples are compared. If they are isolated
significantly, only an explanation using innate emotional interpretation could
explain similarities between expressions across groups.
2. Ekman & Friesen validated this theory in New Guinea with the South Fore
tribe. (p439)
3. This tribe lacked words for emotion, so they told stories to describe
emotions. See Figure 13.10, Figure 13.11 (p439, p440 respectively)
4. Blind and sighted children have nearly identical expression; blind adults
show less expression because it is not a part of their daily lives, to see it (p440)
B. Cultural Control of Emotional Expression: Display Rules
1. We may try to hide or exaggerate our expression of emotions
a) Masking is attempting to hide an emotion
b) Modulation is an attempt to exaggerate or minimize emotion
c) Simulation is to pretend to have an emotion (to lie)
2. Display rules are the social norms that tell us when, how, and whether or not
we express emotion
a) For example, you should neither be a sore winner or loser
3. Sex differences in emotional expression are learned; infants show no
difference (p441)
4. “Weird” display rule – Japanese are discouraged from public expression; will
show more expression when alone than when in public
5. leakage – a sign that an emotion is being masked (usually, a powerful
emotion can not be completely covered up)
6. We are better are controlling leakage at facial muscles than in body language
IX. Feelings of Emotion (p442)
A. Studied two aspects of emotion so far
1. the patterns of behavioral, autonomic, and hormonal responses
2. emotional expression between people
3. Unanswered question remains: are feelings reactions to emotions, or are
emotional reactions symptoms of feelings?
B. James-Lange theory
1. William James and Carl Lange independently proposed similar theories
2. They theorize that emotional reactions change the body state and then the
body state triggers the feeling.
a) This seems counter-intuitive
b) Although it is well-pointed out that sometimes we realize we are
trembling, then realize we are afraid, it is equally pointed out that
sometimes anger comes from cognition (as mentioned above) (p443)
c) In short, James-Lange seems to only oversimplify
3. Hohman discovers that spinal cord damage (will lowers total feedback from
body) affects the intensity of feelings. See Figure 13.14.
a) This gives strong support to the James-Lange theory.
b) One can criticize that perhaps body feedback only contributes to
perceived intensity, not the emotion
X. Is Cognition Essential for Emotion?
A. Debate rages over autonomic vs cognitive sources of emotion
1. It is evident that both play a role in the occurrence and expression of
emotions
2. Problematic discussion b/c terminology is not set (each side will use same
terminology with different meaning.)
a) E.g. some argue whether cognition is conscious or not
3. Schacter (1964) proposes that emotions arise from cognition and
interpretation of physiological states. (p444)
4. Schacter and Singer (1962) have a complicated experiment that demonstrates
(at least some of the time) physical states are interpreted.
5. Nisbett and Schacter (1966) show that cognition can simulate drugs’ effects
on emotions via suggestion
6. We conclude that there is a fascinating dichotomy that is emotion – emotions
are caused by both autonomic processes and cognitive process.