Goal Directed Behavior Unregulated Drives Problems for Drive

Goal Directed Behavior
People often act as though they are motivated to pursue
particular goals. Psychologists have asked, how does
that happen?
Drive Reduction Theory
•  Early attempts to explain motivation based on the physiological
needs that periodically arise that are necessary for survival: Such
as: Food, water, oxygen, body temperature, minerals, etc..
•  These needs that set in motion drive states that motivate the
individual to satisfy those needs.
•  These states were regulated within narrow limits, in a process
called homeostasis. Analogous to a thermostat
–  The case of DW, the wisdom of the body
Maslow s Hierarchy of Needs
Unregulated Drives
Problems for Drive Reduction
Drive reduction theory suggested we act to reduce arousal
from needs, However, we find that people often act to
increase arousal.
•  Have you ever been bored?
•  People (and rats) are curious even though all biological needs are
met.
In addition, some stimuli called incentives, seem to create
drive states in the absence of physiological needs.
•  You are not hungry, but your friend buys a piece of cheesecake
and sits down in front of you
•  Men or women who view a sexy looking member of the opposite
sex and..
Internal and External Motivations
Intrinsic Motivation
•  the motivation to do something for its own sake (satisfies internal
needs).
Extrinsic Motivation
•  the motivation to do something to obtain a reward or to avoid
something negative or painful from an external source (satisfies
external needs).
Problem.
•  Your child Chris does not read very much and you would like to
change the situation. Would it be a good idea to pay Chris a dollar
for every book that Chris read? Any problem with this?
Overjustification
•  Sometimes providing extrinsic rewards and incentives for a
behavior that is intrinsically motivated may result in a reduction of
the performance of that behavior.
Regulating Hunger
The hunger drive
•  Why does the desire or need for food change over a 24 hour
period? What internal mechanisms control these needs and drives,
to cause us to feel sated or hungry?
•  Is there something that manages the level of our weight over the
long term?
Walter Canon s study of the hunger drive
•  Early work showed people felt hungry when stomach
contracted ( hunger pangs )
•  Time of contractions learned, occurred around meal times
•  Problem: people without stomachs still get hungry and
full.
I ate so much I thought I would burst!
The Role of Glucose in Hunger
Why don t we? How come fast eaters become sated when
they eat at Arby s before their food is digested?
Glucose is the source of energy for all parts of body, and
brain s only source. Level of glucose is correlated with
food intake and feelings of hunger.
•  Cannon may have been partially correct. Pressure detectors in the
stomach may stop eating. Paraventricular hypothalamus*
How come it is so easy to eat a 16 ounce steak but so hard
to eat a 16 ounce cheese cake.
•  Chemical content detectors in mouth or stomach that respond to
high caloric foods.
Glucose Regulation by Insulin
•  EATàGlucose Risesà Feelings of Fullness
•  FastàGlucose fallsàFeelings of Hunger
Two hormones secreted by the pancreas work in
complimentary fashion to regulate glucose levels:
•  Insulin and Glucagon
Glucose Regulation After Eating
Insulin
•  Secreted after meals to prevent too great a rise in glucose after
eating
•  Insulin moves glucose and other nutrients from blood stream
into body cells where they can be used for energy production.
•  If there is an excess glucose that cannot be used by body cells
insulin turns it into a short term energy store, called Glycogen in
the liver, which satisfies our short term energy needs.
•  If there remains excess glucose, Insulin also creates long term
energy store (fat) that it can be used at a later time.
Abnormal levels of Insulin
•  If insulin is consistently in short supply, as in those individual
afflicted with diabetes, the body will absorb little nutrition and the
person will lose weight.
•  If insulin is consistently present in excessive amounts, most of the
nutrients that are consumed are stored as fat and the person gains
weight.
Glucagon Regulation Before Meals
As time passes after our last meal, the level of glucose in
the bloodstream drops leading to hunger. Glucagon is
then secreted to raise levels of glucose in the absence of
food.
•  Prevents glucose levels in blood stream from falling too low
•  Glucagon converts stored fats and nutrients into blood glucose to
provide the body with needed energy.
–  The energy store of glycogen is first used and then if blood glucose
remains low, the long-term fat stores are tapped.
Glucagon Regulation Before Eating
Hypothalamic Regulation of Eating
Hypothalamus receives information
regarding nutrient levels in body
•  Lateral region. Hunger or start center
–  Stimulation induces eating
–  Lesions induce fasting
Regulation of the Hypothalamic Centers
It was once thought that the hypothalamus could monitor
glucose in the blood and turn off and on, the two
centers that seem to control hunger and satiety. It may
be a third area of the hypothalamus, the Arcuate
nucleus may be involved since it receives hunger and
satiety signals. The search continues.
•  Ventromedial region. Satiety or stop
center
–  Stimulation inhibits eating
–  Lesions induce overeating
.
The Long-Term Regulation of Hunger
In the short run, food intake may not always match the
individual’s nutritional needs
•  Weight tends to fluctuate in the short-term, but is very stable in the
long-term.
•  Most individuals’ weights are very close to a set point, a level that
the brain and body work to maintain.
•  Set points may be a function of different base levels of the
hormone Leptin.
Psychological Factors and Hunger
The control of hunger is not based on biological factors
alone but also psychological factors.
•  Positive flavors can enhance eating, aversive flavors can suppress
eating. Favorite treats, a chocolate malt. Physiological effect of
incentives.
•  Presence of others: meal size increases as the group size increases
•  Habits. All of us appear to develop regular times to eat meals
regardless of whether or not we are hungry, breakfast lunch and
dinner.
•  Culture. There are times when (over)eating is strongly encouraged.
Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving.
Long Term Weight Control-Leptin
Leptin
•  A hormone created by fat cells inducing satiation when its levels
increase. Turns Hunger off.
•  Our bodies produce leptin in amounts proportional to the total
amount of fat.
•  Activates the hypothalamus reducing appetite.
•  Some obese may not produce enough leptin or do not have leptin
receptor cells.
Obesity
Defined as exceeding normal weight by approximately
20%.
•  10% chance of obesity if parents are not, 40% if one parent, and
70% if two parents.
Obesity rates have doubled in last 50 years. Why?
•  Processed foods are easily converted to blood glucose so we store
more as fat?
•  More incentives. Many more wonderful things to eat that tempt us
to eat more.
•  We are much more inactive than previous generations? Set points
evolved during a time when we were all a lot more active.
•  We are eating more for reasons that are unclear (super sizes).
•  We have learned meal rituals which encourage us to eat regardless
of whether or not we are hungry.
Obesity
Blaming the victim
•  Externality Hypothesis
–  Obese are less sensitive to internal body signals, eating affected by
externals signals. Stanley Schacter
•  Obese ignore body signals, go by time and habit. More responsive to
external signals to regulate eating behavior.
•  Obese more sensitive to taste of food. Eat more good tasting items,
fewer bad tasting items.
•  Obese members of the clean plate club.
•  The Diet Effect
–  Obsession with eating behavior.
–  "What the Hell" phenomenon. Will binge if it is worth it?
The What the hell effect in dieting
Weight and Genetics
Obsession with Dieting
Which of the two words on the right is associated with the
word on left
Pima Indians*
•  Ice cream
Delicious
Fattening
•  Chocolate cake
Celebration
Guilt
•  Heavy cream
Whipped
Unhealthy
•  Fried eggs
Breakfast
Cholesterol
Dieting
Should you diet?
•  Fewer than 3% keep weight off over long term.
•  If you decide to go on a diet you should think of it as a lifelong
change in eating habits.
Diets can work against losing weight
•  The role of basal metabolism
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75% energy expended in normal bodily functions. Heart rate, etc.
People with high metabolic rates less likely to become obese
Diets tend cut back metabolic rate, reaction to starvation
Diet more likely to cause you to lose lean body mass, muscle, which
is a high energy consumer
The Role of Exercise
Can exercise help?
• 
• 
• 
• 
Change in basal metabolism, more muscle more calories burned
Exercise correlated with lower set points.
Can you be Fit and Fat?
Problem of sedentary activities of modern life, uncouples eating
and activity. One method you can try is to give up sedentary
activities.
You can t be too rich or too thin.
Duchess of Windsor
Have we gone too far?
•  Typical woman in glamour industry = 5 foot 11 inches, 110
pounds.
•  Is this too thin? 7 inches taller and 30 pounds lighter than average
woman.
How Would You Respond?
What is your current weight?
At what weight would you be most attractive?
What is your ideal weight?
Anorexia-Nervosa
Psychopathic Conditions
Anorexia Nervosa
•  Uncommon before 1960s? Growing epidemic.
•  White and middle class, female, western culture
–  Gender effect. Women see themselves differently than men do.
–  62% of women were on a diet in last year
–  70% of black women satisfied with appearance, whereas 90% of
white women are dissatisfied.
•  Characteristics
–  Occurs usually in early teen years, less likely before or after (attempt
to avoid sexual maturity?). 15-20% eventually die from disorder.
–  Perfectionists, strong emphasis on control, many times overprotected
and strong achievers. Disordered perception of their bodies.
Bulimia
•  Binge eating followed by vomiting, or excessive laxative use.
•  More likely to be normal weight or even over weight. Poor body
image and self esteem but extraverted.
•  Easier to correct but may have already damage esophagus and
teeth etc., from stomach acids
Hormones and Sexual Behavior
In female mammals the changing levels of estrogen and
progesterone during the estrous cycle regulates female
sex drive. Evidence:
•  In non-primate mammals, females are receptive in response to
changes in estrogen, which leads to the animal being receptive
only during times when she is fertile.
•  Removal of the ovaries abolishes sexual behavior in lower
animals, and injections of hormones restores it.
Hormones and Male Sexual Behavior
Sex hormones play a key role in the sex drive of humans
and animals.
In male mammals, testosterone is the crucial hormone,
and sexual behavior is unlikely to occur without it.
•  When male animals are castrated they show a decline in sex drive
until absent and require injections of testosterone to restore the
drive.
•  Experience plays a role
Human males also depend on testosterone for sex drive
but:
•  Men with hypogonadism (very low levels of testosterone) show
little sexual desire, but change if treated with testosterone.
•  Men who lose their gonads because of cancer tend to lose their
interest in sex, but the results are highly variable and depend on
previous sexual experience.
Sexual Behavior and Hormones
However, sexual behavior of female primates less
dependent on ovarian hormones.
•  Primate females can and do engage in sexual behavior at any time
in their hormonal cycle.
•  Likewise, human females receptive all during hormonal cycle.
The key to this difference in female primates is the shift to
testosterone as the source of their sex drive.
•  Testosterone increases the sex drive of low sex drive women.
•  Women whose ovaries have been removed generally do not report
a drop in sex drive but women whose adrenals have been removed
generally to report a decline.
Sexual Motivation and Behavior
Dehydroepiandrosterene DHEA-Adrenal Glands of Men
and Women
•  Responsible for the development of sexual feelings and both boys
and girls.
Primate Sexual Behavior
Why is there a difference in the primates?
The usual explanation is that humans give birth to
children that remain in immature form for over a
decade. Taking care of a child for a lengthy period
difficult for one member of the species, especially
female who is often smaller in size.
•  Sexual freedom of Primates and Humans that came with the
uncoupling of sex drive with pregnancy, change from estrogen to
testosterone in human females encourages bonding in family
units
Gender Specific Sexual Behavior
What on earth is on your mind?
Males
•  Pelvic Thrusting
Females
•  Lordosis-ventral arching of the spine to aid copulation
(Clark & Hatfield, 89)
Men and women were asked the following questions by a
very attractive member of the opposite sex. Will they
act differently?
I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to
be attractive.
•  Would you go out tonight?
•  Will you come over to my apartment?
•  Would you go to bed with me?
Reproductive mating systems
Why do men and women act so differently?
Parental investment of males and females influence
mating systems (Robert Trivers). The greater
investment the more likely mates will be choosey.
Evolutionary Perspective
Innate motivational systems contribute to mating
strategies since they lead to reproductive success
•  Parental investment theory and Mating Strategies.
Emotional and Sexual infidelity
Which would bother you most?
•  Your SO had a brief sexual encounter with another
person to whom they were not emotionally attracted?
•  Your SO developed a brief strong emotional attraction
for another person, but did not have sex with them?
Evolutionary Psychology
Which grandparent(s) is most sure that the grandchild is
related to them? Least sure?
LC
MC
The Human Sexual Response
Male or Female?
A sudden feeling of lightheadedness followed by an intense feeling of relief and elation. A rush. Intense
muscular spasms of the whole body. Sense of euphoria followed by deep peace and relaxation.
•  Female
To Me an orgasmic experience is the most satisfying pleasure that I have experienced in relation to other
type of satisfaction or pleasure that I ve had which were nonsexually oriented
•  Male
It is like turning a water faucet on. You notice the oncoming flow but it can be turned on or off when
desired. You feel the valves open and close and the fluid flow. An orgasm makes your head and body
tingle.
•  Female
A build-up of tension which starts to pulsate very fast, and there is a sudden release from the tension and
desire to sleep.
•  Female
It is a pleasant, tension-relieving muscular contraction. It relieves physical tension and mental anticipation
•  Male
A release of very high level of tension, but ordinarily tension is unpleasant whereas the tension before
orgasm is far from unpleasant.
•  Male
An orgasm is a great release of tension with spasmodic reaction at the peak
•  Male
A building of tension, sometimes, and frustration until the climax. A tightening inside, palpitating
rhythm, explosion, and warm and peace.
•  Female (Vance and Wagner, 1977)
Gender and Sexual Stimulation
Are only men stimulated by pornography? Comparison
difficult since most pornography is male oriented.
•  X-rated video-almost immediate depiction of naked bodies
engaged in sexual activity without much story line, gradual
buildup, affection, emotional ties, and so forth…male fantasy of
multiple female partners ever ready for sexual activity..without any
chance of the man being rejected.
•  Romance novel- A woman who inflames the passion and lifelong
love of a desirable man under difficult circumstances. The strong
dominant man is overcome by feelings of love and sweeps the
heroine away. (Leitenberg & Henning, 1995)
Heiman Study of Pornography
Had female and male subjects listen to audiotapes while
their sexual responses measured.
•  Control—Neutral conversation
•  Romantic--Couple expressing affection and tenderness but not
engaging in sex
•  Erotic--Explicit description of heterosexual sex
•  Erotic-Romantic--Combination of explicit sexual and romantic
elements
•  Four tapes differed in terms of Female or male initiated activity
and whose physical response was the focus
Results
•  Neither sex responded to romantic or control tape but both
responded to erotic and erotic romantic
•  Most stimulating was female initiated and female centered tape for
both sexes
•  Females less likely to report arousal. What does this mean? *
Is Pornography Dangerous?
X-Rated pornography should be distinguished from Violent.
Ordinary X-Rated
•  May stimulate sexual behavior in normal outlets, e.g. Masturbation
•  Men may rate their mates as less sexually attractive
•  Verdict still out on whether it encourages a more negative view of women
Violent Pornography-Woman raped, humiliated, brutalized, often
starting out unwilling but becoming willing.
•  Encourages some men to be sexually coercive
•  May increase men s greater acceptance of violence against women and
rape myth(women deserve it)
•  Evidence in lab experiments that men exposed to tapes more inclined to
act violently to someone else
•  Men who watch sexually violent tapes more likely to report sexual force
or rape of women (correlation problem)
Origins of Homsexuality
Homosexuality
•  Sexual orientation is the direction of attraction for a sexual partner.
Homosexuality: attraction for a person of the same-sex
•  Incidence, probably 4-6% for men, 2-3 % for women, depends on
definition, bisexuality
•  Homosexual behavior vs. Homosexual orientation.
•  The initial Freudian interpretation. Weak father, dominating
seductive mother.
•  Homosexuality and the Bell et al. study
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– 
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Prior to adolescence
Unfulfilling heterosexual experiences
Gender nonconformity
Poor relationship with father
What do these people have in common?
Henry James
Alan Turing
Tchaikovsky
Herman Melville
Isaac Newton
Michelangelo
Leonardo da Vinci
Plato
Francis Bacon
Socrates
Alexander the Great
Willa Cather
Jeffrey Dahmer
Rock Hudson
Rosie O'Donnell
Biological Influences on Homosexuality
Do Homosexuals have lower levels of sex hormones?
Hormone levels in adults do NOT play a role in sexual
preference, although prenatal hormone levels may play
a role.
•  Organizational effects: prenatal exposure to androgens alters
physical morphology of fetus AND neural circuits in brain
–  Adult behavior of androgenized subject is masculine
•  Activational effects: in adulthood, hormones will activate
behaviors that have been organized prenatally
Prenatal Hormones and Sexual Anatomy
In the absence of androgens, Nature s impulse is to
create a female…
•  Hormonal influences starting in the seventh or eighth week of
prenatal development determine whether a fetus becomes
anatomically male or female.
•  Male fetuses generally secrete higher levels of the hormone
testosterone than do females. Testosterone causes the development
of a penis and scrotum in males.
•  In the absence of high levels of testosterone female fetuses develop
the smaller sexual structures of the clitoris and labia.
Sexual Orientation
Hormonal responses differ between
homosexual and heterosexual
men
Prenatal Development of Sexual Structures
Critical Period
•  Usually before birth.
•  Critical period for the effect on the brain is later than for gentle
structures.
Research on Homosexual Behavior
High stress and homosexual behavior, rats and humans,
stress neutralizes the effect of androgen during
prenatal period
Simon LeVay s work on the hypothalamus
•  Compared the hypothalamus in brains of homosexuals and
heterosexuals. Male homosexual s portion of the anterior
hypothalamus (INAH3) smaller than heterosexual s and more like
women s
Among Androgenized Females 37% became homosexual.
Homosexuality and Biological Influences
Homosexuality And Male Birth Order
Homosexuality and biological influences
6
–  Monozygotic 56 pairs, one member homosexual
•  27 heterosexual
•  29 homo- or bisexual
–  Dizygotic 54 pairs, one member homosexual
•  42 heterosexual
•  12 homo- or bisexual
–  Adopted 57 pairs, one member homosexual
•  51 heterosexual
•  6 homo- or bisexual
% Homomosexual
•  Genetic Relationship
4
Homosexual
2
0
1st
2nd
3rd
Birth Order
Families with many male siblings.
4th