NESC 2470 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Limbic System, 21 Days, Striatum
10 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Motivation II
o He said next to nothing scientific, however things that were sensible
o Such as you can't just focus on one thing in regards to your health
o Do it together as a group because social support aids in altering our health
system
o What is not intelligent?
o Diabesity - didn't even define what it is
o Yet to see a clear definition of a toxin (what is poison?)
o Brian Wansink on Mindless Eating
o Why we eat more than we think
o He talked about data on experiments that he has done
o Ex. Portion size and environmental cues - if you give a person a larger
plate, they will put more food on their plate and 92% of people on average
will eat the entire thing
o How people eat when you change the appearance of the food
o Ex. If you give someone 4 100g bags of cheesiess versus 1 400g bag of
cheesies, people will eat the 400g bag of cheesiee
o We eat for fueling and energy purposes, the idea that eating in excess of our energy
needs and from lack of willpower is constantly questioned
o Change the environment so you can subtract willpower from the equation
o People keep receiving the message that you need to move more and eat less and if you
don't, it's your own fault due to your lack of willpower
o Motivation is largely ignored by the people who are telling us how much to eat
o Look at the factors that start and stop our motivation behaviour
o Willpower or incentive value
o Wanting VS Liking
o Wanting, something compelling you to a certain kind of goal that is missing. It is
all about drive reduction
o Hydodic properties of food (liking), typically liking and wanting go hand in hand
but sometimes it doesn't
o We are protected by our biological signals to restrict us to over eat, however we are
really good at ignoring them
o Somatic system which is responsible for voluntary behaviour does this
o Based on experiences focused on reward
o Food is a strong reinforcer, which promotes a certain behaviour and makes it much
more likely that this behaviour will occur in the future
o You can't consider motivation without considering reinforcement
o Food promotes food seeking behaviour (positive reinforcement)
o Thorndike's Law of Effect: Consequence of a behaviour increases or decreases the
likelihood of it being repeated.
o He put a cat in a box and he wanted to see what influence the cat getting out of
the box quicker to the tuna outside of the box
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