PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Critical Period, Self-Actualization, Hypothalamus
2 May 2018
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Unit 8: Motivation
Motivation: a need or desire that serves to energize behaviour and to direct it toward a goal.
-motivational state (drive): internal condition that orients toward a goal
- incentive: a reinforcer, reward, or goal
Perspectives on motivation
-Instinct : a complex, unlearned behaviour pattern that is constant with species
-Comes from evolutionary theory
-Darwin
-eg Ducks imprinted on Lorenz
-Critical period 14 hours post hatching
-But must combine physiology and psychology
-Drive Reduction: a physiological need create an aroused state, driving organism to reduce
need (eg thirst)
-followed instinct theory
-the need in the body creates a desire in the mind to reduce the need and so fulfill the
desire
-Remember the infants and food choosing example
-The drive reduction cycle
-homeostasis - the maintenance of a constant bodily state (eg body temp)
-incentive: positive events (stimuli) that attract or repel us
-Physiological need -> Psychological desire -> Behaviour -> Drive reduction
-Arousal
-Response to problems with drive reduction
-motives aren’t all homeostatic
-what about curiosity? exploration?
-Motivated behaviour may decrease OR increase arousal
-good meal vs. car racing
-Yerkes - Dodson Law - try to optimize arousal
-must be optimally aroused to perform at peak
-varies person - person
Maslow’s Heirachy of Needs
1. Self actualization Needs - trying to figure out how the world works and how you should
function in it
2. Esteem Needs -
-Achievement: perform at high levels and accomplish goals
-Achievement motivation
-Two motives: Mastery and Performance: desire to understand/overcome vs. reward/
recognition
-Two goals: Approach and avoid: enjoyable incentives vs unpleasant consequences
3. Belonging Needs - basic social needs
-Belonging: affiliation motivation, must feel permanent
4. Safety Needs - basic safe needs
5. Physiological Needs (hunger, thirst)
Types of Drives
1. Regulatory - physiology
2. Safety
3. Reproductive - physiolgical
4. Social - belonging
Unit 8: Motivation
5. Educative - esteem
Neural Mechanisms of Motivation
Central - state theory of drives
-different drives correspond to activity in different sets of neurons
-Central drive system: set of neurons; activity in the set causes particular drive
-How does it work?
-get info form body, prepare various parts of the body for action
-Hypothalamus is responsible for action of may drives
-centrally located so connected to the base and higher areas (cortex)
-Direct connection to nerves that bring input from internal organs and regulate autonomic
motor output
-Highly sensitive to, and controls, and release of many hormones
Liking, Wanting and Reinforcement
Neural mechanism of rewards
-Will work hardest to stimulate the medial forebrain bundle: A tract connecting the midbrain
and nucleus accumbens
-if damaged, most motivated behaviours disappear
-Midbrain —> Nucleus accumbens —> limbic system and cerebral cortex
-Many neurons here release dopamine
-‘wanting’ also learning
-Others release endorphins
-‘liking’
-drugs can mimic or promote effects of dopamine and endorphins in the nucleus accumbens
The physiology of hunger
-hunger vs. satiation
-the point when we aren’t not motivated to eat.
-the thing that makes us stop eating
Feedback Control
-Hunger and satiety are meant to regulate our eating
-thermostat analogy
-food-o-stat? We know that eating is motivated in other ways
How Hunger is Meant to Work
Hypothalamus
-neurons in the arcuate nucleus: ‘mater control centre’ for appetite
-Two classes of neurons
-appetite - stimulating (eg release neuropeptide Y, NPY, acts like a NT in the brain)
-appetite - suppressing
-PYY is a peptide that excites appetite - suppressing neurons
-What should make us start/stop eating?
-Short term?
-body temperature, increases after you eat, decrease when hungry
-glucose levels
-distension of stomach
-level of NPY
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