ch.8

• motivation - need or desire that energizes and directs behaviour
• instinct - complex behaviour that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned
• physiological needs - a basic bodily requirement
• drive-reduction theory - idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state that motivates an organism to satisfy the need
• drive reduction strives for homeostasis
• homeostasis - tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as glucose, around a particular level
• incentives - positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behaviour
• arousal theory - theory that we are motivated to maintain an optimal level of arousal in order to feel driven to experience stimulation
• yerkes-dodson law - the principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases; moderate arousal leads to optimal performance
• Abraham Maslow - humanist who developed the hierarchy of needs
• hierarchy of needs - pyramid of human needs; begins at the base with physiological needs that must be first satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active
• imprinting - an attachment to the first moving thing seen or heard after birth
• need - a necessity, especially a physiological one
• desire - something that is wanted, but not needed
• primary drive - drives that are innate such as hunger, thirst, and sex
• secondary drive - drives that are learned through conditioning such as working for money
• arousal - the level of alertness, wakefulness, an activation caused by activity in the central nervous system
• instinct theory - replaced with evolutionary perspective; people are motivated to behave in certain ways because they are evolutionarily programmed to do so
• incentive theory - theory that suggests that people are motivated to do things because of external rewards; behavioural learning concepts such as association and reinforcement are important to this theory
• sensation seeking - searching for a certain level of sympathetic nervous system arousal
• primary incentives - motivates behaviour to satisfy a physiological need
• secondary incentive - motivates behaviour to satisfy desires
• intrinsic motivation - doing something because you generally like to do it
• extrinsic motivation - doing something because of a promise, reward, or a threat of punishment
• overjustification effect - effect of promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do and then losing interest in it
• achievement - drive to succeed especially in a competition
• sociobiology - relates social behaviours to evolutionary biology
• hierarchy of needs

  • physiological
  • safety
  • belongingness and love
  • esteem
  • self-actualization
  • self-transcendance
• glucose - form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues; when its level is low, we feel hunger
• arcuate nucleus - has a center that secretes appetite-stimulating hormones
• set point - point at which your "weight thermostat" may be set; when your body falls below this weight, increased hunger and a lower metabolic rate may combine to restore lost weight
• basal metabolic rate - the body's resting rate of energy output
• obesity - condition of being overweight; defined as a body mass index

  • BMI measurement of 30 or higher = obese
  • BMI measurement of 25 or higher = overweight
• satiety - feeling of being full and not hungry that results in decreasing likelihood that an individual will be motivated to eat; satiety = satisfied
• lateral hypothalamus (LH) - the "on" button for eating; if it is lesioned, people will not feel hungry and they will become little
• ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) - the "off" button for eating; if it is lesioned, people will not feel full and they will become very huge
• appetite hormone - controls the levels of glucose and hunger
• the appetite hormones

  • insulin
  • leptin
  • orexin
  • ghrelin
  • PYY
• insulin - hormone secreted by pancreas; controls blood glucose
• leptin - protein secreted by fat cells; when abundant, it causes brain to increase metabolism and decrease hunger