1 / 13

Evolution of Universal Motives

Evolution of Universal Motives. Chapter 3. I. Evolution of Universal Motive. A. Heredity versus Environment 1. Case of Sex Reassignment Circumcision accidents cause two boys to be raised as girls. As adults they are mostly male-like in behavior and preferences.

Albert_Lan
Download Presentation

Evolution of Universal Motives

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Evolution of Universal Motives Chapter 3

  2. I. Evolution of Universal Motive • A. Heredity versus Environment • 1. Case of Sex Reassignment • Circumcision accidents cause two boys to be raised as girls. As adults they are mostly male-like in behavior and preferences. • 2. Heredity and Environment Interact • Rectangle metaphor: relative length (heredity) and relative width (environment) both contribute to area (motivation of behavior). • 3. Experience and Motives • Behaviors require from little to much experience in order to occur.

  3. I. Evolution of Universal Motive • B. Human Nature and Universal Motivation • Human nature: similarity among people due to evolutionary past. • Universal motives: shared human motives due to evolution.

  4. I. Evolution of Universal Motive • C. Evolutionary Psychology • To analyze human motivation in terms of evolution. • Psychological mechanisms evolved to solve problems of adaptation. • 1. Universality of Motives • World-wide: reproduction, bodily comforts, health, specific fears. • 2. Inherited Structures for Behavior, Motives, and Emotions • Genes: DNA segments provide information to build brain and body. • Brain disposed to react certain ways, e.g., universal motive.

  5. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • A. Fear as a Universal Motive • 1. Occurrence of Fear • Common fears: snakes, high places, spiders, and death. • 2. Survival Value • Fear evolved to motivate escape and avoidance responses. • 3. Preparedness • Some fears can occur full-blown without prior experience. • To be prepared or ready to learn fear of some stimuli, not others. • 4. Classical Conditioning of Fear • Little Albert: Associate CS (rat) with fear-UCS (loud noise). • After 7 pairings, CS (rat) evoked CR (fear: cry, crawl away).

  6. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • Fear as a Universal Motive • 5. Conditioning of Fear in Natural Settings • Lightning strike or sinking ship produces fear of storms and water. • 6. Preparedness and Observational Fear Conditioning in Monkeys • Monkey develops fear of snake but not flower when observing model monkey act fearfully to snake and to flower. • 7. Preparedness of Classical Fear Conditioning in Humans • Conditioned heart-rate acceleration to snakes but not flowers. • Spider, snake stimuli presented below awareness increase arousal.

  7. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • B. Liking and Preference for Foods • Omnivorous: be able to eat a variety of foods; eat from one's locale. • 1. Food Neophobia • Tendency to avoid novel foods, prefer familiar foods. • Protects person from eating substances that cause illness, death. • 2. Innate Preference and Aversion for Substances • Babies prefer sweets and shun sour and bitter stimuli. • 3. Evolutionary Value of Tastes and Facial Expressions • Babies' facial expressions signal what is tasted: sweet, sour, bitter. • Caregivers feed babies in accord with babies’ facial signals.

  8. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • B. Liking and Preference for Foods • 4. Preparedness for Conditioned Taste Aversion • Intense dislike for food because of association with nausea. • Preparedness: long-delay between taste, aroma and later nausea. • 5. Fat Preference • Humans prefer fat in foods, e.g., in ice cream and in hamburgers.

  9. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • C. Universal Appeal of Music • It promotes group cohesion, regulates moods, pleasurable, and is byproduct in evolution of other motives. • Infants prefer consonant music to dissonant (unpleasant) music.

  10. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • D. Evolution of Sexual Preferences • Sexual selection: one sex of species selects another for mating based on some trait of the latter. • 1. Function of Orgasm • Rewards sexual behavior, develop love, promotes pair-bonding, and boost chances of pregnancy. • 2. Sex Differences in Long-Term Mate Selection • Women select mates to increase chance of survival of their offspring. • Men select mates to increase chance of producing many offspring.

  11. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • D. Evolution of Sexual Preferences • 3. Characteristics of Long-Term Mates • Women prefer mates who have good financial prospects and are ambitious and industrious. • Men prefer mates who have good looks; indicative of fertility. • 4. Jealousy • Men report greater distress about sexual infidelity than do women.

  12. II. Fear, Food, Music, and Sex as Universal Motives • E. Biosocial Theory • Stresses interaction between social experiences and evolved sex differences in strength and reproductive capacity. • 1. Structural Powerless hypothesis • Women are powerless to attain financial resources and thus marry men who have them. • 2. Double Shot Hypothesis • For women, emotional infidelity is more distressing. It includes sexual infidelity, i.e., double shot. Men assume both happen at once. • Emotional infidelity is more distressing than sexual for both sexes.

  13. End of Chapter 3

More Related