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Motivation and Emotion. Psychology 3906. SSSM approach. Motivation energizes behaviouir Emotions are a combination of arousal, behaviour and experience Should they be separate? Emotion can be thought of as the behavioural response to our goals being advanced or hindered
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Motivation and Emotion Psychology 3906
SSSM approach • Motivation energizes behaviouir • Emotions are a combination of arousal, behaviour and experience • Should they be separate? • Emotion can be thought of as the behavioural response to our goals being advanced or hindered • Emotion can guide behaviour
Instinct • You already know I don’t like this word • Nominal Fallacy • Everything needs experience • How many instincts are there? • Not as big a criticism
Motives • Are some biological and some social? • Some may think so, the SSSM types • Jealousy • Shame • Disgust • Hmmmm let’s look at disgust
Disgust • Universal • Function, get nasty stuff out of your mouth • However, through learning we find different things disgusting • Makes sense, a big variety in what is actually bad for you, depending on your ecology
Facial expressions • Fear, anger happiness, disgust, surprise are the same everywhere • There is probably an evolutionary basis to this, indeed, chimps make expressions that are universal
Facial expressions and emotion • Oddly enough, our emotions can also feed off the expressions we are making (Duclas et al, 1989) • Forced people to ‘smile’ • Felt happier • Ekman’s work with actors
Experiencing emotion • Emotions seem to have a few dimensions to them • Pleasant vs. unpleasant • Arousal vs. sleepy • Long vs. short • Izzard (1977) said there are 10 emotions • Joy, excitement, surprise, sadness, guilt, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame • Said that other emotions are just combinations
Fear • Pretty adaptive, fight or flight • Learn to fear objects etc • Observation too • Nobody fears houses… • Amygdala may be key • Genetic effects too
Anger • Much easier to detect than happiness • Makes a bunch of sense, heck it means you are in danger • Your fight or flight response is going big time • Calm down! • Vent not through anger, but through exercise etc
Can’t we all just be happy • NO • Not very adaptive • Small things should not make us happy forever • Neutral makes sense
Social emotions • Co operation • We are social animals • You scratch my back I’ll scratch yours • Guilt • Shame • Etc
Homicide • Violent conflict resolution • Good data • Martin Daly and Margo Wilson • Men do the killing (no surprise there) • Overwhelmingly the victims are male • Most homicides are for trivial reasons • Sexual selection, competition
Conclusion • Evolutionary explanations help us understand emotions and motive • Also help us understand they are intertwined • Lots of learning too • Don’t justify something with evolution