Comprehensive Study Notes: Motivation, Emotion, Personality, Social Psychology, Health, Stress, and Psychological Disorders

Motivation and Emotion

Key Concepts in Motivation

• Motivation: The psychological and physiological processes that direct and sustain behavior toward goals.

• Drive: An internal biological trigger that motivates behavior to satisfy a need (e.g., hunger, thirst).

• Incentives: External stimuli that we seek out to reduce drives or for pleasure (e.g., food, money).

• Homeostasis: The process of maintaining stable internal states (e.g., body temperature, fluid balance).

• Allostasis: The process of achieving stability through physiological or behavioral change, often in response to stressors.

Biological Regulation of Hunger

• Hypothalamus: Acts as an on/off switch for hunger. The lateral hypothalamus signals when to eat; the ventromedial and paraventricular regions signal when to stop eating.

• Glucose: Blood sugar levels are monitored by the brain to regulate hunger.

• Reward Pathway: The mesolimbic pathway, including the nucleus accumbens, is activated by pleasurable food, reinforcing eating behavior.

Cognitive and Social Influences on Eating

• Unit Bias: The tendency to eat in units (e.g., one bowl, one bottle) regardless of the actual amount.

• Social Context: Eating is influenced by social facilitation (eating more with others), impression management (eating less to make a good impression), and modeling (eating what others eat).

Eating Disorders

• Obesity: Excessive body fat, often defined by a BMI ≥ 30. Influenced by genetics, environment, and behavior.

• Anorexia Nervosa: Characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.

• Bulimia Nervosa: Involves cycles of binge eating followed by purging.

Disorder	Lifetime Prevalence (Women)	Lifetime Prevalence (Men)	Receiving Treatment	Average Duration
Anorexia	0.9%	0.3%	34%	1.7 years
Bulimia	1.5%	0.5%	43%	8 years

Sexual Motivation and Behavior

• Sexual Selection: Intrasexual selection (competition within a sex) and intersexual selection (mate choice by the opposite sex).

• Parental Investment Theory: Females typically invest more in offspring, leading to choosier mate selection.

• Sexual Response Cycle: Masters and Johnson identified phases—excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. Males have a refractory period; females may have multiple orgasms.

• Gender Roles & Sexual Scripts: Societal expectations and learned patterns guide sexual behavior.

Achievement and Social Motivation

• Achievement Motivation: The drive to excel or meet certain standards.

• Approach Goals: Striving for positive outcomes.

• Avoidance Goals: Avoiding negative outcomes.

• Self-Determination Theory: Motivation is influenced by autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

• Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic comes from within (interest, enjoyment); extrinsic is driven by external rewards.

Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange Theory: $\text{Stimulus} \rightarrow \text{Physiological Arousal} \rightarrow \text{Emotion}$

• Cannon-Bard Theory: $\text{Stimulus} \rightarrow \text{Physiological Arousal} + \text{Emotion (simultaneous)}$

• Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory: $\text{Stimulus} \rightarrow \text{Arousal} \rightarrow \text{Cognitive Appraisal} \rightarrow \text{Emotion}$

• Lazarus's Cognitive-Mediation Theory: $\text{Stimulus} \rightarrow \text{Cognitive Appraisal} \rightarrow \text{Emotion} + \text{Arousal}$

Physiology and Expression of Emotion

• Autonomic Nervous System: Sympathetic division prepares for fight or flight; parasympathetic calms the body.

• Amygdala: Central to processing emotional stimuli, especially fear.

• Facial Feedback Hypothesis: Facial expressions can influence emotional experiences.

• Display Rules: Cultural norms that regulate emotional expression.

Personality

Trait Theories

• Trait: A stable characteristic pattern of behavior, thought, or emotion.

• Factor Analysis: Statistical method to identify clusters of traits.

• Big Five Model (OCEAN):

  • Openness: Imaginative vs. practical

  • Conscientiousness: Organized vs. careless

  • Extraversion: Sociable vs. reserved

  • Agreeableness: Trusting vs. suspicious

  • Neuroticism: Calm vs. anxious

• HEXACO Model: Adds Honesty-Humility as a sixth factor.

• Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, Narcissism.

Psychodynamic and Humanistic Perspectives

• Freud's Psychosexual Stages:

  Stage	Age	Focus	Key Conflict
  Oral	0–1	Mouth	Weaning
  Anal	1–3	Bowel control	Toilet training
  Phallic	3–6	Genitals	Oedipus/Electra complex
  Latency	6–12	Dormant	Social development
  Genital	12+	Sexuality	Intimacy

• Defense Mechanisms:

  • Projection: Attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts to others.

  • Rationalization: Justifying behaviors with plausible reasons.

  • Reaction Formation: Behaving opposite to one's true feelings.

  • Repression: Keeping distressing thoughts out of consciousness.

  • Sublimation: Channeling impulses into socially acceptable activities.

• Humanistic Theories: Focus on self-actualization (Maslow) and congruence between real and ideal self (Rogers).

Biological and Social-Cognitive Approaches

• Genetic Influences: Twin studies show heritability for Big Five traits.

• Reciprocal Determinism (Bandura): Personality is shaped by interactions among behavior, environment, and cognitive factors.

Social Psychology

Social Influence

• Conformity: Adjusting behavior to align with group norms (Asch's line study).

• Obedience: Following orders from authority (Milgram's shock experiments; 60% administered maximum shock).

• Factors Affecting Obedience: Proximity to authority, legitimacy of authority, presence of dissenters.

• Social Norms, Roles, Scripts: Expected behaviors in specific contexts (e.g., customer in a store).

• Stanford Prison Experiment: Demonstrated the power of social roles and situational factors.

Group Processes

• Bystander Effect: The more bystanders, the less likely any one person is to help (diffusion of responsibility).

• Deindividuation: Loss of self-awareness in groups, leading to atypical behavior.

• Groupthink: Poor decision-making due to group pressure for consensus.

Attribution and Bias

• Attribution: Inferences about the causes of behavior.

  • Internal (Dispositional): Attributing behavior to personal traits.

  • External (Situational): Attributing behavior to the environment.

• Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): Overestimating dispositional factors for others' behavior.

• Actor-Observer Effect: Attributing own actions to situations, others' actions to dispositions.

• Self-Serving Bias: Attributing successes to self, failures to external factors.

• Just World Hypothesis: Belief that people get what they deserve (can lead to victim blaming).

Attitudes and Persuasion

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Discomfort from holding inconsistent beliefs or behaviors; motivates change.

• Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Persuasion via central (content) or peripheral (style) routes.

• Persuasion Techniques:

  • Foot-in-the-door: Small request followed by larger one.

  • Door-in-the-face: Large request followed by smaller one.

Health, Stress, and Coping

Health Psychology

• Obesity: Influenced by genetics (50–90%), environment, and behavior.

• Body Mass Index (BMI): $\text{BMI} = \frac{\text{weight (kg)}}{\text{height (m)}^2}$

• Smoking: Leading preventable cause of death; nicotine stimulates reward circuitry and reduces withdrawal symptoms.

Stress and Its Effects

• Stress: Psychological and physiological response to perceived challenges or threats.

• Appraisal: Evaluation of a stressor (primary: threat assessment; secondary: coping resources).

• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) (Selye):

  1. Alarm (fight or flight)

  2. Resistance (adaptation)

  3. Exhaustion (depletion of resources)

• HPA Axis: Hypothalamus → Pituitary → Adrenal cortex → Cortisol release.

• Psychoneuroimmunology: Study of how stress affects immune function (e.g., suppressed lymphocyte production).

Coping and Resilience

• Problem-Focused Coping: Addressing the source of stress.

• Emotion-Focused Coping: Managing emotional responses.

• Optimism: Associated with better health outcomes.

• Learned Helplessness: Passive resignation when unable to avoid negative events.

• Positive Psychology: Focuses on strengths, resilience, and well-being.

• Meditation and Mindfulness: Techniques to reduce stress and improve coping.

Psychological Disorders

Defining Psychological Disorders

• Psychological Disorder: Significant disturbance in cognition, emotion, or behavior causing distress or impairment.

• Maladaptive: Interferes with daily functioning.

• DSM-5: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; standard classification in North America.

• ICD-11: International Classification of Diseases; used globally.

• Diathesis-Stress Model: Disorders result from predisposition (diathesis) and environmental stress.

• Biopsychosocial Model: Disorders arise from biological, psychological, and social factors.

Major Disorders

• Major Depressive Disorder: At least 5 symptoms for 2+ weeks; 20% lifetime prevalence.

• Schizophrenia: Disturbances in thought, perception, emotion, and behavior; positive (hallucinations, delusions), negative (flat affect), and disorganized symptoms.

• Personality Disorders: Enduring, inflexible patterns causing distress or impairment.

  • Cluster A: Odd/eccentric (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal)

  • Cluster B: Dramatic/emotional (antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic)

  • Cluster C: Anxious/fearful (avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive)

Treatment of Psychological Disorders

• Drug Therapies:

  • Antipsychotics: Block dopamine (typical) or dopamine and serotonin (atypical).

  • Antidepressants: MAOIs (block degradation), tricyclics (block reuptake of norepinephrine/serotonin), SSRIs (block serotonin reuptake).

  • Anti-anxiety: Benzodiazepines increase GABA activity; risk of tolerance and dependence.

  • Mood Stabilizers: Lithium; mechanism not fully understood.

• Brain Stimulation and Surgery:

  • Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT): For severe depression; induces controlled seizures.

  • Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): Non-invasive stimulation for depression.

  • Anterior Cingulotomy: Surgical lesion for severe OCD/depression.

• Psychotherapy:

  • Psychoanalysis: Insight into unconscious motives (Freud).

  • Interpersonal Therapy: Focus on relationships.

  • Behavior Therapy: Change learned behaviors (e.g., exposure, skills training).

  • Cognitive Therapy: Restructure distorted thoughts.

  • Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Integrates cognitive and behavioral techniques; effective for depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, eating disorders.

Prevalence and Stigma

• 1 in 5 Canadians will experience a mental illness; 8% will experience major depression.

• Stigma and discrimination are barriers to seeking help.

• Reducing stigma: education, awareness, sharing success stories, media representation.

Additional info:

• Culture-bound syndromes are disorders recognized within specific cultures.

• Comorbidity is common; many individuals experience more than one disorder.

• Placebo effects are significant in drug trials; 30% may improve with placebo alone.