Практическое пособие для студентов IV курса специальности «Психология», страница 5

Extrinsic Motivation: A desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishment.

Homeostasis: A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; refers especially to the body’s tendency to maintain the optimum internal state for functioning.

Intrinsic Motivation: A desire to perform a behavior for its own sake and to be effective.

Lateral Hypothalamus: The side areas of the hypothalamus that, when stimulated, trigger eating and, when destroyed, cause an animal to stop eating.

Ventromedial Hypothalamus: The bottom and middle areas of the hypothalamus, that, when stimulated, cause the cessation of eating and, when destroyed, cause an animal to overeat.

Unit 2

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Emotions

Feelings – powerful, spontaneous, sometimes unforgettable. Where do feelings come from? Of all the species, we humans seem to be the most emotional. More often than any other creature, we express fear, anger, sadness, joy, and love. No one needs to tell you that emotions add colour to your life, that in times of stress they can disrupt your life or save it. But what are the ingredients of emotion?

As people’s experience illustrates, emotions involve a mixture of 1) physiological arousal (heart pounding), 2) expressive behavior (teeth clenched), and 3) conscious experience (interpretations of the men’s behavior, and angry feelings).

When you are emotionally aroused, your body is physically aroused. Imagine, that, while walking home along a deserted street late at night, a motorcyclist begins stalking you. Hearing the rumble of the bike’s engine behind you, your heart begins to race, your muscles tense, your stomach develops butterflies, your mouth becomes dry.

Your body also mobilizes itself for action in less noticeable ways. To provide energy, your liver pours extra sugar into your bloodstream. To help burn the sugar, your respiration rate increases to supply the needed extra oxygen. Your digestion slows, diverting blood from your internal organs to your muscles. To cool your stirred-up body, you perspire more. All these responses are activated by the sympathetic nervous system

Among other things, it directs the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys to release the hormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) that in turn increase heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels. When the emergency passes, the parasympathetic neural centers become active, calming the body and arousal diminishes gradually.

Prolonged arousal, triggered by sustained stress, taxes the body. Yet in many situations arousal is adaptive. In fact, both too little arousal (say, being sleepy) and extremely high levels of arousal can disrupt your performance. Generally, performance is best when arousal is moderate.

Specific emotions can be accompanied by different physiological states. Fear, anger, sexual arousal, and sadness certainly feel different. A terrified person may feel a clutching, sinking sensation in the chest and a knot in the stomach. The sexually stimulated person will experience a genital response. Moreover, frightened, angered and saddened people often look different – « paralyzed with fear », « ready to explode », or « down in the dumps ».

Why does it happen in this way? The answer is simple. In spite of the fact that emotions as different as fear and anger involve a similar general autonomic arousal, thanks to the sympathetic nervous system, the differences we experience are apparently orchestrated by the activity of various brain regions and hormones.

How we express our emotions All of us communicate nonverbally as well as verbally. If irritated, we may tense our bodies, press our lips together, and gesture with our eyebrows. Through the silent language of nonverbal expression, the body communicates emotion. Sometimes the message is direct and easily noticed and interpreted, especially if conveyed by the face. Sometimes the message is hopelessly ambiguous. And sometimes, as we all know, it is deceiving.