Please read chapters 4 and 5.
What I would like you to do is to find a topic from one of those 2 chapters that interests you and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point.
Once you have completed your search and explorations (which may include a fair amount of browsing time, and reading websites, links, news pieces, or articles), I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into one fo those chapters, why you are interested in it, and what you learned about that topic from 3 of the sources you viewed/read on the internet (please at the end of your comment include the 3 URLs).
Your comment should be clearly written and demonstrate the time and effort you spent on this assignment. Read last week's assignments to see some great examples if you are struggling.
I will be discussing "Failures to self-regulate physiological needs," as discussed in our text book at the end of chapter 4 on page 105.
I find this topic to be very interesting because almost everyone fails at self-regulation regarding some aspect of their life. People either want to do, or stop doing, some type of activity which is usually a problem for them but can not. Some people want to start exercise for several great reasons but can not find the motivation to do so. Some people want to save money, kick addictions, look for a better job or do better in school. However, no matter how badly people want to focus on some of theses things they simply do not. Why would someone who really wants to lose weight stock the cupboards with junk food? Why would someone who wants to study more often simply not pick up their book and read? The answer to this is confusing at best but looking at the answer from a biological perspective helps us to begin to understand answers to questions which are so fleeting.
According to athleticinsight.com several factors need to be considered when applying self-regulation. These factors include, self-efficacy, goal setting, self evaluation and self-monitoring. These procedures however can only help one reach a specific goal through self-regulation.
Looking at the website psychologytoday.com most people have engrained specific standards that they adhere to concerning all types of behaviors. If self-regulation is like the thermostat in a house than the individual standard is the a unconscious temperature setting in the house. So even if I want to save all my money, there is a standard in my brain that is saying "Saving all this money isn't realistic. I want to go buy a new saltwater fish." No matter how hard I'm trying to save money I'll revert back to that standard that is engrained in my mind that says it is fun and alright to spend money.
Of coarse, most drives can always be reduced to biological processes. The website www.addictioninfo.org, as well as our text, does a pretty good job of explaining the science behind relapse. "Addiction is presented as a cycle of spiraling dysregulation of brain reward systems that progressively increases, resulting in compulsive drug use and a loss of control over drug-taking" www.addictioninfo.com. It seems that people have little control over the chemical firings in the brain. It helps to look at the brain and the mind as two separate entities. The mind my not want to get stoned before class, the mind knows it is not helpful for remembering lecture. However, the chemicals in the brain are saying please slow me down. It seems that the longer the mind is in control over the situation, the louder brain starts talking. Until eventually the brain overthrows what the mind wants.
http://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol4Iss1/SelfRegulation.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200902/self-regulation-failure-part-1-goal-setting-and-monitoring
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/3052/1/Addiction-Self-Regulation-Gone-Wrong/Page1.html
The topic that I chose to discuss was the topic of thirst, and more specifically, how thirst is regulated by the hypothalamus and the kidneys. This topic fits into the topic of “Needs”. Thirst in particular is a physiological need, which means if we are overly water deprived, this can be very dangerous to our health, and pose life-threatening risks. They hypothalamus controls what the book calls “intracellular shrinkage”, which happens when water levels in our body our low. This causes the brain to release a hormone which travels to the kidneys and tells the kidneys to reserve water. If the person is very low on water, the kidneys will begin to release water. This, in turn, causes our bodies to feel what we know as “being thirsty,” and then will cause us to take the proper course of action to relieve that feeling.
The first link is about “Osmoregulation.” It’s provided with good information about dehydration, water logging, water gain and loss, and even how to recover if you’ve drank too much the night before (most of us know the feeling of being dehydrated because of alcohol). Dehydration has to do with the hypothalamus and the kidneys, and gives an overview of what was stated above. Waterlogging has to do with the cells absorbing too much water. The water gain and water loss sections explain how we get water through other resources, such as food and tissue respiration. Water loss is experienced through exhaling, and also in obvious ways such as sweating, urinating, and spitting.
Growing up, I was exposed to the myth of having to drink 8 glasses of 8oz water per day. Lately, I’ve seen nothing but articles that contradict that myth. The second link below is an article written by Dartmouth Medical School that proves this myth wrong. It explains how although plenty of water in the body is necessary, drinking 8-8oz glasses of water a day is not. Most of the water we get in our bodies is consumed through food. The article even suggests the drinks that contain caffeine, such as pop, can be included in the water content of your body.
The next link is a video from the Discovery Channel explaining why we get thirsty, and how to correct it. The video also explains how we become thirsty through the concentration of salt in our body, and how we lose water and salt in our body. The man explains what to drink if we’ve lost both water AND salt in our body, and what to drink if we’re just suffering from water loss.
http://www.purchon.com/biology/osmoregulation.htm#Antidef
http://dms.dartmouth.edu/news/2002_h2/08aug2002_water.shtml
http://news.discovery.com/videos/why-tell-me-why-thirst.html
While reading chapters four and five I became interested in facial metrics and what role they play in attraction. Physical attraction to someone is thought to be one of the key factors behind what motivates people to have sex which is discussed in chapter four. This caught my attention due to the fact that I had studied attraction in Human Sexuality class two semesters ago.
It was at one time believed that physical and sexual attraction was in “the eye of the beholder,” or vary from culture to culture. Recent research has determined that physical attractiveness is rated very similarly throughout different cultures. The faces that have are more symmetrical are considered the most attractive cross culturally. A study conducted by Grammer and Thornhill (1994) echoed this belief. They based their hypotheses off of the parasite theory of mate selection. Therefore, they hypothesized that both men and women would prefer average symmetrical faces and women would prefer large secondary sexual characteristics (jawbone, chins, and cheeks) in men. Both of these hypotheses were proven true (Grammer & Thornhill, 1994).
Many more studies have been conducted on physical attractiveness and facial metrics but one that interested me was one that was done with babies (Eisenthal, Dror, & Ruppin, 2005). Pictures of women who had previously been rated by attractiveness by males were shown to the babies. The faces that were the most attractive were the most symmetrical. The studied showed that the two month old babies looked at the faces of the most symmetrical (most attractive) faces the longest (Eisenthal, et al.,2005). This showed that being more attracted to symmetrical faces is most likely an evolutionary feature.
Evolutionary psychologists view sexual attraction as the motivator behind having sex to produce offspring. According to a Youtube video that I found, “Sex Education Facial Attraction,” it is only natural for individuals to be attracted to other individuals with perfect symmetry in which both their left and right sides are equal. We all desire to have beautiful babies, therefore we desire mates that are symmetrical (more attractive) to increase chances of having a symmetrical child.
Facial metrics and physical attractiveness is a huge area of interest for psychologists. Studies like the ones I discussed show that the more symmetrical an individuals’ face is, no matter what gender, they are found to be more physically attractive. Studies have shown that the vision of beauty is the same cross culturally. Physical beauty is no longer viewed as being “in the eye of the beholder.” Researchers have proven that how people view attractiveness is a product of evolution.
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~roney/other%20pdf%20readings/reserve%20readings/Grammface.pdf
http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/pdf/NECO1801_pp119-142.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTqNgE45u_w
The topic I will be discussing is positive reinforcement. This topic is found in chapter five. A positive reinforcement is when the environmental stimulus that is given to the individual increases the probability of the desired behavior. There are a variety of positive reinforcers that can be administered to the individual. The type of reinforcement that you administer depends on the type of behavior that you are trying to increase in the future. A few examples that I thought of on my own include a person's paycheck, a good grade on an exam, and a trophy for winning a game or a race. The reason that these are positive reinforcers is because when an individual has worked very hard to achieve something, they feel a sense of completion and achievement when they receive their reward. A good way I look at test grades is when I have studied very hard all week for an exam, I want my test score to reflect how hard I studied. If I study all week and I get an A on a test, this will increase my chances of studying hard again to get another A on the next test.
There are a variety of positive reinforcers. The reason I chose this topic is because in my past psychology classes I have always enjoyed trying to figure out how and why different individuals have different things that serve them as a positive reinforcer. What motivates some individuals may be completely different from what other individuals are seeking.
The first article I found comes from www.articlesbase.com The title of the article is "Positive reinforcement for your dog"
The reason I chose this article is because I wanted to show that animals can also be given positive reinforcers. This can be used to train them to act in the behavior that you desire them to. When I read this article I found that some of the reinforceers people use on dogs include dog toys, food and treats. This was not a surprise to me because I remember when I had dogs that I would always be able to get them to sit with a dog treat for positive reinforcement. As time passed the dogs began to pick up more on the behavior that I wanted them to display. Eventually when I wanted them to sit, I would just pull out one of the treats and hold it above their head and they would sit down instantly! Another thing I learned in this article is that different dogs take more time and more patience to teach the bahavior to. I thought it was interesting when it explained that when you use negative reinforcement and scold your dogs, for example going to the bathroom on the floor, it will confuse the dog and make it harder to train them. When you teach him to go outside when he has to use the bathroom you should reward him with treats. The dog will then desire to make his owner happy and learn the proper behavior.
The next article I found comes from www.ehow.com
The article is titled how to discipline a child with positive reinforcement. I thought it was interesting how it explained that when you are teaching your child to do something, you should let the other members of the family know so everybody is on the same page. I liked the example they gave that when you tell your child to do something to use a counting method. I thought of the example that if you want your child to pick up their toys and they refuse, you should slowly begin to count to 3. This gives the child more time to think about it and then act. When they have picked up everything you can give them a high five as a reinforcer. The child then sees that they have made you happy and will more likely want this result again in the near future. You could also give them other rewards such as taking them to the park or take them shopping for a toy.
The third article I found is from www.buzzle.com
The article is titled "Positive reinforcement in the classroom" What I learned and found really interesting in this article is if you really want your student to do better in the future and improve, you should use positive reinforcement when they achieve something and avoid negative reinforcement when they have done something wrong. Negative reinforcement has been shown to make students become more rebelious and display more aggressive behavior. When I read this I thought about when I was a student in Elementary school. I remembered getting a gold star or a "Great Job" written on the top of my paper. This is positive reinforcement. I remember always feeling good about myself when I got one of these. When I did something wrong I rememember standing by the wall for recess and when I came back inside I would feel more resistant to what the teacher had to say.
Overall positive reinforcement is a very large area interest. There are many different objects and ways that you can reinforce someone. Just because one reinforcer works doesn't mean there is not a better one out there to use. I have also learned that you can always try different reinforcers out and find which one works best.
www.articlesbase.com
www.ehow.com
www.buzzle.com
The Need Structure listed in chapter 4 of our text indicates the types of needs that we as human beings require for healthy development and to satisfy our basic human nature. There are 3 branches of needs; Physiological, Psychological, and Social, each of which are organized under the Needs Structure. Physiological needs including thirst, hunger, and sex are, according to our text, inherent within our biological systems. Psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) are derived from our strivings of human nature and healthy development. And lastly Social needs that include achievement, intimacy, and power are learned from our past emotional and socialization experiences.
Physiological needs include our biological systems; neural brain circuits, hormones and bodily organs. When we are unable to meet our physiological needs for a lengthy amount of time our body tells us that it is due to a life threatening emergency and then generates motivational states that can often take over our consciousness. When we do meet the needs physiologically our body forgets about its importance for the time being. Salience rises and falls with our ability to satisfy these needs. Psychological and Social Needs however are present almost always in our consciousness.
Due to the fact that we are constantly interacting and thinking, Psychological and Social needs are almost always met with everyday life. For example hanging out with friends satisfies the need for affiliation and being told what to do at work makes the need for autonomy frustrating.
Looking at websites that I found I came across Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which relates to the needs structure in a fun and simple way. There are several different levels of needs. At the bottom of the “pyramid” or “hierarchy” there are physiological needs which are the needs required for human survival; breathing, food, sex, and sleep. With a person’s physical needs satisfied, an individual’s safety needs start dominating behavior. These needs are based off of a persons desire to have predictable, orderly world in which they feel they have under control. These needs are sometimes met with job security, insurance policies, and savings accounts. There are obviously many more things that could give a person a sense of safety or security but these are just examples to name a few.
After both physiological and safety needs are met an individual moves up to the third layer of the hierarchy which involves feelings of love and belongingness. These are represented by emotionally based relationships such as friendships, intimate relationships and family. In the absence of these relationships people can become at risk for social anxiety, clinical depression, and loneliness. Sometimes these needs can be so strong that they can overcome our physiological and safety needs (peer pressure to do something sometimes plays a huge role in this). However if all of these needs are met an individual can reach the next level of the hierarchy which is Esteem.
Esteem is the need to have self-respect and self-esteem. It’s the desire to be accepted and valued by others. This need plays into the need to be loved and have a sense of belongingness. Embalances at this level can lead to low self-esteem issues and or an inferiority complex. On the other hand, once mastered, an individual will have the need for strength, competence, mastery, independence and freedom to name a few. Once these skills of esteem are acquired, an individual can move to the highest level on the hierarchy which is Self Actualization.
Self Actualization describes a person’s full potential and realizing that potential. Maslow describes it as the desire to become more and more of what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. This need reflects solely on the individual’s personality and motivation. However to reach a clear understanding of this level, one must not only achieve all of the previous needs, physiological, safety, love and esteem, but one must master these needs.
While all these levels seem clearly divided and separate from one another, they all play a huge role on each other. Without the completion of one, the others have a hard time thriving in an individual. They are all interconnected through complex needs and behaviors from the individual making Maslow’s hierarchy of needs simple in text but to actually experience them behaviorally a challenge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/maslow.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS1jlW7yVh0
My topic is facial metrics and how it is related to physical attraction. I found this topic to be very intriguing. According to Chapter 4 of our textbook, sex is one of our major physiological needs. Facial metrics and physical attraction of a potential partner are external stimuli that affect sexual motivation. Also, some physical characteristics are seen as universally attractive. I find facial metrics interesting because they give you an idea of how other people judge attractiveness. In other words, they kind of give you a baseline. Another reason why they interest me is because I didn't know there were so many measurements that went into defining attractiveness.
My first source, a research study, said that facial symmetry may be important in mate selection. It has been shown that there is a relationship between facial symmetry and attractiveness. However, symmetry is not the only factor to determine facial attractiveness in males. How masculine a face is may also be a factor in determining attractiveness. Masculinity and symmetry are somewhat independent and may signal different characteristics in male faces.
My second source, an article from a psychology journal, said that we continually respond to people on the basis of their facial appearance. We tend to choose to approach attractive people over unattractive people. Also, more attractive faces are perceived more sexually responsive and healthy. Therefore, people with attractive faces are more likely to be chosen as sexual partners.
My third source, a research study, said that standards of beauty are set by one's culture, but evidence challenges this. Evidence says that people from different cultures mostly agree on which faces are attractive. This raises the possibility that some standards of beauty may be set by nature rather than culture. Also, evolutionary biologists proposed that a preference for symmetry would be adaptive thus hinting that this standard of beauty may be set by nature.
First source: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/268/1476/1617.full.pdf
Second source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811283/
Third source: http://www.psy.uwa.edu.au/facelab/PublicFaces_files/Rhodes1998.pdf
I found the topic of hunger in relation to environmental influences very interesting. In chapter four on page 91, Reeves lists several influences that may affect a person’s hunger; some of these influences include, “time of day, stress, and the site, smell, appearance, and taste of food.” It is easy to increase your consumption when there is a variety of food to choose from. Some people are very cautious about their nutritional intake as well as the ingredients or the taste of the food available; meanwhile, other people may increase their intake to satisfy their cravings.
The time of day definitely influences hunger. John M. de Castro, a researcher at the University of Texas at El Paso, performed a research study called, “The Time of Day of Food Intake Influences Overall Intake in Humans.” His study concluded that persons who consumed food in the morning are more satisfied throughout the day, reducing the total amount of food consumed in one day. His research also found that the consumption of late night snacks are not physically satisfying and can result in a greater increase of overall daily consumption. According to Dr. Oz, eating after 7:30 can be problematic because people are typically watching television at that time and may not be aware of how much food they are actually eating, increasing overall daily intake as well. Therefore, people should be aware that breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day—getting off to a good start! It is also important to kick the late night snack habits as well.
Stress is also a major environmental influence. According to Reeve, many people, especially dieters, are vulnerable to binge when he/she feels stressed or depressed. Therefore, it is important for people to consume foods enriched in protein which can help a person maintain and/or gain energy; meanwhile, avoid sugary pop or junk foods which may rack up the calories without gaining any nutritional content.
In the textbook, Reeve describes that the more variety of food available typically leads to an increase of intake. Reeve gives the example of eating ice cream. The more varieties of flavors available may lead a person to want to try more than one flavor, which then may lead to eating more ice cream than if you only had one or two flavors to choose from.
The site of food triggers the hunger feeling, causing a person to continue to consume. Reeve also mentions that portion size may influence a person’s amount of consumption. For instance, the more food a person has on his/her plate, the more likely it will be for that person to want to continue eating the food to clear his/her plate, leading the person to overeat. Today, we have the option to buy super-duper, half pound, mega burger with extra cheese, lettuce, condiments, etc. The large orders of burgers, fries, and drinks lead people to consume numerous calories as compared a person eats a small order of the food or substitutes healthier options, such as eating a salad instead of the super-duper mega burger, apples instead of fries, water instead of pop, etc.
The smell, appearance, and taste of food are also environmental influences that affect hunger. With a variety of food, there it is more likely that a person will want to consume a variety of flavors or tastes. When there are different “kinds” of food (sweet, salty, etc.) a person may want to satisfy all of his/her cravings; therefore, he/she may try to take a little bit of everything. Some times this “try a little bit of everything” craving can lead a person to overeat as well.
Reeve also talks about how people can increase their food intake when others are in presence. According to Reeve, “In the company of others, people eat more and they eat for longer periods of time, and this is especially true when those others are family and friends” (p. 92). Reeve also discusses that there is more pressure and influence of food consumption if a friend or relative is obese.
As we all know, food and hunger play a huge role in our physical and psychological health. However, there are some environmental influences to be aware of and to possibly avoid.
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/1/104
http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=2993302
http://www.stressfocus.com/stress_focus_article/stress-reduction-by-food.htm
I have chosen the topic of positive reinforcement. The topic is presented in chapter 5. I am interested in learning more about positive reinforcement because I work with children and feel like positive reinforcement is a hot topic when raising children. Positive reinforcement is any environmental stimulus that when presented increases the future probability of the desired behavior. Positive reinforcers include praise, attention, money, grades, approval, food, awards, and privileges. Each of these could be used when raising children. For example a prize could be given to a child who is learning to potty train. If the child likes the prize enough it will encourage the child to repeat the behavior to get another prize. Another example that I can recall from my childhood is when I needed to clean my room. My parents told me that once I cleaned my room I would get to play outside with my friends. I quickly caught on that I could play outside once my room was clean so I began to clean my room before even asking to play outside.
The first website discusses using positive reinforcement in the classroom. The site states that people should be intrinsically motivated to behave. They also stated ways to use positive reinforcement with children. Those include finding what’s reinforcing to students, make them inexpensive and easy, and control the access to reinforcers. These are important for a couple reasons. If something is being used that the students don’t value, they will be less likely to change their behavior and complete the assignment. The reinforcer also has to be easy and inexpensive because of budget restraints and time constraints. The access to reinforcers needs to be controlled because if too many children have access, the effectiveness will decrease and it will no longer work and it will no longer hold value.
The second website includes a video clip from the television show “The Big Bang Theory.” In the clip Sheldon uses chocolate to try to change Penny’s behavior. Anytime she does something that he considers as correct behavior he gives her another piece of chocolate. Penny doesn’t catch on, but her boyfriend does and calls Sheldon out on using positive reinforcement.
The third website discusses positive reinforcement in the workplace. Positive reinforcement can be used in the workplace in an attempt to get the results that the company wants and needs. For instance, in companies that rely on making a certain amount of sales, positive reinforcement can be given to the associates that meet their sales in set period of time. Companies that are motivated to reach their goals have the potential to be more successful than companies that aren’t. Positive reinforcement in the workplace can include pay raises, bonuses, added paid time off or vacation time.
Positive reinforcement can be used in a variety of ways. It can be used from raising and working with children to the workplace to improve the success of the company. Positive reinforcement is even used in television episodes! After completing more research on positive reinforcement, I have definitely learned a lot more about the ways that it can be used.
http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/specconn/main.php?cat=behavior§ion=main&subsection=classroom/positive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA96Fba-WHk&feature=related
http://www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/btopics/works/postrein.html
I have chosen positive and negative reinforcement as my topic. This is discussed in chapter 5 on pages 117 & 118. Reeves does a good job in defining positive reinforcement as "any environmental stimulus that, when presented, increases the future probablilty of the desired behavior" and negative reinforcement as "any environmental stimulus that, when removed, increases the future probability of the disired behavior." The author also gives good examples of these reinforcements such as: approval, paychecks, trophies, money, food, and attention (positive) and the ring of an alarm clock, whining, magging, crying, surveillance, deadlines, and pain (negative).
The first website is a YouTube clip that talks about how reinforcement affects children. It talks about how when children throw tantrums and their parents are sympathetic towards them and give them what they want just to get them to stop their behavior...the children learn to keep throwing the tantrums because it works in their favor aka positive reinforcement. This clip does a very good job explaining negative reinforcement. People often get confused and think negative reinforcement means being punished, when in reality it means making a response more likely to occur in the future by removing something unpleasant. That is the difference..negative reinforcement has a good feeling and punishment has bad feelings such as fear or sadness.
The second website discusses using positive and negative reinforcement in treating anxiety and depression. An example they use is someone with anxiety can use breathing techniques to learn that their symptoms of anxiety can be avoided. When their symptoms are gone, they have experienced negative reinforcement.
The third website talks about how positive reinforcement is used to motivate the actions of other people and that people behave the way they do because they are reinforced to behave that way. Positive reinforcement is kind of like incentives in the way that employers use it to increase productivity, decrease absenteeism and workplace accidetns. If employees get a bonus for perfect attendence, of course they are going to try very hard to have perfect attendence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHcw2vz9H0&feature=related
http://www.stresscenter.com/mwc/depression-treatment/positive-vs-negative-reinforcement.html
http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/advantages-disadvantages-using-positive-negative
My topic is sexual orientation which occurs in chapter 4 on page 102. I find this topic very interesting because I hear a lot of people say “why would you want to be gay”. What they don’t understand is people don’t choose to be gay or don’t dream about being gay, it’s just who they are. People are born gay it has something to do with their body. The research out there has a lot of rejected hypotheses and I am curious about what really causes people to become gay. It is a genetic thing, is it a chemical imbalance in the brain or something entirely different. Sexual orientation fits into chapter 4 because its focus is on physiological needs and sex is one of those needs. Before a person can engage in sex they first need to find out who they are attracted too. Sexual orientation is a big part of a teenager years, especially if they realize that they like someone of the same sex. Sex is complicated as it is, without adding being different from your peers to the mix. Sexual orientation fits into this chapter because it is part of a physiological need. A person sexual orientation can include partners from the same sex, partners from the opposite sex, or partners from both. The majority of people’s sexual orientation includes attraction to partners of the opposite sex. About four percent of males and two percent of females are attracted to partners of the same sex. This does not include people who are attracted to member of both sexes.
The first website is from webmd.com and gives an overview of what the different sexual orientations and the things that encompass that. I already know what homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual were. What I learned is that there are many factors that play a part in a person’s sexual orientation. These factors include, environmental, emotional, hormonal, and biological. A combination of any or all of these factors helps decide a person’s sexual orientation and the factors can be different for each person. One misconception that I already knew, but was reminded of it that a child’s upbringing and sexual experience with someone of the same sex at a young age have nothing to do with their sexual orientation later in life. People begin to realize their sexual orientation during adolescence. They realize that their sexual thoughts are directed toward a certain gender. Therefore even before a person engages in sex, they usually know their sexual orientation. Some people think that a person can change their sexual orientation if they want to, but that’s not true. A person did not choose their sexual orientation and therefore cannot change it. Some people do live their lives as heterosexual just because they don’t want to deal with peoples prejudice toward them. This is very wrong that someone has to hide who they are in fear of what other people will think, say or do to them.
The second article I found was on death threat sent to gay candidate for the seat in the Kansas House. Dan Manning, who is openly gay, received a death threat on his front door, early Saturday morning. The paper had cut outs spelling things like “kill”, “murder”, “head off”, among other things. He said that the threat scared him and he called the police right away. He also stated that this threat would not scare him away from running for the Kansas House. This focus on the issue how some people have to hide their sexual orientation because of what other people might do or say. In this case someone sent a death threat to a man just because he is gay. Political figures and other famous people might feel pressured to stay silent about their sexual orientation, because of what the public might think. They might also feel ashamed they are gay or bisexual, because of the stigma that surrounds it. Manning admits that it’s not surprising people are intolerant. This is a sad truth that many people have to face.
The last website has facts and the history regarding sexual orientation. One thing that I didn’t know that was very interesting is that homosexuality was considered a disorder in the DSM until 1973. It shows that we have come a long way since that time when being gay was a disease. Another thing that came to my attention that I didn’t know was that back in the 1970’s many Americans, 70% to be exact thought that homosexuals were child molesters. This number has declined dramatically since then, but there are still some people that believe this myth. There has been research on this topic, but more needs to be done. More attention needs to be brought to the public to show what is a myth and fact regarding being gay or bisexual. A good quote to remember is “Fight fear with facts”, which I got from this website.
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/guide/sexual-orientation
http://www.kwch.com/news/kwch-news-kh-deaththreat-candidate,0,5787089.story
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts.html
My curiosity was sparked once I read about environmental influences, specifically those that affect people’s eating behavior. I began wondering how food advertisements affect what we eat. Personally, I know advertising is a huge industry that gains profit from the ways in which they can motivate people to eat specific foods at specific times. I’m sure everyone has had the experience when they are sitting on the couch late at night and see a tempting food commercial that gets their stomach growling even though they may be perfectly satiated. The pictures and words are the ways in which food advertisers reel us in. A person’s hunger is based on their physiological motivations to eat or not. The actual eating behavior can be controlled either by hunger or environmental influences such as advertisements. The important thing to understand is the eating behavior can occur even when hunger is not an issue.
My first question was, “What are the tricks behind successful food advertisements?” I found one interesting website that went into detail on how food is made to look so tempting visually. This site was aimed more towards children, but I think it is important to understand there our people known as food stylists who work to make food look as perfect as possible for an advertisement. It is possible that once you visit this site you may not be as motivated to eat what you see from an advertisement anymore. After learning more about food stylists and what goes into making food appear a certain way I went back and looked up a food commercial on Youtube. One that caught my eye was a Wendy’s commercial. The slogan, “You know when it’s real,” was repeated continuously during the commercial, but what I took from it, appearance is still important no matter what. I never saw a burger in the commercial that looked real as in what the burger truly looks like when you buy one at the restaurant. It is apparent that advertising uses the visual part of our brain to induce motivation.
Statistics about obesity show that food advertising is a successful business. Even though business is booming it’s not a business that is in any way aimed towards a person’s health. According to one site, McDonalds spends about 1.2 billion dollars a year on advertising while Pepsi spends 2.1 billion a year. In the year 2001, Americans spent around 110 billion dollars on fast food and drank about 56 gallons of pop/soda per person. As time goes on more and more of Americans are becoming over weight and our youth are experiencing more and more health issues related to obesity. Biologically, humans prefer to eat high calorie foods not only because it tastes better than low calorie foods but because it keeps us energized. Consuming to many high calorie foods will sooner or later lead to obesity so as humans we must learn to keep our motivations in check.
One of the best ways in which advertisements achieve success is through pictures. Visually, food looks tempting because of the ways in which it has been enhanced. Pictures of food are able to activate salivation in the mouth and excite our lateral hypothalamus. The lateral hypothalamus contains special neurons that respond to the sight and taste of food. This physiological response is tough to ignore and that alone can motivate someone to go and buy the food they see advertised. Advertisements can be found almost anywhere, but is important to understand the motivations that may cause you to eat or not because understanding these can help you control other problems such as health issues related to weight gain.
http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/advertisingtricks/foodadtricks_burger3.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptHgHgzIItU&feature=related
http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?section=bodyimage
The topic that I am doing further research on is intrinsic motivation.
To Be a Leader: intrinsic motivation
The video that I watched was about motivation in the workforce. According to psychologist intrinsic motivation is correlated with higher levels of performance (Jackhayhow, 2007). In other words, doing the work alone should be the reward, not some external reward. This is because people tend to do best on things they want to do. People in management positions should try to make the employees motivate themselves instead of you trying to motivate them. A couple of ways of doing this is by giving more autonomy and choice.
The second source that I used was a website talking about intrinsic motivation. The creators of this website describes internal motivation as motivation to engage in a certain activity that will make one feel better about one’s self. The website also briefly brushed over what they called “intrinsic benefits”. This was the reward that was the outcome of an activity brought upon by intrinsic motivation. Finally, the most clear definition of intrinsic motivation was given by Malone and Lepper, it said: “what people will do without external inducement” (Malone, Lepper, 1987).
The third source I used was a short article called Encouraging Students’ Intrinsic Motivation by Kathleen McKinney. This article is about trying to instill intrinsic motivation in students at a young age. McKinney notes however, that we cannot force intrinsic motivation. She says the first step is to talk about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The next step is to tell stories about former students who were intrinsically motivated by school. One thing that she emphasizes is that as a teacher you must “practice what you preach” so that the students can see that you love what you do.
All three of these gave me a better insight to what exactly intrinsic motivation is and how important it is. The book is very dry, so reading and hearing other people talk about gave me a better understanding. I’m sure intrinsic motivation will be talked about the rest of the class because is a key ingredient in motivation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv35y1brS5w
http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy5/edpsy5_intrinsic.htm
http://www.cat.ilstu.edu/additional/tips/intMotiv.php
I decided to research thirst. There are three factors seen as components to thirst: A defecit of water in the body, central and peripheral nerves integrate with the brain to relate the need for water, and an urge to drink. Scientists classify thirst as a drive, a compelling urge that motivates us to take action.
Thirst replensihes the amount of minerals and water in our body to maintain homeostasis. Thirst works when the extracellular receptors in the body detect decreased blood pressure. There is a drop in blood pressure when the total amount of body fluid drops. The body then tries several ways to restore blood pressure.
There are 3 reasons people drink: water replenishment, sweet taste, and addiction or attraction to a substance in the liquid.
The most important influence on thirst is taste. Pure water is not rewarding because it has no taste. It mainly serves to replenish the body's water supply. Flavored waters and beverages offer more incentives for people to drink. We tend to drink more sweet water, less salty and sour water and drink enough tasteless water to maintain homeostasis. The quality and quantity of drinks influence consumption. The word alliesthesia is used to describe the fat that thirst may have pleasant or unpleasant qualities.
People can intake large and dangerous amounts of liquids. Drinking high amounts of alcohol and caffeine can lead to addictions. They give the body other physiological processes that motivate people to drink more. There is also pressure from society to drink these types of beverages.
Some drugs can induce a need to overdrink. They make a person feel extremely thirsty and can get water intoxication which could eventually lead to death.
The DSM-IV has proposed a diagnosis for caffeine withdrawl. Some symptoms include irritability, low contentedness and well being, decreased energy and activness, decreased alertness and attentiveness, tiredness, and fatigue. These symptoms come around 12 to 24 hours after withdrawl and last for 2 to 9 days.
I also learned the difference between thirst and drinking. Just because you are thirsty does not mean you will drink and if you are drinking it does not mean you are thirsty.
I found it interesting to read about the reasons why people drink. I liked reading about the caffeine and alcohol addictions. I didn't realize that caffeine withdrawl had not been added to the DSM-IV yet.
www.enotes.com
www.princeton.edu/~gdetre/notes/essay
www.medicinenet.com/caffeine
The topic that I decided to research further is “Weight Gain and Obesity” discussed on page 94 in our textbook. I became interested in this topic after hearing the class lecture last week about how there is a third component to weight regulation: recognizing the psychological component of eating. I hadn’t really thought about what triggers a person to eat even when they aren’t hungry, but it makes sense that one would have to identify these triggers in order to permanently lose weight.
The first link is a blog-style article written by Cecelia Ford, a clinical psychologist. Ford reveals that weight loss may be harder than we realize, but with the proper knowledge and mindset it is possible to lose weight. I learned that a lot of weight loss success has to do with your attitude. This article advocates viewing exercise and dieting as healthy habits that you are implementing into your life, as opposed to heinous activities you are inflicting on yourself. I can see some truth to getting in the right mind set for becoming healthier.
The next article that I read was about social eating. At the beginning of this article it mentions a study about how obesity is contagious, which I found kind of humorous until I thought about it. Actually, it isn’t such an outrageous idea when I stopped to consider that most of the time that I eat it is with others in situations where I feel obligated to eat even if I’m not hungry. This article explained how American’s have gotten used to larger portion sizes and so we too are getting larger.
The last website I found described emotional eating and how to combat it. Emotional hunger is different than physical hunger because typically the person is focused on a food that will make him feel better and they want the food immediately. This article revealed some interesting research: that sometimes people crave comfort foods when they’re happy, too. Also, people crave different foods depending on the mood they are in. Now that I am aware of this I plan to try to identify my emotional eating triggers.
Weight gain and obesity are gaining a lot of popularity in the media. I agree with our text and Dr. Maclin that it is important to remember the psychological aspect of eating. Being aware of personal eating and exercising habits and preferences is the first step towards developing healthy habits!
http://womensvoicesforchange.org/the-art-of-the-possible-psychological-aspects-of-weight-control.htm
http://www.healthcentral.com/diet-exercise/c/2922/17965/eating
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/emotional-eating-feeding-your-feelings?page=2
Being a self-motivated individual I’ve taken an interest in intrinsic motivation and have decided to further explore the internal complexities of motivation. Essentially intrinsic motivation is driven by an enjoyment or personal interest in a task and the challenge it holds; the motivation subsists within the individual not an external stimuli (rewards come from carrying out an activity not from the result of an activity). Intrinsic motivation is most widely studied within social and educational areas (e.g. schools and workplaces). If you’ve ever wanted to master a subject or skill, be the best at something, or simply wanted to improve yourself you have been intrinsically motivated to do so. You did so because it interested you, you had fun with it, and enjoyed the challenge it presented.
Figure 5.1 in our textbooks on pg. 112 diagrams the origins of intrinsic motivation; Autonomy (feeling free), Competence (ability to perform a specific task), and Relatedness (feeling of closeness/being connected). We all have psychological need within ourselves and engaging in intrinsically motivating activities satisfies that need through autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Intrinsic motivation and behavior is very rewarding and enjoyable but can be reduced if extrinsic motivators arise. The enjoyment you once received will be come from an external stimulus rather than self derived such as getting paid to play music or rewarded for receiving good grades. There is great importance in managing the relationship between extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation such that the extrinsic motivator does not inhibit the intrinsic motivation of the individual.
Workers who are intrinsically motivated have higher job satisfaction and better performance appraisals than those who are extrinsically motivated by pay or benefits. The employee/employer interaction needs to move from a market relationship to a social relationship if managers are seeking a more intrinsically motivated staff. Love, gratitude, and trust that we receive in a social exchange are hard to put value on and are rendered priceless. Market exchanges such as trading one’s time and energy for nothing more than compensation can cheapen the work that an employee has produced which in their mind is considered priceless.
Many students aren’t intrinsically motivated to study or perform well in a class due to extrinsic influence. Extrinsic motivation alone is having a negative impact on student achievement. When students set challenges or goals for themselves pertaining to their education, are given control over certain aspects, and compete and compare favorably to others they are more intrinsically motivated to succeed than simply being told what is expected of them. I feel as though it’s not only the education systems responsibility, but more importantly the student’s responsibility to devise a system that promotes intrinsic behavior in their studies.
http://www.beswick.info/psychres/management.htm
http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy5/edpsy5_intrinsic.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbkJ5MKEVEE
I chose the topics of Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic from chapter five from pages 111, 113, 114,115, 117, and 120. Intrinsic Motivation is defined as to engage in something that interests the person to seek out and put effort into doing so. One great example is the well known Justin Bieber. The story with Justin Bieber is that he initially entered a contest, which I am guessing he did it because he wanted to get notice, but because some relatives could not make it he posted up videos of that competition. It was a hit on youtube, then a manager called him, he met up first with Justin T. and then Usher, Justin B. picked Usher and signed up which showed that he wanted to pursue his career in music. Obviously he enjoyed singing if he entered himself into a contest which he ended up pursuing as a career which is first a sign of intrinsic motivation. He is still persistant and from what it looks like it is challenging, you have to do so much to do what he does, singing is a creativity. Now the Extrinsic motivation part of it was the fact that he was getting so much praise from youtube users and then that a manager found him and signed him up with Usher! Wow that is a big Extrinsic Motivation. External Regulation of Motivation: Incentives, Consequences, and Rewards; Now in order for Justin B. to keep operating effectively (operant conditioning) he is being trained vocally and physically by dance insructors, and of course making appearances that way he can produce attractive consequences and at the same time learning not to attract adverse consequences. Two of the main incentives in the Music industry is fame and fortune, these to incentives make powerful attractive consequences that keeps that person from quiting what they do. Money and Fortune again are considered reinforcers that increase the extrinsic behavior. This is a positive consequence because again he is getting more noticed, more media attention and most importantly more money. Of course extrinsic rewards are almost all the time confused with positive and negative reinforcement, like for example because Kim K. got extremely famous of the release of her sextape (she did not want released in the first place) girls like Montana Fishburne want to become famous so quickly that they choose the porn industry thinking that the outcome would be positive as Kim's when really it looks like it's backfiring on her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1mSn4kwExo
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/justin-bieber/answers/show/30403/how-did-famous-lol-random-question
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/08/25/why-is-kim-kardashian-famous.aspx
http://people.famouswhy.com/kim_kardashian/
http://www.tmz.com/2010/08/19/montana-fishburne-sex-tape-brian-pumper-lawsuit-legal-action-porn-threaten/
For this assignment, I chose to do a little research on the topic of extrinsic motivation found in Chapter 5 in our text on page 111. Extrinsic motivation ties in with our studies because, as the name suggests, it is a type of motivation. More specifically, extrinsic motivation is when we are motivated to do something because of another outside source. For example, giving students money in exchange for getting good grades.
I am greatly interested in this topic because I have heard about extrinsic motivation ever since I started to study Psychology. It fascinates me to know that being extrinsically motivated to do something can actually reduce your overall desire to do the task at hand. For example, let's re-visit the idea of paying a student for getting good grades. Yes, the student may still get the job done however they see fit and pull of fantastic grades, but they might not like school as much as they used to. They will be at risk for being motivated more by the money instead of the pure joy of aquiring new knowledge. So, you will have to stop and think if that is the lesson that you want to give your child.
After searching on the internet, I found three interesting websites that put extrinsic motivation into more perspective. The first website, selfmademiracle.com, gives more examples about how extrinsic motivation works. The author of the website tells a story about a girl they knew in college that did tasks she hated for courses she wasn't even interested in just to get the physical rewards. She would read books she hated just to get exempted from an English Lit. class, solve horrid math problems just to get merits, take attendence in exchange for extra credit, etc. etc. What made it worse is that doing all of this and reaching these goals did not make her happy in the end. In fact, from the sounds of it, the girl was downright miserable. This just goes to show that if you do things just for the outside rewards as your motivation, you could end up regretting it.
Selfmademiracle.com claims that grades and popularity are the two biggest extrinsic motivators (at least for students). I saw this idea manifest itself even in my own high school. People would go to great lengths just to get friends or good grades. What I want to know is if it was really worth it in the end.
One final thing that selfmademiracle.com cautioned readers about is that extrinsic motivation is easily extinguished. If you take away the outside source of motivation, then the behavior the person once engaged in will be gone just as fast. This is why it is so important to have intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation, if implemented properly and with extreme caution, could be a great complement to intrisic motivation. However, extrinsic motivation should never be used as the only way to motivate any person.
There was also an interesting article that had been published in Psychology Today in November of 2009 that proved to be quite informative. The author of this article argues that saying one form of motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) is better than the other is the same as the mind-body argument. They finalize there argument by saying that motivation is not a "one-size fits all" solution for education and motivating kids and adults. While I think the author's perspective on this topic is interesting and agree that everyone is different and we should not try and put every single person into one of two categories, I still feel as though I have to agree with the idea that extrinsic motivation can lower a person's desire to do certain tasks. This article is worth reading, however, and really gave a new and interesting perspective to the theories of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
The final website I found gave even more evidence that extrinsic motivation can result in a decrease in behavior. This website gives the details about two studies done in regards to motivation. The first one dealt with young students drawing during free play and the other study dealt with puzzle solving.
In the experiment with the kids drawing during freeplay, the students were divided into three groups. The first group was to be told they would get a reward for drawing after they were asked to draw. The second group was asked to draw and was not told about the certificate, but received the certificate after drawing anyway. The final group was not told about the certificate and did not receive one after they drew their picture. All groups received constructive and positive feedback about their drawing when they were finished. What the researches found was that the students that were not told about the certificate and were not given one drew a lot more and showed more interest in drawing during free play than the other students. This shows that the extrinsic motivation did not help in motivating the students to draw except for one time.
In the second study, participants were asked to solve a puzzle. One group received money and the other group was not. Upon completing the puzzle, all participants were left alone. Upon being observed, researchers found that the participants that were payed stopped playing the puzzle game while those that were not paid kept playing. This is a similar result to the previous study. It was interesting to see the concept of extrinsic motivation in a real-world example type of way.
In summation, extrinsic motivation can be a very dangerous thing when used alone. By using extrinsic motivation, you can diminish the pure joy of doing a task that a person may have had before the outside motivation came into play. Many research studies and observations have supported the fact that extrinsic motivation is not truly effective to get people motivated. What we need, especially for our students, is more intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation can be used to supplement intrinsic motivation, but it should never be used as the only means to motivate someone.
1) http://www.selfmademiracle.com/motivationmodel/is-extrinsic-motivation-effective/ (Google)
2) http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/who-we-are/200911/the-myths-intrinsic-extrinsic-motivation
(Google)
3) http://www.oncourseworkshop.com/Motivation004.htm
(dogpile.com)
Sexual motivation is a topic that is interesting to me. Every once in awhile, I think “What does she see in him?” or “What does he see in her?” and so the section on sexual motivation was very interesting to me. It helped answer the question I asked earlier. If it’s a women, she sees money, if it’s a man, he sees beauty…. At least, according to the survey the book shows. To be fair, they do offer other things, but those seem to be the main things that women and men look for in their mates. In one article, the author takes different motivations for sex and breaks them down. These include: physiological (hormones), orientation, pleasure, cognitions, attraction, learning, culture and attitudes. The article makes the argument that some degree of all of these things are present when two people have sex. These things drive who we’re sexually drawn to, and what we’ll do in bed with them once and if we get there. The article also showed the difference between American men and women in their sexual preferences. They then compared it to Swedish men and women and found that the differences aren’t really there like they are here. Another article broke natural selection down into offensive selection and defensive selection. Defensive selection has to do with keeping the individual alive long enough to reproduce. Offensive selection, however, is about keeping the offspring alive and seeing to it that they grow up, when defensive selection kicks in.
These three sources have spoken about the evolutionary basis of sexual motivation. Since I’m not really a supporter or evolution, I wondered if there were other theories about sexual motivation. I found an article that compares evolutionary theory and social structure theory. It did speak more to sex differences, however, the theory could be useful in explaining motivation as well. Social structure basically states that there are differences because men and women occupy different social roles. In terms of sexual motivation, social structure could say something like this: men are motivated towards having sex more because they are socially expected and encouraged to do so. However, women are socially expected to be monogamous and to want sex less. Society encourages women to be sexually nonaggressive but encourages men to be sexually aggressive. Therefore, men and women are drawn to the standards that they have been taught are important.
None of the articles I looked at disagreed with the preferences that the book states, which made me look into other theories or other information about sexual motivation that the book didn’t talk about. In my opinion, much work needs to be done in this area.
sorry, here are my sources:
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/denisiuk.html
http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/sexmotiv.htm
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/thatcher.html
The topic I chose to focus on is punishment and can be found in chapter 5. I not only wanted to focus on simply punishment but instead punishment for children. In chapter 5, consequences are elaborated on, one of those consequences being punishment. This topic interested me because I do a great deal of child care and with childcare comes punishment. So I was interested in finding out a little more about where punishment stems from and different strategies of punishment that seem to be more successful than others.
A punisher is any incentive in the environment, when presented, decreases the chance of the undesired behavior. Society needs the threat and practice of punishment in order to achieve social order. Either you engage in an un-desirable behavior and receive a punishment or you do not engage in that poor behavior, sparing you a punishment. It seems simple; just don’t engage in that wrong or risky behavior and you’ll be fine. This isn’t always the case, especially for children.
When it comes to punishment at a younger age, the key to efficiency is consistency. Corporal punishment, or in other words, spanking, is one of the most controversial punishments. Although it may produce a short-term effect, corporal punishment can lead to later emotional and behavioral problems. Rather than taking this route, which over 94% of parents have admitted to doing so, it is proven that punishment such as time outs, giving extra chores, taking away a favorite toy, TV or video has provided parents with greater success.
As children grow and develop, it is important to discuss with them the actions they may be exhibiting, which are wrong, and if done so again the punishment they will receive in the future. Rather than taking immediate action like with younger kids (ages 0 to 2) you want to discuss the wrong versus right, since they are beginning to understand more words. As they grow in years positive reinforcement begins to take a much larger role. It is not all about the punishment but rather recognizing the good behaviors. This is a way to raise their self-esteem, which is what kids need rather than beat it down.
Setting a good example can also be a good way to avoid bad behavior. Kids learn by watching adults, in particular their parents. So rather than spanking your child, which may teach them that when angry, hitting is okay, practice an alternative punishment route previously stated. Although punishments may not work the first time or even the next, it is the fact that you are consistent, which is key when dealing with children and discipline.
http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/whatsnew/package.jsp?name=fte/timeout/timeout&floc=wn-dx
http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/talk/discipline.html#
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/punishment/
I decided to read more about facial metrics.
The first site I read was about a study done in 2008 trying to link facial measurements and aggression. The study found that men with higher facial width to height ratio were more reactively aggressive. No such link was found in women. Part of the study was of male hockey players. The researchers looked at facial width to height ratio and compared it to how many minutes each player spent in the penalty box over the course of the season. They found the men with higher ratios spent more time in the penalty box, providing a pretty solid foundation for their hypothesis. It’s weird to think that just by looking at someone you can tell how aggressive they are likely to be, but then again, people end up looking like their dogs…so maybe it’s not really that strange.
Next, I watched a video on youtube about a new facial attractiveness enhancing software. First, an image is uploaded into the program, then it measures facial features based on 84 predetermined ‘beautiful’ characteristics rated by real people. They explained the whole process by which they tell the computer how to make the facial images more attractive. This process involves an actual mathematic formula which can determine how attractive a face is.
Which leads me to another video I watched about the golden mean and how it relates to facial attractiveness. The golden mean is a ratio which can predict symmetry. Some scientists (or math geeks) actually developed a ‘mask’ which shows a perfectly symmetrical face. It turns out, if you copy and paste this mask onto the faces of society’s most beautiful people, it will match up almost exactly. I thought these videos were really interesting because I never realized that beauty could be determined by a math formula and that this formula can be applied to an almost universal standard for what a beautiful face is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO3o9drC1mQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVbrUuwK-8g&feature=related
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570531/
My topic is from the Needs Structure from chapter 4- Physiological Needs. I chose this because it interests me how people determine physiological needs and how once we satisfy one, there is another to be satisfied right away. An example of a need that is physiological would be eating. Even if we satisfy the need to eat, there are still those urges to eat more and more and more. It almost becomes a want. Sometimes we can accomplish multiple needs at once such as hunger and achievement (an eating contest) or hunger and relatedness (going to eat with a friend and talking).
At my first source, (http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/health.htm) the author says, "Physiological needs are to do with the maintenance of the human body. If we are unwell, then little else matters until we recover." This is very true because when I think back to being sick or extremely hungry, nothing else is on my mind until I feel better or until I finally eat. It also went on to say that when we are no longer unwell, we do things to our body that may harm it because the main physiological needs have been met. Some examples would be smoking, over eating, or drinking alcohol. My take on this is that because our physiological needs have been met, we have wants that need to be satisfied. The fact that one may want to drink alcohol may also have to do with a psychological need though, such as relatedness.
At my second source, http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/08/cz_af_1008health.html, they discussed the topic of sex as a physiological need and also listed benefits to other health needs that may be correlated with frequent sex. Improved sense of smell, reduced risk of heart disease, weight loss/overall physical fitness, reduced depression, pain relief, less frequent colds/flu, better bladder control, better teeth, and a happier prostate are the factors that forbes listed as benefits to health from having sex. I thought that this was so interesting because by satisfying a physiological need one can also help lead a healthier lifestyle in so many other ways. True, by eating healthy you can also improve your health, but people don't really think of sex as being healthy for you.
My third source, http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/water011204.htm, surprised me by informing me of the dangers of drinking too much water, one of the more important physiological needs. It says that drinking too much water dilutes salt in your body that your muscles and tissues need to function and can kill you. That was probably the most interesting fact of all of the things I looked up because I had known before that drinking too much water could kill you, but I wasn't really sure how.
1. http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/health.htm
2. http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/08/cz_af_1008health.html
3. http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/water011204.htm,
I have decided to do my research topic on extrinsic motivation. I have heard a lot about this term for a long time and wanted to find out more about. I have heard on the media and seen book s advertising it is very ineffective to use extrinsic motivation for some things while others say it’s always ineffective, so is it?
As said in the book, Reeve ch.5 (pg. 114) extrinsic behavior emanates from incentives and consequences made contingent on enacting the observed behavior.
Dan pink who has written lots of popular book on behavior and motivation gave an example of how extrinsic motivators don’t help. He explained a study that used extrinsic motivators on one group and none on another, the group that was extrinsically motivated completed the task slower. He also reminds people that what science has found out about what works in motivation is not applied in business often it is the opposite. Business still use extrinsic motivators when most research suggests it is not always useful. He wants businesses to stop using extrinsic rewards and do what science says and go more with intrinsic motivators and have people adopt a concept of improving by using autonomy, mastery and purpose. He thinks that giving workers autonomy would improve businesses greatly because people are happier, creative and more productive when they have freedom. So he agrees with engaging people to act on more intrinsic motivators but does say extrinsic motivation do work in certain types of fields like manufacturing. His video is from when he presented at the TED conference, is very interesting I recommend everyone watch what he has to say
On a website describing extrinsic behavior they noted something from previous research done by Lepper, Greene and Nisbett (1973) that if you want someone to stop doing a behavior give them a reward for doing the unwanted behavior and then later when they do this behavior again take it away. Because after being given extrinsic rewards people will not be motivated to do the task again later. I find this unconventional but now understand why it would work. It noted it would be good for training pets but I also think this might come in handy in certain situations with children.
In a book by John Schindler (2008) he describes how to better use extrinsic motivators in the classroom. He notes that random rewards work better because they lead to immediate behavior change. For example students will associate a reward to possibly happening again and being rewarded next time if they do their work if someone had previously been rewarded for it randomly. He also notes that a point system is better than a token system because you can easily modify it for what behavior you want the students to do.
I think extrinsic rewards if applied well can defiantly have a positive affect and no one way is right way both types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are necessary to people’s behavior modifications.
http://www.danpink.com/about
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/extrinsic_motivation.htm
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/jshindl/cm/ExtrinsicRewards.htm
I decided to do some more research on thirst satiety from Chapter 4.
The first article that sparked my interest was an article on higher satiety rating after yogurt consumption. I was interested right away because the study was based on the idea that dairy products were perceived as essential in weight-loss and I had seen examples of this in commercials for “lite” yogurt and how slim they could potentially make me. The study compared the differences in the consumption of a semi-solid yogurt, a liquid yogurt, a dairy drink, and a fruit drink. Interestingly enough, when either of the yogurts was consumed the satiety level was much higher than when either the dairy or fruit drinks were consumed. I thought this was interesting after reading in the chapter about the cut-off mechanisms in the different systems involved with consuming water.
Next, I found an article that determined if there was any difference in satiety between different types and amounts of sweeteners. An unexpected result was when there was no difference between the amounts drunk regardless of sweetness. However, there was a difference in the satiety of hunger, with results showing that when the drink was sweeter, the subjects were likely to eat less.
Finally, I read an interview conducted with a Dr. Drewnowski who conducted an experiment to see if calories from sugar would affect the satiety differently if the calories came in solid or liquid form. In this study, Dr. Drewnowski gave cookies or a regular cola to subjects either two hours or twenty minutes before lunch. In somewhat of a twist, the form of the calories did not matter but they timing of the snacks directly influenced the amount eating. The results showed that when either of the snacks were given at the later time, the subjects at a significantly lesser amount.
I find this subject of satiety extremely intriguing and hope to think of it as an example when thinking about motivations throughout the semester.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/86/1/116
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0887/is_5_25/ai_n26878170/?tag=content;col1
http://www.thebeverageinstitute.com/about_us/beverages_satiety.shtml
The topic I chose was positive and negative reinforcement. I chose this topic because it is something that I have to be semi-conscious about constantly when dealing with my kids.
Positive and negative reinforcement is one component of external regulation of motivation which we read about in chapter 5. According to our text book, a positive reinforcer is "any environmental stimulus, that when presented, increases the future probability of the desired behavior" and a negative reinforcer is "any environmental stimulus that, when removed, increases the future probability of the desired behavior."
According to the Toddler Taming website I found, it is important to be aware that the positive reinforcer can be negative and the negative reinforcer can be positive. Confused? I know. The website goes on to explain since a positive reinforcer is adding something to a child's environment to increase the probability of the future behavior, adding a consequence such as more chores or more homework (which can be viewed as negative and aversive by the child) is actually a positive reinforcer. In addition to that, a negative reinforcer that is positive (again in they eyes of a child) would be taking away something like toys, video games, etc.
In the Parenting ADHD Children website, I found some great basic rules of putting reinforcements to use. The following is what was listed on the website:
1. Reinforcers need to be important to the child. Taking him to a hockey game as a special treat is not rewarding if that child does not like hockey.
2. Be specific about the behavior you are rewarding. “I was so pleased when you sat quietly while I was talking to Mrs. Jones.” Here the child is being specifically acknowledged for what they did versus simply saying, “I appreciate your being good today.” What does “good” mean to a child?
3. Reinforce immediately. As soon as you see the behaviors you want in place, acknowledge them. Waiting loses the potency of the reinforcement. It is even more important for ADHD/ADD children to be reinforced immediately.
4. Focus on positives rather than mistakes – avoid criticisms. It is so easy to slip into a negative cycle of always pointing up the mistakes a child is making, assuming they already know what it is they are supposed to be doing. Pretty soon they don’t feel very good about themselves because all they hear is negative remarks about everything they do and they attribute their behaviors to themselves as a personal being. If they are always doing things wrong, there must be something wrong with them as well. Focusing on the positives helps them learn what it is they are supposed to be doing.
5. Keep promises. Never threaten! Threats are just that. We often make threats thinking that the threat will make the child do what we want and when they don’t, we either have to follow through or give in. Usually threats are something you don’t want to follow through on and are different than warnings. Warnings have a thought-through consequence. Also, if you promise to do something, keep that promise. If you promise to spend time with them on Saturday, do so. If you say you will shut off the TV if they continue to misbehave, do so.
6. Reinforce frequently. At first, reinforce for small steps in the right direction. Then, when the behavior is in place, switch to partial reinforcement. This is when you reinforce them once in a while instead of every time. Partial reinforcement is more resistant to extinction and is much harder to break, because the person is subconsciously waiting for that reinforcer. Ex: When teaching a child to eat with a spoon. You praise him for every attempt. Then you praise him for doing it. Later, you occasionally praise him for eating so well with his spoon.
7. ADHD/ADD children need MORE reinforcers MORE often. They require consistency, immediacy, and tons of encouragement, praise and positive reinforcement if they are going to manage the complexities of this world.
Although this list makes common sense, sometimes it helps to be reminded of what you need to do to be effective in modifying behavior.
The final website that I found discussed reinforcement schedules. There are 4 types of partial-reinforcement schedules: fixed-ratio (which the reinforcer is administered after a certain number of set responses), variable-ratio (the reinforcer is administered after a variable number of responses), fixed-interval (the reinforcer is administered after a set amount of time), and variable-interval (the reinforcer is administered after at different and variable amounts of time).
http://toddlertaming.blogspot.com/2007/01/grow-your-parenting-vocabulary_19.html
http://www.suite101.com/lesson.cfm/17287/669/2
http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Reinforcement.html
I was previously unable to post this at my home computer and emailed Profesor MacLin that this would be turned in this morning. My three sources deal directly with Chapter 5: Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation.
In the YouTube video I found, it gives a basic overview of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and gives examples of each one. After giving the first definition, a cheesy scenario follows. Although the examples are extremely cheesy and appear to be catered to younger students, they relay the important parts of both types of motivation. The video shows that money is often an extrinsic motivating factor and that individuals may be motivated to direct their behavior in a certain way to earn money just for the fact of having it. The video also shows that obtaining money may not lead to satisfaction and that a multitude of other factors determine happiness. In this example, it was shown that the main character is happy only when he returns to his normal hobby of painting. Although he is still impoverished, he is motivated to live a fulfilling live doing what he enjoys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-XHhndMDE
In an article retrieved from PsycNET, intrinsic motivation was discussed in regards to successful weight loss. In the study done, it was shown that the group of individuals that were relayed general information about having strong internal motivation was more likely to self-regulate their eating behaviors and exercise autonomously. The study used the Self-Determination Theory and utilized health education to promote successful dieting habits. The study also showed a strong correlation between successful dieting practices and internal motivation. Intrinsic motivation seemed to be a key element in the success of those who were able to sustain self-regulating eating habits and autonomous exercise.
http://psycnet.apa.org.proxy.lib.uni.edu/journals/hea/28/6/709.html
Wikipedia gives extensive definitions of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and also shares information about related terms. One of those terms is Unconscious Motivation. Accord to Abraham Maslow (who is noted for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) "Psychoanalysis has often demonstrated that the relationship between a conscious desire and the ultimate unconscious aim that underlies it need not be at all direct." His statement can be summed up to mean that some motivation does not always match up to what is seen by others. This infers that some motivational inclinations can often be unknown or misinterpreted by other individuals. One main reason this is intriguing is that it greatly complicates the study of motivation if we are unable to observe or state the reasons for our motivation. In the future, I plan to look into this type of motivation further.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
I was previously unable to post this at my home computer and emailed Profesor MacLin that this would be turned in this morning. My three sources deal directly with Chapter 5: Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation.
In the YouTube video I found, it gives a basic overview of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and gives examples of each one. After giving the first definition, a cheesy scenario follows. Although the examples are extremely cheesy and appear to be catered to younger students, they relay the important parts of both types of motivation. The video shows that money is often an extrinsic motivating factor and that individuals may be motivated to direct their behavior in a certain way to earn money just for the fact of having it. The video also shows that obtaining money may not lead to satisfaction and that a multitude of other factors determine happiness. In this example, it was shown that the main character is happy only when he returns to his normal hobby of painting. Although he is still impoverished, he is motivated to live a fulfilling live doing what he enjoys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-XHhndMDE
In an article retrieved from PsycNET, intrinsic motivation was discussed in regards to successful weight loss. In the study done, it was shown that the group of individuals that were relayed general information about having strong internal motivation was more likely to self-regulate their eating behaviors and exercise autonomously. The study used the Self-Determination Theory and utilized health education to promote successful dieting habits. The study also showed a strong correlation between successful dieting practices and internal motivation. Intrinsic motivation seemed to be a key element in the success of those who were able to sustain self-regulating eating habits and autonomous exercise.
http://psycnet.apa.org.proxy.lib.uni.edu/journals/hea/28/6/709.html
Wikipedia gives extensive definitions of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and also shares information about related terms. One of those terms is Unconscious Motivation. Accord to Abraham Maslow (who is noted for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) "Psychoanalysis has often demonstrated that the relationship between a conscious desire and the ultimate unconscious aim that underlies it need not be at all direct." His statement can be summed up to mean that some motivation does not always match up to what is seen by others. This infers that some motivational inclinations can often be unknown or misinterpreted by other individuals. One main reason this is intriguing is that it greatly complicates the study of motivation if we are unable to observe or state the reasons for our motivation. In the future, I plan to look into this type of motivation further.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
How do you respond to information? Though something you probably rarely consider goal-directed behavior and situational constraints guide selective processing. Due to cognitive controls we retain goal-relevant information while largely disregarding material that is unrelated to goal achievement. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) implicates prefrontal cortex (PFC) involvement in higher cognitive operations. A wide range of processes is believed to occur in the prefrontal cortex—goals and stimulus response, attention and language, memory and judgment, and emotional handling.
Motivations are a precursor to cognition—are we able, is it worth the effort? A hierarchy of cognitive control resides in the prefrontal cortex, in a further complicated anterior to posterior organization. Posterior regions hold motivation and control as short-lived whereas in the anterior motivation and control are supported more perpetually. Motivation in the medial PFC empowers the lateral PFC, in turn selecting task-appropriate behavior, especially, when the incentive is high. The medial PFC may lend more information to motivation. Their structural relationships may help to identify overall system excitation (free energy) and the direction of free energy towards specific choices (entropy).
The lateral PFC is involved with regulatory control, analogical reasoning and planning; the medial and lateral PFC work together to respond to changing task demands resulting from performance. Within the mid-lateral PFC activity is held to episodic controls, or prior experience; activity in the mid-lateral PFC is correlated with increased activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). More recent scholarship has speculated dACC as a pathway for motivational, limbic influences on attentional selection, conducted in the form of cost-benefit analyses. Other researchers posit that the dACC identifies conflict, sending this to the lateral PFC to resolve the issue(s) through top-down cognitive processes.
The posterior lateral PFC relies on episodic and contextual motivational cues; episodic cues affect contextual cues but not vice versa. An additive relationship between cues is activated in the lateral PFC while contextual motivations activate the pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA). The preSMA is believed to handle contextual motivation, as well as measuring the costs of various behavioral selections, or the cost of perceived conflict resulting from certain responses. The overlap between the dACC and preSMA will likely guide neuroscientists’ future research directions of motivation and goal-directed behavior.
In the 1940s and 50s personality research focused primarily on personal needs and perception, judgment and distortion. Individual variation persists in information processing: while some blur stimuli together others emphasize differences (leveling vs. sharpening), yet common neuropsychological taxonomies underlie understandings of human behavior. New research suggests that the underlying mechanisms may be more widespread throughout the neural network than previously thought. Cognitive controls were previously believed to be governed solely by conscious information, UK researchers claim to have discovered otherwise. Faulty cognitive control could also shine light on schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452993/personality/36153/Cognitive-controls-and-styles?anchor=ref415101
http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2010/07/get_what_you_want_free_energye.php
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v12/n7/full/nn0709-821.html
NOTE: ASSIGNMENT IS LATE DUE TO HOSPITALIZATION.approved by Prof. MacLin
In Chapter 5, we learned about punishers. On page 121, the text states that punishers have been found to be ineffective. My topic will be on the effectiveness of punishers.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/09/25/from.12.years.onward.you.learn.differently
According to this article, it is not that punishers are ineffective, but that the person needs to have cognitive skills to understand punishers. The researchers tested 8 and 9 year olds versus 11 and 12 year olds. The computer task allowed for both negative and positive reinforcement while having the children attached to fMRI scanner. 8 and 9 year olds responded more to positive feedback and 11 to 12 year old responded more strongly to negative feedback. While the researchers do consider the results may be due to experience, they conclude that the learning depends on congnitive development. It is easier to know what you did well at. With punishers, you need the cognitive ability to understand what you did wrong and how to fix it, which can be difficult even for adults. So punisher could be useful if the person is of the correct cognitive development.
http://www.aboutdiscipline.com/
This article discusses how some may think punishers work because the behavior stops, but the author attributes it to fear as opposed to learning that ends the behavior. Even then the behavior tends to only stop for a short time and punishers do not produce long term results. Likewise, the punishment only works as long as the enforcer is present. Since punishers "inflict pain," negative feelings develop toward the action and the enforcer. Another issue brought up was that children might not understand which action recieves the negative reaction, thus causing confusion.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/spankin29.htm#umi
This site gave a brief review of other studies that focused on the after effects of corporal punishment on children. One study found that even minimal spanking lead to increased chances of antisocial behavior in school. This study found no difference among ethnicities. However, another study focusing on spanking before the age of 2, did find a difference among race. This study concluded that "Among white non-Hispanic children but not among black and Hispanic children, spanking frequency before age 2 is significantly and positively associated with child behavior problems at school age." The third study found that corporal punishment is highly associated with mjor depression, alcohol abuse, and externalizing problems. It also has adverse effects on adult bonding.
Other Resources:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/113/5/1321
http://ns.umich.edu/?Releases/2004/Sep04/r090804