PSYC 405 Physiological Psychology

Objectives

At the end of the module, the student will be able to:

Identify the neurophysiology of basic emotions.

Describe the importance and functions of the autonomic nervous system.

Introduction

■ Motivation is the factor that directs and activates the behavior of humans and other organisms. It can also be defined as an internal, activating, energizing state that initiates and maintains a behavior towards an objective. Emotions and needs are motives that can guide human behavior. Two types of behavior have been distinguished. The first is the one that sets itself in motion intrinsically, does not depend on circumstances and even, in some cases, could be the result of instincts, biology and evolution. The second is puts it into practice to achieve a goal that is external to the person and is mostly motivated extrinsically.

Motivation and Emotion

■ Motivation and Emotion: Biological and Evolutionary Bases

■ The motive is an internal driving force, a specific need or desire.

■ Emotion as well as motives activate behavior. Ex.The fear, joy, or

surprise that underlies the behavior, it’s important for survival.

■ It is more difficult to predict the type of behavior that a particular

emotion will produce. On the contrary, the needs are more

predictable, for example, if a person is hungry, we can quite safely

deduce that he will look for food.

Needs

■ The needs are those whose satisfaction depends on the survival of

the person. Therefore, the needs are what motivate the behavior of

eating, sleeping, hydrating. These are needs related to maintaining

the minimum standards that allow the body and people to function

properly.

Motivation and Emotion

• Maslow’s hierarchy:

Ordering motivational needs.

• This approach points out that

before more complex higher-

order needs can be met, some

primary (physiological) needs

must be met.

Love

■ Maslow places it as a necessity: Affective need.

■ Love is not an emotion because emotions are short-lived, and love is long-lasting, so it is distinguished as a feeling like happiness and hatred. They all look alike, dopamine goes up, serotonin goes down and the frontal lobe blocks quite a bit. This is, physiologically, love and hate are similar, except that in love the frontal lobe is blocked quite a lot and in hate almost not, this could explain why with hate we can plan a revenge very well.

Love

■ Another conclusion.

■ If physiologically love and hate are equal, they are not opposites. That is, the opposite of love is not hatred but indifference. It is even quoted later when we get upset with someone, we think about that person 85% of times a day.

Emotions as Evolutionary Expressions

■ According to the theory of discrete emotions, emotions have

biological roots and fulfill evolutionary functions. Each emotion is

associated with a specific physiological response that is essentially

the same for everyone.

Motivation and Emotion

One of the evidences about the evolutionary (instinctive) role of emotions is that they arise in the first months of a human being’s life, before the parents have had the opportunity to shape them through socialization.

By 6 weeks babies begin to smile whenever they see a face they like, they also frown and cry when left alone. That some emotional expressions arise even without direct reinforcement suggests that they are innate or instinctive.

It is added that emotions come from the Emotional Brain (limbic system) to the Autonomous Nervous System (unconscious) from where unconscious behaviors such as breathing and beating the heart come.

Neuron Anatomy

■ Neurons, like any cell, contain DNA, genetic memory, evolutionary.

Motivation and Emotion

These neurons communicate with each other via neurotransmitters.

Serotonin: another inhibitory neurotransmitter affects the emotions of pain (that’s why it rises in sadness). It is known as the mood molecule.

Oxytocin: friendship, attachment (it is secreted when we cry, so that others help us, and the woman secretes it in stress and when breastfeeding).

Melatonin: Hormone medicine and anti-aging, decreases with age.

Motivation and Emotion

■ Cortisol: stress and aging hormone. Excess, Cushing’s Syndrome,

memory loss because it reduces the gray matter of the

hippocampus.

■ Dopamine: the hormone of love and pleasure. Chocolate

increases phenylethylamine and dopamine levels so it is given away on the Day of Love and Friendship, it can also be a pleasant antidepressant.

Neurotransmitters

• When we are in love there is an

organic compound that dominates us completely: phenylethylamine.

• As the word itself already

indicates, we are facing an element that shares many similarities with amphetamines and that, combined in turn with dopamine and serotonin, synthesizes the perfect recipe for a movie love.

• Then oxytocin appears.

Motivation and Emotion

■ It is like a biological device that seeks to “intensify” all our emotions.

■ Phenylethylamine is like sugar in a drink or varnish that we put on a canvas: everything makes it more intense. It is she who intensifies the action of dopamine and serotonin, she who constitutes the authentic chemistry of love to make us feel happy, fulfilled and incredibly motivated.

Motivation and Emotion

• When the limbic system (emotional brain)

detects a situation that requires importance, it blocks the cerebral cortex.

• The autonomous system takes over….

• Frontal lobe

• Blocked

• Same in love, but not for hatred

• For that you can plan revenge

• If the amygdala, considers that a stimulus is dangerous, it will alert the hypothalamus so that it produces the necessary changes in the body to face the danger. In 125 milliseconds, half a blink and active sympathetic autonomous system.

Emotional Brain

■ Once an experience of

pain or pleasure is lived, it

is filed in emotional

memory.

■ Painful neuro fusions occur

more quickly and intensely

than pleasant ones,

because in adaptive terms

escaping danger is more

important than

approaching something

pleasant: ENGRAMS.

Motivation

and Emotion

Motivation and Emotion

■ The sympathetic nervous system mainly has the neurotransmitters adrenaline and noradrenaline. It has been during evolution in charge of generating fight-or- flight responses to external stimuli.

■ Therefore, it is responsible for

increasing heart rate, dilating the bronchi of the lung, pupils, causing erections, increasing blood pressure, among other things.

Motivation and Emotion

• The parasympathetic nervous

system, on the other hand, is a

branch of the nervous system that

relaxes and calms the body so that

it recovers the energy expended in

the sympathetic.

• Activation of this system causes

the heart rate to decrease, the

pupil to contract, the stomach

muscles to relax.

Basic Emotions Look Alike

■ Emotions are similar because

they are processed by the

limbic system, and you can

laugh at a scary situation or cry

with another emotion that is

sadness.

Joy

■ Up dopamine, low serotonin as in love and courage …… and is

glued by mirror neurons.

■ It is important for survival because it boosts the immune system.

Laughter lasts approximately 6 seconds, moves 17 muscles,

activates circulation, strengthens the abdominal area and releases

endorphins that reduce physical and emotional pain.

Motivation and Emotion

• You can die of laughter, before you tortured yourself with tickles.

• In its extreme Syndrome of

Stendhal or Florence Syndrome a

very strong good emotion and the

parasympathetic system is

activated, you can faint.

Motivation and Emotion

■ Jealousy (dopamine goes up and serotonin goes up) is an adaptive

emotion that allows us to alert ourselves to a threat such as the

appearance of a possible personal and relational competition.

■ A normal fear of the possible loss of the loved one (partner, father, mother, friend), including loss of attention: that our mother will pay more attention to our younger brother, or the partner will pay more attention to their co-workers (envy).

Motivation

and

Emotion

Jealousy men vs women

Men show more jealousy for sexual infidelity, considerable support for the emphasis of the evolutionary perspective on paternal uncertainty.

Women are jealous of emotional infidelity.

Sexual infidelity does not affect a woman’s ability to reproduce, but emotional infidelity (falling in love with another and redirecting resources to another) could jeopardize her ability (evolutionary perspective).

Motivation

and

Emotion

■ Emotions, sympathetic autonomic nervous

system, dopamine goes up and serotonin

goes down, there’s almost no rational thinking

■ Fear, the first and most important of

emotions;

1. Increase the heartbeat, open the mouth, do

not blink

2. The skin becomes icy because it serves as

anesthesia, lowers the temperature of the

body “I got cold, I felt a bath of cold water”,

sweats cold for adrenaline so that they can

not grab us, we become slippery

3. Fear is easily spread by chemistry; a

terrorist leader can use it to spread and

terrorize a people

Motivation

and Emotion

■ Courage

■ Courage is the manifestation of self-esteem and dignity; it is

what allows you to say, “enough is enough”. Dopamine goes

up and serotonin goes down.

■ By the amygdala when we get upset with someone, we think 85% of times a day.

Sadness

■ Sadness (also disappointment that allows love to end

immediately), is the emotion that physiologically is different, low

dopamine (happiness hormone) and serotonin rises (emotion pain).

■ Crying accelerates metabolism secretes more glucose, the emotion

that spends the most energy, after crying you need to sleep.

Motivation and Emotion

■ Important to survive, self-analyze and not enter denials YOU

THINK. We drink tears because it contains painkillers, women’s

tears have low testosterone in men (by chemistry).

■ Music when one is sad is analyzed more.

■ Oxytocin is secreted, and people help us.

■ As in all emotions, hunger may vaguely arise, but not appetite, it is

suppressed. As it is an emotion in which you are more intelligent,

the appetite can be suppressed because the less you eat.

Summary

In this module, you learned about motivation and emotion.

Now that you have completed the work, you are prepared to:

• Identify the neurophysiology of basic emotions.

• Describe the importance and functions of the autonomic nervous

system.

Next week, we move on to dreams and neurobiology . If you have any

outstanding questions about what you learned this week, please add

them to the Course Question and Answer Forum for your professor to

clarify.

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