PHGY 313 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Motivation, Human Body Temperature, Reinforcement

• School: McGill University
• Department: Physiology
• Course: PHGY 313
• Professor: Sebastien Breau

Document Summary

We are motivated to perform a behaviour to gain a reinforcer or to avoid a punisher. Homeostasis - process by which important physiological characteristics (such as body temperature and blood pressure) are regulated so that they remain at their optimum level. Deficits or imbalances motivate us because they cause us to perform appropriate regulatory behaviours. Negative feedback - process whereby the effect produced by an action serves to diminish or terminate that action; regulatory systems are characterized by negative feedback loops is an essential characteristic of all regulatory systems. Drive reduction hypothesis - hypothesis that a drive (resulting from physiological need or deprivation) produces an unpleasant state that causes an organism to engage in motivated behaviours; reduction of drive is assumed to be reinforcing. Drive - a condition, often caused by physiological changes or homeostatic disequilibrium, that energizes an organism"s behaviour: act of eating reduces hunger, and this drive reduction is reinforcing.