Psychology 1000 Study Guide - Basal Metabolic Rate, Sexual Arousal, Human Sexual Response Cycle

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Terry Biggs

Document Summary

Motivation a process that influences the direction, persistence, and vigor of goal-directed behavior. Perspectives on motivation: instinct theory and evolutionary psychology. Instinct an inherited predisposition to behave in a specific and predictable way when exposed to a particular stimulus. Modern evolutionary psychologists propose that many psychological motives have evolutionary underpinnings that are expressed through the actions of genes. Adaptive significance of behavior we are motivated to engage in behavior that promotes survival advantages: homeostasis and drive theory. Homeostasis a state of internal physiological equilibrium that the body strives to maintain. Maintaining homeostasis requires a sensory mechanism for detecting changes in the internal environment, a response system that can restore equilibrium, and a control centre that receives information from the sensors and activates the response system. Drive theory physiological disruptions to homeostasis produce drives, states of internal tension. Drives, such as hunger or thirst, arise form tissue deficits and provide a source of energy that pushes an organism into action.