Human Motivation 6th Edition by Robert E. Franken – Test Bank

Human Motivation 6th Edition by Robert E. Franken – Test Bank

Chapter 10

 

Goal-Incongruent (Negative) Emotions

 

Overview:  In the previous chapter (Chapter 9) on stress, it was pointed out that motivation and emotion are inextricably intertwined such that it is difficult to discuss the two separate from one another.  The affective and cognitive (i.e., appraisal) character of emotions plays an important role in the arousal, direction, and persistence of goal-directed (motivated) behavior.  Pleasant and/or unpleasant affective experiences are inherent qualities of goal attainment and, as such, can influence the arousal and direction of action; and feelings of optimism, pessimism, or helplessness can influence the persistence of action.  The current chapter continues this discussion of the interplay of emotions and motives by introducing Lazarus’ distinction between emotions that can facilitate the attainment of personal goals (goal-congruent emotions) and emotions that can thwart the attainment of personal goals (goal-incongruent emotions).  The chapter focuses on the goal-incongruent emotions; that is, on negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, and shame, and how such emotions often work against the attainment of personal goals.  These goal-incongruent emotions evolved to serve an adaptive purpose and each of them possesses distinctive features.  What they have in common, however, is negative affect, and negative affect is thought to have emerged to provide the organism with feedback that something in the environment is a potential threat to their survival.  Negative affect causes people to stop what they are currently doing and focus their attention on the environment in search of potential threats.  If for some reason or other these negative emotions are unjustifiably chronic and intense, they can produce a state of hypervigilance for threats and pervasive negative expectations and thoughts that interfere with the attainment of other personal goals.   This chapter examines the biological, learned, and cognitive factors that produce such hypervigilance and negative thinking and on how to treat such conditions so that they do not interfere with goal achievement.

 

The following is a summary of the contents of this chapter:

 

1. Fear and Anxiety: First, fear and anxiety are distinguished from one another: fear as an emotional system sensitive to cues that signal physical punishment; anxiety as an emotional system sensitive to cues of uncertainty, social comparison, personal failure, and negative evaluation of personal worth.  It is then argued that from an evolutionary perspective  fear emerged to arouse actions to cope with pain as an immediate threat to survival, while anxiety emerged to arouse thoughts and actions to cope with rejection from the social group as a threat to survival.  The biological factors that come into play to determine individual differences in fear and anxiety are described: Gray’s model that fear is mediated by the fight-flight system and anxiety by the BIS, and data on the role of the right/left prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in fear and anxiety are discussed as sources of individual differences; and the operation and effectiveness of antianxiety drugs is also discussed.  The role of learning in the development of anxiety disorders such as phobias and panic attacks, and therapies such as desensitization and provision of information to treat such disorders are discussed.  Finally, the role of cognition in promoting debilitating fear and anxiety through negative thinking, negative implicit self/world theories, perceptions of loss of control, and the tendency to have ruminative thoughts about loss of control, and ways to alleviate these debilitating cognitive influences are discussed.

 

1. Pessimism and Depression: It is first pointed out that although pessimistic thinking can cause depression and depression is characterized by pessimistic thinking, depressed people show a loss of motivation and interest in life while pessimistic people generally remain motivated.  Then, distinctions between normal, unipolar, and bipolar depression are made, and Seligman’s view of the relationship between modern individualism and depression is briefly discussed.  The biological contribution to depression is then described in detail: Data showing that there is a strong heritability component of depression, that the depletion of neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine and serotonin induce depression, and that tricyclic and MAOI antidepressant drugs are effective in treating depression are all discussed.  Buck’s evolutionary psychological view of the emergence of two affective systems associated with survival is described: a selfish affective system for self-preservation and a prosocial affective system for promoting social bonding and the preservation of the species.  Selfish-affective depression is aroused by failure to meet environment demands while prosocial affective depression is aroused by failure to meet social demands; the negative affect associated with such failures serve as feedback to the individual that their survival is threatened and as a wake-up call to instigate adaptive behaviors. The contribution of learning to the development of depression is introduced through a discussion of Seligman’s model of learned helplessness: how experiencing a lack of contingency between behavior and negative events such as shock can lead to the helpless behavior pattern of doing nothing to avoid aversive events because the individual has learned that nothing can be done to reduce or avoid such events.  The cognitive contribution to depression is discussed by describing the reformulated learned helplessness model that takes into consideration the importance of explanatory styles in determining whether negative events induce depression or not, and by discussing Beck’s cognitive theory of depression that distinguishes between autonomous-depressive and sociotropic-depressive types, and then briefly describing the relationship between perfectionism, depression and suicide.

 

III.  Guilt and Shame:  Arguments are made that guilt and shame are related to depression, and that although guilt and shame appear to overlap, that there is evidence that suggests that they are distinct innate emotions.  Lazarus’ distinction between guilt and shame is briefly described: that guilt results from having transgressed a moral imperative (acts of commission) while shame results from having failed to live up to an ego-ideal (acts of omission).  The biological contribution to guilt and shame is discussed by describing general evolutionary perspective that the adaptive functions of guilt and shame is to promote good social relationships within the social group because the survival of the individual often depends upon conditions within the larger group to which the individual belongs.  Based upon the assumption that the connection between emotions and facial expressions emerged to communicate an individual’s emotional state to the social group, Izard makes a similar evolutionary argument that guilt evolved more to promote the survival of the group than the individual; its adaptive function is to prevent waste and exploitation, and to prompt individuals who have transgressed to make reparations in order to restore group harmony.  The contribution of learning to development of guilt and shame is described by discussing studies that show that different discipline techniques use to handle transgressions and the quality of the affective relationship between the parent and the child influences moral development and the experience of guilt and shame.  Finally, the views of cognitive theorists on the development of guilt and shame are briefly discussed.

 

Outline:

Fear and Anxiety

            The Biological Component

                        Antianxiety Drugs

                        Prefrontal Cortex and the Regulation of Emotion

            The Learned Component

                        Conditioned Stimuli and Gray’s Model

                        Phobias and Panic Attacks

            The Cognitive Component

                        Viewing the World as Threatening

                        Unwanted or Intrusive Thoughts

                        Loss of Control

                        Ruminative Thoughts About Loss of Control

                        Inability to Make a Coping Response

                        Top-Down and Bottom-Up Theories of Subjective Well-Being

Summary

Pessimism and Depression

Modern Individualism and the Rise of Depression

            The Biological Component of Depression

                        The Heritability of Depression

                        Type A Depression: Catecholamine Depletion

                        Type B Depression: Serotonin

                        Survival and the Two Biological Affects

                        Using Drugs to Treat Depression

                        Stress and Depression

            The Learned Component of Depression

                        Seligman’s Model of Learned Helplessness

                        Learned Helplessness in Humans

                        Immunization

            The Cognitive Component of Depression

                        The Reformulated Theory of Learned Helplessness

                                    Permanence

                                    Pervasiveness

                                    Personalization: Internal versus External

                        Status of the Theory

                        Pessimism as a Cause of Depression

                        Pessimism and Rumination

                        Pessimism and Health

                        Beck’s Theory of Depression

                        Perfectionism and Depression

Summary

Guilt and Shame

            The Biological Component

                        Guilt and Shame as Adaptive Emotions

                        Discrete Emotions Theory

            The Learned Component

                        Love Withdrawal and Induction

                        Quality of the Affective Relationship Between Parent and Child

            The Cognitive Component

The Link Between Guilt and Depression

Negative Emotions and Goal-Directed Behavior

Summary

 

 

Main Points:

 

1. Gray has proposed that anxiety is caused by the activation of the behavioral inhibition

system (BIS).

 

2. The BIS can be activated by both conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.

 

3. The BIS can be conditioned to two classes of stimuli: those that signal punishment is

forthcoming, and those that signal rewards will be withheld (frustrative nonreward).

 

4. Unwanted or intrusive thoughts have been linked to anxiety.

 

5. Loss of control and inability to make a coping response have been linked to feelings of

anxiety.

 

6. Converging research indicates that people who view the world as threatening tend to be

more prone to debilitating anxiety.

 

7. Researchers have found that depletion of certain catecholamines and serotonin are linked to

depression.

 

8. According to Buck, there are two types of depression: one precipitated by failure to meet

environmental demands and one by failure to meet social demands.

 

9. The reformulated model of learned helplessness suggests that people are inclined to become

depressed if they use an explanatory style characterized by permanence, pervasiveness, and

personalization.

 

10. The idea that pessimism causes depression is supported by the research finding that people

who tend to use a pessimistic explanatory style are more likely to become depressed when

they experience bad events.