HUMAN NATURE AND HUMAN MOTIVATION - Desire and Temptation Frederick Toates Department of Life...

HUMAN NATURE AND HUMAN MOTIVATION

- Desire and Temptation

Frederick Toates

Department of Life Sciences,

Open University

F.Toates@Open.ac.uk

http://www.goshen.edu/mqr/Dirk_Willems.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/lenny-skutnik

Absolute determinism(e.g. B.F. Skinner)

Absolute Autonomy(e.g. Humanistic)

B.F. SKINNER

• Positive reinforcement (immediacy of reward)

• Avoidance of punishment• Ten Commandments• Asymmetry in attitudes• Walden Two• Beyond Freedom and Dignity

• Cognitive approach• Unconscious goal setting

• Mirroring

• Subliminal priming• The elderly• Prejudice• Scrabble – hooligan – professor

JOHN BARGH

KENT BERRIDGE

Pre -1991

Wanting = Liking

Dopamine = Both

Post -1991

Wanting = Liking

Dopamine = Wanting

A schematic illustration of a major existing model of the psychological processes that constitute incentive motivation (A. top) and our alternative model, which proposes a separate process of incentive salience and accounts for the consequences of drug-induced sensitization. (B. bottom). Panel A: the ‘Toates/Bindra model’ of incentive motivation on which our model is based (adapted from Toates 339).

Figure 18.10 Situation (a) before and (b) after sensitization. States of positive affect (‘hedonism’) increase incentive salience. However, with experience, wanting/craving increases but liking/pleasure sometimes decreases

Source: Toates, F. (2007) Biological Psychology. 2nd edition Pearson Education Limited

Daniel Nettle (p152)

“Our minds are equipped with a dopamine-drunk wanting systemthat draws us to compete for a promotion or a higher salary; a larger house or more material goods; an attractive partner….”

Page 167We evolved in an environment where status was highly correlated with reproductive success, and material resources were always scarce”.

2nd order wants – many people want such things as cigarettes butwant not to want them

Nicotine – intense wanting but not intense liking

IMPLICATIONS OF WANTING AND LIKING

Nesse (2005, p. 26) writes:

“ … an excessively direct pursuit of happiness is likely to lead to frustration and paradoxically, unhappiness, because happiness is not a reachable goal, but a state that emerges when an individual is making good progress towards his or her individual life goals”.

EARLY EVOLUTION AND NOW

misunderstanding of the word – not unbridled pleasure

• “Unhappiness comes either through fear or through vain and unbridled desire..”Epicurus, Fragments Remains Assigned to Certain Books, no.74.

• “Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little”.As above no.69

Epicurus

(who lived in a tub) - on pleasure

“….hatches no single plot but all kinds of plots, and aims to undo men through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, with food too, and drink and carnal lust, tempting the waking and the sleeping alike”

Diogenes

“I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and delights of the flesh, and many concubines. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.”

(ECCLESIASTES 2: 4-10).

….. and again, all was vanity and chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

(ECCLESIASTES 2:11).

Whatever possessions and objects of desires the lower self may obtain, it hangs on to them, refusing to let them go out of greed for more…”Rumi (Sufism)

“The lower self soon wearies of things. If, by chance, the lower self should succeed in attaining what it wants, it will still not be satisfied”.Kashani (Sufism)

Single CellStimuli Responses

Nervous system

Stimuli Responses

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

CHANGES IN WEIGHT

• Development

• Chemicals

• Brain damage

• Learning/Experience

• Emotion/Stress

A sample of recent citations, showing range of topic

Hitchcott, P.K. et al. (2007) Prefrontal cortical dopaminePrefrontal cortical dopamine. Cerebral Cortex, 17, 2920- (Yale University)

Cisek, P. (2007) Action selectionAction selection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B), 362, 1585- (University of Montreal)

Nippak, P. et al. (2007) Diet and ageing. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 87, 610- (University of Toronto)

Silveira-Moriyama, L. et al. (2006) Parkinson’s disease. Movement Disorders, 21, 2214- (University College, London)

Van der Kam, E.L. et al. (2006) Effects of cocaine. Behavioural Pharmacology, 17, 331 (University of Nijmegen)

Berthier, M.L. et al. (2006) Pick’s disease. Aphasiology 20, 462- (University of Malaga)

Spratling, M.W. (2006) Perceptual learning. Visual Cognition, 13, 129- (King’s College, London)

Alcaro, A. et al. (2007) Mesolimbic dopamine. Brain Research Reviews, 56, 283- (European Centre of Brain Research, Rome).

Greiveldinger, L. et al. (2007) Emotion in sheep. Physiology and Behaviour, 92, 675- (INRA, Clermont Ferrand)

Pascucci, T. (2007) Dopamine response to stress. Cerebral Cortex, 17, 2796- (University of Rome)

Van Honk, J. et al. (2007) Testosterone and cognition. Psychological Science, 18, 683- (University of Utrecht)

Franken, I. (2003) Drug craving. Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology, 27, 563- (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)

Kapur, S. (2003) Psychosis – schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 13- (University of Toronto)

Karoly, P. (2006) Goals and self-regulation. Clinical Psychology, 13, 366- (Arizona State University).

Meehan, C.L. et al. (2007) Animal welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 102, 248 (University of California, Davis).

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Development

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Chemicals

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Brain damage

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Emotion/Stress

Road rage – time for reflection – knows behaviour was wrong and knows what right behaviour is

“Reflexes got the better of me” Bob Marley, I shot the sheriff

AGGRESSION

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Learning/Experience

YELLOWBLUEGREENREDORANGEREDGREENBLUE

YELLOWBLUE

GREENRED

ORANGERED

GREENBLUE

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Temptation

“For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.”

St. Paul, Galatians 5: 171

“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

St. Paul: ROMANS 7:23

“Grant me chastity and continence,

but not yet“

St. Augustine (Confessions)

Through-linkStimuli Behaviour

Cognition

- +

Addictions

TELEVISION AS ADDICTION TV meets the criteria of an addiction (Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002) :

– Spending a great deal of time with the activity

– Spending more time than intended

– Wishing to give up or at least invest less time in it

– Sacrificing important social interactions for it

– Withdrawal symptoms when deprived of it

OCD and ADDICTIONS

• Approach versus Avoid

• Conflict of levels

WORD COMPLETION

S _ _ P

A recent experiment

Guilt

Pride

Word completion

Reward

Altruism

Acknowledgements

For the start in life at the University of SussexDavid BoothKeith Oatley

Stuart Sutherland

Washington State UniversityJaak Panksepp

University of MichiganKent Berridge

Wageningen University Piet Wiepkema

Open University academicsCaroline PondMike Stewart

Phil PottsSteve SwithenbyRichard Stevens

Open University - for organizational and IT skills

Demarisse StanleyPatricia McVity

For insight, help and understandingOlga Coschug-Toates

For an inspirational roleThe Open University Psychology Society

Lilli Hvingtoft-Foster