Solo Ingles / Only English
What is Motivation
A motive, is an impulse that cause a person to act. Motivation is an internal proces that
make a person move a goal. Motivation. is like intelligence, can not be directly observed.
Motivation can only be inferred by noting a person’s behavior.
Reasearchers have proposed theories that try to explain the human motivation. These
theories include drive reduction theoria and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory.
Theories
Drive reduction theoria of motivation sugest that people act in order to reduce needs
and maintain a constant physiological state.
For example: People eat in order to reduce their need for food.
The idea of homeostasis is central to drive reduction theories. Homoestasis is the mainte-
nance of a state of physiological equilibrium.
In Drive reduction theories fail to explain several aspects of motivation.
1. People sometimes are not motivated by internal needs
Example: Some people fast for long period for political causes, despite feeling
extreme hunger.
2. Sometimes, people continue being motivated even when they have a satisfied internal needs.
Example: People are often eat when they can not feel hungry.
3. People are often motivated by external incentives as well internal needs.
Example: If a person in handry, He or She may choose to eat a salad with a cheese burger,because they wants to be slimmer.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
A motivation may be intrinsic, extrinsic, or both.
1. The Intrinsic motivation: Is the motivation to act for the sake of the activity alone. For example: people have intrinsic motivation to write poetry,if they do it simply because they enjoy it.
2. The Extrinsic motivation: on the other hand, is the motivation to act for external rewars.For example: people have extrinsic motivation to write if they do so in the hope of getting published,being famous,or making money.
3. The Both or Incentives motivation : An incentive is an environmental stimulus that pulls people to act in a particular way. Getting an A on an exam to be an incentive that pulls a student toward studying.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of need
In the 1970s, “The psychologist abraham Maslow suggested that people are motivated by a
hierarchy of needs:”
1. First level or basic: physiological needs for food, water, safety, and security.
2. Second level: need for social interaction.
3. Third level: need for estreem,which include the need for respect from oneself and others.
4. Fourth level: needs for self-actualization, or realizing one full potential.
Maslow believed people pay attention to higher needs only when lower needs are satisfied.
The critics argue that Maslow’s theory doesn’t explain why higher needs often motivate people even when lower needs are unsafisfied.
Example: Ray lives in a very dangerous neighborhood and constantly worries about safety.
He make little money at his job in civil-right law, but he enjoy it because he believes that his true calling is to fight injustice.
Critics also point out that people are sometimes simultaneously motivated by needs at different levels. Example: Angie might be motivated to join a theater club both,because she wants to be respected for her acting skill.
Types of Need
People have innate needs and learned needs, both of which are influenced by society and culture. People have a limited number of innate needs, which include needs for food,water, oxygen, and elimination of vastes. There are however a relatively large number of learned needs,including needs for achievement,autonomy, and power. These needs are determined by values,or people perceptions of what is important in life.
Hunger: Is a complicated motivation;people don’t eat only because they need food.many factors, both biological and environmental,influence hunger.These facors interat with another in many ways.
Biological Factor
Researchers believe certain genetic differences among individuals play a role in hunger.
The brain,the digestive, and hormones are all involved influencing hunger at the biological
level.The researchers theorize that people have a genetically influence set point for body
weight. If a person’s weight rises too far above his set point, his appetite decreases,or he uses up more enegy.His weight then returns to its set point.If on the other hand,his weight falls too far bellow his set point, his appetite increases, or he use less energy.
The set point is maintained not only by ffod intake and energy expenditure,but also by the
body’s basal metabolic rate,other genetically influenced variable. Basal metabolic rate is the rate at which a person at complete rest use energy. some researchers disagree about set
points and believe that people can reset their normal weight if they add,or lose pounds slowly. They also point out that people usually gain weight,when they have easy access to
rich foods.
The Brain
1. The lateral hipothalamus is envolved in recongnizing hunger,In rats,damage to the lateral hypothalamun results in loss of interest eating.
2. The ventromedial nucleus of the hipothalamus is involved in reconizing satiety or fullness.In rats,damage to the ventromedial nucleus results in excessive eating and weight gain.
3. The paraventricular nucleus of the hipothalamus is also involved in hunger regulation.When the paraventricular nucleus of a rat is demaged, the rat will eat a very quantity of food at each meal.
The Digestive System
The digestive system influences in several ways. After a meal, the stomach and intestines send nerve impulses to the brain to help people recognize that , they are full. The body converts food in glucose, a simple sugar that acts as an energy source for cells. The level of
glucose in the blood affects hunger. Low blood glucose increase hunger; high blood glucose
decreases hunger.
Hormones
The hormone insulin also play an important role in regulatin hunger.Insulin allows cells to access glucose in the bllod.When the pancreas secretes insulin.
Diabetes is a condition caused by a deficiency of insulin. People who have diabetes take
injections of insulin. Without these injections, their cells would be unable to use the glucose in their blood.
Another hormone involved in hunger regulation is Leptin. The fat cells in the body secrete leptin and release it into the blood.When the leptin lever in the blood is hight, hunger decrease.
Environmental Factors
Many environmental factors influence hunger, includind the availability of rich foods,taste
preferences,habits,memory, stress, and cultural attitudes.
1. Availability of rich foods: People tend to gain weight when rich foods are plenfiful.
2. Preferences: Some taste preferences appear to be innate,such as the preference for fatty foods.
3. However, people acquire most taste preferences throught conditioning or obervational learning. People tend to prefer familiar foods. These preferences have an influence hunger and food intake.
4. Habits: people learn habits such as when and how much they eat. These habits also influence hunger and food intake.
5. Memory: The memory of what people last ate and, when they ate it influences hunger.
6. Stress: The increased physiological arousal associated with stressful situations can stimulate hunger in some people. In other people, stress decreases hunger.
7. Cultural attitudes: In cultural attitudes about ideal body size and shape have a strong influence on what and how much people eat.
Eating Disorder
The prevalence of the eating disorder anorexia and bulimia nervosa in weight conscious cultures show that cultural factors can have a negative influence on hunger and body weight. Anorexia nervosa is charactericed by bouts of binging, followed by compensatory behaviors susch as purging, fasting, or heavy exercise to rid the body og food,both disorders can be life-threatening.
Sexual Drive
Unlike hunger, sexual drive does not motivate people to fulfill a basic biological need.
A lack of food leads to death; a lack of sex, on the other hand, does not. Both biological and psychological factors strongly influence sexual drive.
Kinsey’s Studies
One of the first researchers in to give a modern study of human sexuality was, Alfred Kinsey. In the 1940s, he and his colleagues interviewed more than 18.000 men and
women about their sexual behavior and attitudes. In his reports about the human sexuality, Kinsey denounced the represive social attitudes of his time, which he said bore little relation to actual sexual practices.
Critics of Kinsey’s research maintained three arguments
1. Kinsey is a sample was not random.Instead,it consisted largely of well-educated, white city dwellers.
2. Kinsey and his colleagues used questionable method to gather their data,especially asking leading questions when interview subjects.
3. Kinsey may have let his own beliefs influence in his results.
Masters and Johnson’s studies
Others pioneers of sexual reseach were William Masters and Virginia Johnson. In the 1960s, they studied several hundred male and female volunteers who agreed to either masturbate or have intercourse in a laboratory. masters and Johnson hooked up the volunteers to instruments that measured various physiological indicators during sexual activity. Using the results of these studies, they described the sexual response cycle.
The Sexual Response Cycle
Masters and Johnson divided the human sexual response cycle into four phases.
1. Excitement phase: physiological arousal increases quickly. Muscle tension, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate increase.In men, the penis gets erect and the testes swell.In women, the clitoris hardens and swells, the vaginal lips open, and the vagina lubricates.
2. Pleateau phase: Physiological arousal continues. In women the clitoris retracts under the clitoral hood. men may secrete a small amount of fluid from the penis.
3. Orgasm phase: Physiological arousal peaks. Men eyaculate seminal fluid.Both men and women experience muscular contractions in the pelvic area, along with a sensation of pleasure.
4. Resolution phase: Physiological responses return to normal levels. Men then go through a refractory periord that can vary in length, during they are not responsive to stimulation. The refractory period tends to get longer as men age.
Critics of masters and Johnson’s research maintained two arguments
1. Masters and Johnson studied a biased sample of people. The sample included only people who were both willing and able to perform sexual acts in a laboratory.
2. Masters and Johnson did not pay attention to individual differences. In reality people’s sexual responses vary according to factors as age, amount of sexual experience, and cultural background.
The Role of Testosterone
Sexual drive is related to testosterone lever in both men and women, but the relationship is a complex one. Sexual activity increase testoteron level, and this levels increase sex drive.
Psychological Factors in the Sexual Motivation
1. Erotic stimuli: Men and women can become sexuality aroused by external and internal erotic stimuli. External erotic stimuli is: read exciting material,heard or seen. in Internal eroctic stimuli incluye sexual fantasies,and past sexual experiences.
2. Desires: People have an infinite number of desires that influences the motivation for sex, including to procreate,to express love, or physical enjoyment.
3. Cultural context: Having a strong influence on sexual behavior, cultures inform people about sexual scripts, or implicit rules that allow a person to judge the appropropiate sexual behavior for a given situation.
A culture’s social and economic structure determine the gender roles that men and women adopt. These gender role in turn determine people’s attitude toward sexual activity. In some cultures, a woman is less likely to be interested in sex for its own sake, since casual sex can demage her reputation and reduce her change of marriage.
Sex and the Brain
Psychological influences are cleary powerfull motivators for sex, and the brain is highly involved in sexual arousal. people who have lost all sensation in their genitals became of spinal injuries, are still capable of sexual desire.
Gender differences in sexual behavior and patner choise
Many researcher have found that some differences exist between men and women in the sexual behavior and pather choice, though all men and women do not behave the same way of feel same things.
Men
1. More interested in sex
2. Want sex with more partners
3. Desire sex without emotional commitment
4. Focus on youth and physical attractiveness when choosing a sex pertner.
5. Feel more jealous when patner is physically unfaithfull.
Women
1. Iniciate and think about sex more often less interested in sex
2. No is interested in sex many patners
3. Desire sex with emotional commitment
4. Focus in social and economic status when choosing a sex partner
5. Feel more jealous when partner is emotionally unfaithfull.
Evolutionary Explanation
Some theorists use evolutionary theory to explain these gender differences. Their explications are generally based on Robert Trivers’s idea, that men and women make different parental investments in orden to produce offspring.
From a biological standpoint, men invest no more that energy required for intercourse.
Women, on the other hand, invest time and energy in pregnancy and breast feeding.
Because of these biological diferencies, females can produce only a limited umber of offspring, where as males can potencially produce virtually unlimited offspring.
Males can increase their productive success by producing as many offspring as possible Evolucionary theory predicts that men tend to choose attractive,youthful partners because these qualities imply good health and ability to reproduce discriminanting when choosing mates. They try to select males who have the most access to material resources,because such males can contribute the most to carint for offspring.
Furthermore,men must contend with paternity uncertainty, they can never be certain that they are the fathers of their partners’s offspring. Evolutionary theorist predict that men would therefore tend to have concerns about their partners’s sexual infidelity.
Women, on the other hand, can be certain that their offspring are their own, though they cannot be certain that their partners will provide for their offspring. Therefore,they are
more likely to be concerned about the emotional fidelity of their partners.
Problems with Evolutionary Explanations
Many people criticize the use of evolucionary explanations of gender differences in sexual behavior. Some critics argue that alternative explanations can account equally well for the observed gender differences. Example: “Women’s history of social and economics subservience may have taught them to place a high value on their partners product of socialization”.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is such a controversial subject that people can not even agree about how the term sexual orientation should be defined.Some people argue over whether it refers to sexual behavior,sexual attraction,emotional attraction, or all three.
Researchers define sexual orientation in a variety of ways.
• Hormones
• Genes
• Prenatal factors
• Brain differences into Man and Woman
Environmental Factors
Many researchers believe biological factors alone can not explain the origin of homo-
sexuality.
• An ineffectual distant father and an overly close, domineering mother
• Seduction in childhood by a homosexual adult
• Same-sex sexual play as children.
At this time, no one knows exactly what determine sexual orientation. possibily, men and women develop a homosexual orientations through varius patways. Its also possible from individual to individual.
Summary : What is Motivation?
• Motivation is an internal process that make a person move toward a goal.
• Motivation may be extrinsic, intrinsic.
• Drive reduction theories of motivation sugest that people act in order to reduce needs and maintain a constant physiological state.
• Abraham Maslow proposed that there is a hierarchy of needs ant that people pay attention to high needs, only when lower ones are satisfied.
• Needs may be innate or learned, in learned needs are determined by values, and innate and learned needs are influenced by society and culture.
Hunger
• Is a genetically influence set point may allow people to keep their weight constant.
• The lateral hypothalamus and the ventromedial and ventricular nucleo of the hypothalamus play key roles in regulating hunger.
• The digestive system and hormones such as insulin and leptin also regulate hunger.
• environmental influences on hunger availability of foods,preferences, habits, memory,stress, and cultural attitudes.
Sexual Drive
• Alfred Kinsey was one of the first people to give a modern account of human sexuality.
• William Masters and Virginia Johnson described the human sexual response.
• Testosterone increases sex drive, and sexual activity increase testosteron.
• The sexual response cycle has four phases: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.
• Psychological influences on sex incluye internal and external erotic stimuli, desires, cultural context.
• Researchers have found that there are some gender differencies in sexual behavior and partner choise. Both evolucionary and socio-cultural explanations can account for these diferencies.
• Researchers have suggested that biological factors including hormones levels, genes, prenatal environment, and brain anatomy could influence sexual orientation.
• Psychologist have proposed several theories about how environment might influence homosexuality, but research has failed to support these theories.
Undestanding Psychology
McCraw-Hill
ISBN 0-02-823155-4
Edition: 2000
Sociology Understanding Society
Pentice-Hall
Edition: 2003
MS Encarta Encyclopedia 2006 (English version)
MS Enciclopedia Encarta 2006 (Spanish version)
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology
Distance Learning
http://www.socialpsychology.org/distance.htm
Psychology Student Recurses
http://psychology.about.com/
Frank R.Paya
E-mail.: fkpaya@aol.com
BYU-Student
Provo,Utah
United States
© 2005 by Frank Paya
A motive, is an impulse that cause a person to act. Motivation is an internal proces that
make a person move a goal. Motivation. is like intelligence, can not be directly observed.
Motivation can only be inferred by noting a person’s behavior.
Reasearchers have proposed theories that try to explain the human motivation. These
theories include drive reduction theoria and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory.
Theories
Drive reduction theoria of motivation sugest that people act in order to reduce needs
and maintain a constant physiological state.
For example: People eat in order to reduce their need for food.
The idea of homeostasis is central to drive reduction theories. Homoestasis is the mainte-
nance of a state of physiological equilibrium.
In Drive reduction theories fail to explain several aspects of motivation.
1. People sometimes are not motivated by internal needs
Example: Some people fast for long period for political causes, despite feeling
extreme hunger.
2. Sometimes, people continue being motivated even when they have a satisfied internal needs.
Example: People are often eat when they can not feel hungry.
3. People are often motivated by external incentives as well internal needs.
Example: If a person in handry, He or She may choose to eat a salad with a cheese burger,because they wants to be slimmer.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
A motivation may be intrinsic, extrinsic, or both.
1. The Intrinsic motivation: Is the motivation to act for the sake of the activity alone. For example: people have intrinsic motivation to write poetry,if they do it simply because they enjoy it.
2. The Extrinsic motivation: on the other hand, is the motivation to act for external rewars.For example: people have extrinsic motivation to write if they do so in the hope of getting published,being famous,or making money.
3. The Both or Incentives motivation : An incentive is an environmental stimulus that pulls people to act in a particular way. Getting an A on an exam to be an incentive that pulls a student toward studying.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of need
In the 1970s, “The psychologist abraham Maslow suggested that people are motivated by a
hierarchy of needs:”
1. First level or basic: physiological needs for food, water, safety, and security.
2. Second level: need for social interaction.
3. Third level: need for estreem,which include the need for respect from oneself and others.
4. Fourth level: needs for self-actualization, or realizing one full potential.
Maslow believed people pay attention to higher needs only when lower needs are satisfied.
The critics argue that Maslow’s theory doesn’t explain why higher needs often motivate people even when lower needs are unsafisfied.
Example: Ray lives in a very dangerous neighborhood and constantly worries about safety.
He make little money at his job in civil-right law, but he enjoy it because he believes that his true calling is to fight injustice.
Critics also point out that people are sometimes simultaneously motivated by needs at different levels. Example: Angie might be motivated to join a theater club both,because she wants to be respected for her acting skill.
Types of Need
People have innate needs and learned needs, both of which are influenced by society and culture. People have a limited number of innate needs, which include needs for food,water, oxygen, and elimination of vastes. There are however a relatively large number of learned needs,including needs for achievement,autonomy, and power. These needs are determined by values,or people perceptions of what is important in life.
Hunger: Is a complicated motivation;people don’t eat only because they need food.many factors, both biological and environmental,influence hunger.These facors interat with another in many ways.
Biological Factor
Researchers believe certain genetic differences among individuals play a role in hunger.
The brain,the digestive, and hormones are all involved influencing hunger at the biological
level.The researchers theorize that people have a genetically influence set point for body
weight. If a person’s weight rises too far above his set point, his appetite decreases,or he uses up more enegy.His weight then returns to its set point.If on the other hand,his weight falls too far bellow his set point, his appetite increases, or he use less energy.
The set point is maintained not only by ffod intake and energy expenditure,but also by the
body’s basal metabolic rate,other genetically influenced variable. Basal metabolic rate is the rate at which a person at complete rest use energy. some researchers disagree about set
points and believe that people can reset their normal weight if they add,or lose pounds slowly. They also point out that people usually gain weight,when they have easy access to
rich foods.
The Brain
1. The lateral hipothalamus is envolved in recongnizing hunger,In rats,damage to the lateral hypothalamun results in loss of interest eating.
2. The ventromedial nucleus of the hipothalamus is involved in reconizing satiety or fullness.In rats,damage to the ventromedial nucleus results in excessive eating and weight gain.
3. The paraventricular nucleus of the hipothalamus is also involved in hunger regulation.When the paraventricular nucleus of a rat is demaged, the rat will eat a very quantity of food at each meal.
The Digestive System
The digestive system influences in several ways. After a meal, the stomach and intestines send nerve impulses to the brain to help people recognize that , they are full. The body converts food in glucose, a simple sugar that acts as an energy source for cells. The level of
glucose in the blood affects hunger. Low blood glucose increase hunger; high blood glucose
decreases hunger.
Hormones
The hormone insulin also play an important role in regulatin hunger.Insulin allows cells to access glucose in the bllod.When the pancreas secretes insulin.
Diabetes is a condition caused by a deficiency of insulin. People who have diabetes take
injections of insulin. Without these injections, their cells would be unable to use the glucose in their blood.
Another hormone involved in hunger regulation is Leptin. The fat cells in the body secrete leptin and release it into the blood.When the leptin lever in the blood is hight, hunger decrease.
Environmental Factors
Many environmental factors influence hunger, includind the availability of rich foods,taste
preferences,habits,memory, stress, and cultural attitudes.
1. Availability of rich foods: People tend to gain weight when rich foods are plenfiful.
2. Preferences: Some taste preferences appear to be innate,such as the preference for fatty foods.
3. However, people acquire most taste preferences throught conditioning or obervational learning. People tend to prefer familiar foods. These preferences have an influence hunger and food intake.
4. Habits: people learn habits such as when and how much they eat. These habits also influence hunger and food intake.
5. Memory: The memory of what people last ate and, when they ate it influences hunger.
6. Stress: The increased physiological arousal associated with stressful situations can stimulate hunger in some people. In other people, stress decreases hunger.
7. Cultural attitudes: In cultural attitudes about ideal body size and shape have a strong influence on what and how much people eat.
Eating Disorder
The prevalence of the eating disorder anorexia and bulimia nervosa in weight conscious cultures show that cultural factors can have a negative influence on hunger and body weight. Anorexia nervosa is charactericed by bouts of binging, followed by compensatory behaviors susch as purging, fasting, or heavy exercise to rid the body og food,both disorders can be life-threatening.
Sexual Drive
Unlike hunger, sexual drive does not motivate people to fulfill a basic biological need.
A lack of food leads to death; a lack of sex, on the other hand, does not. Both biological and psychological factors strongly influence sexual drive.
Kinsey’s Studies
One of the first researchers in to give a modern study of human sexuality was, Alfred Kinsey. In the 1940s, he and his colleagues interviewed more than 18.000 men and
women about their sexual behavior and attitudes. In his reports about the human sexuality, Kinsey denounced the represive social attitudes of his time, which he said bore little relation to actual sexual practices.
Critics of Kinsey’s research maintained three arguments
1. Kinsey is a sample was not random.Instead,it consisted largely of well-educated, white city dwellers.
2. Kinsey and his colleagues used questionable method to gather their data,especially asking leading questions when interview subjects.
3. Kinsey may have let his own beliefs influence in his results.
Masters and Johnson’s studies
Others pioneers of sexual reseach were William Masters and Virginia Johnson. In the 1960s, they studied several hundred male and female volunteers who agreed to either masturbate or have intercourse in a laboratory. masters and Johnson hooked up the volunteers to instruments that measured various physiological indicators during sexual activity. Using the results of these studies, they described the sexual response cycle.
The Sexual Response Cycle
Masters and Johnson divided the human sexual response cycle into four phases.
1. Excitement phase: physiological arousal increases quickly. Muscle tension, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate increase.In men, the penis gets erect and the testes swell.In women, the clitoris hardens and swells, the vaginal lips open, and the vagina lubricates.
2. Pleateau phase: Physiological arousal continues. In women the clitoris retracts under the clitoral hood. men may secrete a small amount of fluid from the penis.
3. Orgasm phase: Physiological arousal peaks. Men eyaculate seminal fluid.Both men and women experience muscular contractions in the pelvic area, along with a sensation of pleasure.
4. Resolution phase: Physiological responses return to normal levels. Men then go through a refractory periord that can vary in length, during they are not responsive to stimulation. The refractory period tends to get longer as men age.
Critics of masters and Johnson’s research maintained two arguments
1. Masters and Johnson studied a biased sample of people. The sample included only people who were both willing and able to perform sexual acts in a laboratory.
2. Masters and Johnson did not pay attention to individual differences. In reality people’s sexual responses vary according to factors as age, amount of sexual experience, and cultural background.
The Role of Testosterone
Sexual drive is related to testosterone lever in both men and women, but the relationship is a complex one. Sexual activity increase testoteron level, and this levels increase sex drive.
Psychological Factors in the Sexual Motivation
1. Erotic stimuli: Men and women can become sexuality aroused by external and internal erotic stimuli. External erotic stimuli is: read exciting material,heard or seen. in Internal eroctic stimuli incluye sexual fantasies,and past sexual experiences.
2. Desires: People have an infinite number of desires that influences the motivation for sex, including to procreate,to express love, or physical enjoyment.
3. Cultural context: Having a strong influence on sexual behavior, cultures inform people about sexual scripts, or implicit rules that allow a person to judge the appropropiate sexual behavior for a given situation.
A culture’s social and economic structure determine the gender roles that men and women adopt. These gender role in turn determine people’s attitude toward sexual activity. In some cultures, a woman is less likely to be interested in sex for its own sake, since casual sex can demage her reputation and reduce her change of marriage.
Sex and the Brain
Psychological influences are cleary powerfull motivators for sex, and the brain is highly involved in sexual arousal. people who have lost all sensation in their genitals became of spinal injuries, are still capable of sexual desire.
Gender differences in sexual behavior and patner choise
Many researcher have found that some differences exist between men and women in the sexual behavior and pather choice, though all men and women do not behave the same way of feel same things.
Men
1. More interested in sex
2. Want sex with more partners
3. Desire sex without emotional commitment
4. Focus on youth and physical attractiveness when choosing a sex pertner.
5. Feel more jealous when patner is physically unfaithfull.
Women
1. Iniciate and think about sex more often less interested in sex
2. No is interested in sex many patners
3. Desire sex with emotional commitment
4. Focus in social and economic status when choosing a sex partner
5. Feel more jealous when partner is emotionally unfaithfull.
Evolutionary Explanation
Some theorists use evolutionary theory to explain these gender differences. Their explications are generally based on Robert Trivers’s idea, that men and women make different parental investments in orden to produce offspring.
From a biological standpoint, men invest no more that energy required for intercourse.
Women, on the other hand, invest time and energy in pregnancy and breast feeding.
Because of these biological diferencies, females can produce only a limited umber of offspring, where as males can potencially produce virtually unlimited offspring.
Males can increase their productive success by producing as many offspring as possible Evolucionary theory predicts that men tend to choose attractive,youthful partners because these qualities imply good health and ability to reproduce discriminanting when choosing mates. They try to select males who have the most access to material resources,because such males can contribute the most to carint for offspring.
Furthermore,men must contend with paternity uncertainty, they can never be certain that they are the fathers of their partners’s offspring. Evolutionary theorist predict that men would therefore tend to have concerns about their partners’s sexual infidelity.
Women, on the other hand, can be certain that their offspring are their own, though they cannot be certain that their partners will provide for their offspring. Therefore,they are
more likely to be concerned about the emotional fidelity of their partners.
Problems with Evolutionary Explanations
Many people criticize the use of evolucionary explanations of gender differences in sexual behavior. Some critics argue that alternative explanations can account equally well for the observed gender differences. Example: “Women’s history of social and economics subservience may have taught them to place a high value on their partners product of socialization”.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is such a controversial subject that people can not even agree about how the term sexual orientation should be defined.Some people argue over whether it refers to sexual behavior,sexual attraction,emotional attraction, or all three.
Researchers define sexual orientation in a variety of ways.
• Hormones
• Genes
• Prenatal factors
• Brain differences into Man and Woman
Environmental Factors
Many researchers believe biological factors alone can not explain the origin of homo-
sexuality.
• An ineffectual distant father and an overly close, domineering mother
• Seduction in childhood by a homosexual adult
• Same-sex sexual play as children.
At this time, no one knows exactly what determine sexual orientation. possibily, men and women develop a homosexual orientations through varius patways. Its also possible from individual to individual.
Summary : What is Motivation?
• Motivation is an internal process that make a person move toward a goal.
• Motivation may be extrinsic, intrinsic.
• Drive reduction theories of motivation sugest that people act in order to reduce needs and maintain a constant physiological state.
• Abraham Maslow proposed that there is a hierarchy of needs ant that people pay attention to high needs, only when lower ones are satisfied.
• Needs may be innate or learned, in learned needs are determined by values, and innate and learned needs are influenced by society and culture.
Hunger
• Is a genetically influence set point may allow people to keep their weight constant.
• The lateral hypothalamus and the ventromedial and ventricular nucleo of the hypothalamus play key roles in regulating hunger.
• The digestive system and hormones such as insulin and leptin also regulate hunger.
• environmental influences on hunger availability of foods,preferences, habits, memory,stress, and cultural attitudes.
Sexual Drive
• Alfred Kinsey was one of the first people to give a modern account of human sexuality.
• William Masters and Virginia Johnson described the human sexual response.
• Testosterone increases sex drive, and sexual activity increase testosteron.
• The sexual response cycle has four phases: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.
• Psychological influences on sex incluye internal and external erotic stimuli, desires, cultural context.
• Researchers have found that there are some gender differencies in sexual behavior and partner choise. Both evolucionary and socio-cultural explanations can account for these diferencies.
• Researchers have suggested that biological factors including hormones levels, genes, prenatal environment, and brain anatomy could influence sexual orientation.
• Psychologist have proposed several theories about how environment might influence homosexuality, but research has failed to support these theories.
Undestanding Psychology
McCraw-Hill
ISBN 0-02-823155-4
Edition: 2000
Sociology Understanding Society
Pentice-Hall
Edition: 2003
MS Encarta Encyclopedia 2006 (English version)
MS Enciclopedia Encarta 2006 (Spanish version)
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology
Distance Learning
http://www.socialpsychology.org/distance.htm
Psychology Student Recurses
http://psychology.about.com/
Frank R.Paya
E-mail.: fkpaya@aol.com
BYU-Student
Provo,Utah
United States
© 2005 by Frank Paya