CHAPTER 11

LOVE AND ATTACHMENT

Harlow’s Three Types of Attachment
● (I) Maternal - Infant (caregiver and infant)
○ Mother and infant perspectives → have different perspectives on this relationship, still
consider this bond to be one of the deepest, most essential bonds in human social
behaviour
■ Huge attachment for protection, security, nurishment, removal of discomfort,
emotional
○ Paternal bond is evident in many humans → develops differently, not necessarily as
strong, the resources that can be put into it can look different
○ Other kin may be involved (sinbilings, grandparents, aunts, uncles)
■ Their relationships with others expand into others as the individual gets older
○ Extended families are common among humans and other species (lions, wolves, ocras,
hyenas, bigger animals (predators))
■ These show very complex family dynamics as well
■ Maternal connection is strong throughout the mammal world
● (II) Peer - Peer (siblings and peers)
● (III) Romantic (sexual attachment and pair bonding)
Infant’s Attachment to Mother
● When an infant is first born, they don’t know their mother/caregiver, there is no attachment to
any individual when one is born
○ This is one of the best times for adoption to occur if the family isn’t going to raise the
offspring themselves (easiest on the baby at this time)
● First interaction with the mother is a cuddling response than followed by nursing - they will grasp
immediately, and look for the nipple
● Phase I: 0-3 Months
○ Nursing (important during this period, it's more than just a food comfort, aspect of
nursing with emotional bonding)
■ Environment has an infant positioned in mothers arm with eye contact (important
for facilitating bonding between the two), skin to skin is also important for this
bonding
■ Nursing can be involved in temperature regulation of a baby → mother is
holding baby close to their body, vestibular motion (rocking), tactile
experience for the baby
■ Can regulate emotion, comfort, arousal, distress within a baby
○ Pre-attachment → at the end of the three month point, start to see some attachment to the
primary caregiver
○ Proximity promoting
■ Crying facilities the mother staying within proximity of the offspring and caring
for them, drawing the mother back when they walk away and bring
comfort/protect the child
○ Crying, clinging, cooing, facial displays, touch, eye contact
 ■ Crying can cause milk production through oxytocin production → important
for nursing component/process
■ As infant develops, they have different facial expressions but they start to
become more tactile, make eye contact, touch mothers face as they develop
○ Would show these responses to any caregiver early on (doesn’t have to be the mother)
since there is no attachment
○ This bond is seen between the primary caregiver and an infant
■ And as this bond is progressively reinforced by comfort and closeness and needs
being met = when attachment to that caregiver is going to take place
○ By the end of that three month point is when you start to see attachment being developed
to the primary caregiver
● Phase II: 3-5 Months → starts to know the mother, this is learned NOT imprinted
○ Progressive attachment in response to care, feeding, reduction in discomforts
○ Infants will start to get soothed or relaxed by familiar individuals at this point and start to
know who different individuals are
○ Discriminates faces and smiles to familiar faces
■ Start to know who people are - they recognize faces they see regularly
■ Will respond more to mother/father as opposed to random stranger
● Phase III: 6-7+ months
○ Clear attachment to mother becoming more evident - that individual with the strongest
attachment has more power to soothe and relax the child than anyone else
■ Manifest more facial expressions and vocalizations
○ Proximity seeking (clings, moves towards mother) - starts to get more motor behaviour
■ Motor behaviour revolves around their mother
■ When the mother moves away, infant tries to reach back for the mother
○ Bases self around mother in exploration
○ Time where you see the most separation anxiety and fear of strangers (peak at around 8
months of age)
■ Ex. baseball caps (don’t like), beards
○ Seen in males and in females at the same rate
● Phase IV: 12+ months
○ Multiple attachments, including father, older siblings, grandparents, babysitters
○ More attachments growing and becoming stronger with other individuals - they start to
become more associated with gratification, reward, security
■ Acts as a conditioned reinforcer
● Seen in other primates as well
Mother’s Attachment to Infant
● Mothers have strong emotional attachments to their offspring as well
● Infanticide → going to occur very early on , abandonment usually occur prior to nursing
● Maternal behaviour is innate, occurs naturally, there is a hormonal component to a degree
● Lactation, nursing and hormonal involvement
● Matneral’s bond to the infant occurs after some substantial time as well - might begin in
gestation, but depends on mothers attitude toward the offspring (was it planned?)
○ Do they have resources to provide for the offspring? Etc.
 ● Some mammals (sheep) display imprinting
● In humans, initial skin to skin contact immediately after birth is associated with positive
attachment later
● Progressive meshing involves mutual eye gaze, smiling, ‘baby-play’
○ Plays important role in bonding for the child, and in playing games with each other
○ Ex. peekaboo
● No large study that draws a correlation with hormones and the attachment of the mother to the
child
● Nursing is favourable for the child, but not for the mother - and thus this bond starts to fall apart
○ But at one point it has to stop because it is not favourable for the mother or the offspring
anymore
Lingle and Riede (2014)
● Played vocalizations in a field from deer babies, seeing if mothers would respond
● Frequencies change of the cries
● Mule deer
● White-tailed deer
● Both deers would approach a speaker that was playing a distressed or crying vocalization of a
number of mammals
○ Marmits, seals, domestic cats, human babies, silver haired bats
● Mothers would come to the speakers no matter what kind of infant cry it was, as long as the
frequency was moved to match the deer
○ Acoustic traits of infants crying or being in distress, highly stable and structured across
mammals - the frequencies of the cry is what depends on if they’re going to respond
○ And are essential for caregiver responses
Hormones and Maternal Behaviour
● Progesterone declines prior to birth (in mammals)
○ Progestational hormone is high throughout pregnancy and decrease just prior to birth
● High levels of oxytocin release at birth
○ Because of the main factors of oxytocin - main reproductive aspects, it causes uterine
contractions → stimulating and helping promote the birthing process
● Menstrual (estrous) cycling suspended
○ Nursing behaviour suppresses the menstrual cycle- used as a method of birth spacing
(historically)
○ Seen in a number of mammals
● Prolactin produces milk production
● Oxytocin stimulates milk ejection from the mammary glands (primary function)
○ Secondary function of facilitating the bond between the mother and the offspring
● Evidence suggest oxytocin is heavily implicated in bonding
● Experience Interacts with Hormones
○ In lab rats, experienced mothers show maternal behaviour much more readily, regardless
of hormones (second offspring is easier) than new mothers
■ The more offspring you’ve had prior = the better the care you’re going to show in
the future
○ Prolactin injected into the brain promotes nurturance in virgin rats
 ○ Blood transfusion from parturient female to virgin female leads to maternal behaviour
○ Variety of blood signals act synergistically
Brain and Maternal Behaviour
● The medial (and dorsal) preoptic area of the hypothalamus is critically involved in maternal
behaviour in rats
○ Largely shown in rats, mice, gerbils, etc.
○ Likely true in humans as well
● Outputs and projections go to various parts of the brain
● Poa → projections to other areas of the hypothalamus, to ventral tegmental area, PAG, etc.
○ POA controls but there's projections to other parts of the brain
Paternal Bond
● At about 7 months, this bond can become just as strong as their bond with primary caregiver
● Secondary bond - but can still come strong and quickly
● More variability in paternal bonds
● Less reliable and more variable (even in species with bi-parental care)
○ Due to the mother being the one nursing, protection to offspring in a different way than
the father
○ Resources come in, in a different aspect - providing for the mother
■ Resources the father is giving in is very different from the mother
● Paternity confidence is an issue (plays into the paternal bond) - paternity uncertainty
● Contribution to care may be indirect
● Role of care may increase with age (nursing is no longer needed, is important for development of
individuals cognitively)
○ Boys - more behavioural difficulties without a father
○ Girls - decrease in self esteem without a father
○ Typically, the relationship with the father is less agonistic when its their real father
■ More fighting with adoptive children
Siblings
● First individuals you interact with a lot outside of primary caregiver → first real interaction
with other individuals, first friends
● Competition for resources → fighting over food, mom and dads attention, etc.
● Gene sharing (r = 0.5)
● First and most likely playmates, first enemies
○ Motor skills increasing, not actually trying to hurt your siblings, results more in
accidental injuries than intentional injuries
● Jealousy for maternal affection observed in very young
● Rivalry and mutual support are both common; nepotism
○ Both want both to succeed → gain indirect fitness by having your sibling succeed
○ Fighting is important for motor skill development
● Inter-sibling aggression usually non-injurious
● Complex relationship, some hate, some love, and times of competition
Peers
● Peers act like our siblings, we can learn motor skills and can play with them
 ● Develops with progressive independence from mother and family
● Human children show substantial interest in peers that are similar in age and sex
○ Similar in other social primates (ex. Rhesus Monkeys)
● Develop social experience
○ Our own values, and beliefs - lots of social interactions
○ Influences how we develop in the future
○ How do we treat those around us, and what values do we hold?
● Learning of communication
○ Teaches us how to ask and communicate with others who aren’t our families
● Sharing information (common developmental problems), problem solving → is due to them
being similar in age and going through similar problems
● Play and skill acquisition
○ Motor development through play, hand eye coordination, sports, fantasy play
● Alliances for mutual benefit → treating friends like family, become caregivers for you in other
ways
Passionate Love
● Stereotypical puppy love that people display early on in the relationship
● Is intense, volatile, lots of emotions, start of a romantic or physical relationship, haven’t gotten to
the co-dependency, not a stable or long-term relationship yet
● Cognitive
○ Preoccupation with each other, idealization, desire to know the person
■ You’re focused on this individual and they can do no wrong
● Emotional
○ Sexual attraction → christian
○ Polarization of affect (Success vs failure)
■ Interactions can change your idea of them quickly depending on their own
perspectives of the situation
■ The relationship can go or end real quick
○ Longing for reciprocity of feelings and long-term commitment
○ Physiological arousal (autonomic)
○ Desire for permanent union
● Behaviour
○ Gaze, studying other
○ Seeking physical closeness - learning how they act
○ Courting, flirting
Temple et al (2012)
● Sexting
○ A combination of the words sex and texting
○ The practice of electronically sending sexually explicit images or messages from one
person to another
● This study looked at teen sexting and sexual behaviours - 1000 high school students in texas
○ Males have asked for sext more
○ Females and males have both sent the same = equal numbers
 ○ Females were asked to send more than what males were
○ Males were not bothered by request for sext
○ Males were a little bit bothered by request
○ Few males were bothered a lot/a great deal bothered by the request
○ Bothers females more
● Sent a text?, Asked for a text?, Been asked to sext?
○ Increased likelihood of having ever dated
○ Increased likelihood of having ever had sex
○ For females it was also associaited with an increase in risky sexual behaviours
(consuming alcohol or drugs prior to engaging in sexual activity and having multiple
sexual partners in a close proximity in time)
● … and its probably just a normal part of sexual development
Holmes et al (2020)
● University students and sexting
○ Over half had engaged in explicit sexting at some point in their lives, many with more
than one partner
○ Most with committed partners (~65 receiving, ~80% sending) 15-25% report
sending/receiving from ex-partners, friends and online acquaintances
○ Over half of senders rated their experience(s) with sextign as positive, more likely to
again - 17% had negative experience, about ⅓ of which unlikely to do so again
○ Men and women find sending an explicit sext as arousing or sexually gratifying, women
were less likely to report receiving sexts as enjoying or sexually gratifying
Companionate Love
● From passionate love to companionate love (doesn’t always though)
● Focused on monogamy, less intense and more stable, focus on common interest between two
individuals
● Might turn into a long-lasting established friendship, mutual dependency
● Cognitive
○ Intimacy and self-disclosure
○ Knowledge of strengths and weaknesses
○ Long-term expectations
● Emotional
○ Caring, trust, stability
○ Daily emotions are not as intense
○ Betrayal is possible (jealousy, loneliness, anger, depression)
● Behaviour
○ Gaze, physical proximity
○ Sexuality
○ Efficient non-verbal communication
● Associated with marriage → more companion love
Francis and Mialon (2014)
● What Makes for a Stable Marriage?
○ Time spent dating before proposal
■ 1 year or less = likely to divorce
 ■ 1-2 years = 20% less likely to divorce
■ 3+ years = 39% less likely
○ The longer you date someone, the less likely you are to get divorced after marriage
● As annual income increases, the likelihood of divorce decreases, but the decrease becomes less
quickly
● Religious attendance
○ Individuals who sometimes practice the religion are more likely to get divorced than
individuals who regularly practice

●
● The more money you spend on your wedding = more likely to get divorced
● If you had a honeymoon = less likely to get divorced
● Correlation does not equal causation
Physiology of Sexual Attachment
● Mating is the key factor
● Oxytocin released during mating may progressively condition attachment → this release
continues throughout mating, when orgasm occurs you have huge peak is believed to
condition the attachment
● Oxytocin and vasopressin dynamics in basal forebrain and septum under investigation
● Septum long thought to be involved - part of limbic system, more responsible for oxytocin
association/binding with bonding
Oxytocin and Bonding
● In female prairie voles, central oxytocin administration leads to partner preference in the absence
of mating
● Central administration of drug blocking oxytocin does not influence mating, but prevents partner
preference for the future, so no bonding is occurring
● Oxytocin is important for bonding
Brain Activity
● Elevated activation of the anterior cingulate cortex when viewing photos of romantic partners
compared to friends
○ Element of attraction or notion of a romantic relationship, best friends don’t elicit this
reaction only romantic partners
● Diminished activation of the posterior cingulate gyrus and in the amygdala
○ Something of the natural inhibiting those feelings/connections and decrease when
viewing our romantic partners
○ Behaviour in amygdala decreases - we don’t fear them
HPA Activity
● Cortisol and stress can really induce bonding
● Can induce feelings of attachment and bonding
● But.. positive social bonds and behaviour reduce HPA activity/stress, while negative social bonds
increase HPA activity/stress
○ Stressful situations cause friendships and connections - become stronger and faster than
with other individuals
○ Stress can facilitate bonding
○ Stress can facilitate male preference for females in prairie voles but we don’t see the
same pattern in female to male bonding
Jealousy and Envy
● Envy: Something you want but don’t have
● Jealousy: Something you already have but are afraid of losing
Adult Sexual Jealousy
● Cognitive
○ Shock, confusion, suspicion over what's going on
○ Obsessive thinking
● Emotional
○ Mix of primary and secondary emotions: anger, fear, despair, sadness, depression,
anxiety, shame, embarrassment
● Behaviour
○ Information seeking
○ Withdrawal
○ Revenge
○ Aggression
Sexual Dimorphism in Jealousy
● Male
○ The greatest concern is sexual infidelity
○ Cuckoldry is potential outcome
 ● Female
○ The greatest concern is emotional infidelity
○ Loss of support is potential outcome
O’Sullivan et al (2021)
● What is a crush?
○ Uncommincated, often unilateral, attraction to another individual, generally viewed as a
state of unfulfilled longing
○ How do crushes make us feel?
■ Excitement
■ Esteem aspects: we look at this person very highly
● But also self-esteem making us feel good about ourselves
■ Fantasy and escape
● If people in relationships are unlikely to act on a crush, what purpose do they surve?
○ Humans cannot help it- “we are wired like this, to have the best possible outcome for us”
○ Crushes serve as a plan b - back burner relationships
○ Test the strength of your current relationship
■ And possibly strengthen relationships

CHAPTER 12
MOTIVATION TO LEARN
Learning allows us to adapt to our environment without needing a genetic predisposition to act in a
certain way
Exploration
● The first way that any individual of any species is going to learn, it’s easiest to cope in an
environment that we understand
● Most animals explore new environments and we learn by exploring our environment
● Food, water, shelter, possible dangers must be sought out and evaluated
○ Exploring an area you don’t understand, don’t know what predators are around so there is
danger to exploring as well
● Individual differences
● Exploration does have a strong genetic component → mean time spent in an open field
increases over generations
○ If you breed animals that don’t explore, exploration goes down
○ If you breed animals that do explore, exploration goes up
Play
● Play is harder to define scientifically, defined as activity that is information gathering and
promotes skill development and form of actual learning
● Observed in most mammalian species, including primates, marine mammals, ungulates, rodents
○ Primates are most defined and agreed upon - but seen in other k-selected species
■ Larger in more predatory type animals
○ Harder to find in birds and fish - lack of data for these species
● Vague defined as inefficient behaviour without apparent immediate direct benefit or clear goals at
the time
○ There is no direct or immediate goal at the time
 ● Play can look like many different thing among many mammals
● Play in Rats
○ Big question: does play happen in a rodent?
■ People argue it does, others argue it doesn’t
■ Seen wrestling around in aggressive-like behaviour but not always trying to
inflict pain
■ Dorsal contacts - putting body on top, similar to a pin but its animal on top
■ Pinning - stomach to stomach
○ But is this really defined as play? Difficult to say
Adaptive Value of Play
● K-selected species - benefits of play are more long term, so it makes sense as to why play is
found more in k-selected species but it does come with benefits and costs
● Costs
○ Energy expenditure - you need to have the energy to expend freely
■ If you don’t have food, water, etc. it's wasteful to play since there's no immediate
goal
● You are wasting too much energy instead of getting food or water
○ Risk of injury → detriment since you’re getting nothing out of it immediate
○ Possibly attracts predator attention (since its loud play, since a decent size, you make
noise when playing)
● Benefits
○ Strengthens muscles
○ Potentiates social learning (social context, fine motor skills, practicing hunting/defense
behaviours, learn how to engage with the environment as a whole)
○ Competition, emotional expression, multiple skill acquisition
Expression of Play
● Play looks different for different animals
● Rhesus monkeys display a ‘play face’ before engaging in aggressive rough and tumble play
○ Which avoids an aggressive fight to take place and they rarely end up getting hurt
● Posturing, wrestling, chasing and avoidance serve as practice for adult life
● Some primates (esp. humans) incorporate tool use in play
○ Meaning using external objects
● In humans, play fighting in children involves evolutionarily conserved tactics like pinning
(getting on top of the opponent), kicking, hitting, grappling, etc.
● However, modern adult human fight’s often include weaponry, longer distances (ex. guns)
● Humans only species to play in teams
○ A set of individuals vs. another set of individuates
○ Animals display play behaviour individualistically
What About Fantasy Play?
● Can be anything from video games, playing with a dollhouse
● Can happen solo or in groups
● Has very play like aspects to it like critical thinking and no immediate reward
● Allows for problem solving, critical decision making, all outside of important situations
○ Playlike aspects to it - no immediate reward
 ● More development of language and social behaviours when performed with others
○ Believed to act as a method of increasing sensory arousal when we’re bored - provides
mental stimulation
● Cognitive component - imagine, thinking of other situations
Physiology of Play
● Lesions to the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) will reduce play behaviour
○ But can damage any part of the brain and see a decrease in play type behaviour
○ Is the big one but damage to all parts of the brain will lead to this
● Large lesions to the hippocampus, the amygdala, the cerebellum and the lateral hypothalamus
will all reduce play behaviour
● Removal of the neocortex reduces play behaviour
○ Still see play behaviour without the neocortex, suggesting there is some evolutionary
conserved element to play - even if its reduced in other species
Simple Learning
● Habituation: Repeated exposure to a stimulus tends to lead to reduced responses to that stimulus
● Sensitization: Repeated exposure to a stimulus produces enhanced responses to that stimulus
● Classical Conditioning
○ Where a neutral stimuli that hadn’t stimulated any kind of response, is paired with a
stimuli that does exhibit a response, when paired close in time

○
● Instrumental Conditioning
○ Reinforcement: Consequence that causes the frequency of a response to increase
○ Punishment: Consequence that causes the frequency of a response to decrease
Electrical Brain Stimulation
● Came about when they were looking into arousal, trying to see if an animal became more aroused
or more awake
● Electrodes implanted in brain core and delivering mild electrical currents, the reinforcement type
behaviour showed up
● Rats prefer regions of cage where electrodes deliver mild pulses to the brain
● Animals work for brief pulses of electricity contingent on response
● Very high rates of response to the point where important aspects of their living, will exhaust
themselves trying to get the brain stimulation
○ Can exclude or stimulate feeding, drinking
● Rapid extinction
 ○ If you stop rewarding the animal, the behaviour they have to perform to get the reward,
will stop -they stop repeating it
● Electrical brain stimulation does occur in humans as well (most common is during neurosurgery)
Physiology of EBS Reinforcement
● When using electrical brain stimulation, you don’t always get the same responses
● Same location → individuals respond differently if they’ve been deprived of food or water,
haven’t been groomed or if they feel unsafe
○ The primary emotions and motivations - all have a factor in how animals will respond
when performing physiological studies on them
● Some interact with food and water deprivation
● Highest rates in regions traversed by the medial forebrain bundle
○ Highest rates of reward repeating behaviours are seen in those areas that are connected to
the medial forebrain bundle
○ Monoamines project through the medial forebrain bundle
○ Provides the best response
● Various sites work
● Anti-dopamine drugs block reinforcement
○ Ventral tegmental area, where dopaminergic cell bodies are → the neurons project to
the medial forebrain bundle and synapse on the nucleus accumbens (major reward
circuit in the mammalian brain)
■ In the nucleus accumbens, where the dopamine is secreted and acts on the
postsynaptic neurons
■ If we put anti-dopamine drugs there, then we eliminate the reward behaviours
that are associated with electrical stimulation of this area
○ If we lesion the MFB in general, we don’t see the reward type behaviour occurring
anymore
○ If we counteract and electrically stimulate neurons that inhibit these areas, we get the
same response of a decrease in reward behaviour
● Local interference with dopaminergic systems disrupt electrical brain reward
Physiology of Reinforcement
● Consummatory behaviours (eating, drinking, sex) associated with increased dopamine activity in
the nucleus accumbens
● Consensus that dopamine systems involved, but may just be part of larger system
○ Nucleus accumbens, VTA and projections through the medial forebrain bundle are
extremely important
Intense Emotions Enhance Memory
● When we’re talking about learning, we have to think about the memory - we know that
individuals learn and have good memory during times of extreme stress
● Memories of traumatic and/or exciting events are more intense and durable
○ Very intense - physiologically, theres similarities between traumatic situations and very
exciting situations we’re in due to the SNS response
○ Memory enhancement in both is normal
■ But why in stressful situations?
 ● Stress hormones (ACTH, cortisol, adrenaline) given during learning can enhance memory
○ Cortisol, ACTH and adrenaline are the physiological factors contributing, associated to
some degree of stress and excitement
Physiology of Emotional Memory
● Cortisol (directly through receptors located in the limbic system)
○ Glucocorticoid receptors are found all throughout the hippocampus and amygdala
■ Hippocampus - synthesis of our experiences in memory
■ Amygdala - important for fear, avoidance, acceptance behaviour
■ Receptors in the brain, right on them
■ Since cortisol is a steroid, it can pass through the blood brain barrier and get into
circulation of the brain - will bind to the receptors on the amygdala and
hippocampus
○ Activation of these receptors during emergency stress responses facilitate memory
consolidation
■ Short-term activation during stressful situations will facilitate memory
consolidation (increasing the binding during stressful times) and enhances
memory
○ Sustained activation during chronic stress leads to hippocampal atrophy and memory
deficiency
■ If binding occurs for too long of a time - hippocampus starts to shrink- chronic
cortisol binding is bad
■ Short-term cortisol burst is good, but with longer period of binding at the limbic
system its bad for our memory
● Adrenaline
○ Adrenaline cannot cross blood-brain barrier (its a peptide hormone)
● Glucose Hypothesis (too simplistic)
○ Adrenaline leads to liberation of energy and production of glucose
○ Neural cells indirectly influenced as a result, especially the hippocampus which uses lots
of energy
○ Adrenaline (stressful situation) → releasing a lot of glucose, that goes to the brain, go
to hippocampus since its using a lot of energy to consolidate those memories
● Peripheral Receptors and Amygdala
○ Adrenaline stimulates afferents of the vagal nerve, which signals to nucleus of the
solitary tract (NTS) in medulla oblongata
○ Noradrenaline neurons from the NTS project to basolateral amygdala, which enhances
memory via actions on hippocampus
■ Basolateral is important for emotion induced memory
■ Taking our emotions and combining it with our memory
■ Epinephrine converges on the area of the amygdala, epinephrine released in
peripheral stimulates the afferent vagus nerve (going to the brain), the vagal
nerve sends the signal to the brain and synapses in the medulla oblongata in the
brainstem (nucleus of the solitary tract, NTS), then there's a projection of
noradrenergic neurons (secreting norepinephrine), coming from the NTS and
project to the basolateral amygdala where norepinephrine will be released
 ○ Amygdala is the ending site

Conditioned Reinforcement
● Primary Reinforcer: A stimulus that naturally rewards behaviour (Food, water, sexual partner,
increased comfort)
○ Natural going to be good for our physiology and needed to survive
● Conditioned Reinforcer: A formerly neutral stimulus that acquires a capacity to reward behavior
through a history of pairing with primary reinforcement
○ Things that are neutral that have no meaning in life but provide us with satisfaction and
use them as a reward (ex. grades, money)
○ Conditioned to be rewarding to us as individuals on a cognitive level
Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Controls
● Not everything falls into either of these categories
● Intrinsic rewards and punishers are natural consequences of behaviour
○ Based on our consummatory behaviours (things that have to deal with our state of being)
○ Ex. eating sweet foods, having sleep
● Extrinsic rewards are punishers are externally imposed (usually social) factors
○ More social element
○ You listen to lectures because you want a good grade
● Different than primary and conditioned reinforcers
Incentive vs Reinforcement
● Reinforcement and Punishment
○ Direct consequences, more physical or something we’ve experienced before
○ History of experience with consequences determines frequency of behaviour
● Incentive and Disincentive
○ Cognitive representation determines behaviour
○ No experience necessary, but we can imagine it and alters our behaviour in that way
○ Intelligent adults and older children
■ Little kids don’t really care about incentives
Vicarious Learning
● Learning from other individuals
● Contagion - a spread of behaviour that's unconscious (ex. laughing, yawning, mass suicides in
cults)
● Imitation → we have intent of copying
○ Simply just copying behaviour
○ Bandura and others have shown that new behaviour is often acquired via observation of
others
○ Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
■ Children observing more aggressive models with a novel toy were later more
aggressive than those observing peaceful models
■ Imitating other individuals on what they saw
● Modeling
 ○ Teaching, with the intent to be mimicked - taking long-term knowledge and
understanding of an idea and thinking of how to apply that skill (application)
■ You are understanding it and thinking about its application
○ Cognitive component that is here that isn't with imitation
Vicarious Reinforcement and Punishment
● Watching other people get rewarded/punished for their behaviours influences our behaviour
● Observers of others being reinforced and punished show corresponding changes in the frequency
of behaviour
○ Ex. watching your sibling get in trouble for something so you avoid doing that yourself
● Effects can be just as strong as individual direct experiences consequences
Vicarious Emotional Responses
● Observers of others experiencing emotions, especially romantic and violent ones, can show
emotional responses themselves
○ When watching others, we start to learn and apply what that situation would be like for
you
○ Emotional responses can be learned

CHAPTER 13
CONFLICTS AMONG MOTIVES
Conflicts Among Motives
● Approach → approach: two favourable approaches
○ We want to approach either goals
● Approach → avoidance
○ Situations where we want the goal, but there's consequences with reaching that goal
● Avoidance → avoidance
○ Have to choose between two negative outcomes
● The stronger the goal (the closer one is towards the goal) = the stronger the pull to it is
● If it has aversive features, the stronger the repulsion is as well
● Both aspects get stronger as we get closer to the situation
Approach - Approach
● Forced to choose from two equally desirable goals
● Goals are mutually exclusive (one or the other)
● Hesitation before choosing
○ Back and forth, back and forth between making that final decision
● Ex. friday nights at hess (sexy person vs. sexy person), the dessert bar (cheesecake vs. brownie)
● Two positive things and you have to make a decision between the two
● We study this in mice with a Y maze or a T maze
Approach - Avoidance
● One goal that both attracts and repels
● Reward associated with an aversive stimulus
● Closer the animal gets, the greater the tendency to avoid
● Ie. movember, asking out a date
 ● Lab we would study this with rodents where they have to go through some sort of negative
stimuli to get a food reward

Avoidance - Avoidance
● Forced to choose from two equally aversive or unappealing choices
● This type of conflict encourages “freezing” behaviour
○ In both human and animals - won’t know what to do, they freeze
● Can result in anxiety and sense of helplessness
● Ex. escape from scenarios -- ex. Fire in house → jump out the window to avoid going
through a hallway on fire to save yourself
Common Components
● Hesitate, approach, retract, repeat
● Evaluate situation and other possible outcomes that might come with it
○ We are trying to collect as much information as possible before making a decision
● Urgency to the situation
○ Indecisive or rushed
● Easiest to not make a decision
○ Lots of times in our lives when we’re indecisive and hope that someone makes the
decision for us
Cognitive Dissonance - when conflict arises
● Discrepancy between beliefs and actions, but we feel they ought to align
○ Our behaviours and beliefs need to be in line → bothers people when they don’t
● Would you accept money to lie to someone?

POV: you are an environmentalist and don’t like using the AC of our car, but today was hot so you
decided to.
Resolving Cognitive Dissonance
● We can change our behaviour: Stop driving or stop using an air conditioner
○ Now our behaviour aligns with what we believe in
● Beliefs: Ozone layer depletion is just a myth, it's under control
○ Now beliefs line up with actions
● Add new cognitive element → something to justify/rationalize our actions
○ More common way to deal with it
○ One car won’t make a difference, scientists will fix it
Risk Taking
● All activity involves some risk but we have different individual thresholds on what we consider
risk, and what we’re willing to risk
○ Individuals pushing things further than the average person
● Focuses on our approach - avoidance aspects/situations we’ll be in
● Individual differences
Risks Can be Rational
● P (value of potential benefit) > p (value of potential cost)
● The greater the benefit relative to the risk, the more likely the behaviour will be engaged
○ We want good things to happen
 ● Individuals who take risks tend to do so over many domains
○ People who normally take risks in one domain, and demonstrate risk taking behaviours in
the same degree in other domains
● Risks can be rational → we normally think about them
● Stay in bed
● Flight (most people are scared of it)
○ We know its safe, so we can rationalize it
● Eating at a restaurant
○ Assume the risks are very minimal and we’re probably going to be find, we weigh the
cons and benefits prior to going into a restaurant
Risk-Sensitivity Theory
● When do we take risks? Why do we take risks?
● Area of study that organisms are more likely to take risks when they’re unlikely to achieve their
goals through safer means
○ Evolutionarily, if you are not going to survive or reproduce, you have nothing to lose
● Birds forge in open fields - ones that haven’t in 2-4 days are more likely to go out into the open
fields to forge for foods
● Bats mate in hibernacula
○ Low metabolic states (in the middle of hibernation) - makes will wake up during states of
arousal and mate with females, lots of energy being expended that the male probably
shouldn’t be doing
○ But from evolutionary perspective - might be worth it to have a child and increase fitness
and taking a cost on its energy expenditure
● Mice enter novel homes
Male-Female Differences in Risk
● Males take the most risk with no association to other individuals
● Disadvantaged males take the greatest risks
○ Especially males without females and family, take the greatest risk
○ Typically is believed it’s a by-product of polygyny (one male mating with multiple
females)
■ Subordinate males → nothing to lose, with no reproductive fitness, so they’re
going to take risks
○ Polygyny by-product
● Females have specific risks (associated with reproduction)
○ Mating → for both sexes is inherently dangerous
■ STDs??
○ Pregnancy → huge cost and big risk
○ Birth → high rate of death can occur, luckily with modern technology, not such a
massive risk
○ Nurturance → lots of energies, deficiencies, causing risk to the mother
Mishra et al (2014)
● Measure risk through social competition
○ Overall relative risk doesn’t matter to an individual
 ○ Relative success → don’t have to be the fastest, just don’t be the last
● To evaluate risk-sensitivity theory using intelligence as a cue of competitive advantage or
disadvantage (through an intelligence test)
● Higher grades = higher success in education, these people do not take the same risks that non-
educated people do
○ To evaluate → intelligence test, given feedback that was made up and then performed
a second test and make a decision based on money, and assessing their risk taking
■ Would you rather have $3 or a 30% chance of $30?
○ Competitive advantage = placed in a high percentile
○ Competitive disadvantaged = lower percentile
○ Individuals in competitive advantage took less risk when doing financial risk assessment
○ Those who placed lower, took an increased number of risks
● Did it again, a week later
○ Disadvantage group the first time and second time NO answer for them, same number of
risky decisions as you had the week prior
○ First in disadvantage group and second time in advantage group = decreased number of
risky chances compared to the first time in the study
○ Disadvantage group both times = even greater number of risky choices
○ If you’re first in advantaged and then disadvantaged group - don’t make more or less
risky choices
● Summary
○ No sex differences
○ Competitive disadvantage increased in risk taking
○ Cues of competitive disadvantage can be reversed
■ Reversed in disadvantaged group then advantaged group
○ Competitive disadvantage does not fade over short time periods
■ Disadvantaged group then control group → wasn’t a decrease in the risky
choices
Delay of Gratification
● Short-term gratification sacrificed for long-term benefit
○ University
○ Work
○ Exercise
○ Eating healthy
● Stanford Marshmallow Experiment
○ With children → how its studied in a lab
● Infants, very young children are impulse-driven
● Individual differences are evident in childhood and can endure throughout life
○ Those who are more impulsive in their young, show it through adulthood as well
● Impulsive children and adolescents have more social and academic problems
○ Inability to focus is also associated with impulsive children
Cognitive-Affective Processing
How do we affectively process these decisions?
 ● Self-regulation in delaying gratification
● “Cool” regulatory strategies (calm, controlled, cognitive)
● “Hot” regulatory strategies (emotional, impulsive, automatic, don’t take time to think about
consequences)
● Hot strategies involve intense focus on the object causing temptation, and its most appealing
elements, and poor ability to resist the immediate reward
○ Fixation on objects, only look at pros, poor delayed gratification
● Cool strategies involve more control over behaviour, more focus on all elements of the decision
itself
Rational vs Emotional Control
● We have huge drives from our primitive parts of our brain
● Can have cognitive control over our primitive desires → our rational control
○ Can override those more prehistoric drives to control our current behaviour
● Healthy eating
● sexual/aggressive impulses
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

●
● Our decision making processes, how we evaluate risks and decisions come down to how critical
the reward is
● Only one model of how we progress forward with the important aspects of our lives
● Follow themes we’ve previously discussed
● Most important needs are physiological needs (water, food, salt) to keep our body in
physiological balance
● Only after the physiological needs are met, then we move onto our safety needs

CHAPTER 14
SELF, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY

Humans as a social species, have the ability to influence others during social interactions through facial
expressions or gestures or even explicit verbal communication: “good job”, or “stop that right now.”
-social interactions aid in facilitating a sense of community
Approval and Contempt
● Praise acts as a reinforcer -- humans tend to seek out praise
 ○ We like to know that people are happy with us, and that we are doing a good job
○ Smiling, cheers, clapping
○ Verbal expression (positive)
○ Tangible social rewards
■ Ex. our degrees, good grades, money
○ Evokes feelings of pleasure and euphoria
● Disapproval acts as a punishment -- often decreases the behaviour in individual
○ Frowning and upturned nose, disgust
○ Verbal expression (negative)
○ Shunning, alienation, demotion in rank
○ Body language excludes us → being pushed out of the group
● Expressions attributed to both disapproval and praise are fairly consistent across different cultures
and societies
● Body language helps to form a sense of community and intrapersonal connections in both the
form of approval and disapproval
○ Their disapproving and avoidant body language can be seen as a demotion of rank
Higher-Order Social Emotions -- uniquely human for the most part
● These are complex emotions, showing a mixture of primary emotions → these build upon
our primary emotions of happiness, fear, anger and disgust
● Often arise from our social values, experience these emotions in response to whether or not we’re
meeting these self-imposed values
● Embarrassment - not an emotion we are born with
○ Is a social emotion that coincides with recognition of self, and recognizing other
individuals around you as well as social standards
○ First appears at 2-3 years of age
■ By 2 years old, 50% of children will have reported experiencing embarrassment
■ By 3 years old, 80% of children will have reported experiencing embarrassment
○ Occurs solely in social environments where unwanted events threaten the person’s
social image (ie. social gaffe or error) -- and can cause other people to have a negative
view of your persona
■ A person’s reaction, where their social image is potentially damaged
○ Embarrassment can be elicited by conspicuousness or scrutiny
■ Scrutiny is something that can affect your social status
■ Critical observation from other people, people may view you differently as a
result
● Embarrassment looks like: [BEHAVIOURAL RESPONSES]
○ Downward gaze, gaze aversion
○ “Goofy” smiling, may be overwhelmed by emotion and may not know what to do,
awkwardly laughing
○ Hand to face movements
● Embarrassment often leads to: [PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSES]
○ Displacement activities
■ Ex. trying to remove yourself from the social situation
○ Blushing may occur (not always true)
 ○ Heart rate may decrease in anticipation of embarrassment
■ Heart rate increase/decrease depends on the social context
■ Might a compensatory response for the increase of heart rate that’s about to
happen
○ Rapid increase then decrease in heart rate to baseline when experiencing embarrassment
■ Increase in heart rate is associated with feeling embarrassment but decrease with
anticipation
○ Cross Cultural differences
■ Blushing, gaze aversion, and goofy smiling are more reported in the UK
compared to southern parts of europe
○ Embarrassment is actively avoided, but adaptive in dealing with minor social
transgressions
■ Fear of experiencing embarrassment can have inhibit behaviours that are
embarrassing - works as a negative reinforcer
○ Serves as a reliable non-verbal apology; appeasement gesture
■ Social cue, that the person is reflecting on their behaviour as its considered
wrong
○ People who show obvious embarrassment in an embarrassing situation are evaluated
more favourably by observers than those who remain cool and poised
○ Embarrassment is considered a distinctly human emotion → don’t see it in other animals
○ Embarrassment: feeling foolish; mix of sadness and surprise
● Shame
○ Mix of fear and disgust; regret and depression (internal- disgust towards ourselves)
■ Less socially adaptive as it’s more of an internal feeling
■ Will often give rise to other primary emotions such as angry with ourselves or
others
○ More painful and darker than embarrassment and includes a private, internal component
that embarrassment does not
■ Embarrassment is very social, and shame is more internal and private
○ Reflects internal judgement of self, based on a failure to meet personal or family
standards, goals, expectancies and ideals
○ Chronic shame can deeply influence an individual’s personality = dramatic changes in
motivation
○ Shame-prone people often lack empathy for others and susceptibility is correlated with
psychological maladjustment
■ Shame can influence your motivation
■ Extreme shame is observed to be a common precursor of suicide
○ Common antecedent of suicide
■ Doesn’t directly correlate - its just been observed to be a common precursor
● Guilt
○ Self-imposed emotion in response to infraction of internal standards
○ BUT almost exclusively felt in harm, loss or distress caused to someone (physically or
their property, or emotions)
 ■ Guilt and shame are quite distinct → guilt arises exclusively when our
behaviours harm, or distress another
■ Guilt occurs when we’ve affected someone else with our actions
○ Less reliably identified in an individual in comparison to embarrassment or shame
■ Less characteristic → less demonstration
■ No clear expression that demonstrates that a person is feeling guilty
○ Has been evaluated in children, studies show that younger children experience guilt in
response to deliberate and accidental events when the outcome was deemed wrong
○ Older children only experience guilt during deliberate events → development for the
concept of responsibility for one’s own actions occurs during childhood and remains
throughout adulthood
● Pride
○ Evidence indicates that pride has a distinct, recognizable emotional expression
■ Characterized by pleasure, or satisfaction derived from a sense of achievement
○ People identify with emotion uniquely when not cued with the word
○ Expressions demonstrating pride involves a small smile, head tilted back slightly, visibly
expanded posture
○ Arms may be raised above head or hands on hips
■ Pride is associated with expanding one’s space
○ People demonstrating pride have been seen to be more favourable and likeable
○ May serve as an adaptive emotional expression in social interactions
○ People displaying pride tend to take on dominant roles in social interactions, and also
may be perceived as the most likeable
Embarrassment and Shame
● Embarrassment
○ Feel foolish; mix of sadness and surprise
○ Social gaffe or social slip up
● Shame
○ Mix of fear and disgust; regret and depression
○ More of an internal experience - negative feeling towards ourselves
● Shame is less adaptive than embarrassment, since its more internal feeling
● Shame gives rise to anger towards self and others
Takahashi et al (2008)
● Looking at pride from a physiological perspective, examined neural activation during high order
emotional expression
○ Used fMRI → focused on a comparison between joy and pride
● Participants tried to vision stimulus - adopting the emotion behind the statements, as if they were
their own
● Joy (primary emotion)
○ I won a lottery
○ I ate my favourite cake
○ I received a christmas present
● Pride (higher order emotion)
 ○ I won a prize at a scientific meeting
○ I graduated at the head of my class
○ I obtained a scholarship
● Joy, happiness, excitement
○ Activation of the ventral striatum and insula
○ Areas associated with processing of appetitive (positive) stimuli (things we like, things
that are good)
● Pride
○ Activation of the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (rpSTS) and left temporal
pole
○ Areas associated with social cognition and theory of mind
● We process pride and joy differently, although they’re related emotions, two different brain
regions process them differently, showing a difference in processing a primary vs higher order
emotion
● Basic emotions (joy) are processed in different emotions than higher order emotions, ONLY the
higher order emotions involve social cognition and theory of mind
Social Cognition
● Encoding, storage, retrieval and processing of information about conspecifics, or other
individuals
● Involves interacting with others and encoding how they are feeling through other social cues such
as body language, tone of voice - we store this information and then we retrieve it
Theory of Mind
● Ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others
○ Ability to understand that other individuals have different POV’s
● Ability to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from your
own
● Able to react to others
● Example
○ Ability to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different
from your own
Social Interaction
● A social interaction is considered mutually regulated process in which two or more individuals
communicate and respond to the intentions, needs, and actions of each other
There are many components that come together to create social interactions:
● 1. Joint attention is a form of social interaction where two or more individuals coordinate their
attention on an external entity
○ Holds significant in respect to theory of mind, clear indication of expressing ones desires
○ 9 months old - can engage in ability to respond to joint attention as well as initiation,
directing someones attention to external entity
■ Suggests an early development of theory of mind
● 2. Shared attention is a form of social interactions where two or more individuals coordinate
their attention on each other
○ Ex. active listening during a conversation
 ● 3. Joint action is a form of social interaction where two or more individuals coordinate their
actions, typically to achieve a common goal or desire
● All require theory of mind
○ Ex. Ross pivoting the couch
Empathy and Sympathy
● Often used interchangeably, analogous terms but do have different definitions in a scientific lens
● Empathy involves personally identifying with another, and being aware of those feelings after.
○ Not just a surface level recognition, a deeper understanding of why they’re feeling
someway - based on our own knowledge and experiences
○ Experiencing someone else’s feelings (ie. being able to relate and know what another is
feeling)
● Sympathy involves understanding someone’s suffering, or thoughts and emotions of the other
person knowing what another is feeling (ie. compassion or concern for another)
○ Has NOT had those experiences, cannot personally identify with the emotion but still
able to understand someone’s emotions
Empathy
● To show or feel empathy, we need to have an aspect of theory of mind
● Accurate detection of the emotion information transmitted by another person
○ Need to recognize how the emotion is portrayed in another individual
○ Higher order emotions may be harder to detect
● Pro-social behaviour that assists others in coping
● Empathy appears to be present even in infancy
○ If prosocial behaviors are not reinforced by parents or others, the sense of empathy starts
to fade with time
● Parental guidance in the development of empathy and without it this development is halted
● Children with secure attachment to their mothers show more empathy to distressed peers
● Spanking hinders development
○ Physical punishment can hinder development of empathy and even make them less
empathetic as they mature
Empathy in Children
● When children aged 1-2 years observe a peer or adult in distress, their reaction varies. Some
ignore the distressed person, while others become quiet and show facial expressions indicating
concern. Others become agitated as if overwhelmed
● Empathetic responses changes - is NOT consistent
○ Some people may show more concern, others may distance themselves
● At 1-2 years old, we start to see the range of behaviors and variance in response to people coping
○ And this time period is very critical for the development
Empathy in Primates
● Higher order emotions are uniquely human → sometimes we do see higher order emotions
in other primates, observations are purely observational, we cannot directly communicate
with them
● In primates, the visual system is important for social communication and connecting with others
○ Visual system enhances social communication - ex. Facial expression
● Primates can show similar facial expressions that humans can at least to some degree
 ● Mobile upper lips enrich facial expressions - true in a wide variety of primates
● Muscles around the eyes are also important in portraying happiness
● Obviously humans have much more control over their facial expressions
● Monkeys and apes respond to the emotional displays of others. They interpret social signals and
assess the motivation/behaviours of others.
○ Some primates do show behaviours that emulate empathy and sympathy (strictly through
observation)
● Evidence that chimps show clear instances of sympathy, empathy, and reciprocity as well as a
willingness to follow social rules
Physiology - Face Perception
● Individuals with certain temporoparietal, right-hemisphere, or amygdala lesions can show
deficits in the ability to read others’ facial expression and emotions
○ Without the ability to read others’ facial expressions → hard to have theory of mind,
all areas are critical in the demonstration of empathy
● Primary visual cortex, fusiform gyrus, and the right inferior frontal gyrus are involved in
face perception
○ If you can’t perceive a face, it’s extremely hard to interpret their emotions → based on
tone of voice or body language otherwise
○ Empathy relates to the ability to identify and perceive facial expressions
Prosopagnosia
● Damage to the inferior surface of the temporal lobe sometimes results in a condition called
prosopagnosia (face blindness)
● Can do sympathy, may not do empathy
● Cannot recognize faces → difficulty in recognizing emotions that person is facing
● Deals with theory of mind and social cognition: Dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior
cingulate cortex, right temporal parietal junction
Psychopaths
● Lack of empathy, absence of conscience or remorse, impulsivity, objectification of others
○ Do not display empathy in any regard, but everytime they learn that they should
show empathy is what is expected of them → they understand its needed to get closer
to other individuals
○ Total disregard for others
● Pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of rights of others
● Begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood
● Irritability and aggressiveness
● Reckless and impulsive behaviour
● Disregard for the truth
● Neurological malformation or damage (frontal cortex, amygdala)
○ Can result in psychopathic traits (lack of empathy)
● Social factors can contribute → reinforcement of empathetic behaviours is important for the
development of empathy
○ Not a direct relationship, but typically disturbed upbringings can potentially lead to a lack
of empathy
 ○ Disturbed upbringing (ex. Charles manson)
● Personality variant that has some adaptive features
○ Being focused on yourself doesn’t facilitate social interactions, but does help reach a
reproductive age (inclusive fitness)
○ There are some adaptive aspects to psychopaths and lack of empathy, but is typically not
a positive thing
● All mass murders have been clinically diagnosed as psychopaths
● Learning to manipulate to control their environment
○ High status within group/team/company have a lot of traits in common with psychopaths
○ Not true of all individuals, but it is a pattern recognized in individuals