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Arousal can be defined as A physiological and psychological state of being awake or reactive to stimuli, including elevated heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness, mobility, and readiness to respond. Arousal theory proposes that motivation is strongly linked to biological factors that control reward sensitivity and goal-driven behavior.
This will constitute the main topic of debate in this section. Every living organism, which include humans, have a self-regulatory system in their bodies, working in the same way as homeostasis does in maintaining the internal body processes such as temperature, sugar, blood pressure, salt, hormone production, etc. This process of homeostasis helps to maintain our bodies at balance and corrects any possible deviation in the way our bodies function. Our several motivated behaviours, namely hunger are driven in the similar way using the homeostasis.
The
arousal theory of motivation was developed by Donald Hebb, a Canadian
Neuropsychologist, (of which he is recognised as the founding father) who lived
between 22nd July 1904 and 20th August,1985. In his
career, He strived to establish the contribution of the neuronal function to
the psychological such as learning. His Arousal theory, states that there is an
optimal level of arousal necessary to perform a task well. If arousal level is
too high for a task, organism will seek behaviours to drop arousal. If arousal
level is too low for a task, organism will seek behaviours to raise arousal.
Engage in behaviour to regulate optimal arousal.
Donald Olding Hebb noticed that some individuals engage in behaviours
not necessarily for homeostasis, some was for pleasure, motivation for arousal
actually the opposite of homeostasis.
Optimal
arousal is a “push” or internal motivation to act in a certain manner. Arousal,
like drive, is thought to energise and direct behaviour. Arousal is able to
explain behaviour that continues at the same level and intensity or increases,
and it is not a hypothetical construct but a measurable phenomenon.
Donald
Hebb theory, states that there is an optimal level of arousal necessary to
perform a task well. If arousal level is too high for a task, organism will
seek behaviours to drop arousal. If arousal level is too low for a task,
organism will seek behaviours to raise arousal, engage in behaviour to regulate
optimal arousal. His views could be supported by the following experiments.
(a)
Sensory Deprivation Studies
Hebb,
interested in the effects of arousal deprivation on the brain, took arousal away for a
week to see what would happen. He periodically sent in people to ask general
knowledge questions, and measure impacts on cognitive deficits. Individuals unable
to quickly perform cognitive skills 2 days to 3 days, experience
hallucinations. He then concluded that sensory deprivation, i.e. aversive,
brain will generate its own stimulation in absence of external sensory
experience (cause of hallucinations). Proof of arousal theory.
In another experiment, Melzack was Interested
in exploratory behaviour. He raised half puppies in isolation and half of them
in a normal environment. After 10 months, all dogs were brought into a room that was
unfamiliar but with toys. Animals raised in isolation, when introduced into a new room, experimented more than those which were raised in a stimuli-rich
environment, for longer. He concluded that reduced environmental sensory
stimulation causes a craving.
(b)
Experiments involving Reticular Activation System by Mourzzi
The reticular activation system (RAS), located within the brainstem, is The network in the
reticular formation that serves an alerting or arousal function. It among
other functions controls the sleep-wake cycle.
In
his experiment, Mourzzi, put cats to sleep and stimulated different areas of
their brain. When got to RAS, this caused desynchronisation of brainwaves and
the animals acted like they were awake in brainwaves, then went to the deepest possible
sleep. This effect lead to the realisation that the RAS controlled the sleep-wake
cycle.
The Reward System
Arousal theory proposes that motivation is strongly
linked to biological factors that control reward sensitivity and goal-driven
behaviour. Reward sensitivity is located in the mesolimbic dopamine system.
Research shows that individual differences in neurological activity in
this area can influence motivation for certain goal-driven behaviours that will
elicit a reward or satisfy a craving. In this way, the reward system spurs
physiological arousal, which motivates the individual to engage in whatever
behaviour is necessary to satisfy or relieve that arousal. For example,
substance use is associated with overactivity in the dopamine system; depending
on how strongly an individual's brain interprets that as a "reward,"
they may be more or less motivated to continue using that substance.
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To show how the reward system works, Peter Milner and James Olds conducted an experiment in the early 1950s in which a rat had an electrode implanted in its brain so that its brain could be locally stimulated at any time. The rat was put in a box that contained two levers: one lever released food and water, and another lever delivered a brief stimulus to the reward centre of the brain. At the beginning the rat wandered around the box and stepped on the levers by accident, but before long it was pressing the lever for the brief stimulus repeatedly.
This behaviour is called electrical
self-stimulation. Sometimes, rats would become so involved in pressing the
lever that they would forget about food and water, stopping only after
collapsing from exhaustion. Electrical self-stimulation apparently provided a
reward that reinforced the habit to press the lever. This study provided
evidence that animals are motivated to perform behaviours that stimulate
dopamine release in the reward centre of the brain.
Optimal Levels of Arousal
Theories of learning assert that there is an optimal level of arousal that we all try to maintain. If we are under-aroused, we become bored and will seek out some sort of stimulation. On the other hand, if we are over-aroused, we will engage in behaviours to reduce our arousal. Research shows that moderate arousal is generally best; when arousal is very high or very low, performance tends to suffer.
Researchers Robert Yerkes and
John Dodson discovered that the optimal arousal level depends on the complexity
and difficulty of the task to be performed. This relationship is known as “Yerkes-Dodson
law”, which holds that a simple task is performed best when arousal
levels are relatively high and complex tasks are best performed when arousal
levels are lower. This situation can be illustrated with the help of the figure
below.
Classroom implications of the arousal theory of Motivation
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