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Objective. Motivation determines the possibility of an individual’s intention to accept health-related behaviors. Despite the important role of the motivational system in conducting healthy and safe nutrition behavior, this issue has not been adequately addressed. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explain the healthy and safe nutrition motivation system among Iranian adolescent girls. Method. In this qualitative study, conventional content analysis was used and participants were selected using the purposive sampling method. Semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with 42 adolescent girls in Shiraz, Iran. The interviews continued until data saturation was obtained. Qualitative data were analyzed using the Graneheim and Lundman qualitative content analysis by MAX-Q-DA (version 10) software. Results. The data analysis resulted in three main categories for the participants’ motivational factors for healthy and safe nutrition: (1) maintaining health and social functions, (2) maintaining the family’s mental and economic health, and (3) achieving goals and success in life. The first category included two subcategories: “desire to have an appropriate look and appearance” and “fear of diseases and their complications.” The second category included two subcategories of “maintaining the family’s mental health” and “maintaining the family’s economic health.” The third category consisted of two subcategories: “desire to form a family and be successful in life” and “achieving the future career goals.” Conclusion. The motivation to maintain health and social functions, to maintain the family’s mental and economic health, and to achieve goals and be successful in life has a powerful impact on the decisions and behaviors of adolescent girls to have safe and healthy nutrition. Therefore, recognizing the motivational system, as a key and determinative factor in developing the adolescents’ intention to adopt health-related behaviors, is an effective step to design and develop successful interventions in promoting nutritional behaviors.

This study aimed to estimate associations between adolescents' religiosity and their motivation to start and stop smoking. A school survey was carried out in Midwestern Brazil. Participants were never-smokers (n = 2073) and smokers (n = 116) aged 13-19 who answered a questionnaire. Religiosity was measured with the Duke Religion Index, and motivation with questions based on the Prime Theory of Motivation. Organizational, non-organizational, and intrinsic religiosity were associated with motivation to start smoking among never-smokers. Intrinsic religiosity was associated with smokers' motivation to quit. Findings indicate the protective role of religiosity in the motivational system that prompts smoking initiation and cessation during adolescence.

Managers face risk in explorative decision-making and those who are better at such decisions can achieve future viability. To understand what makes a manager effective at explorative decision-making requires an analysis of the manager’s motivational characteristics. The behavioral activation/inhibition system (BAS/BIS), fitting the motivational orientation of “approach” or “avoidance,” can affect individual decision-making. However, very little is known about the neural correlates of BAS/BIS orientation and their interrelationship with the mental activity during explorative decision-making. We conducted an fMRI study on 111 potential managers to investigate how the brain responses of explorative decision-making interact with BAS/BIS. Participants were separated into high- and low-performance groups based on the median exploration-score. The low-performance group showed significantly higher BAS than that of the high-performance group, and its BAS had significant negative association with neural networks related to reward-seeking during explorative decision-making. Moreover, the BIS of the low-performance group was negatively correlated with the activation of cerebral regions responding to risk-choice during explorative decision-making. Our finding showed that BAS/BIS was associated with the brain activation during explorative decision-making only in the low-performance group. This study contributed to the understanding of the micro-foundations of strategically relevant decision-making and has an implication for management development.

Misophonia is a condition characterized by defensive motivational system emotional responding to repetitive and personally relevant sounds (e.g., eating, sniffing). Preliminary research suggests misophonia may be associated with a range of psychiatric disorders, including personality disorders. However, very little research has used clinician-rated psychometrically validated diagnostic interviews when assessing the relationship between misophonia and psychopathology. The purpose of this study was to extend the early research in this area by examining the relationship between symptoms of misophonia and psychiatric diagnoses in a sample of community adults, using semi-structured diagnostic interviews. Results indicated higher misophonia symptoms were associated with more clinician-rated symptoms of personality disorders, but not other disorders. Anxiety partially mediated the relationship between personality disorder symptoms and misophonia. These results suggest misophonia may be associated with a range of psychiatric symptoms and highlight the role of anxiety in this poorly understood condition.

Fear is “an evolutionarily conserved affective motivational system that can be activated under conditions of novelty, sudden or intense stimulation, reactions to danger prepared by evolution, social interactions with unfamiliar conspecifics and conditioned responses to punishment” (Rothbart & Bates, 1998, p. 109). It is “a system that detects danger and produces responses that maximise the probability of surviving a dangerous situation” (LeDoux, 1998, p. 128). The adaptive benefits of an efficient fear system are therefore evident as the speedy recognition and avoidance of life-threatening dangers enhance survival and thus improve the chances of leaving offspring who also survive and reproduce. While intuitively it seems that the evolutionary advantages of staying alive should be the same for both sexes in mammals (such as humans), this might not be the whole story (Campbell, 1999, 2013). In this volume, we focus on why this might not be the case, and specifically why an adapted fear system may help explain sex differences in behaviours such as risk taking and aggression as a way of ensuring the survival of females and their offspring.

Motivation plays a central role in human behavior and cognition but is not well captured by widely used artificial intelligence (AI) and computational modeling frameworks. This Opinion article addresses two central questions regarding the nature of motivation: what are the nature and dynamics of the internal goals that drive our motivational system and how can this system be sufficiently flexible to support our ability to rapidly adapt to novel situations, tasks, etc.? In reviewing existing systems and neuroscience research and theorizing on these questions, a wealth of insights to constrain the development of computational models of motivation can be found.

Physical and psychological therapy based on touch has been gradually integrated into broader mental health settings in the past two decades, evolving from a variety of psychodynamic, neurobiological and trauma-based approaches, as well as Eastern and spiritual philosophies and other integrative and converging systems. Nevertheless, with the exception of a limited number of well-known massage therapy techniques, only a few structured protocols of touch therapy have been standardized and researched to date. This article describes a well-defined protocol of touch therapy in the context of psychotherapy—the Calatonia technique—which engages the orienting reflex. The orienting reflex hypothesis is explored here as one of the elements of this technique that helps to decrease states of hypervigilance and chronic startle reactivity (startle and defensive reflexes) and restore positive motivational and appetitive states.

Backgrand: The rate of reporting medication errors among nurses is lower than the actual rate. The role of education, encouragement, and promotion of reporting culture can contribute to the increase of errors reporting. This study was to investigate the effect of motivational system on reporting of medication errors in pediatric wards Methods: A quasi-experimental study was done through 60 nurses working in pediatric wards of the selected hospital were selected using census sampling method. Data were collected using a questionnaire based on eight medication principles completed by the nurses before and after the intervention. The intervention in this study was a motivational program with two parts of training and positive reinforcement that was conducted in 2018 for four months. For data analysis, SPSS16 was used. Results: After the intervention, the most prevalent medication error (60%) was in the principle of right medication (related to similar name. Furthermore, the mean score of nurses' medication error reporting increased significantly in all the principles after the intervention (P

Objective(s) The aim of this study was to test a theory driven model in which pain acceptance (both pain willingness [PW] and activity engagement [AE]) mediates the relationships of mindfulness and selfcompassion with depressive symptoms, while controlling for pain intensity. Methods A path analysis was conducted using AMOS software to test a meditational model in a sample of women with chronic musculoskeletal pain (N = 231). Results Participants with higher levels of mindful awareness and selfcompassion presented lower levels of pain intensity and depressive symptoms, and higher levels of AE. PW did not significantly correlate with any variable in study. The mediation analysis showed that AE mediated the relationship between selfcompassion and depressive symptoms, independently from pain intensity. Conclusions These findings seem to corroborate the hypothesis that selfcompassion is rooted in a motivational system, as it seems to correlate with less depressive symptoms through increasing the engagement with valued actions despite experiencing pain.

Drug-paired cues acquire powerful motivational properties, but only lead to active drug-seeking behavior if they are potent enough to overwhelm the cognitive control processes that serve to suppress such urges. Studies using the Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) task have shown that rats pretreated with cocaine or amphetamine exhibit heightened levels of cue-motivated food-seeking behavior, suggesting that exposure to these drugs sensitizes the incentive motivational system. However, the PIT testing protocol can also create conflict between two competing behavioral responses to the reward-paired cue: active reward seeking (e.g., lever pressing) and passive conditioned food-cup approach behavior. We therefore investigated whether repeated cocaine exposure alters the way in which rats use cue-based reward expectations to resolve such conflict. In-depth analysis of previously published and new research confirmed that when drug-naïve rats are given a cue that signals the timing of a delayed noncontingent reward, they adaptively transition from reward seeking to conditioned approach behavior, facilitating efficient collection of the predicted reward. In contrast, cocaine-exposed rats exhibit pronounced behavioral dysregulation, increasing, rather than suppressing, their reward-seeking behavior over time, disrupting their ability to passively collect reward. Such findings speak to the important and sometimes overlooked role that cognitive control plays in determining the motivational impact of cues associated with drug and nondrug rewards.

While some students try to give their best in an achievement situation, others show disengagement and just want to get the situation over and done with. The present study investigates the role of students’ tendencies for approach or avoidance motivation while anticipating tasks and the corresponding activation of the approach/avoidance motivational system as indicated by transient changes of EEG alpha asymmetry. Overall, 62 students (50 female; age: M = 23.8, SD = 3.5) completed a goal orientation questionnaire (learning goals, performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and work avoidance). They joined a laboratory experiment where EEG was recorded during resting condition as well as when students were anticipating tasks. Standard multiple regression analysis showed that higher values on performance-avoidance were related to a higher activation of the approach system whereas higher values on work avoidance were related to a higher activation of the avoidance system. Results question present assumptions about avoidance related goal orientations.

The study of emotional response inhibition could provide novel insight into dysphoria-related deficits in appetitive and aversive motivational systems. Therefore, dysphoric (N=21) and nondysphoric (N=21) participants completed an emotional Go/Nogo paradigm, including the presentation of pleasant, neutral and unpleasant pictures. Behavioral measures [reaction times (RTs), accuracy to Go and Nogo stimuli] and neural correlates (Go/Nogo-N2 and Go/Nogo-P3) of response inhibition were compared between the two groups. Time-frequency analysis was also used as a novel approach to disentangle the multiple processes underlying time-domain ERP data. A reduced Go/Nogo effect for P3 and oscillatory delta activity was found in response to pleasant and neutral, but not unpleasant, stimuli in dysphoric relative to nondysphoric individuals. These findings showed that dysphoric individuals need a reduced and/or less effortful response inhibition to pleasant stimuli, suggesting that dysphoria is characterized by under-engagement of appetitive rather than over-engagement of aversive motivational system.

In patients with newly diagnosed untreated grade I-II hypertension, EEG oscillations were recorded under conditions activation of the two basic motivational systems, defensive motivational system and positive reinforcement system, evoked by recall of personally meaningful emotional events. The 64-channel EEG and cardiovascular reactivity (beat-by-beat technology) were simultaneously recorded. At rest, hypertensive patients had significantly reduced platelet serotonin concentrations in comparison with healthy individuals. The patients experiencing emotional activation were characterized by significantly lower intensity of positive emotions associated with more pronounced suppression of EEG activity in the delta (2-4 Hz) and theta (ranges of frequency 4-6 and 6-8 Hz) oscillators in the parieto-occipital cortex (zones P and PO) in both hemispheres of the brain. The findings attest to insufficient function of the brain serotonin system and hypoactivation of the reward/reinforcement system in patients with primary hypertension.

This study examined the association between trait anxiety and the reactivity of the defensive motivational system, as indexed by the cardiac defense response (CDR) to an unexpected, intense noise, in a mixed-gender undergraduate sample. Gender-specific effects were observed: only women showed an association between trait anxiety and the CDR, consisting of a more intense, prompter, and durable defensive response in high-anxious women. This association was not evident during the first component of the defensive response — identified as an attentional process of stimulus rejection — but in later components reflecting attentional orienting and motivational processes of energetic mobilization for setting an active defensive response — which might suggest reduced parasympathetic dominance along with increased sympathetic dominance. These findings in an unselected sample are consistent with the proposal of a more reactive defensive motivational system as a potential vulnerability factor towards anxiety manifestations in women. This study was supported by Grant PSI2011-22559 from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain).

The authors review a range of evidence concerning the motivational underpinnings of anger as an affect, with particular reference to the relationship between anger and anxiety or fear. The evidence supports the view that anger relates to an appetitive or approach motivational system, whereas anxiety relates to an aversive or avoidance motivational system. This evidence appears to have 2 implications. One implication concerns the nature of anterior cortical asymmetry effects. The evidence suggests that such asymmetry reflects direction of motivational engagement (approach vs. withdrawal) rather than affective valence. The other implication concerns the idea that affects form a purely positive dimension and a purely negative dimension, which reflect the operation of appetitive and aversive motivational systems, respectively. The evidence reviewed does not support that view. The evidence is, however, consistent with a discrete-emotions view (which does not rely on dimensionality) and with an alternative dimensional approach.

Mice from replicate lines, selectively bred based on high daily wheel-running rates, run more total revolutions and at higher average speeds than do mice from nonselected control lines. Based on this difference it was assumed that selected mice would find the opportunity to run in a wheel a more efficacious consequence. To assess this assumption within an operant paradigm, mice must be trained to make a response to produce the opportunity to run as a consequence. In the present study an autoshaping procedure was used to compare the acquisition of lever pressing reinforced by the opportunity to run for a brief opportunity (i.e., 90 s) between selected and control mice and then, using an operant procedure, the effect of the duration of the opportunity to run on lever pressing was assessed by varying reinforcer duration over values of 90 s, 30 min, and 90 s. The reinforcement schedule was a ratio schedule (FR 1 or VR 3). Results from the autoshaping phase showed that more control mice met a criterion of responses on 50% of trials. During the operant phase, when reinforcer duration was 90 s, almost all control, but few selected mice completed a session of 20 reinforcers; however, when reinforcer duration was increased to 30 min almost all selected and control mice completed a session of 20 reinforcers. Taken together, these results suggest that selective breeding based on wheel-running rates over 24 hr may have altered the motivational system in a way that reduces the reinforcing value of shorter running durations. The implications of this finding for these mice as a model for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are discussed. It also is proposed that there may be an inherent trade-off in the motivational system for activities of short versus long duration.

Introduction The present study aimed to examine the effect of blue and red uniform colors on competitive anxiety and self-confidence in virtual sports competitions. Objective We hypothesized that blue is related to higher levels of self-confidence (a feeling related to the approach motivational system), whereas red is related to higher levels of anxiety (a feeling related to the avoidance motivational system). Method Participants were confronted with an opponent dressed in either blue or in red. Results Results revealed that participants who were exposed to an opponent in blue reported a higher level of self-confidence, while those who were exposed to an opponent in red reported a higher level of cognitive anxiety, supporting the view that blue (red) is related to the approach (avoidance) motivational system. Conclusion Our findings incite a pursuit of the examination of the relationship between blue, red, competitive anxiety, and self-confidence in sport competitions.

A well worked-out motivational system in laboratory animals produces estrogen-dependent female sex behavior. Here, we review (a) the logical definition of sexual motivation and (b) the basic neuronal and molecular mechanisms that allow the behavior to occur. Importantly, reproductive mechanisms in the female can be inhibited by stress. This is interesting because, in terms of the specificity of neuroendocrine dynamics in space and time, the two families of phenomena, sex and stress, are the opposite of each other. We cover papers that document stress effects on the underlying processes of reproductive endocrinology in the female. Not all of the mechanisms for such inhibition have been clearly laid out. Finally, as a current topic of investigation, this system offers several avenues for new investigation which we briefly characterize.

During the 25 years since a motivational systems model was proposed to explain the brain mechanisms of aggressive behavior (D.B. Adams. Brain mechanisms for offense, defense, and submission. Behav. Brain. Sci. 2, (1979a) 200-241) considerable research has been carried out. Updating the model in the light of this research requires several changes. A previous distinction between submission and defense systems is abandoned and, instead, it is proposed that two distinct subsets of the defense motivational mechanism may be recognized, one for anti-predator defense and the other for consociate defense. Similarly, the offense motivational mechanism is now considered to have at least two subsets, one mediating territorial and the other competitive fighting. Data continue to indicate that the defense motivational mechanism is located in the midbrain central gray and adjoining tissue. Also data tend to support the hypothesis that the offense motivational mechanism is located in the hypothalamus at the level of the anterior hypothalamus. Consideration is also given to a motivational system for patrol/marking which is related to aggressive behavior. Research is reviewed that bears on the neural structure of motivating and releasing/directing stimuli and motor patterning mechanisms of offense, defense and patrol/marking, as well as the location of learning and hormonal effects, and attention is given to how the model can be tested.

A series of three experiments was designed to test predictions from a motivational systems approach to understanding the role of clinical constructs in anxiety-based problems. Negative mood, inflated responsibility and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) were separately manipulated within analogue samples to examine their effect on the other two factors. In the first experiment (n = 59) the negative mood group scored significantly higher in terms of inflated responsibility than the positive mood group. In the second experiment (n = 63) the high responsibility group scored significantly higher in terms of both negative mood and IU than the low responsibility group. In the third experiment (n = 61) the high IU group scored significantly higher in terms of negative mood than the low IU group. Tests of indirect effects revealed an indirect effect of IU on inflated responsibility through negative mood and an indirect effect of negative mood on IU through inflated responsibility, suggesting all three constructs are casually interrelated. The findings are consistent with contemporary transdiagnostic views of clinical constructs, and support a view of anxiety that is underpinned by a coordinated and interdependent motivational system evolved to manage threat.

The standard choice situation was modified by placing a 76 cm high barrier between two levers. To travel between levers, rats had to climb the barrier. Four doses of haloperidol were assessed for effects on motor and motivational systems. The drug impeded the rats' ability to climb the barrier. Residence and travel times increased, and changeover rates decreased. Pressing the levers was not entirely suppressed by haloperidol. The slope of the matching law decreased with increasing doses of haloperidol, showing reductions in the rats' sensitivity to reinforcement. The notion that neuroleptics impair the initiation or execution of complex motor acts and disrupt food-locomotion activity, is supported by these results.

In Drosophila, courtship reduction in male flies that have previous experience of courting a mated female is a result of the counterconditioning of an attractive unconditioned stimulus (US)—the aphrodisiac—which becomes an aversive conditioned stimulus (CS) after being paired with an aversive US—the antiaphrodisiac. In a retention test with a virgin female lacking the antiaphrodisiac, males retain a lower level of courtship for 3 hr after training. However, a measure of courtship suppression, the learning index (LI), decreases significantly after only 1 hr. In contrast, in the retraining test with a mated female, the LI shows no decrease for 8 hr but falls below significance 16 hr after training. These results are discussed in terms of the transfer of training. Nonspecific transfer and nonassociative behavioral modifications play little, if any, role in the transfer of training. The retraining test is recommended as a new protocol for studying conditioned courtship. According to the model proposed here, in tests with a virgin female, the duration of memory retention is limited by the retention of the direct association between the CS and the aversive motivational system or by the retention of an internal representation of the US. In retraining tests, the CS–US association seems to be the only factor involved in transfer 3 or more hours after training.

The parental caregiving motivational system leads people to behave selflessly. However, given that the purpose of this motivation is the protection of close kin, it might also lead to aggression toward distant, threatening others. In the present studies, we wished to investigate the effects of behaviorally activating the caregiving motivational system on out-group bias. On the basis of previous work in behavioral ecology, we predicted that activation of the caregiving system would enhance bias against out-groups whenever their members posed a salient threat. This prediction was confirmed in three studies (total N = 866) across different populations, manipulations, and measures. We discuss the possible importance of continued research into the behavioral consequences of caregiving salience.

Because declining rates of population growth have left aging societies in many countries around the world, Smart Walker systems were created to assist elderly people in managing their physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges. While the main application of the Smart Walker is to assist in the daily life of the elderly, it may also be used to assist in rehabilitation. In this paper, a no-contact system is proposed to motivate exercise on a Smart Walker. A tablet device is attached to the chair in front of the user to serve as a channel for interaction. The tablet device has several modalities for expression including a 3D robot-face character, TTS (Text to Speech), and dialog messaging. The exercise motivational system selects appropriate expressions to display on the tablet device, from pre-recorded behavioral data, using real-time data from the movements of the patient.

Objectives There is a relationship between emotional disorders, obesity, and craving for carbohydrates. This relationship complicates the success of treatments aimed at combatting obesity, which is considered to be the epidemic of the twenty-first century. We conducted a review of the neurobiologic basis for carbohydrate craving, with the hope that this understanding will enable the design of more efficient therapeutic strategies. Method We conducted a non-systematic literature search in PubMed using MeSH. Results Research on the basis of carbohydrate craving is varied, but may be grouped into five main areas: the serotonergic system, palatability and hedonic response, the motivational system, stress response systems, and gene–environment interaction. Conclusions The models that integrate motivational systems with palatability and hedonic response studies are the ones that we believe can best explain both craving for carbohydrates and related addictive phenomena. Research has contributed to a greater understanding of the neurobiologic basis of carbohydrate craving. The latter, in turn, contributes to an understanding of the implications, challenges, and possible therapies that might be put in place to cope with this phenomenon.

The role of the nucleus accumbens in incentive motivation is accepted but poorly understood. In this study, we examined in the rat one aspect of motivated behaviour which might be mediated by the nucleus accumbens, namely the translation of a motivational signal (the expected value of a reward) into motor output (responding for the reward). Rats were trained in a reaction time task in which on each trial they received one, two or three pellets. The number of pellets for each trial was randomly determined in advance and signalled to the rats by cue lights. Rats responded with faster reaction times as the size of the expected reward increased. Following ibotenic acid lesions of the nucleus accumbens, there was no difference in the pattern or the speed of reaction times. Although lesions of the nucleus accumbens did not disconnect the motivational system from the motor system, it is possible that the nucleus accumbens is involved in the learning of the incentive salience of external stimuli. Therefore, after postoperative testing the cue contingencies were reversed. Initially, the cues continued to be interpreted according to their prior significance, but eventually both the lesioned rats and the control group acquired the new relationship and did so in equivalent times. We conclude that the nucleus accumbens is not involved in the acquisition or expression of the processes whereby the expectation of rewards of different value is translated into a motor initiation signal.

Event-related brain potentials were recorded to investigate electrophysiological correlates of aggression in high and low socioeconomic status (SES) participants who responded to violent and nonviolent images by using a choice reaction time paradigm. ERP data showed that violent images elicited a smaller N2 deflection than did nonviolent images in both high and low SES groups, but there was no difference in N2 amplitudes to aggressive and non-aggressive information as a function of SES. Notably, the latency of N2 in the low SES group was longer than that of the high SES group, suggesting slowness by the low SES group in deploying control responses. In addition, the low SES group exhibited significantly smaller P3 amplitudes to violent images, suggesting a reduction in brain activity known to reflect activation of the aversive motivational system, and this findings link this brain activity to aggressive behavior. As a whole the present findings show that participants low in SES seem to display similar psychophysiological responses to individuals high in aggression.

The brain continues to develop during adolescence, and exposure to exogenous substances such as nicotine can exert long-lasting adaptations during this vulnerable period. In order to fully understand how nicotine affects the adolescent brain it is important to understand normal adolescent brain development. This review summarizes human and animal data on brain development, with emphasis on the prefrontal cortex, for its important function in executive control over behavior. Moreover, we discuss how nicotine exposure during adolescence can disrupt brain development bearing long-term consequences on executive cognitive function in adulthood. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

Results of three experiments support hypothesized properties of the security motivation system, a special motivational system for handling potential threats, as proposed by Szechtman and Woody (2004). First, mild stimuli suggesting potential harm produced a marked state of activation (evident in both objective and subjective measures), consistent with the hypothesis that the security motivation system is finely tuned for the detection of potential threat. Second, in the absence of corrective behavior, this evoked activation is persistent, supporting the hypothesis that once stimulated, the security motivation system produces an enduring motivational state involving the urge to engage in threat-reducing behavior. Third, engagement in corrective behavior was effective in returning activation levels to baseline, whereas cognitive reappraisal was not. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that deactivation of the security motivation system depends on performance of security-related behaviors, rather than non-behavioral events such as cognitive re-evaluation of threat.

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more "emotional" than men. However, research evidence suggests that sex differences in emotion are considerably more complex. The authors tested hypotheses about sex differences in the engagement of the approach and avoidance motivational systems thought to underpin emotional responses. The authors measured reported emotional experience and startle response magnitude both during the presentation and after the offset of emotional stimuli that engage these motivational systems to assess whether men and women differ in their patterns of immediate response to emotional stimuli and in their patterns of recovery from these responses. Our findings indicated that women were more experientially reactive to negative, but not positive, emotional pictures compared to men, and that women scored higher than men on measure of aversive motivational system sensitivity. Although both men and women exhibited potentiation of the startle response during the presentation of negative pictures relative to neutral pictures, only women continued to show this relative potentiation during the recovery period, indicating that women were continuing to engage the aversive motivational system after the offset of negative emotional pictures.

Alcohol research has focused on the identification of brain mechanisms that support reinforcing actions of alcohol and the changes in neural function induced by chronic alcohol consumption. Chronic exposure to alcohol induces changes in neural circuits that control motivational processes, including affect, arousal, …

One experiment was conducted to examine the influence of bilateral motor actions involving two parameters of movement (flexion vs extension of the arm and laterality as bodily activation of different motivational systems) on judgements. Arm flexion or unilateral right contraction (involving the positive and approach motivational system) has been shown to determine positive evaluations, whereas arm extension or unilateral left contraction (involving the negative and withdrawal motivational system) has led to negative evaluations. Participants (N = 72) had to evaluate neutral Chinese ideographs after performing one of four combined bilateral motor actions (right flexion/left extension, bilateral flexion, bilateral extension, and left flexion/right extension). Results showed that bilateral congruent motor action (right flexion/left extension as two activations of the positive or approach motivational system) and bilateral non-congruent motor action (left flexion/right extension as two activations of the negative or withdrawal motivational system) led respectively to positive and negative judgements, whereas bilateral flexion and bilateral extension determined neutral judgements. These results help understanding of how the motor system operates to process affective cues.

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used the startle probe paradigm to test whether the affect-based defensive motivational system is automatically activated by rejection cues in people who are high in RS. Stimuli were representational paintings depicting rejection (by Hopper) and acceptance (by Renoir), as well as nonrepresentational paintings of either negative or positive valence (by Rothko and Miro, respectively). Eyeblink startle magnitude was potentiated in people high in RS when they viewed rejection themes, compared with when they viewed nonrepresentational negative themes. Startle magnitude was not attenuated during viewing of acceptance themes in comparison with nonrepresentational positive themes. Overall, the results provide evidence that for people high in RS, rejection cues automatically activate the defensive motivational system, but acceptance cues do not automatically activate the appetitive motivational system.

Longitudinal behavioral research with underserved and HIV-affected populations presents enormous challenges to community researchers. Recruitment and retention of participants into intervention trials is vital for the development of empirically validated treatments and prevention programs. Successful recruitment and retention of participants is highly dependent on an effective structural and motivational system designed to engage and reward individuals at every level of the investigation, including community organizations, project managers, field staff, and participants. This article outlines some of the key elements in developing and maintaining high quality research efforts.

Este artigo reflecte sobre o papel das emoções na tomada de decisão. Os autores ressaltam as limitações da abordagem de valência (“positividade” versus “negatividade”). As emoções e o seu conteúdo experiencial são sinteticamente descritos. Algumas investigações têm mostrado que as emoções, mesmo intimamente relacionadas – como o arrependimento e a desilusão -, quer antecipadas quer experienciadas, têm influências distintas sobre o comportamento dos decisores. Esta realidade favorece a investigação de emoções no contexto da tomada de decisão, ou seja, a abordagem pragmática “feeling-is-for-doing”. Acreditamos que o sistema emocional é o principal sistema que motiva o comportamento dirigido por objectivos.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v22i2.349

The article concerns the evaluation of motivation system in the Health Care Sector in Poland. Using the modified Nadler and Lawler questionnaire, the effectiveness of motivation system and the employee satisfaction level is tested in one of the Malopolska Hospital in Krakow. The results of the study indicate that there is lack of critical failures in the design of the motivational system. However, the employees' expectations are met on a very low level, which means, that the motivation system is rather ineffective.

The existence and structure of an hypothesized motivational system of patrol/marking was supported and elucidated by a behavioral study on untrained highly inbred laboratory rats. One rat (the “runner”) was placed into a test chamber containing a wire-mesh running wheel flanked by two chambers, one of which contained another rat (the “target”). Four conditions of runners (socially-isolated males, socially-housed males, non-estrous females, and estrous females) were exposed to four types of targets (socially-housed males, non-estrous females, estrous females, and blank targets consisting of any empty target chamber). Also placed in the chamber was a Petri dish containing scent-markings of the target rat. The experiment was designed in a counterbalanced way with 10 replications and repeated two times in two separate years. As predicted from the hypothesis, scent-marking, sniffing the dish, locomotion (number of wheel revolutions), and approach (differential running towards the target) were all correlated with each other and varied in the same way as a function of the hormonal and experiential condition of the runner and the type of target. They were interpreted to reflect motor patterns of a single unitary patrol/marking motivational system. Grooming, on the other hand, did not correlate with the other behaviors and facial gland secretion was, therefore, rejected as a motor pattern of patrol/marking.

We conducted a study of the urine-marking activity of female mice when simultaneously exposed to urine odors from 2 kinds of males. Females, deposited a greater number of urine spots when presented with urine of normal, rather than castrated, males. Two androgen-dependent compounds known to be present in normal male urine enhanced female urine-marking when mixed with castrated male urine. These results are consistent with previous results concerning odor preference of females. However, females showed no marking preference between normal male urine and preputialectomized male urine, in spite of their preference for the former in our previous odor-preference study. Further experiments with various combinations of male urine revealed that females showed no marking preference when 1 of the 2 presented urine samples was from preputialectomized males, regardless of the other presented stimulus. We concluded that female urine marking is not a simple reflection of sexual preference, but possibly a phenomenon of a complex motivational system.

The sexual behaviour of male smooth newts Triturus vulgaris was observed in a standard test situation under reduced, normal and increased oxygen availability. The variations in oxygen supply not only produced marked differences in the frequency of breathing ascents but also affected the temporal patterning of sexual behaviour. In particular, males slightly speeded up their sexual behaviour under reduced oxygen, thus partly compensating for the fact that less time could be devoted to sexual behaviour under such conditions. These results suggest that the motivational system controlling the male's behaviour incorporates causal factors related not only to sex but also to oxygen supply. There is also evidence that breathing, following sexual behaviour, occurs by disinhibition when oxygen is scarce, but by competition when it is abundant.

Two experiments are reported which test the hypothesis that heart rate increases will be seen in response to monetary incentives during performance on a continuous motor task. In the first study, heart rate was significantly higher when subjects were paid 2o for each success feedback compared to subjects who received feedback only. In contrast, there was no effect of varying the probability of success (10% versus 90% success). Study 2 replicated the monetary incentive effect on heart rate, this time employing 100% success feedback. In neither study were subjects' response rates significantly affected by monetary incentive. In addition, control groups responding much faster on the task as a result of making it more predictable did not show increased heart rate. Consequently, these incentive effects are difficult to explain with a cardiac-somatic coupling interpretation. It was concluded that cardiac acceleration does occur in response to monetary incentives, even in the absence of failure feedback, and it was proposed that this incentive effect reflects the activation of an appetitive motivational system. Possible applications of the assessment of appetitive responses are suggested.

In an 8-year-old Negro child diagnosed as suffering from school phobia the problem was re-defined as zero or low probability of school attendance. The implementation of techniques for increasing the probability involved getting the child's mother to withdraw the rewards of staying at home. Then a home-based motivational system was used to reinforce school attendance and refusal to attend school resulted in punishment. School attendance was generated quickly and maintained even after the procedures were withdrawn a month later. No ‘symptom substitution’ was noticed either by the parents or the school officials within the 9 months of follow-up. An additional important finding was that when the child's school phobia was used to produce aversive consequences on the mother it immediately led the mother to find a ‘natural’ way to rectify her child's psychiatric condition.

THE MAJOR crisis facing our society in the United States, either with destruction and chaos, or an opportunity unheralded in the history of mankind, is awaiting resolution within the next 30 years. This crisis which threatens human institutions and human beings more than disease or famine or even atomic wars is the crisis of values, a crisis of responsibility. For the first time since the dawn of history, man has the technological skills to free himself from his dependency on the environment. He has the capacity for long life and health, and he has the opportunity for freedom from physical needs to such an extent that leisure and creativity can be a reality for all social classes. Yet the values which are the backbone of our motivational system, transmitted to us by our parents from past generations, are anachronistic. These values which