Physiological and behavioral addictions

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1. Compare and contrast the motivational functions occurring in physiological and behavioral addictions. Be sure to illustrate with an example of each.

Motivation provides an overarching addiction scheme of how motivation (the inducement of action, feelings, and thought) leads to 'addictive' behavior from physiological, psychological, and environmental sources (Drecker, 2009). Although traditionally the term addiction has been used to describe dependence on substances, such as alcohol and other drug, more recently, addiction has been applied to a range of behaviors, such as gamnling, shopping, eating, working or sex. Whether or not behavioral addictions are "real" addictions is a central controversy within the addiction field (Hartney, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to ....

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Physiological and Behavioral Addictions ...

Behavioral dependencies can be classified as addictions because these exhibit the same core components that identify chemical or substance abuse, such as mood modifications, tolerance, withdrawal and relapse. Substance addictions are considered physiological addictions from a medical perspective.

Like substance addiction, behavioral addictions create mood changes by creating an exhilarated feeling or a 'high'; the tolerance factor means that the amount of time spent in the indulgence has to continually increases in order to result in mood modification; the withdrawal syndrome refers to the extremely negative physical and emotional reactions displayed by the addict when the behavior is discontinued; and, finally, the relapse symptom indicates the addict's failure to reduce or stop indulging in the activity.

For example, both physiological addictions (substance abuse) and behavioral addictions (gambling addiction), the person initially is motivated to engage in the behavior (drinks, gambles or shops) as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression). As addiction begins to take hold, the person develops a tolerance to the substance or the activity (shopping, gambling, sex, work, internet, television, and others) (Amercian Psychological Association, 1994). Tolerance sets up a physiological motivation to increase the substance or activity to reach the same desire physiological high. Thus, behavioral addictions have the same core compenets, only differing in what the addict is addicted to.

In fact, Hyman (2005) and Kalivas and Volkow (2005) argue that, in adults, key psychological or behavioral motifs relevant to contemporary theories of motivation and addiction can be viewed from a structural perspective where changes in brain structures occurs as addictive habits develop, which includes both substance and acitivty addictions. Based on the physiological neural perspective, Chambers, Bickel and Potenza (2007) point out that addictive behaviors and physiology are ...