1 problem Flashcards
Level of analysis
- neural (brain as cause)
- physiological (internal chemical processes such as hormones as cause)
- genetic (genes as cause)
- evolutionary (natural selection as cause)
- learning (the individual’s prior experience with the environment as cause)
- cognitive (the individual’s knowledge or beliefs as cause)
- social (the influence of others as cause)
- cultural (the culture in which an individual develops as cause)
- developmental (age-related changes as cause)
emotion
A subjective feeling that is mentally directed towards some object.
the object of emotion
Can be a person (She is angry with him). An object (He is fearful of small spaces). It can be oneself: pride, shame, embarrasment, shyness, jealousy, envy, empathy, guilt. These are self-conscious emotions all which depend on the individual’s self-awareness.
mood
A free-floating feeling that is not attached to any object and lasts for a sufficiently long period. (hours, days, longer)
difference between mood and emotion
A feeling of being tense, jittery, and unhappy may be labeled as anxiety when it is a free-floating mood but as fear when it is an emotion associated with an object such as a snake or an upcoming examination. A feeling of being sad and upset may be labeled depres-
sion when it is free-fl oating and as grief when it is associated with a specific loss.
Robert Plutchik’s model of primary emotions
who identified what he considers to be eight primary emotions. They can be arranged as four pairs of opposites: joy
versus sorrow, anger versus fear, acceptance versus disgust, and surprise versus expectancy.
Discrete emotion theory
Emotions motivate us to approach objects that can help us to survive and reproduce and avoid or repel objects that hinder us in doing so. They promote our survival and reproduction by communicating our needs and intentions to the environment . Strong emotions of all sorts focus our attention narrowly
on the object of the emotion and lead us to ignore, for a time, other events and drives that would distract us from that object.
Facial expressions as a body’s way of getting ready to action
-They may be the body’s way of dealing with the emotion-arousing situation.
fear: widening of the eyes, opening of the nasal passages - increase the field of vision and sensitivity to odors
Common sense theory
Peripheral changes are caused by our emotions.
Stimulus - Perception (Interpretation of stimulus, danger) - Emotion (fear) - Bodily arousal (pounding heart)
James theory of emotions
Bodily reaction to an emotion provoking stimulus is automatic, the assessment of one’s emotional state comes later and is based on the preception of the bodily state.
Stimulus (bear) - Perception (interpretation of stimulus - danger) - bodily arousal (pounding heart) - emotion (fear)
Schachter’s Theory of emotion
he proposed that perception and thought about the environment influence the type of emotion felt, and that sensory feedback about the degree of bodily arousal influences the intensity of the emotion felt. Schachter also proposed that the intensity of the emotional feeling influences the interpretation of the stimu-
lus.
Schachter’s experiment
He injected people with epinephrine (adrenaline) and exposed people to emotion-enducing situations. In itself epinephrine doesn’t produce any emotions. Paired with things like a horror movie it intesified the emotions. Emotion-enhancing effect.
amygdala
A cluster of nuclei buried underneath the cerebral cortex, in the temporal lobe, is part of the limbic system. The brain’s early warning system, it receives stimulus input from all of the body’s sensory sytems.
The two ways the amygdala receives sensory input
- subcortical route: very rapid, it analyzes information before that information has been processed by sensory areas of the cerebral cortex.
- cortical route: it analyzes in more detail, that has been processeb by the cerebral cortex. The amygdala sends its output to many brain regions, through
activation of the left frontal cortex
is associated with approach-motivation, typically associated with pleasurable activities
activation of the right frontal cortex
withdrawal-motivation, typically corresponding to avoidance of nega-
tive stimuli.
Neural explanations
Explaining behaviour by trying to understand how the nervous system works.
Behvaioral neuroscience: studying individual neurons, studying larger pathways or brain regions
Jelousy (neural explanation)
EEG recordings:
activation of the left frontal cortex: approach-motivation associated with pleasurable activities
the primary
motivational state in jealousy is one of approach, possibly aimed at preventing a
threatening liaison between the target of one’s jealousy and another person, or at
re-establishing their primary relationship.
Physiological explanations
biopsychology. Biopsychologists study the ways hormones and drugs act on the brain to alter behavior and experience, either in humans or in nonhuman animals.
sexual attraction and strong emotions
Barclay and Haber (1965)
The professor harshly criticized students for having done poorly on tests. Another group served as a control one. They were both tested for feelings of agression and sexual arousal as measured by explicit
sexual content in stories written in response Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)-like
stimuli.
(Barclay, 1969, 1970) fraternity and sorority
The 1970 study
employed a female experimenter, which demonstrated that the aggression-sexual arousal
link was not specific to male aggression; the
1969 study provided additional support for
the hypothesis by using a physiological measure of sexual arousal (acid phosphatase content in urine samples)
Aron (1970)
General relationship between emotional arousal and sexual attraction
Residual emotion from intense role playing. 40 male subjects role played with the same attractive female confederate in either a highly emotional or a minimally emotional way. Subjects enacting highly emotional roles Included significantly more sexual imagery in
stories written in response to TAT-like stimuli
(p < .01) and indicated significantly more
desire to kiss the confederate (p < .05)
Aron’s hypothesis
Aron (1970) hypothesized that strong emotions are relabeled as sexual attraction whenever an acceptable object is present, and emotion-producing circumstances do not require the full
attention of the individual.
