2.2 Flashcards
Goals are central to the analysis of emotions:
emotions arise as a person consciously or unconsciously evaluates an event as relevant to their goals.
This study examines two aspects of emotions and social goals:
The social goals that an emotion is seen to express and the linked issue of the social consequences that the emotion expression elicits.
social regulatory aspect of emotions
The social consequences of emotion expression and the social goals that an emotion is seen to express is referred to as the social regulatory aspect of emotions.
anger is more likely to be experienced than sadness when the person believes that
the goal block has been carried out intentionally, when aversive conditions are present (as opposed to pleasurable conditions being absent), and when the possibility of goal reinstatement is experienced.
There are apraisal biases and social goals might be biased as well:
the social goals of someone who is frequently angry might differ from the social goals of someone who is frequently sad. Thus it is not only that someone who is frequently sad interprets negative events in the world as their own fault (internal) and unlikely to change (stable), but also that they want protection and comfort from other people.
Two Categories of social regulation
Dominance and Prosocial Behavior: The Hypothesis is that children will differentiate between the emotions of anger, sadness and fear on these two dimension
Dominance
In nonhumane primates, different emotion expressions are associated with dominance, and fear and sadness with submission. When low status individuals interact with higher status individuals, they rarely direct aggressive displays to their partner, but frequently direct expressions of fear and submission. It has been suggested that anger is an emotion that signals power or dominance, eliciting a response from others that reflects an attempt to deal with the expressers dominance bid. The most common reason that people gave for anger was to assert authority or independence. As recipients response often responds with irritability or mild anger, he/she probably experiences the other person’s bid for authority or dominance
Authors hypothesis about domination, anger and sadness
expressers of emotion would feel most powerful in relation to the recipient when expressing anger and least powerful when expressing fear and sadness during interaction. Second, anger is hypothesized to be more likely to elicit aa response of aggression and anger. Sadness and fear are thought of being threat reducing; they signal appeasement and lack of threat to recipient’s status.
Prosocial Behaviour
Acting to facilitate or cooperate with another person’s goals. ven young children offer comfort and help when seeing another person distressed.
Sadness and anger in relation to blame
sadness is self-responsible, anger is other blame
How does children’s understanding of social-regulatory aspects of emotion change with age?
they get better at making a distinction between real and apparent emotion. They are better able to mask their feelings and to display more socially acceptable emotions. Children then know enough about the social consequences of negative emotion expression to substitute a positive display of emotion or to reduce the intensity of their expression in order to avoid negative social consequences; they make distinctions between the effects of positive and negative emotions on their social interactions.
Effect of elicitors or effects of emotion?
examine the social regulatory function of emotions, it is difficult to know whether responses to different emotions on the part of the recipient were responses to the eliciting conditions, or whether the emotions per se were contributing to the recipients’ responses
Individuals who show high levels of fear or sadness may have relational goal structures involving: (3)
(a) the anticipation of threat from others, (b) the desire for comfort or caring, and (c) the desire to suppress the expression of other people’s aggression.
Parents of aggressive and angry children are more likely than the parents of non-aggressive children
to de-escalate their demands on their child when their child gets angry. Consequently, the child has the experience of their anger expression functioning to allow them to get their goal reinstated, as well as giving them a sense of power in the relationship.
