Affekt

Question 1

Preference(type of affect)

Answer 1

subjective reactions determined by their valence
– If x gives rise to a pleasant or unpleasant subjective feeling, then you have a positive or negative preference for x
– Interpersonal values: attractiveness, liking-disliking of personality traits, etc.
– Often stable over time, although of course can change

Question 2

Mood(type of affect)

Answer 2

• Moods have a less specific target that are not fleeting but do have some sort of time frame
  – Are usually described as (hopefully) temporary, changing states, such as being irritable, feeling depressed etc.
  – Duration ranging from minutes to days and in some cases a lot longer (depression, mania, etc)

Question 3

Emotion(type of affect)

Answer 3

Emotions - more complex (not just positive or negative) and linked to specific objects/things/persons/events, such as being angry at something (emotion)
– Usually episodic; short-lived states
– May include physiological manifestations, physiological arousal (increased heart rate, increased skin conductance, pupil dilation)

Question 4

Pollyanna effect

Answer 4

– We remember better (correctly and with more detail) what is pleasant or positive
– We have a tendency to use more positively than negatively charged words when we
communicate (Bouscher and Osgood 1969)
– We have a slight positive bias in expectations (positivity offset, positivity bias)
– We have a small but clear tendency to assess our lives positively rather than negative
(judgment)

Question 5

Hur påverkar human agency and situational control affekt?

Answer 5

ex: depending on your role in a situation, you may experience negative emotions differently
– Shame and guilt with self-agency; anger, contempt, disgust with other-agency

Question 6

Hur påverkar uncertainty, attention and anticipated effort affekt?

Answer 6

– Fear during high level of uncertainty
– Frustration by high level of attention; boredom/disgust by low level of attention
– Challenged with high effort and is pleasant; boredom low level of effort and
unpleasant

Question 7

Basic emotion theory

Answer 7

These emotions serve specific biological and social function that was/is essential in evolution and adaptation
These emotions have innate neural substates and universal behavioral phenotypes (schemas)

Question 8

Dimensional theory of emotion

Answer 8

• All emotions can be classified along two dimensions : hedonic (pleasure-displeasure) and arousal (rest-activated)
• Emotions are fundamentally the same but differ
  in intensity or pleasantness
• Each emotions reflects varying amounts of
  hedonic and arousing properties

Question 9

Social constructionist perspective

Answer 9

• Critique to the idea of affective states as innate biological response patterns, but rather ‘lived and enacted in practical settings, as cultural and historical objects’
• We are socialized to display basic responses pertaining to (dis)liking certain social situations, roles, rules, behaviors around sexuality, food, fairness, etc.
• Our emotional responses are based on by scripts that control both expressions, feeling, intensity and tendencies towards behaviour

Question 10

Excitation transfer theory

Answer 10

a. Arousal is non specific and slow to decay
b. People are really bad at separating sources of arousal
c. People tend to cognitively process arousal

-> transfer to new situations

Question 11

Two factor theory

Answer 11

• Emotion results when people label, interpret, and identify physiological arousal for which they have no immediate otherexplanation
• People explain their arousal depending on a number of factors such as previous experience, socialization, context

Question 12

James-Lange theory

Answer 12

– The physiological patterns that are unique to each emotion reveal to us what we are feeling (e.g. we are fearful because we shake)

Bonus: Facial feedback hypothesis: Similar to the James-Lange theory, but postulates activation of facial musculature precedes and controls the
conscious experience of a emotion

Question 13

Cannon-bard theory

Answer 13

• Diffuse arousal cannot explain all the variety of emotions
• Physical sensations and emotions are not always connected (emotions are quick and are varied)
• More than other theories, Cannon Bard theory considers nervous system as means to explain emotion reactivity

Question 14

Appraisal theory

Answer 14

• Cognitive evaluation of a situation, the environment and the person-environment interaction in relation to a number of
  dimensions (variables of certainty, agency, coping potentialor control)
• The evaluation (appraisal) triggers and determines the specific emotion

Question 15

Vad har mood osv för påverkan på hjälpsamhet?(tror inte vi kmr behöva kunna alla dessa)

Answer 15

• ATTENTION - If you are happy that things are going well for you, you tend to be more helpful to others but if you focus on the good fortune of others, it may stimulate jealousy.
• REWARD OR DEBT – When faced with a request to help, if the focus of the request is on the reward for helping, helpful behaviour increases but if the focus is on guilt if the request

is not fulfilled, helpful behaviour does not increase.
* SOCIAL OUTLOOK - If the context allows social or human values to be emphasized, helpfulness is stimulated

• MOOD MAINTENANCE –
  – If we can improve or maintain a good mood by being helpful, helpfulness increases
  – If the opposite applies, it reduces our goodwill, at least if we are not down or depressed
• Negative mood reduces the likelihood that one helps someone overall.
• If a social norm calls for helpfulness in a situation, then the one with a low mood has a greater tendency to help than a happy person has but it
  is based on the psychological role feelings of guilt have for the desire to help

Question 16

Mood congruent memory

Answer 16

Tendency to better remember things that match mood you are in (good things
when you are in a good mood; negative aspects when in a bad mood)

Question 17

Mood state dependent memory

Answer 17

• We remember something better if we are in the same mood when we learned it(questionable support in research)
• Clear connection for similar states of arousal and drug- induced states, but there the valence is not relevant

Question 18

Hur påverkar affekt ens judgement/assesment?

Answer 18

TEX(fanns skitmkt olika grejer om detta):
* Negative affect states give rise to more negative assessment of the future.
* Depressive situations give rise to assessing one’s social status situation in excessively negative light.
* It can be interpreted as a special case of risk bias – social and other risks are overestimated

Question 19

Hur påverkar social status/makt ens emotion o kognition?

Answer 19

ppl in power:
- More goal-related thinking and action
– Focus on desired results/final (usually favorable) outcomes
– Displays enthusiasm and pride
– Emotions linked to control and anger

• People with little power have more focus on duties, fear, shame and debt

Question 20

Vad är the theory of separate processes?
och vad finns det för objections mot detta?

Answer 20

TEORIN:
* Not all feelings (or preferences) are based on cognitive processes but often feelings/affect come first
* Affective processes are often independent of cognitive processes; they are unconscious and one doesn’t know on what grounds you react emotionally

OBJECTIONS:
* Emotional reactions presuppose perceptual evaluation (appraisal) of a situation as potentially “good” or “bad” for one’s welfare.
* “Appraisals start the emotion process, initiating the physiological, expressive, behavioral, and other changes that comprise the resultant emotional state”
* Appraisal should be considered as cognitive information processing

Answer 21

• Emotional reactions presuppose perceptual evaluation (appraisal) of a situation as potentially “good” or “bad” for
  one’s welfare.
• “Appraisals start the emotion process, initiating the
  physiological, expressive, behavioral, and other changes that
  comprise the resultant emotional state” (Scherer, K. R., Schorr, A., &
  Johnstone, T. (Eds.). (2001). Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research.
  Oxford University Press.)
• Appraisal should be considered as cognitive information
  processing