Chapter 10: Emotions and Group Processes Flashcards
What is emotion contagion?
The tendency to “catch” another person’s emotion; appraisals, subjective feelings, expressions, physiological arousal, and action tendencies.
Allegedly, does emotion contagion occur below consciousness and unintentionally?
Yes.
In an experiment on emotion contagion, a confederate expressed either a positive or negative affective state with high or low intensity in groups of 3-5 participant (including 1 confederate). What occurred in the group?
Participants’ behavior converged on confederate’s valence, regardless of intensity
Fowler & Christakis, 2008 found out what about emotion contagion and relationships?
Long-term moods are transferred through close relationships, creating like-minded clumps of people.
Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014 found out what about emotion contagion and Facebook?
People produced fewer positive posts when their newsfeeds were made to be negative.
What are proposed automatic processes that explain emotion contagion? (3)
- Learning. 2. Imitation. 3. Co-attention.
What are proposed controlled process that explain emotion contagion? (3)
- Communicative imitation. 2. Social comparison. 3. Empathy.
What is the hive hypothesis?
A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience,courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection.
Describe how synchrony relates to human behavior (3).
- People with a common goal synchronize their behavior, brains, physiology. 2. Creating synchronization facilities group identity and rapport. 3. This results in more effective joint action.
What is Gaze synchrony?
The matching of social gaze between parent and child.
What is affect synchrony?
The matching of affective expression.
Proto-conversations contain what?
Repetitive moments of vocal synchrony.
What tends to happen when someone identifies as part of a group?
They experience emotions from the standpoint of the group.
Can emotions on behalf of the group occur when someone is alone?
Yes, but the emotion is related to the goals and outcomes of the group rather than the self.
What is an example of emotions on behalf of the group?
- Contemporary Germans feeling guilty for WWII; 2. Australians feeling guilty for their country’s past treatment of Indigenous Australians
What factors increase emotions on behalf of the group? (2)
- Perceived similarity to group members. 2. Identification with the group (membership-important to ones identity).
Dumont et al., (2003) conducted a study where they studied participant identity and their reaction to 9/11. What did they find? (2)
- Focusing participants’ attention on an identity that
included American victims into a common ingroup led them to report more fear and stronger fear-related behavioral tendencies. 2. They also engaged more often in fear-related behaviors than when victims were categorized as outgroup member.
What is a grater predictor of prejudice than the content of the prejudice?
The global, negative feelings towards a group.
Did amygdala activity in white participants looking at black faces predict their level of prejudice towards black people?
Yes.
Why is Inter-group contact associated with anxiety? (2)
- People may fear negative consequences of intergroup contact in the form of threats to self-worth (embarrassment) or security (physical harm). 2. People may anticipate negative evaluations from out-group, or from in-group for having out-group contact
Does increased anxiety increase prejudice?
Yes.
In an experiment where White Belgian participants posed for photos with either a Black or White photographer, what was found out about intergroup anxiety and hiding emotions.
- They thought they were better models when the photographer was Black, but more positively when the photographer was White. 2. People seem to be worse than they think at controlling their emotions and “looking natural”
What is perceived out-group homogeneity?
The degree to which members of an out-group appear similar to each other.
Why are people in out-groups perceived as homogeneous?
Because anxiety reduces attentional focus, so people fail to encode information inconsistent stereotypes about an out-group
What are group emotions?
Emotions that spread through a group.
How are group emotions generated?
Via emotion contagion.
What is the evolutionary explanation for emotion contagion?
It allows for the basic way in which perspective taking and empathy are built.
What is an example of emotion contagion in marketing and tv?
Using canned laughter to induce positive effects in the audience.
What increases the susceptibility to emotion contagion? (4)
- Temperament (such as tendency to approach or withdraw, distractibility, and attention span). 2. Intensity of our emotional responses. 3. Gender. 4. Early experiences.
Why are there differences in emotion contagion susceptibility?
Because of differences in conformity and values about adhering to group norms.
What is emotional synchrony?
Having the physiology of your emotions sync up with someone else’s.
What is the earliest example of emotional synchrony? When does it begin?
Mothers and infants. Starts at the beginning at life.
In a study where a mother gave a speech in front of either a critical audience or a positive crowd and then returned to her infant found what? What concept is demonstrated?
The baby’s cardiac response went up when the mother had the stress condition despite not being present during the speech. Demonstrates emotional synchrony.
What is co-attention?
The synchronization of attention with other people.
In a study where people were asked to eat chocolate alone or with others found what?
Those who ate with other people around experienced greater pleasure, despite not being able to talk to each other.
Inducing anger predicted what kind of prejudice? Inducing disgust induced what kind of prejudice?
- Arabs. 2. Gays and lesbians.
What is the intergroup emotions theory?
There are times when our group identity trumps our individual identity, and then we tend to evaluate and interact with out-groups using group emotions.
The intergroup emotions theory is based on what two principles?
- Social identity theory. 2. Cognitive appraisals model of emotion.
According to the intergroup emotions theory, is prejudice situation-dependent? Why?
Yes, because appraisals are made by the in-group and the resulting emotions become the basis of the prejudice. For example, anger may lead to aggression, while a feeling of lack of control may lead to anxiety.
What is the sociofunctional theory?
A model in which prejudice toward out-groups more directly reflects emotional reactions to the threat these groups are posing for the in-group.
What are the two assumptions of the sociofunctional theory?
- Emotions serve individuals in the attainment of their basic human motives, which concerns survival in order to reproduce. Anything that gets in the way of this is considered a threat. 2. Humans have evolved as a group-living species and humans worry about other groups.
What is the stereotype content model?
Assumes that the content of stereotypes about members of other groups is generally organized around two central dimensions. Competence and warmth.
What does the BIAS map propose to predict?
That the emotions triggered by appraisals of a group’s warmth and competence predict behavioral tendencies toward the group.
