Chapter 10: Emotions and Group Processes

Question 1

What is emotion contagion?

Answer 1

The tendency to “catch” another person’s emotion; appraisals, subjective feelings, expressions, physiological arousal, and action tendencies.

Question 2

Allegedly, does emotion contagion occur below consciousness and unintentionally?

Answer 2

Yes.

Question 3

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?

Answer 3

Participants’ behavior converged on confederate’s valence, regardless of intensity

Question 4

Fowler & Christakis, 2008 found out what about emotion contagion and relationships?

Answer 4

Long-term moods are transferred through close relationships, creating like-minded clumps of people.

Question 5

Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014 found out what about emotion contagion and Facebook?

Answer 5

People produced fewer positive posts when their newsfeeds were made to be negative.

Question 6

What are proposed automatic processes that explain emotion contagion? (3)

Answer 6

1. Learning. 2. Imitation. 3. Co-attention.

Question 7

What are proposed controlled process that explain emotion contagion? (3)

Answer 7

1. Communicative imitation. 2. Social comparison. 3. Empathy.

Question 8

What is the hive hypothesis?

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Describe how synchrony relates to human behavior (3).

Answer 9

1. 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.

Question 10

What is Gaze synchrony?

Answer 10

The matching of social gaze between parent and child.

Question 11

What is affect synchrony?

Answer 11

The matching of affective expression.

Question 12

Proto-conversations contain what?

Answer 12

Repetitive moments of vocal synchrony.

Question 13

What tends to happen when someone identifies as part of a group?

Answer 13

They experience emotions from the standpoint of the group.

Question 14

Can emotions on behalf of the group occur when someone is alone?

Answer 14

Yes, but the emotion is related to the goals and outcomes of the group rather than the self.

Question 15

What is an example of emotions on behalf of the group?

Answer 15

1. Contemporary Germans feeling guilty for WWII; 2. Australians feeling guilty for their country’s past treatment of Indigenous Australians

Question 16

What factors increase emotions on behalf of the group? (2)

Answer 16

1. Perceived similarity to group members. 2. Identification with the group (membership-important to ones identity).

Question 17

Dumont et al., (2003) conducted a study where they studied participant identity and their reaction to 9/11. What did they find? (2)

Answer 17

1. 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.

Question 18

What is a grater predictor of prejudice than the content of the prejudice?

Answer 18

The global, negative feelings towards a group.

Question 19

Did amygdala activity in white participants looking at black faces predict their level of prejudice towards black people?

Answer 19

Yes.

Question 20

Why is Inter-group contact associated with anxiety? (2)

Answer 20

1. 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

Question 21

Does increased anxiety increase prejudice?

Answer 21

Yes.

Question 22

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.

Answer 22

1. 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”

Question 23

What is perceived out-group homogeneity?

Answer 23

The degree to which members of an out-group appear similar to each other.

Question 24

Why are people in out-groups perceived as homogeneous?

Answer 24

Because anxiety reduces attentional focus, so people fail to encode information inconsistent stereotypes about an out-group

Question 25

What are group emotions?

Answer 25

Emotions that spread through a group.

Question 26

How are group emotions generated?

Answer 26

Via emotion contagion.

Question 27

What is the evolutionary explanation for emotion contagion?

Answer 27

It allows for the basic way in which perspective taking and empathy are built.

Question 28

What is an example of emotion contagion in marketing and tv?

Answer 28

Using canned laughter to induce positive effects in the audience.

Question 29

What increases the susceptibility to emotion contagion? (4)

Answer 29

1. Temperament (such as tendency to approach or withdraw, distractibility, and attention span). 2. Intensity of our emotional responses. 3. Gender. 4. Early experiences.

Question 30

Why are there differences in emotion contagion susceptibility?

Answer 30

Because of differences in conformity and values about adhering to group norms.

Question 31

What is emotional synchrony?

Answer 31

Having the physiology of your emotions sync up with someone else’s.

Question 32

What is the earliest example of emotional synchrony? When does it begin?

Answer 32

Mothers and infants. Starts at the beginning at life.

Question 33

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?

Answer 33

The baby’s cardiac response went up when the mother had the stress condition despite not being present during the speech. Demonstrates emotional synchrony.

Question 34

What is co-attention?

Answer 34

The synchronization of attention with other people.

Question 35

In a study where people were asked to eat chocolate alone or with others found what?

Answer 35

Those who ate with other people around experienced greater pleasure, despite not being able to talk to each other.

Question 36

Inducing anger predicted what kind of prejudice? Inducing disgust induced what kind of prejudice?

Answer 36

1. Arabs. 2. Gays and lesbians.

Question 37

What is the intergroup emotions theory?

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

The intergroup emotions theory is based on what two principles?

Answer 38

1. Social identity theory. 2. Cognitive appraisals model of emotion.

Question 39

According to the intergroup emotions theory, is prejudice situation-dependent? Why?

Answer 39

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.

Question 40

What is the sociofunctional theory?

Answer 40

A model in which prejudice toward out-groups more directly reflects emotional reactions to the threat these groups are posing for the in-group.

Question 41

What are the two assumptions of the sociofunctional theory?

Answer 41

1. 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.

Question 42

What is the stereotype content model?

Answer 42

Assumes that the content of stereotypes about members of other groups is generally organized around two central dimensions. Competence and warmth.

Question 43

What does the BIAS map propose to predict?

Answer 43

That the emotions triggered by appraisals of a group’s warmth and competence predict behavioral tendencies toward the group.