Chapter 6 - Emotion Flashcards
- Describe emotions and distinguish them from other states, such as moods and
disorders
a. Identify the three components of emotions
Emotion: a complex reaction pattern to personally relevant events (physical and social challenges and opportunities)
* Involves experiential, behavioural/expressive, and
physiological elements
* In contrast to moods, emotions are shorter-lived and specific (i.e., directed towards specific people and events)
a. * Experiential component:
subjective experience of fear
Situation is personally relevant
Threat to survival
* Behavioural component:
Characteristic facial expression (e.g., raised upper eyelids, lips stretched horizontally)
Defensive behaviour or escape
* Physiological component:
Increasing blood pressure and heart rate
Increased respiratory rate
Increased sweating
- Describe the functions of emotions
a. Describe the functional value of fear and shame, but also be prepared to
identify functional value of other emotions
Functionalist view:
* The multifacted aspects of an emotional response provide a toolkit for solving problems
* Help direct & prioritize attention, interpret events in the environment, move us to action, mobilize resources, & provide important social signaling functions
Evolutionary perspective:
Emotions are biologically-based, genetically-encoded
adaptations that emerged in response to selection
pressures, or threats to survival, faced by our
evolutionary ancestors
* Origins may be identified in functionally equivalent
responses of other species
Fear
* Increases vigilance to threat-related cues
* Focuses attention on identifying available resources & avenues of escape
* Shifts motivational state
* Sympathetic nervous system changes (e.g., increased heart rate, respiration) helps prepare for physical exertion
Shame
* Key emotional response to
threats to the “social self” (i.e., threats to one’s social esteem, status, and acceptance)
* Characteristic behavioural
display: head down, slumped
posture, averted gaze
* Thought to serve as a social
signal that functions as an
appeasement strategy to reduce social conflict
(more to read about physiological correlates with shame)
- Describe and contrast the following theories; be prepared to apply to examples
a. James-Lange theory
b. Canon-Bard theory
c. Schachter-Singer Two-Factory Theory
James-Lange Theory
* Emotions are the result of perceiving bodily changes in response to some stimulus in the environment
Stimulus…physiological response… emotional experience
Canon-Bard Theory
* Bodily response and emotional experience occur at the same time following a stimulus
Stimulus… physiological + emotional experience
Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory
* Physiological changes are crucial for emotional
experience, but emotion involves cognitive judgments
about the source of these changes, not just the
perception of these changes
* Emotional response is the result of an interpretative
label applied to a bodily response
Stimulus…physiological response… judgment…. emotional experience
- Summarize the support for the evolutionary perspective on emotions, including the following:
a. Cross-cultural research on emotional expression
b. Emotional expression in other animals
c. Emotional expression among the blind
a. Ekman & Friesen, 1971:
* Studied isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea living in preindustrial, hunter-gatherer-like conditions
(no exposure to Western media)
* Able to recognize Western
emotions with above chance
accuracy
* Reverse true as well—Americans able to recognize emotions displayed by tribe members
b. Cross-species similarity in
emotional displays
* E.g., chimps show threat
displays similar to our
own displays of anger
(see more details in textbook)
c. Congenitally blind people
express emotions in the
same way that sighted
people do (Tracy &
Matsumoto, 2008)
- Describe the ways in which emotional expression varies across cultures, including:
a. Focal emotions
b. Ideal emotions (affect valuation theory)
c. Display rules
a. * Cultures differ in focal emotions (i.e., which emotions are particularly common within a culture)
* E.g., shame more focal in interdependent cultures (Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008)
b. Affect valuation theory (Tsai, 2007): emotions that promote important cultural ideals will be more valued and will be more focal
c. Display rules: culturally specific rules that govern how, when, and to whom people express emotions
(read more details in textbook)
- Define affective forecasting and describe the biases and other factors that
contribute to inaccurate affective forecasts (describe research examples where
applicable)
a. Immune neglect
b. Focalism
c. Consequences of making higher-level vs. lower levels construals (construal-level theory)
- Affective forecasting: Predicting what one’s emotional reactions to
potential future events will be - Often mistaken in our affective forecasts—especially when it comes to predicting the intensity
and duration of the emotions we will feel (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003)
Example study:
-participants predicted that a romantic breakup would make them less happy than was actually true
-winning the lottery does not actually make you happier
-athletes overestimating intensity of negative emotions after failing to reach goal
a. Immune neglect:
failure to take the effects of the psychological immune system into account when
making our affective forecasts. Psychological immune system: System of largely non-conscious cognitive processes that help us change our view of the world, so we can feel better about the world we find ourselves in
b. Focalism: Tendency to focus too much on the
occurrence in question (the focal event—e.g., the breakup or the lottery win) and fail to consider other
events that are likely to occur at the same time
Wilson study: nondescribers vs. describers. Describers asked to describe events of typical day + predict happiness level after specific event better at predicting than nondescribers.
c. Psychologically distant actions and events are thought about in abstract terms (higher-level construal);
actions and events that are close at hand are thought
about in concrete terms (lower-level construal)
So hard to predict in higher-level construal.
???
- Define peak-end rule and duration neglect; be prepared to apply to examples
Peak-end rule: The most intense positive or negative
moments (the “peaks”) and the final moments (the
“end”) of the experience are most heavily weighted in
our recollections of the experience
Duration neglect: our memory of the overall
pleasantness of an event is not strongly influenced by
the length of the emotional experience
- Summarize the factors that have been found to contribute to happiness
- Strengthen your relationships and engagement in your community
- Practice gratitude
- Give to others
- Prioritize experiences over material possessions
- “Hack” the hedonic treadmill by varying these activities (variety is
the spice of happiness!)
