Chapter 8 Flashcards
essential feature of all emotions
the experience
multidimensional scaling
asked people to rate the similarity of dozens of emotional experiences, which allows psychologists to create a map of those experiences.
valence
dimension; how positive or negative the experience is.
arousal
dimension; how active or passive the experience is.
valence and arousal
can describe all emotional experiences on a map.
emotion
a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity due to an external stimulus.
James-Lange theory
theory of emotion; states that stimuli trigger activity in the body, which in turn produces emotional experiences in the brain. emotional experience is the consequence - no the cause - of our physiological reactions to objects and events in the world
Cannon-Bard Theory
theory of emotion; suggests that stimuli simultaneously trigger activity in the body and emotional experience in the brain.
Cannon-Bard theory is better than the James-Lange theory
1) emotions happen quickly even though the body often reacts slowly, 2) people often have trouble accurately detecting their own bodily responses such as changes in heart rates, 3) environmental events, such as increase in room temp., causes the same bodily responses that an emotional stimulus does, 4) argued that there simply aren’t enough unique patterns of bodily activity to account for all the unique emotional experiences people have
Two-factor theory
Schachter and Singer; emotions are based on inferences about the causes of general physiological arousal.
epinephrine
causes physiological arousal
when people are made to feel aroused
find attractive people more attractive, annoying people more annoying, and funny cartoons funnier, as if they were interpreting their arousal as attraction, annoyance, or amusement. these affects occur when people merely think they’re aroused as well.
some physiological responses
seem unique to a single emotion
certain patterns in the parasympathetic system
a branch of the autonomic nervous system (which is responsible for slowing and calming rather than speeding and exciting). these patterns seem to be uniquely associated with prosocial emotions such as compassion.
Amygdala
plays a special role in producing emotions such as fear.
appraisal
an evaluation of the emotion - relevant aspects of a stimulus. Amygdala is critical in these evaluations
When experimental subjects are asked to experience emotions
Show increased activity in the amygdala and decreased activity in the cortex. Opposite when asked to inhibit emotions
Emption regulation
The strategies people use to influence their own emotional experience. 90% of people report attempting to regulate their emotional experience at least once per day. Some strategies are behavioral and some are cognitive.
Suppression
Involves inhibiting the outward signs of an emotion. Isn’t an effective strategy.
Affect strategy
Involves putting one’s feelings into words. People think it will have little impact on their emotions, when in fact, it is actually an effective way to reduce the intensity of an emotional state.
Reappraisal
One of the best strategies for emotion regulation; involves changing one’s emotional experience by changing the way one thinks about the emotion-eliciting stimulus.
When looking at a photo a different way
Initially their amygdalae become active, but as they reappraised the photo, several key areas of the cortex became active and moments later their amygdalae were deactivated.
Emotional expression
An observable sign of an emotional state.
The muscles of the human face
Can make 46 distinct patterns known as “action units.”
When people feel happy
Their zygomatic major muscles pull up their lip corners while obicularis muscles crinkle the outside edges of their eyes. Action unit 6+12.
“The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”
Darwin; speculated about the evolutionary significance of emotional expression
Universality hypothesis
All humans naturally make and understand the same emotional expressions.
Facial displays of at least six emotions are universal
Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.
These facial expression may have universal patterns
Embarrassment, amusement, guilt, shame, and pride.
Facial feedback hypothesis
Emotional expressions can cause emotional experiences.
People find it difficult to identify another’s emotions when
They are unable to make facial expressions of their own and when they are unable to experience emotions of their own
Display rule
Norm for the appropriate expression of an emotion
Some facial muscles resist conscious control
People can easily control the zygomatic major muscle, but can’t easily control the obicularis oculi muscle. Allows trained observers to know when a smile is or isn’t genuine.
When people tell lies
Tend to speak more slowly, take longer to respond to questions, and respond in less detail than they do when telling the truth. Less fluent, less engaging, more uncertain, more tense, and less pleasant. Has superfluous detail, spontaneous correction, and expressions of self doubt.
People have a strong bias toward believing others as sincere
Explains why people tend to mistake liars for truth tellers. People also don’t know what info they should consider and what info they should ignore.
Correlation between ability to detect lies and confidence in that ability
Essentially zero
Polygraph
Most widely used lie detection machine; measures the physiological responses that are associated with stress, which people often feel when they are afraid of being caught in a lie. Can detect lies at a rate better than chance but error rate is still remarkably high.
Motivation
Refers to the purpose or goal of an action. Biological and psychological.
