College 6: emotions in social interactions

Question 1

Social approach of emotions

Answer 1

There are different emotions words across different languages. Some cultures show different emotions. Emotions are best understood as interactions between people.

Question 2

Armon-Jones (social approach)

Answer 2

The purpose of emotions is to reinforce society’s norms and values. Like the rules of anger (Averill).

Question 3

Averill’s criticism

Answer 3

• The social function of emotions is underestimated in other theories.
• Universality is overestimated.
• Emotions are not biologically driven.

Question 4

Averill’s social construct theory

Answer 4

Emotions are social constructions that give shape and meaning to our social world. Emotions are learned behaviours that can be acquired is people are exposed to them within a particular culture. Emotions have an important sociale rol, they exist to inform and influence each other

Question 5

Affective empathy (automatic)

Answer 5

Taking over other’s emotions

Question 6

Cognitive empathy (less automatic)

Answer 6

Appraisal of the other’s situation and ad attempts to understand the cause of the other’s emotions.

Question 7

Difficult to fake emotions (Ekman)

Answer 7

There is a difference in real and fake emotions. Like a real smile can be spotted by a contraction of the muscles beside the eyes (zygomaticus nerve).
- Fake emotions are consciously controlled.
- Real emotions occur automatically.

Question 8

Empathy has 2 faces

Answer 8

1. The person showing empathy: feel what the other person feels.
2. The person receiving the empathy: to feel understood.

Question 9

The adaptive role of empathy

Answer 9

Empathy has an adaptive role: taking care of offspring, bonding etc.

Question 10

The epistemological role of empathy

Answer 10

Because of empathy we are much faster in making accurate predictions of other people’s needs and actions and discover salient aspects of our environment.

Question 11

The social role of empahty

Answer 11

Reciprocal altruism, social communication, cooperation and moral reasoning.

Question 12

Imitation

Answer 12

Action replication between the observed and the reactive movement. This is important for social learning, empathy, liking and trust.

Question 13

Imitative mirroring / mimicry

Answer 13

Ability to duplicate observed movements. Is widespread in other animals (birds, sheep, fish). In animals it’s often called resonance behaviour. Newborn infants are already able to replicate some behaviour. The purpose:
- Real interaction
- Social interaction
- The more we imitate someone, the more they will like us.
- The more we like a person, the more we will imitate them
- High empathy people show more mimicry

Question 14

True imitation

Answer 14

The ability to perceive and understand the intention of someone else, or the goal of their intentions and to re-enact that action to achieve the intended goal. A 18-moth infant are already able to recognise goal-oriented behaviour in others, and know when others recognise the. This suggests that imitation might be innate and provides the mechanism by which empathy and empathy develop in humans.

Question 15

Action units

Answer 15

Types of facial muscles movement that indicate a certain emotions. Like contraction of the eyes.

Question 16

Facial reddening

Answer 16

Facial redness is sexually dimorphic and is strongly andorgen-dependant in men. Increased skin blood perfusion is related to health and is enhanced by physical training and reduced different patient groups.

Question 17

Facial reddening experiment (Stephen et al.)

Answer 17

When women make the faces of males more attractive, they tend to make their skin tone more red. Redness also shows more dominance and aggression.

Question 18

Blushing (in the prisoner’s dilemma game)

Answer 18

Blushing after a social-moral transgression causes more trustworthiness in an interdependent context.

Question 19

Main functions of crying

Answer 19

• Tension relief and promoting the recovery of psychological and physiological homeostasis.
• Communicating your emotions to other people.

We have more sympathy for people who are crying and crying is contageous.

Question 20

Pupil dilations and likeliness

Answer 20

When a persons pupil is dilated, we often like them more, because we find them more soft, feminin and trustworthy (Kret).

Question 21

Heart rate and distance to the threath

Answer 21

• When the treat is distant: freezing behaviour and heart rate decrease.
• When the treat is near: the sympathetic system kick in and heart rate increases.

Question 22

The zygomatic nerve

Answer 22

The zygomatic muscle shows increased facial electromyographic response to happy faces compared to angry faces.

Question 23

The galvanic skin response is:

Answer 23

• The measurement of electrical conductivity of the skin.
• The measurement of sweat on the skin.
• Increased when we feel something emotional.