Communication of Emotions Flashcards
Main claims and terms
- Encoding hypothesis: when we feel a state, it is encoded in a unique, universal pattern
- Decoding hypothesis: acoss cultures we have evolved to be able to quickly judge other people’s emotions
- Co-evolution – our signalling capability co-evolved with the capacity of others to interpret and decode those signals
What are Ekman and Friesen’s 5 categories of non-verbal behaviour?
- Emblems – direct translation, known by everybody, effect on recipient
- Illustrators – gestures used to dramatise
- Regulators - gestures used to control who speaks and who listens
- Self adaptors- random behaviours/nervous outcomes
- Affect displays – hugs etc.
How are expressions of emotions different from other facial expressions
- Symmetry
- Short duration (1-5 seconds)
- Reliable muscle movements
- Dynamic facial expressions elicit higher arousal than static facial expressions
What are Ekman’s 6 universal facial expressions?
Anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise – developed Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to taxonomise every facial expression
What are the new additions to the universal facial expressions?
Contempt – asymmetrical tightening of lips in corners
Exhilaration – laughter involving contractions around the eyes
What’s the difference between an expression of guilt and an expression of shame?
Shame follows the failure to live up to expectations, either one’s own or those of significant others
Guilt appears to follow transgressions of moral rules that govern behaviour toward others
What are the evolutionary advantages of sharing our emotions?
Informative – sources of information about the social world
Evocative – elicit complementary emotions from other people e.g. expressions of distress evoke compassion in observers
Incentive – invite desired social behaviours
What are the gender differences in recognising emotions?
On average, women outperform men, answer lies in testosterone as when people have a single administration of testosterone they can’t recognise expressions as well
How do members of different cultures display their emotions?
• Ritualised displays – stylised ways of depicting a certain emotion
• Regulation of expressive behaviour – Japanese students showed less facial expressions when watching a disgusting film in front of a superior
• Judo competition expressions
o Cultural differences
o Initial reactions were universal but subsequent expressions were regulated
o Collectivist cultures tended to mask their expressions more than individualist cultures
o Wealthy countries were less concerned to mask their emotions than people from rural countries
• Cultural influences on emotion would kick in after 1-2 seconds
• Initial reaction is triggered by subcortical brain structures
• Dampening down an emotion seemed to take less time than masking the emotion completely
• Interpreting
o People from individualist cultures are more accurate judges of emotions
o Americans rated negative emotions more appropriate than the Japanese towards in-group members
o Difference in intensity of emotions in different cultures
What are the two schools of thought concerning smiles?
- Primarily an individual act, smile as a result of feeling happy
- Primarily a social act, smile to let those around us know that we are happy
Explain the different between a Duchenne smile and a Pan Am smile
- Duchenne smiles are more genuine and tend to be more symmetrical – only 1 in 10 people can fake a Duchenne smile
- Pam Am smiles are known as being polite smiles and are more asymmetrical
What are the key features of laughter?
- Emotional signal
- Very frequent
- Preceded language in evolutionary emergence
- Enables closeness with others
- Can reflect a number of different emotions
- Laugh different with friends than with strangers
What are the four main reasons for using touch as communication of emotions?
- To reinforce reciprocity
- To sooth
- For safety – parent who have more bodily contact with their children tend to have children who are more secure in their environment
- For pleasure – touch can have the same mental rewards as food
What does expressing our emotions through art do?
- Clarifies our emotions
- Relieves powerful feelings
- Artisitc expressions take the form of our emotional expressions
