DChapter 5 Emotion and Well-being

Question 1

How do you define emotions?

Answer 1

Emotions are brief responses to challenges or opportunities that we appraise as important to our goals; they manifest in patterns of experience, expression, and physiology.

Question 2

Define construals/Appraisals

Answer 2

Interpretations of events in terms of things like how pleasant, novel, fair, or threatening the event is and whether you, other people, or situational factors caused the event in the first place

Question 3

What are the differences between emotion, mood, and emotional disorders?

Answer 3

Emotions are brief, lasting only seconds or a few minutes; whereas moods are longer-lasting, such as feeling blue, which could last for days. Emotional disorders, like depression and generalized anxiety, last for weeks, months, and years.

Emotions are specific to certain events, such as a coworker’s help, a racist’s words, or a relative’s illness. Moods and disorders, on the other hand, are more general and unfocused.

Question 4

What are two purposes of emotions?

Answer 4

1. Emotions help us interpret our surrounding circumstances: prioritize which events you attend to in the environment, influence how much weight you assign them, determine how you reason about them, and even affect whether you deem them right or wrong.
2. Emotions help guide our actions, e.g., help a friend who is suffering because you feel empathy, sign a petition, or protest because you feel angry against unjust behaviours.

Question 5

What do evolutionary approach say about emotions in comparison to constructivist approach’s view on emotions?

Answer 5

Evolutionary approach (universal emotions) portrays emotions as adaptive reactions to survival-related threats and opportunities that involve specific patterns of expression and physiology. Constructivist approach suggests that emotion expressions differ across cultures; culture affects how we feel about events, what we might do about our feelings, and how we express and describe our feelings to others and to ourselves.

Question 6

What are Darwin’s three hypotheses about the universality of emotional expression?

Answer 6

1. Humans in all cultures will likely communicate and perceive emotion in a similar fashion (30-40 facial muscles).
2. Humans’ emotions resemble those of other species.
3. Blind individuals still show expressions similar to those of sighted people because the tendency to express emotions in specific ways has been encoded by evolutionary processes.

Question 7

What does the study done by Ekman and Friesen suggest about the universality of emotional expressions?

Answer 7

Even individuals who had no exposure to Western media could fairly accurately tell the emotional expressions depicted by photos showing happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear.

Question 8

What does embarrassment do to serve people better?

Answer 8

Gestures like head movements, downward gazes, and nervous face touching can cause others to trust the individual more. Even other mammals, like chimpanzees, show similar signs of embarrassment expressions.

Question 9

What is a focal emotion?

Answer 9

An emotion that is especially common in a particular culture. e.g., Chinese people have more words to describe shame and embarrassment than English people do

Question 10

What does the affect valuation theory suggest? ( related to ideal emotions)

Answer 10

Emotions that promote important cultural ideals are valued and will tend to play a more prominent role in the social lives of individuals. e.g., excitement in American culture, vs. calmness in East Asian culture

Question 11

What is emotion regulation, and what are the three ways to do it?

Answer 11

Emotion regulation is the way in which people modify their emotions to make themselves feel better or to fit the present context.
1. Rethink/reappraise (reinterpreting the cause of an emotion and its meaning to the individual)
2. Accept (to understand our emotions are fleeting and their causes typically change)
3. Suppression (people minimize outward signs of their emotion)

Question 12

Definition: the broad idea that emotions coordinate social interactions in ways that enable people to meet social opportunities and challenges.

Answer 12

Social functional theory

Question 13

What caused Eadweard Muybridge’s social difficulties?

Answer 13

The accident damaged his orbitofrontal cortex, which led him to lose the ability to rely on his emotions and act accordingly across situations.

Question 14

How do emotions help foster commitment in romantic relationships and friendships?

Answer 14

1. The expression of certain emotions signals our commitment to others’ well-being. e.g., expressing gratitude to new acquaintances in university
2. Emotions can motivate us to act in ways that prioritize the well-being of others. e.g., guilt leads to amendments.

Question 15

What is the chemical that fosters emotions and commitment?

Answer 15

Oxytocin (but may increase out-group biases)

Question 16

What is emotional mimicry and what does it help with?

Answer 16

Copying other’s emotional expressions, whether laughing or crying, can lead us to collaborate more effectively and enhance our collective performance

Question 17

Can people convey emotions through touch?

Answer 17

Yes, people could communicate love, sympathy, and gratitude with brief tactile contact.

Question 18

Which emotion increases people’s sense of belonging to others?

Answer 18

Feelings of awe

Question 19

What are some forms of emotion that can help us determine our place in social groups?

Answer 19

Pride, anger, and envy.

Question 20

What are some examples of emotions guiding perceptions?

Answer 20

The loss of loved ones can lead us to perceive many neutral events in our lives as sad.
Fear leads us to exaggerate the dangers around us.
Anger primes us to perceive threats and aggression, as well as to perceive situations as less risky.

Question 21

What is the idea that positive emotions broaden thoughts and actions and help build social resources?

Answer 21

Broaden-and-build hypothesis

Question 22

What are the pathways to happiness for Americans, East Asians, or Latinos?

Answer 22

1. Personal achievement for Americans
2. Harmonious relationships, fulfilling duties and societal expectations for East Asians
3. Warm and affectionate interactions for Latinos

Question 23

How is happiness defined, and what are the two components?

Answer 23

1. Life satisfaction
2. Emotional well-being

Question 24

When are people happiest?

Answer 24

When they are taking part in meaningful social interactions with others, particularly friends and intimate partners.

Question 25

What are some benefits of happiness? List three.

Answer 25

1. Better work.
2. Better health.
3. Higher density of social networks.

Question 26

What is the act of predicting future emotions, such as whether an event will result in happiness, anger, or sadness, and for how long?

Answer 26

Affective forecasting.
e.g., people tend to overestimate how much a romantic breakup would diminish their life satisfaction.

Question 27

What is the tendency to ignore our ability to respond productively to stress and therefore overestimate life problems’ impact on our well-being?

Answer 27

Immune neglect
Nice quote: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is at the moment you are thinking of it.”

—DANIEL KAHNEMAN

Question 28

What is another bias that leads us to have difficulty predicting what will make us happy, rather than immune neglect?

Answer 28

Focalism: when we focus too much on the most central elements of significant events and ignore the possible impact of other events happening in life.
e.g., thinking about living in a nice house and having a meaningful job will make us enduringly happy, whereas in reality we face all other types of stresses, such as finance or health.

Question 29

How do you define duration of neglect?

Answer 29

The relative unimportance of the length of an emotional experience, whether pleasurable or unpleasant, in retrospective assessments of the overall experience. e.g., it doesn’t matter how long the massage or date last, but the quality of the experience at its peak and at the end.

Question 30

What are some contributors to happiness?

Answer 30

1. Being with other people; relationships of all kinds
2. Money: an annual salary of $75,000 would lead to greater life satisfaction
   (3). Meditation: leads to greater calm, less stress, and a sense of empathy and connection with others.
3. Practice gratitude
4. Follow the conventional wisdom: better to give than to receive
5. Focus more on experiences than material possessions
6. Try to cultivate experiences that can lead to awe: being around inspiring people, taking 10 minutes to get outdoors