Emotion Flashcards
Classical emotion
- Basic emotions
- Emotion happening triggers a stimuli which affects behaviour
Prototypical emotions
- Tend to involve physiological change
- Direct link between stimulus and emotion
William James (1884) emotion
Common sense implies that our emotions follow the events that happen to us, but James says that without bodily function (crying, laughing) we wouldn’t feel emotion
Minds pre-programmed to respond to certain stimuli
Activating a stereotype has been shown to result in behaviour linked to that stereotype
Critique of James’ study
Visceral changes are too slow to be a source of emotional feeling and artificial induction of visceral changes doesn’t produce emotion
Maranon (1924) adrenaline study
- Fewer than a third of participants reported any emotion
- Knew they were being injected with adrenaline so that may have explained lack of emotion due to design effects
Schacter’s two factor theory
Social context can help us interpret emotional states, cognitive input is needed to interpret physiological arousal
Schacter’s two factor theory - Stage one
Individual will label feelings to whatever explanation they have available if there is no clear explanation for feelings
Schacter’s two factor theory - Stage two
Individual unlikely to label their feelings another way if they have an appropriate explanation
Schacter’s two factor theory - Stage three
Individual will react emotionally or describe their feelings as emotions
Facial feedback - Strack, Martin and Stepper (1988)
Idea that how we feel is partly shaped by feedback from the facial musculature
Roles of cognition in emotion
Cognitive accounts of emotion emphasise the labelling of emotion
Appraisal theory
Emotion is based on an appraisal of the meaning and significance of an event on ourselves
Primary appraisal
Whether something of relevance to the person’s wellbeeing has occurred
Secondary appraisal
Concerns coping options and whether any given action may prevent harm or benefit it - requires more cognitive work
Reappraisal
Comes later and is constructed by the mind to regulate emotional distress or protect one’s ego identity
Primary appraisal components
- Goal relevance
- Goal congruence
- Self esteem
Secondary appraisal components
- Blame or credit
- Coping potential
- Future expectancy
Is emotion caused by appraisal?
We don’t know as it is hard to measure and quantify as different levels of emotion are different for everyone, also doesn’t account for sudden onset emotions like shock or excitement
Mere exposure effect
- Participants shown Japanese characters at varying rates and asked if they liked them
- Exposure to characters didn’t matter, participants liked unseen characters
Appraisal affecting wellbeing
The more plans someone has for grief, the better their psychological well-being
