Emotion Flashcards
Emotion
used to refer to various mental states that are relatively short-lived and are associated with an eliciting event. It’s an immediate, specific and negative/positive reaction to internal thoughts or external environmental events
feeling
the subjective feeling of an emotion
mood
a diffuse, longer-lasting emotional state and may not have an identifiable trigger
Appraisal
ways in which people interpret or explain to themselves the meaning of events
components of an emotion
- physiological: bodily arousal, like a rising heart or tense muscles
- cognitive: the subjective conscious experience
- behavioural: characteristic overt expression, like facial expression or posture
Common-sense view of emotions
a stimulus promts an emotion, which in return prompts some bodily arousal
James-Lange theory
One of the earliest theories; proposes that people have a physiological response to environmental stimuli and that their interpretation of that physical response is what leads to an emotional experience.
E.g.: your heart beating wildly would lead you to realize that you are afraid.
Facial feedback hypothesis
feedback from the facial muscles can influence emotional state.
e.g.: people who are forced to smile pleasantly at a social function will have a better time at the event than they would if they had frowned or carried a more neutral facial expression
Criticism James-Lange theory
- arousal does not guarantee emotion (can sweat without being nervous)
- arousal may not precede emotion
- identical responses are associated with several different emotions (fast heart rate could mean fear, anger or joy)
- arousal is not necessary for emotion (paralysis)
Cannon-Bard theory
Older theory; states that we feel emotions and experience physiological reactions such as sweating, trembling, and muscle tension simultaneously. Emotions and bodily changes are independent
Schachter & Singer two-factor theory
Says there are two key components of an emotion: physical arousal and a cognitive label. The experience of emotion involves first having some kind of physiological response which the mind then identifies.
Zajonc’s theory
Theorized that emotion can be separate from cognition. You can feel something without knowing why you feel it. He believed we can be primed to feel a certain way or engage in certain behaviours.
Mere exposure effect: the tendency for people to develop a preference for a stimulus with repeated exposure to it
Murphy & Zajonc experiment
participants were first subliminally shown images of happy or sad faces, which they were unable to consciously perceive. Following this, participants were presented with Chinese characters to rate based on preference. Despite not consciously recognizing the happy or sad faces, participants consistently preferred the Chinese characters that were associated with the subliminally presented happy faces. This finding further supports the mere exposure effect, indicating that unconscious exposure to positive stimuli can influence subsequent preferences.
Lazarus Appraisal theory
Thinking must occur first before experiencing emotion. Asserts that your brain first appraises a situation, and the resulting response is an emotion.
The sequence of events first involves a stimulus, followed by thought, which then leads to the simultaneous experience of a physiological response and the emotion.
E.g.: if you encounter a bear in the woods, you might immediately begin to think that you are in great danger. This then leads to the emotional experience of fear and the physical reactions associated with the fight-or-flight response.
Chinese characters experiment with critique of Zajonc
Nisbett & Wilson 1970s
They presented participants with a series of Chinese characters and asked them to rate how much they liked each character. Some characters were presented more frequently than others, allowing researchers to test the mere exposure effect.
Result: participants tended to rate the characters they had been exposed to more frequently as less likable compared to characters they had seen less often. This challenged the notion that mere exposure consistently leads to increased liking and raised questions about the generalizability of the mere exposure effect across different cultural contexts.
Theory of constructed emotions by Barrett
suggests that at a given moment, the brain predicts and categorizes the present moment (of continuous affect) via interoceptive predictions and the “emotion concepts” from one’s culture, to construct an instance of emotion, just as one perceives discrete colors.
Emotions aren’t pre-programmed or fixed reactions to specific situations. Instead, they’re constructed by our brains based on a mix of various factors like our past experiences, cultural upbringing, and current context.
Attentional bias
describes our tendency to focus on certain elements while ignoring others. Research has shown that many different factors can bias our attention, from external events and stimuli (such as a perceived threat to our safety) to internal states (such as emotion).
Affect
In terms of emotion and cognition, it refers to the subjective experience of feeling or emotion. It encompasses the valence (positive or negative) and arousal (intensity) of an emotional experience. It plays a crucial role in shaping various cognitive processes, including perception, attention, memory, decision-making, and problem-solving.
Flashbulb memories
a vivid memory about an emotionally significant event, usually a historic or other notable event, like 9/11. People often experience these memories in photographic detail, and can recall aspects like what they were doing when the event occurred or how they learned about what happened. Not necessarily more accurate, the person simply thinks they are more accurate
Mood congruency
the tendency to recall events consistent with current mood state, like when we are in a positive mood we are more likely to recall positive memories
Negative memory bias
refers to the tendency of individuals to recall or remember negative information more readily and vividly than positive or neutral information. This bias means that negative events, experiences, or emotions are more salient and impactful in memory compared to positive or neutral ones.
state-dependent memory
the facilitation of memory when the mental or physiological state at encoding and retrieval matches
Eich and Metcalfe study
In their study, participants were asked to learn a list of words while in either a happy or sad mood. Later, they were asked to recall the words they had learned while in the same or a different mood.
Result: participants who were in the same mood during both learning and recall tended to recall more words compared to those who were in different moods.
This study provided evidence for mood-congruent memory, suggesting that memory retrieval is more efficient when individuals are in the same mood state as they were when the information was initially encoded.
integral affect
affect we experience that stems from the actual decision at hand, or might be influenced by the anticipated effects of the decision outcome
incidental affect
influences of affect that stem from other sources than the decision at hand, and may influence decision making
affect heuristics
substituting feelings for target attributes in decision problems
Cognitive behavioural therapy
based on the premise that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interconnected and influence each other. It combines cognitive therapy, which focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns, with behavioral therapy, which emphasizes modifying unhealthy behaviors.
Techniques such as cognitive restructuring, behavioural activation, exposure therapy and skills training
