Emotion

Question 1

3 key components of an emotion

Answer 1

• Distinct subjective feeling or affect (ie. Fear, anger)
• Bodily changes/symptoms (ie. Heart rate increases)
• Action tendencies (ie. Running away, fighting back)

Question 2

2 things emotions do

Answer 2

• Prepare us to respond appropriately to the situation (ie. Fear)
• Communicate to others (ie. Warn of threat)

Question 3

Person-environment transaction: stressful stimuli

Answer 3

• Integrates stress, appraisal, emotion, and response
• Steps in a transaction:
• • Perceive stimulus ->
• • Appraise as threatening (stress) ->
• • Subjective feeling (fear/anxiety) ->
• • Bodily changes/symptoms ->
• • Action tendency (behaviour)

Question 4

hardiness (and its 3 main characteristics)

Answer 4

• Important in protecting people from negative effects of stress
• 3 main characteristics:
• • Control (perceiving that they’re in control of their lives)
• • Commitment (being involved in life; goal-setting, etc.)
• • Challenge (seeing difficult things as challenges instead of feeling despair)

Question 5

Resilience

Answer 5

• An individual’s ability to successfully adapt to stress over time -> Recovery from stress/adversity without a lasting impact
• Big 5: associated with high openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness and low neuroticism

Question 6

Factors associated with resilience

Answer 6

• Having positive relationships (family or friends)
• Ability to make realistic plans and follow through
• Positive self-concept and confidence in one’s abilities
• Good communication and problem-solving skills
• Self-control; good management of impulses & emotions

Question 7

Primary/basic emotions

Answer 7

• Initial 6 (Ekman): anger, fear, disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness
• Additional primary emotions: contempt, shame, embarrassment, amusement, pride
• To be a basic emotion, it must:
• • Have distinct facial expression
• • Be recognized across cultures
• • Be universal

Question 8

emotions: states vs. traits

Answer 8

• typically thought of as temporary states (transitory or brief experiences; sometimes situational; often have a specific cause or environmental trigger; ie. John is sad because he lost his wallet)
• BUT can also be trait-like (certain emotions can be experienced more frequently or more consistently over time and across situations; ie. John is a happy guy)

Question 9

valence & arousal

Answer 9

• 2 factors that appear to underline emotions, which lead to 2 dimensions that can be plotted on a circumplex model
• Valence (+/-; pleasure/displeasure)
• Arousal (high/low activation)

Question 10

function of positive emotions

Answer 10

• Broaden-and-build theory: positive emotions (ie. Happiness, curiosity) broaden our awareness; encourage novel, exploratory thoughts & behaviours; build skills and resources over time
• Pleasant interactions with a stranger may result in support
• Curiosity results in navigational knowledge

Question 11

person-environment transaction: positive emotions

Answer 11

• Perceive stimulus ->
• Appraise as non-threatening ->
• Subjective feeling (happiness) ->
• Bodily changes/symptoms (ie. Increased oxytocin) ->
• Action tendency (behaviour, ie. Approach)

Question 12

emotional style vs. content

Answer 12

• style: the “how” of emotional life; how are these emotions typically experienced? (ex. intensity and variability)
• content: the “what” of emotional life; what types of emotions are frequently experienced? Come to define our personality over time

Question 13

emotional style: intensity and variability

Answer 13

• Strongly correlated
• High affect intensity/variability: Experience emotions strongly; emotionally reactive, variable (associated with both high neuroticism and high extraversion)
• Low affect intensity/variability: Experience emotions mildly; only gradual fluctuations over time, minor emotional reactions (Associated with alexithymia)

Question 14

Alexithymia

Answer 14

• A personality construct characterized by difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings to other people, and an externally bound cognitive style (focus on external factors when problem-solving rather than their own feelings/reactions
• Individuals show a marked deficit in experiencing positive emotions, empathy
• Associated with low levels of emotional intelligence and low affect intensity/variability

Question 15

content: 4 primary emotions associated with personality

Answer 15

• 3 Unpleasant emotions: anxiety, depression, and anger/hostility -> high neuroticism
• 1 Pleasant emotion: happiness (subjective well-being) -> high extraversion, low neuroticism

Question 16

Beck’s cognitive theory: Depressive Style

Answer 16

• Beck’s cognitive triad -> people more likely to be depressed have more depressing/negative schemas of 1) self, 2) world, and 3) future
• Depressive attributional style: Emphasizes internal, global, and stable causes for negative events (ie. Pessimistic); associated with feelings of helpnessness and poor adjustment
• creates a self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 17

Type A Personality

Answer 17

• Noticed by cardiologists who observed commonalities among many of their coronary heart disease (CHD) patients
• Considered a syndrome (achievement strivings, impatient, competitiveness, hostility -> most strongly related to CHD)

Question 18

Type D Personality

Answer 18

negative affectivity and social inhibition (these traits act synergistically to put cardiac patients at risk for further adverse cardiac events)

Question 19

Dispositional Happiness

Answer 19

• some people are more likely to feel happy than others
• Often termed subjective well-being
• 3 components:
• • Cognitive appraisal of satisfaction with life
• • Presence of positive emotions
• • Absence of negative emotions

Question 20

Individual Differences in Happiness

Answer 20

• Demographic variables (gender, age, ethnicity, and income)
• Only account for approx. 10-15% of variance in happiness as demographic variables
• Happy people tend to be:
• • High in extraversion: outgoing, sociable, friendly; promotes positive affect
• • Low in neuroticism: emotionally stable, calm; prevents negative affect

Question 21

Does money buy happiness?

Answer 21

• Correlations between .12 and .25 have been observed between income and happiness
• appears that once you have enough money to support yourself, having additional doesn’t matter as much; increases in money do not lead to long-term happiness (ie. lottery winners)
• Spending money on others (prosocial spending) can have a larger positive impact on happiness than spending the same amount on oneself, especially if giver is aware of their positive impact

Question 22

emotions: categorical vs. dimensional approach

Answer 22

• some believe emotions fall into distinct groups of basic/primary emotions (categorical approach)
• others believe emotions are made up of different degrees of various dimensions - ie. high/low activation and positive/negative valence (dimensional approach)

Question 23

Pride

Answer 23

• Dr. Jess Tracy’s research works to establish it as a new universal emotion
• Cross-culturally, people have been able to identify someone with a slight smile, head tilted back, chin up, and either hands on hips or arms raised as someone who is experiencing pride
• 2 key aspects of pride (Both have same body manifestation):
• • authentic pride: based on achievement; genuine self-esteem
• • hubristic pride: self-aggrandizement, narcissism

Question 24

Happiness

Answer 24

• most people report being happy most of the time
• 2 components:
• • cognitive: feeling like your life has meaning (life satisfaction
• • affective: ratio of positive to negative emotions (hedonic balance)
• part of being happy is having positive illusions about yourself
• happy people are less abusive/hostile, less self-focused, report less disease, more helpful, cooperative, creative, trusting, etc. and more satisfied with their jobs, marriage, etc. (however, may involve reciprocal causality -> can flow in both directions)
• no difference between genders, times of life (although different things make you happy at different times), ethnic groups, or social groups, but there IS difference in nationality (ie. Canada happier than US) -> poor countries with less civil rights and less econ. dev. unhappier

Question 25

what 2 traits predict subjective well-being/happiness? What traits do not predict happiness?

Answer 25

• Predict: extraversion -> positive affect & neuroticism -> negative affect
• • nationality as well (poor countries with less civil rights and economic development unhappier)
• Don’t predict: gender, time of life (although different things make you happy at different times), ethnic group, or social group

Question 26

2 models of personality

Answer 26

• direct model: when exposed to identical situations, different people respond with different emotions
• indirect model: personality causes someone to adapt a certain lifestyle, which influences how they respond to situations

Question 27

Eysenck’s biological theory: neuroticism

Answer 27

• high neuroticism due to easily-activated limbic system

- appears to be somewhat inherited

Question 28

brain areas associated with emotion

Answer 28

• limbic system: fight-or-flight response
• anterior cingulate: involved in early development of nervous system
• prefrontal cortex: executive control centre

Question 29

theories about emotion

Answer 29

• biological theories

- cognitive theories

Question 30

cognitive theories of emotion: neuroticism

Answer 30

• neuroticism is less about the brain itself; more about how an individual processes information
• ex. high-N people recall more negative info, and recall it faster (about themselves, not about others)

Question 31

neuroticism

Answer 31

• upset more easily, take more time to recover
• more likely to complain of and experience health problems
• pay more attention to negative cues/events in life

Question 32

theories re: depression

Answer 32

• diathesis-stress model
• Beck’s cognitive theory
• neurotransmitter theory of depression

Question 33

diathesis-stress model

Answer 33

• pre-existing vulnerability (diathesis) amongst people who will later become depressed
• then, a stressful life event must occur to trigger the depression
• no element alone (diathesis or stress) is enough to trigger depression -> must happen together

Question 34

neurotransmitter theory of depression

Answer 34

depression may be due to neurotransmitter imbalance at the synapses in nervous system

Question 35

hostility

Answer 35

• tendency to respond to everyday situations with frustration/aggression, be easily irritated, act uncooperatively, etc.
• related to type-A personality
• may be due to decreased prefrontal cortex activity

Question 36

research findings about high affect intensity emotional style

Answer 36

• people with high affect intensity rate good events as more good and bad events and more bad
• high affect intensity experience more mood variability
• tend to be more sociable, energetic, etc.
• affect intensity is unrelated to hedonic balance

Question 37

cognitive distortions associated with depression

Answer 37

• overgeneralizing (applying one incident to many others - ie. believing you’re a failure after failing 1 test)
• arbitrary influences (jumping to negative conclusions)
• personalizing (thinking everything is your fault)
• catastrophizing (thinking the worst will always happen)