Emotion Lecture #1 Flashcards
What is an emotion?
A relatively brief episode of synchronized physiological, behavioral, and subjective responses
Evident when a situation becomes relevant to our personal goals
What are the three aspects of emotions: “feelings,” autonomic responses, and somatic responses?
Feelings: Introspection (subjective reaction)
Autonomic responses: Sympathetic activation, hormonal (physiological component)
Somatic responses: Behavioral tendency to approach or avoid something, facial expressions (behavioral response)
What are the functions of emotions?
Regulate arousal, direct perception and attention, influence learning and memory, motivate behavior, communicate with others (smiling, crying embarrassment)
What is the evolutionary view of emotion as originally proposed by Darwin?
Emotions help us survive and thrive and promote survival of our species
Emotions allow us to adapt to different situations and keep us safe from danger
Many emotional responses seem to be instinctive and universal, rather than learned and cultural specific
Why are facial expressions important?
Communicate immediate information about how we are doing
Darwin hypothesized that facial expressions are part of our evolutionary heritage
They do not seem to be simply a product of of learning or imitation
What are Ekman’s six (or seven) basic emotions?
Anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, surprise, fear, or happiness
How was Ekman’s basic emotions research done?
What evidence suggests that these emotions are innate (inborn)?
Showed pictures of emotional expressions to individuals from a variety of cultural groups.
Everyone can recognize these same 7 emotions
What are display rules?
Cultural rules that govern the expression of emotions - expression is not universal across cultures and groups
What is the discrete vs. dimensional approach to emotions?
Discrete: An approach analyzing emotions that focuses on specific emotions such as anger, fear, and pride; treats emotions as categorically distinct from one another; examines both primary and secondary emotions
Dimensional: An approach to analyzing emotions that focuses on dimensions such as pleasantness and activation; how pleasant or unpleasant emotions feel? How activated or aroused the person feels in the midst of an emotion?
What are the three main contributors to happiness?
Genetic set point
Life circumstances
Intentional activities
What can we do to change our happiness?
Cultivating feelings of gratitude
Savoring positive experiences
Using our strengths
Using a dimensional approach, what kind of responses do we show to different kinds of images? How do psychopaths and individuals with phobias respond to different kinds of images?
Unpleasant picture, you would startle / fear response and kittens you wouldn’t startle much. With psychopathy, they show a heightened reaction to neutral pictures than unpleasant pictures (blunted emotional response)
