Emotion lecture

Question 1

Emotions are central to our social psychology

Answer 1

Stories we tell
Relationships
Well-being and happiness
Moral judgements
Social identities

Question 2

Definition of emotions:

Answer 2

brief specific responses, psychological and physiological, to challenges or opportunities that are important to the individuals life and goals

Question 3

5 components of emotion

Answer 3

Fast and automatic construal

Physiological response

Expressive behavior
Facial reaction or body behavior

Subjective internal feeling (“i feel sad, disappointed, etc…)

Action tendency
Emotions are connected to an action
The experience compels us to act on our emotions

Question 4

Empathy:

Answer 4

understanding (cognitive) and experiencing (emotional) the feelings of another person

Question 5

5 components of empathy

Answer 5

Fast and automatic construal: feel empathy in response to observing harm
Physiological response: oxytocin (the social bonding hormone)
Expressive behavior-mirroring of the facial expression
subjective feeling- sharing of the feeling(sharing feeling with others)
Action tendency: social bonding, caring, etc

Question 6

Evolutionary basis of empathy

Answer 6

empathy evolved from mammalian parental care

Question 7

Attribution

Answer 7

shame is a global attribution(person), guilt is a specific attribution (behavior)

Shame is attributed to the individual person(i stole so im a bad person), guilt is attributed to the behavior(stealing is a bad behavior)

Question 8

Situational elicitors

Answer 8

shame is more likely than guilt to be triggered by awareness or loss of social status

Question 8

Different emotions-> achieve different goals

Answer 8

Fear-danger avoidance
Empathy- care for offspring (mammalian)
Emotional dysfunction if overgeneralized or overwhelming

Question 8

Action tendency:

Answer 8

shame elicits social withdrawal (avoidance), guilt elicits social damage repair (approach)

Guilt elicits a response to repair the damage done from the behavior that elicited the guilt

Question 8

Discrete (distinct) view of emotions

Answer 8

6 basic emotions: universally recognized

happiness,anger,sadness,surpise,disgust,fear

Question 8

Dimensional view: Circumplex model of emotion

Answer 8

You can have mixed emotions, in between emotions

diagram: of 4 factors on a spectrum: high/low arousal and pos/neg valence

Question 9

Darwin’s thesis:

Answer 9

humans emotions derive from motivations that were evolutionarily advantageous for our primate ancestors

Question 10

Evolutionary origins

Answer 10

we share some basic emotional expressions with our primate relatives(ie monkeys)

Question 11

Emotions in blind and seeing individuals

Answer 11

Evidence of innately prepared emotional displays congenitally blind athletes show similar emotional displays as sighted athletes

Question 12

Cultural influence on emotions

Answer 12

Emotional accents
Focal Emotions
Ideal Emotions (emotions we strive for)
Display rules
Cultural meaning

Question 13

Emotional accents

Answer 13

Some emotional expressions are highly recognized in some cultures and not as easily recognizable in other cultures

Question 14

Focal Emotions

Answer 14

Some emotions are experienced more in certain cultures

Shame and embarrassment far more often experiences in more collectivistic and more hierarchical cultures

Question 15

Ideal Emotions (emotions we strive for)

Answer 15

Evangelical service
People are striving to be excited and exuberance

Buddhist meditation
People strive to be calm and collected

Question 16

Display rules: when/how to express emotions differ across cultures

Answer 16

in individualistic cultures it is normative to express positive emotions; in collectivist cultures people tend to suppress these positive emotional expressions

Question 17

Cultural meaning

Answer 17

Same situation may have different cultural meanings, eliciting different emotions

Example (Nisbett and cohen, 1996): cultures of honor; insult or amusement?
Men from the southern US and northern US were insulted
Researchers observed the reactions of participants whether it was anger or amusement
Northern men felt amusement more than anger, southern men felt anger more than amusement