Emotional complexity Flashcards
Benign masochism
People seem to like their physiological reactions to innately negative experiences. There’s this general assumption that people pursue pleasure and avoid pain – but this seems to be called into question, for some of us, we actively pursue experiences that are negative- (eg. glad to be sad) (Rozin et al., 2013).
Complex feelings
1. what are often more complex?
2. when can emotions be complex?
3. can you get a direct “read out” of how a person is feeling?
- our everyday emotions
- when they involve blending of different emotional states and expression
- no, you need to consider aspects of an individual such as the context in which they are placed
Appearances being deceiving: explain and examples of dimorphous emotional expressions
Can’t always trust outward displays of emotion (e.g., facial expressions)
Crying: sadness, tears of joy?
Screaming: fear, uncontrollable excitement?
Aggression: anger, so cute you could crush it?
Dimorphous emotional expression
Intense positive/negative emotion elicits an opposing valenced emotional expression.
You display negative emotions when you feel positive (e.g., crying, screaming, biting). You display positive emotions when you feel negative (e.g., smile when you’re embarrassed, laugh when you’re angry).
During dimorphous displays, both positive and negative expressions occur simultaneously in a disorganised manner, which means you have to rely on the context of the situation to interpret them.
Cute aggression
Why? Thought to be a way to downregulate intense feelings (e.g., so you are not incapacitated by cuteness!). The idea: one is emotion is balanced/regulated with the expression of an opposing one (Aragon et al., 2015).
Perhaps because people have less experience regulating positive compared to negative feelings. Also occurs for negative emotions, e.g., nervous laughter/smiling but this is less well researched and might be less common.
Kama Muta
What is it?
“moved by love”
A social emotion which people experience as a positive heart-warm feeling, evoked by a sudden increase in interpersonal closeness.
Features of Kama muta
Thought to be elicited by a sudden increase in communal sharing (e.g., exceptional kindness, compassion, sharing of resources) which creates a feeling of ‘oneness’ with others. Examples include situations such as: reunions, proposals, acts of kindness.
Research suggests that feeling kama muta in response to out-group members makes people view out-groups as more “human” – decreases dehumanisation (Blomster Lyshol et al., 2020).
2 main measures of emotion
- Cardiovascular (i.e., blood circulatory system)
Measures such as heart rate, blood pressure, heart rate variability, cardiac output - Electrodermal (i.e., sweat glands)
- Skin conductance – applied current – more sweat increases conductance
- Measured as SCL (level) or short-duration skin conductance responses (SCRs)
Combining self-report with physiological measures. An example in Kama Muta.
When watching video of giving- emotional responses such as Skin conductance, goosebumps or chills were recorded. Using these measures allows you to get more insight into peoples differences.
Kama Muta: many measures
Zickfeld et al., (2020) used multiple measures to understand patterns of emotional responding in Kama Muta.
Physiological signs – a warm feeling in the chest, tears, goosebumps, lump in the throat, exhilaration. Strong Kama Muta typically includes several of these.
What did Zickfeld et al (2020) show that high karma mute is associated with?
- Reduced heart rate
- Increased number of SCRs
- Higher zygomaticus activity (smiling)
- Increased piloerection (goosebumps)
- Increased skin temperature around chest
(literally heart warming!)
Emotional Piloerection
- what is it?
- What is frisson?
- what are there reports of?
- not clear why…
- what do functions of piloerection include?
- A physiological reaction (hairs standing on end) elicited by emotional stimuli.
- Frisson is a correlate of awe, feeling moved/touched (e.g., kama muta), strong positive emotions, and most often, music.
- There are even reports that some people can induce goosebumps voluntarily. (Heathers et al., 2018)
- Not clear why it happens in relation to emotion.
- Functions of piloerection include temperature regulation and response to threat/mating in non-human animals
What is research on frisson associated with?
In relation to music (i.e., music induced chills).
There are features that make it more likely to occur (e.g., in music – unexpected harmonies, sudden or gradual increases in volume, alternating between a solo instrument and orchestra).
how can piloerection/ frisson be measured?
Goosecam
Sachs et al. (2016)
- what did they investigate?
- chills linked to brain regions?
The neural basis of individual differences in music-induced chills
People who consistently experience chills in response to music have stronger neural pathways (structural connectivity – white matter) between auditory and reward processing regions.
The more a participant experiences chills, the larger the volume of white matter connectivity among these neural regions.
Structural connection between the auditory system and the reward system.
