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PSYC 102 > Emotions > Flashcards

Emotions Flashcards

1
Q

What are emotions and what is their purpose?

A
  • includes an physiological arousal, observable behaviour, and conscious subjective feelings
  • they narrow the amount of options from which we choose our behaviour
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2
Q

Does evidence suggest that anger/fear/frustration are irrational? What are Darwin’s ideas on this?

A
  • NO
  • when emotional parts of the brain are damaged, there are also problems with decision making
  • emotions have an evolutionary purpose
  • expression of emotions indicates a subsequent behaviour, increase fitness
  • principle of antithesis: opposite feelings = opposite behaviours (smiles vs. frowns)
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3
Q

Are emotions universally identifiable?

A
  • expression of happiness is universally categorized
  • perception of all other expressions vary across cultures
  • but people who have never seen facial expressions before, express them themselves
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4
Q

What is the facial feedback hypothesis? Do our emotions change due to our emotional expression?

A
  • facial expressions can affect your emotional experience
  • a study showed that people who hold a pen with their teeth feel happier than those who hold it with their lips
  • the postures cause contraction of muscles associated with smiling and frowning
  • has not always been proven correct
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5
Q

What is James-Lange’s Physiological theory of emotion?

A
  • emotional stimulus -> bodily response -> conscious emotional feeling
  • emotions are a response to our bodily reactions
  • this would mean different feelings have different body states, but they don’t
  • also suggests cutting physiological input would get rid of feelings, but not true
  • theory doesn’t hold up
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6
Q

What are some critiques of James-Lange’s theory?

A
  • internal organs not sophisticated enough to make distinctions about emotional experience
  • people who don’t have physiological input still feel emotions
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7
Q

What is Cannon-Bard’s theory of emotion?

A
  • emotional stimulus -> bodily response AND conscious emotional feeling
  • we interpret the situation while we experience physiological arousal
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8
Q

What is Schachter & Singer’s two-factor theory of emotion?

A
  • emotional stimulus -> bodily response AND cognitive appraisal -> conscious emotional feelings
  • emotions are based on inferences about the causes of physiological arousal
  • ex. high arousal could be interpreted as fear or excitement
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9
Q

What experiment was done by Schacter and Singer (1962) to prove the two factor theory of emotion?

A

administer a new “vitamin” (epinephrine)
- participants are put in a room with a happy or angry person
- effects of the new vitamin were dependent on what was happening in the room
- people interpreted higher arousal as them being in a good mood or bad mood

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10
Q

What experiment was done in Vancouver to prove the two factor theory of emotion?

A
  • experimenters at the end of a bridge
    = people interviewed after walking across Capilano bridge (higher bridge) had more sexual responses
  • interpreted their arousal about being attracted to the person being interviewed
  • people interviewed after walking across a short bridge had less sexual responses
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11
Q

What is Magna Arnold’s appraisal theory?

A
  • you have thoughts (cognitive appraisal) before you experience an emotion, and the emotion you experience depends on the thought you had
  • explains how two people can have completely different emotions regarding the same event
  • used in Schachter and Singer
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12
Q

What is Lazarus’s cognitive-meditational theory?

A
  • emotional stimulus -> cognitive appraisal -> emotional experience -> physiological response
  • body’s reaction is a result of our emotion and not the other way around
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13
Q

Are lie detectors trustworthy?

A
  • validity and accuracy are highly questionable - there is no evidence that lying is associated with any particular pattern of physiological arousal
  • 1/3 of innocent declared guilty
  • 1/4 of guilty declared innocent
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14
Q

What is automatic emotional regulation?

A
  • studied by Mauss
  • refers to the non-deliberate control of emotions
  • can influence things you attend to, your appraisal, your choice to engage in an emotional experience, and your behaviours after the emotion is experiences
  • automatic process works as a script/schema
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15
Q

What is the constructivist perspective (Barrett) on emotions?

A
  • emotions were constructed based on your experiences
  • emotions are predictions that construct your experience of the world
  • predictions influence and guide our actions
  • brain predicting a churning stomach in a bakery could lead to contracting hunger
  • but, if brain predicts a churning stomach in a medical office could lead to constructing worry
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16
Q

In what way are emotions dimensional?

A
  • comprised of dimensions that determine valence and intensity
  • dimensions guide perception and action
  • dimensions are: intense and mild, pleasant and unpleasant
17
Q

What parts of the brain process emotions?

A
  • very distributed pattern of activity around the brain when people feel things
  • activity mostly within the cerebral cortex but also…
  • hypothalamus activates sympathetic nervous system
  • thalamus is sensory relay centre, projecting to amygdala and higher cortical regions
  • amygdala processes emotional information and send it on
  • hippocampus integrates emotional experience with cognition
18
Q

What are the parts of the amygdala and what do they do?

A
  • amygdala consists of…
  • basolateral complex: connected to sensory areas, responsible for classical conditioning, attaching emotional value
  • central nucleus: connected to hypothalamus and brain stem areas to regulate autonomic nervous and endocrine systems, affects attention
  • changes in amygdala structure/function in people who have mood/anxiety disorders
19
Q

What is the right hemisphere model of emotion?

A
  • the idea that the right hemisphere is specialized to process all aspects of emotions
  • perception, expression, subjective experience…
  • not supported by evidence
20
Q

What is the valence model of emotion?

A
  • the idea that the right hemisphere is specialized to process negative emotions, whereas left hemisphere processes positive emotions
  • but in reality it is hard to differentiate positive and negative emotions
21
Q

What is Kluver-Bucy Syndrome? What does this tell us about the prefrontal cortex’s role in emotion and executive function?

A
  • anterior temporal lobectomy performed on monkeys, removed front part of the brain (amygdala too)
  • monkeys now had a lack of fear, hyper-orality, hyper-sexuality, and repeatedly investigated familiar objects
22
Q

What are the two brain pathways for emotion?

A
  • travels to cortex (via thalamus) for analysis then sent to amygdala [slower]
  • travels directly to amygdala (via thalamus) for an instant emotional reaction [faster]
23
Q

What is the difference in speed and maturity of reactions from each brain pathway for emotion?

A
  • slower: more sophisticated, tells us what to be scared of
  • faster: thalamus can trigger fear response even when we aren’t completely aware of it
24
Q

Who is patient SM? What does their case tell us about emotion in the brain?

A
  • had complete bilateral amygdala loss
  • no experience of fear, caused her to be put in dangerous situations
  • tells us amygdala is responsible for fear responses
  • function of fear: for survival
25
Q

Is fear more than just the amygdala?

A
  • yes
  • emotional activation in the brain is large, distributed, and overlapping
  • all lobes of the neocortex are activated for all emotions
  • PFC usually important
26
Q

How can we conceptualize stress?

A
  • stimulus-based: a demanding or threatening event or situation
  • response-based: physiological response that occur when faced with demanding or threatening situations
  • a process where an individual perceives and responds to events that he appraises as overhwelming or threatening
27
Q

What is the difference between active and passive stress

A
  • active stress: aware of stress emotionally
  • passive stress: affects body and mind unconsciously
  • both can be long-term (chronic) or short-term (acute)
28
Q

What are the positive and negative effects of acute stress?

A

+ implicit memory, simple tasks, well-rehearsed tasks, immune system
- cognitive flexibility, working memory, executive functioning

29
Q

What are the two pathways of stress in the body?

A
  1. sympathetic nervous system
    - happens in brain, axons and neurons
    - faster
    - releases epinephrine and norepinephrine from adrenal glands
    - better for reacting in the moment
  2. HPA axis - hypothalamus, pituitary gland, adrenal
    - brain and endocrine system
    - slower, but lingers for longer
    - releases cortisol through blood stream
    - shapes physiology for future stressors
30
Q

What is the biggest indicator of resilience to stress?

A
  • biggest indicator of resilience is previous exposure to controllable stressors
  • also called stress immunization
  • this results in perceived control: believing you have more control over your life
31
Q

How does discrimination relate to stress?

A
  • discrimination is a chronic stressor
  • people who experience repeated discrimination develop heightened reactivity as their bodies prepare to act quickly
  • eventually can lead to increase in negative emotion and wear on physical health (exhaustion stage)
32
Q

What are the two fundamental types of coping?

A
  1. problem-focused: involve identifying the problem, considering solutions, weight cost vs. benefit, then selecting one
  2. emotion-focused: consists of efforts to change or reduce the negative emotions associated with stress
    - avoiding, minimizing, distancing
33
Q

How does chronic stress affect someone’s brain?

A
  • compromises immune functioning, similar effects to depression
  • reduces hippocampal volume, thins the PFC
  • required more PFC activity to have same level of performance
  • shifts reliance to subcortical structures
  • decreases baseline dopamine function, then more stress and catecholamine release
34
Q

What is general adaption syndrome?

A
  • also physiological response to stress, a term coined by Hans Selye

three stages:
- alarm reaction, is the body’s immediate reaction
- stage of resistance in which the shock of the reaction has lessened due to adapting to the stressor
- stage of exhaustion is when enduring the stressor is no longer possible, starts to take physical toll

35
Q

Does all stress affect us easily? How are our executive functions impaired in highly stressful situations?

A
  • chronic, active stress is the most detrimental
  • more in women than in men
  • dopamine and norepinephrine cause the prefrontal lobe to be stimulated
  • PFC stops working at super light levels of stress
  • amygdala and hypothalamus take control
  • executive function decreases: monitoring errors, keeping track of what to pay attention to
36
Q

What is the functionality of anger? What study shows this?

A
  • anger is linked to fairness, reprecocity, equity
  • motivates us to ensure fairness in a group
  • guides behaviour toward altruism
  • proposer and responder game
37
Q

What is the near miss effect? How does this relate to frustration?

A
  • being close to success but missing is frustrating, but also more motivating
  • know we are capable of winning so we keep trying
  • this is manipulated in gambling situations
38
Q

What are the two types of appraisals we use to assess stressors?

A
  • primary appraisal: judges the degree of danger or harm
  • secondary appraisal: judges the ability to cope or respond
  • through the set of appraisals, we are able to gauge and decide by weighing out possible consequences of the situation.
39
Q

What is population coding?

A
  • state isn’t determine by a single neuron but by the patterns of them

PSYC 102 (8 decks)

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