Emotions Flashcards
What is an emotion
- transient, biophysiological reaction to events that have consequences for one’s welfare
- act as a rapid information system
- are a human universal
Basic emotions
Universal in all humans, triggered by a biologically-innate system in people’s brains
Self-conscious emotions
Associated with self-reflective processes
- shame
- guilt
- pride
- embarrassment
A model of emotion elicitation
Possible event triggers –>
Scanning –>
Perception (schema production) –>
appraisal (schema evaluation) –>
cognitions, physiology, subjective experiences and expressive behavior (emotion) –>
Behavior
Evolutionary basis of emotions
Darwin conducted that emotions are evolutionary as we can see them in primates as well and they are universal that way
Ekman on emotion
Has done one of the most succesful studies on emotions and came up with the 6 basic emotions
6 basic emotios
- anger
- fear
- disgust
- surprise
- happiness
- sadness
Universality of basic emotions
- antecedents
- appraisal
- physiology
- recognition
- universality in coherence among emotion response system
When do you have basic emotions
- Anger: goal obstruction
- Fear: threat to physical or psychological well-being
- Disgust: contamination
- Surprise: new or novel objects
- Happiness: goal attainment or accomplishment
- Sadness: loss of loved one or object
Cultural regulation of basic emotions
Front end and back end calibration
Front end calibration
Calibration and adaption of culturally available events get influenced by culture and lead to emotion eliciting events
Back end calibration
Display rule norms are influenced by culture and lead to emotional respnding/facial expressions together with biologically based core emtion system
Cultural display rules
- back end calibration
Normative rules modify expressions of emotions
- deamplification
- amplification
- neutralization
- qualification
- masking
- simulation
Deamplification
Expressing emotions less than actually felt
Amplification
Expressing emotions more than actually felt
Neutralization
Showing no emotions
Qualification
Showing emotion but with another emotion to comment on it
Masking
Masking or concealing feelings
Simulation
Showing emotion when not felt
Display rules in over 30 countries
- Matsumoto, 1991
- most countries’ means on expression fell around the midpoint
- relatively small variation around this mean
–> a universal norm for some expression regulation
Cultural decoding rules
Culturally dependent rules learned early in life govern how emotional expressions are recognized
- Americans: expression > experience
- Japanese: expression = experience
Socially engaging emotions
Caused by social interdependence such as friendliness, respect, sympathy, guilt and shame
Socially disengaging emotions
Occur out of thoughts based on independence and autonomy such as pride, self-esteem, sulkiness, or frustration
Emotional complexity
Co-occurrence of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions
- linked to dialectical thinking: accepting contradictions in thought or beliefs
Cultural construction of emotional experience
Cross cultural ideas –> customs, norms, practices and instructions –> recurrent episodes in local worlds –> whys of feeling emotions, moods and sensations –> instrumental
Culture-specific words
Song = justifiable anger
- no word for guilt amonf Rarámuri in Mexico
Hypercognition
Identifying variations of emotions and creating words for these variations
Hypocognition
Existence of fewer variations of emotions
