Emotions Flashcards
What are emotions?
Motivated states with various components: physiological arousal (e.g., autonomic nervous system and hormones), expressive behaviors (e.g., facial expressions, postures), and conscious experience (feeling a certain way).
What is the difference between emotion, mood, and affect?
Emotion: Intense, short-lived, specific feelings about something.
Mood: Less intense, longer-lasting, and more general, not clearly linked to an event.
Affect: Generic term covering emotion and mood, often meaning feeling “good” or “bad.”
Why do we have emotions from an evolutionary perspective?
Emotions promote responses to situations of adaptive significance, such as fighting, escaping predators, and forming relationships, by coordinating physiological, behavioral, and cognitive states.
How do emotions influence self-judgment?
Emotions affect self-perceptions, such as making us more likely to rate ourselves positively, but depressive realism shows that mildly depressed people make more accurate self-ratings.
Do people make better judgments without emotions?
No, damage to emotional processing areas like the ventromedial prefrontal cortex impairs decision-making and learning from mistakes.
What are the primary functions of emotions according to Tracy & Robins (2007)?
Promoting survival and reproductive goals, and indirectly supporting survival through social goals.
How are social and physical pain related?
They involve the same parts of the brain.
Why are self-conscious emotions important?
They regulate the self in social contexts by reinforcing socially valued behaviors (e.g., pride) and discouraging norm transgressions (e.g., shame, guilt).
What is the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) model?
Other people’s emotional expressions influence our feelings, interpretations, and behaviors, depending on factors like our relationship with them.
What is mood or emotion contagion?
The phenomenon where one person’s emotions influence others, such as becoming depressed when living with a depressed roommate or catching someone’s mood from their tone of voice.
What is the facial feedback hypothesis?
People’s facial activity influences their emotional experiences, e.g., smiling can make you feel happier.
Are emotional expressions universal across cultures?
Yes, basic emotions are expressed and recognized universally, but emotional experiences can differ due to cultural influences.
How do emotional experiences differ across cultures?
Cultures shape emotional experience, with Americans reporting more positive emotions and Japanese reporting equal positive and negative emotions. Cultural norms also define what emotions are “normal.”
What does it mean for an emotion to be hypercognized?
Cultures with many labels for a particular emotion, such as the Chinese having 113 terms for shame, reflect the importance of that emotion in the culture
How does language influence emotion?
According to Feldman Barrett (2006), labeling an emotion shapes the emotional experience, suggesting emotions are constructed based on knowledge and past experience.
