Emotions Flashcards
Defining emotion
Still no agreed upon definition; long history of people not thinking its scientific
An affective feeling state that is specific; moods are broader & more general
The conscious awareness of this feeling state; not everyone agrees on this
The affect/feeling contributes to a particular goal or behaviour
What shapes emotion?
Cognition appraisals; how we appraise the situation helps shape our emotional experiences
Situations are appraised on these dimensions; pleasure (valence), control, certainty, arousal & legitimacy (how fair is what’s happening?)
These appraisals help determine our emotional experience; emotions are adaptive & help us deal with environment
Emotions by appraisals
Our appraisals influence our emotions
Interest/happiness; low effort, highly pleasant, situation under control
Surprise; low effort, highly pleasant, uncertain
Shame/guilt; highly effortful, highly unpleasant, fairly uncertain, high self blame
Fear; highly effortful, highly unpleasant, highly uncertain, others in control
If you appraise a situation a certain way you would feel different emotions
What shapes emotion; somatic marker hypothesis
Damasio (1994)
Past sensory experiences (including emotions) become stored/marked in our brains in association with specific events/situations
Whenever that experience occurs over time, the brain triggers those same emotions
Eventually the mere thought of the experience triggers an emotional/affective response
Occurs automatically & unconsciously
Past experiences help shape our current emotional experiences
Culture
Culture influences what elicits certain emotions
Culture influences how frequently emotions are felt & emotional intensity
Influences what we like to feel
Culture indigenes impact hoe emotion should be expressed, often differs by gender
James-Lange hypothesis
Proposes that we feel because we act
We don’t just run because we feel fear, but we are afraid because we run
Studies show that when placing a pencil between your teeth (like smiling), comics are rated as more humourous
Self-lecture
We identify based on our behaviours
We also feel based on our behaviours
Also hold attitudes because of our behaviours
We don’t just think/feel/like so we act, we think/feel/like because we act
Actions influence thoughts & emotions & how we identify ourselves
Misattribution
Self-lecture doesn’t happen when we can attribute the emotion/mood to sonething else
So if we feel badly about a work problem but the weather is poor, we may misattribution this to the weather & not address the work problem
Or if we feel energised/aroused about something we may attribute as a distinct emotion based on what is around us
Dutton & Aron (1974); misattribution
Pp approached an attractive experimenter, half on low bridge, half on high bridge
Rated attractiveness of experimenter
Results; high bridge, more likely to find experimenter more attractive due to higher energy/feelings on bridge
Emotion & evolution
Disgust; facilitates avoidance of dangerous pathogens (& people with them e.g. foreigners)
Anger; facilitates fighting & conflict
Guilt/shame; signals you feel bad for actions, keeps group members from harming you
Sadness; a means by which weaker group members can protect themselves by signalling lack of threat & slows down brain system & restores/maintains energy to facilitate specific problem solving
Fear; facilitates avoidance & feeling of danger
Moral judgement
Social vs private conclusions; does it make a difference if you are in a group deciding
Role of gut-level evaluations vs reasoning; does it really matter if you have good reasons?
Disgust & social contagion; disgust by association of person talking about disgust, desire to clean & wash hands after moral violations
Haidt’s social intuitionist model (2001)
People tend to think that reason/rational thought underlies moral decision making
A better predictor of moral judgements are people’s automatic, gut-level impressions of something
Support if HSI model
Emotions when primed beneath consciousness still elicit moral defensiveness
People still evaluate moral situations as immoral even when all of their reasons are explained away (moral dumbfounding)
Disgust response predicts moral judgement more than reasons people given
Disgust & anger in moral judgments
Anger is inflexible, but disgust is nearly impossible to explain away
anger is a response to moral violations that unconventional harming others
Disgust is response to taboo moral violations, even if they are harmless, though people still presume harm anyway
When you block post-hoc reasoning, people no longer presume harm but they still think it’s immoral
Integration with social intuitionist model
If we have initial reaction of anger or disgust, it’s very likely to lead to impression of moral wrongness
This is going to be extremely difficult to change even when people are consciously feeling & thinking about their anger & disgust, may even lead to more moral certainty
People tend to presume functions of harm post-hoc to justify their moral judgements of others, but even when these are blocked, people persist with their initial judgement
