Emotions

Question 1

what is emotion?

Answer 1

• Psychological and physiological state in response to some stimulus
• • Psychological component includes a subjective component (feeling of an emotion) and cognitive component (thoughts associated with emotions)
• • Physiological component includes body’s reactions in response to stimuli

Question 2

theories of emotion

Answer 2

• James-Lange theory

- Two-factory theory

Question 3

James-Lange theory of emotion

Answer 3

• Emotions begin with an antecedent event (something that precedes/leads to emotion) → physiological changes/responses → recognize responses → give it an emotional label
• Assumption: physiological responses are products of autonomic nervous system; designed to indicate proper reactions that facilitate survival
• • Ex. you come across a bear and experience increased heart rate, trembling, and sweating; recognize that as fear and engage in behaviours associated with it (ie. running away)
• • This means that if you don’t have a physiological response, you don’t have an emotion (emotions = physiological responses)
• Predicts that emotions should be universal due to physiological similarities of all humans

Question 4

James-Lange theory: facial feedback hypothesis

Answer 4

• by manipulating physiological changes (ie. distinct facial expressions), one can produce distinct emotions (ie. pen in the mouth study); assumes that our facial expressions are a key source of information in inferring feelings
• based on this, cultural display rules that discourage people from expressing emotions on their face may influence people’s emotions

Question 5

James-Lange theory: limitation

Answer 5

• assumes all emotions have unique set of physiological changes, but any given set of physiological changes doesn’t communicate a unique emotion (ie. increased heart rate, trembling, sweating could be anxiety, fear, or excitement)
• Researchers increasingly doubting the validity of the James-Lange theory

Question 6

two-factor theory of emotion

Answer 6

• emotions are more than simply looking into physiological changes - our interpretations play a role
• Emotions come from physiological changes + cognitive appraisals (emotions = interpretations of bodily responses)
• Ex. You see a bear; you experience heart rate increase, trembling, sweating; you engage in cognitive appraisal (Angry bear coming after me - threat!); engage in behaviours associated with it (running away)
• States that emotions should vary across cultures because different cultural experiences may lead us to have different interpretations of physiological responses

Question 7

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions

Answer 7

• emotional antecedents
• physiological responses associated with emotions
• emotional appraisal
• emotional expression

Question 8

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions: emotional antecedents

Answer 8

• Emotional antecedents = events that lead to/elicit emotional responses
• Substantial overlap across cultural environments in emotional consequences of various antecedents (ex. When loved one dies → feeling of sadness; when you’re about to fight someone → feel angry)

Question 9

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions: physiological responses associated with emotions

Answer 9

• Ergotropic responses: physiological responses that reflect actions of the sympathetic nervous system → more about expending energy (ex. Cardiovascular activity/increased heart rate, muscular reactivity/muscles primed to engage, perspiration, etc.)
• Trophotropic responses: physiological responses that reflect actions of the parasympathetic nervous system → more about relaxing muscles (ex. Gastric disturbances, crying)
• Felt temperature: the temperature that one feels in their bodies when they are experiencing emotions (ie. feeling hot when angry; cold when lonely, etc.)
• Examples: Anger associated with relatively high levels of E, low of T, and hotness; sadness associated with relatively low levels of E, high of T, sensation of being cold

Question 10

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions: emotional appraisal

Answer 10

• Antecedents don’t automatically elicit emotions; what about appraisals and interpretations?
• People go through Stimulus Evaluation Checks - appraising antecedents along several dimensions:
• • Expectation: did you expect the event to occur?
• • Pleasantness: did you find the event pleasant or unpleasant?
• • Fairness: was the event unjust or unfair?
• • For example: Anger is associated with relatively low expectedness, pleasantness, and fairness; happiness associated with both high and low expectedness, but high pleasantness, and fairness

Question 11

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions: emotional expression

Answer 11

• 6 basic emotions: anger, happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, fear
• Decent cross-cultural recognition rates of the same emotions
• Other candidates for basic emotions: contempt, shame, pride, interest

Question 12

3 lines of evidence for emotional variability

Answer 12

• variability of emotional expression
• variability of emotional information gathering process
• variability of emotional lexicon

Question 13

3 lines of evidence for emotional variability: variability of emotional expression

Answer 13

• When people share one ethnicity, differing on nationality makes a difference (ie. Asian-Americans can identify which Asian country someone else comes from, and whether or not they were born in the US just by their emotional expressions)
• How? Display rules

Question 14

3 lines of evidence for emotional variability: variability of emotional information gathering process

Answer 14

• Fundamental attribution error is related to how we gather info to make attributions about people’s emotional state
• Eye-tracking also related:
• • East Asians/Collectivists pay more attention to people in the back more than the one that’s front and center (pay more attention to environmental cues/external factors, so those judgements have more impact on emotional perception)
• • Westerners/Individualists pay more attention to the person in the front rather than the people in the back (pay more attention to the central target when judging emotional expression; little attention paid to external factors)

Question 15

3 lines of evidence for emotional variability: variability of emotional lexicon

Answer 15

• Some languages have unique words for unique emotions
• Some debate as to whether such differences are meaningful with important consequences for emotional experience
• Does not having a word for an emotion affect our emotional experience?
• related to Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Linguistic Relativity)

Question 16

display rules

Answer 16

• Culturally specific rules that govern appropriateness and intensity of facial expressions, and even “ritualized” displays (voluntarily produced idiosyncratic facial expressions in certain cultures, like the embarrassed tongue bite)
• Tell us what facial expressions are appropriate and how intensely they should be exhibited
• Learned early in life, become automatic by adulthood
• 6 different display rules

Question 17

6 display rules

Answer 17

• amplification
• deamplification
• neutralization
• qualification
• masking
• simulation

Question 18

6 display rules: amplification

Answer 18

expressing an emotion more intensely than what is truly felt (ex. Expressing intense happiness even if you’re just kinda happy)

Question 19

6 display rules: deamplification

Answer 19

expressing an emotion less intensely than what is truly felt (ex. Just being slightly annoyed with someone rather than completely furious)

Question 20

6 display rules: neutralization

Answer 20

express nothing despite genuinely experiencing an emotion

Question 21

6 display rules: qualification

Answer 21

• displaying an emotion with another, usually blended simultaneously, to qualify one’s emotion (ex. If someone asks you a frustrating question that you have to answer, your brow might be furrowed but you’d be smiling)
• Different from affect blend

Question 22

6 display rules: masking

Answer 22

displaying some other emotion than what is truly felt (ex. Being angry, but smiling)

Question 23

6 display rules: simulation

Answer 23

displaying an emotion when you’re not experiencing one (ex. Pretending to be happy for someone you don’t care about)

Question 24

culturally influenced differences in display rules

Answer 24

• deamplification, masking, neutralization, and qualification are more often seen in people with East-Asian Collectivism
• • This can actually influence emotions they feel (ie. Chinese feel less intense anger than European-Americans)
• Amplification is more often seen in people with Individualism or South-American Collectivism

Question 25

ritualized displays

Answer 25

• facial expressions that are idiosyncratic to specific cultural environment
• ie. biting your tongue in East Asia as an “oops” expression
• While not a facial display, Inuit express anger using non-threatening jokes or satirical songs in order to minimize direct conflict and confrontation

Question 26

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (linguistic relativity)

Answer 26

• Hard version: language determines how we think and our experiences → rejected
• Soft version: language affects how we think, but is not deterministic
• Language helps us think about/articulate ideas and experiences → without words, it hinders ability to remember/discuss experience

Question 27

Gendron et al study: emotional universality and variability -> basics

Answer 27

• Participants: 65 members of the Himba ethnic group (in Namibia) and 68 people from the US
• Asked to do 1 of 2 tasks: anchored sort (given set of pictures and categories you need to sort them into → put pictures into “anchored boxes”) and free sort (given pictures and no categories → put pictures into unlabelled boxes)

Question 28

Gendron et al study: emotional universality and variability -> results

Answer 28

• American anchored sort: clusters pretty consistent
• American free sort: some consistency, but less consistently than anchored sort
• Himba anchored sort: showed cultural variability compared to Americans
• Himba free sort: very little consistency, lots of cultural variability
• Only 2 emotions that were consistent no matter what task and no matter what culture were happiness and fear
• Shows that even though we all experience these emotions, culture influences how we identify them

Question 29

3 perspectives on emotion

Answer 29

• evolutionary theories
• lexical theories
• appraisal theories

Question 30

3 perspectives on emotion: evolutionary theories

Answer 30

• Focused on universality - similarities across cultures and species
• Emotions are hardwired, automatic responses tied to nervous system
• Culture plays minimal role in emotions
• Physiological changes seen as antecedents to emotions, not consequences (ie. James-Lange theory)

Question 31

3 perspectives on emotion: lexical theories

Answer 31

• Emotions rely on the labels people have for their subjective experience
• Universality for emotions requires lexical equivalence in all languages → a questionable claim
• Culture plays a major role, given the importance of language (ie. Sapir-Wharf hypothesis)

Question 32

3 perspectives on emotion: appraisal theories

Answer 32

• Allows for universality in biological features, but cultural variability of evaluative process
• Also allows for individual variability in appraisals
• Culture plays important role in emotional experience due to influence on appraisals and interpretations

Question 33

biocultural theory/model of emotion

Answer 33

• 3 components:
• • Input: antecedent event → appraisal
• • Core system: scans information to find patterns matching predetermined situations (ex. Loss of loved one); prepares your body to engage in response tendencies (ie. facial expressions, autonomic responses), which then influence subjective experience
• – Of the types of response tendencies:
• — Subjective experience most susceptible to cultural influence
• — Facial expressions somewhat susceptible to cultural influence
• – Autonomic responses minimally susceptible to cultural influences
• • Output: display/feeling rules → what we actually express

Question 34

biocultural theory/model of emotion: example

Answer 34

• Input: you’re in a car on an unstable bridge (antecedent event), feel like you’re dropping (appraisal)
• Core system: recognizes it as a danger, preps you to respond, influences subjective experience
• Output: go through display rules, then express emotions of fear

Question 35

biocultural theory/model of emotion: influence of culture

Answer 35

• Impact of culture on emotions varies depending on components of emotional complexity:
• • Aspect of emotion
• • Type of emotion
• • Emotional context
• • Individual

Question 36

Components of emotional complexity: aspect of emotion

Answer 36

Intensity (we experience emotions with different levels of intensity); highly intense emotions “flood” the system, making it difficult for culture to play a role

Question 37

Components of emotional complexity: emotional context

Answer 37

cues for emotional expressions; presence of cues indicate what emotional expressions are appropriate; cues are a part of cues

Question 38

Components of emotional complexity: the individual

Answer 38

cultural identification (the extent to which you identify with the cultural environment); identifying strongly with a cultural environment allows that culture to play a higher role in your emotional experiences; culture influences you

Question 39

Components of emotional complexity: type of emotion

Answer 39

culturally-based emotions; if it’s a more culturally-based emotion, it’s less rooted in survival functions (unlike basic emotions); based more on socialization; culture will play a bigger role

Question 40

historical heterogeneity

Answer 40

• extent to which a country’s modern population comes from migration from other countries in the last 500 years
• Low levels of heterogeneity: country’s present-day population is sourced from its own country since 500 years ago (or from very few countries), ex. Japan
• High levels of heterogeneity: country’s present-day population is sourced from many countries over the last 500 years, ex. USA

Question 41

influence of high vs. low levels of heterogeneity

Answer 41

• high: More uncertainty in communicating emotional states to other people; hinders cooperation → more explicit information required; can’t assume that the other person wants/likes
• • Aka: low context cultures (rely highly on direct/explicit communication)
• low: More certainty (most people share the same customs, values, beliefs, intentions) → more implicit understanding of what other people want/like; less explicit information required
• • Aka: high context cultures (rely highly on contextual cues/information)

Question 42

role of historical heterogeniety

Answer 42

• Adaptive over-expressivity: people from highly historically heterogeneous countries are more expressive in facial expression and body language → produces emotional expressions that are more accurately understood by others
• Explains emotional expressions beyond individualism/collectivism