Emotions Flashcards

1
Q

what is emotion?

A
  • 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
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2
Q

theories of emotion

A
  • James-Lange theory

- Two-factory theory

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3
Q

James-Lange theory of emotion

A
  • 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
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4
Q

James-Lange theory: facial feedback hypothesis

A
  • 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
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5
Q

James-Lange theory: limitation

A
  • 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
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6
Q

two-factor theory of emotion

A
  • 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
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7
Q

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions

A
  • emotional antecedents
  • physiological responses associated with emotions
  • emotional appraisal
  • emotional expression
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8
Q

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions: emotional antecedents

A
  • 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)
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9
Q

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

A
  • 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
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10
Q

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions: emotional appraisal

A
  • 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
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11
Q

4 lines of evidence showing universality of emotions: emotional expression

A
  • 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
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12
Q

3 lines of evidence for emotional variability

A
  • variability of emotional expression
  • variability of emotional information gathering process
  • variability of emotional lexicon
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13
Q

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

A
  • 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
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14
Q

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

A
  • 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)
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15
Q

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

A
  • 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)
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16
Q

display rules

A
  • 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
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17
Q

6 display rules

A
  • amplification
  • deamplification
  • neutralization
  • qualification
  • masking
  • simulation
18
Q

6 display rules: amplification

A

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

19
Q

6 display rules: deamplification

A

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

20
Q

6 display rules: neutralization

A

express nothing despite genuinely experiencing an emotion

21
Q

6 display rules: qualification

A
  • 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
22
Q

6 display rules: masking

A

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

23
Q

6 display rules: simulation

A

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

24
Q

culturally influenced differences in display rules

A
  • 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
25
ritualized displays
- 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
26
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (linguistic relativity)
- 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
27
Gendron et al study: emotional universality and variability -> basics
- 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)
28
Gendron et al study: emotional universality and variability -> results
- 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
29
3 perspectives on emotion
- evolutionary theories - lexical theories - appraisal theories
30
3 perspectives on emotion: evolutionary theories
- 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)
31
3 perspectives on emotion: lexical theories
- 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)
32
3 perspectives on emotion: appraisal theories
- 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
33
biocultural theory/model of emotion
- 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
34
biocultural theory/model of emotion: example
- 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
35
biocultural theory/model of emotion: influence of culture
- Impact of culture on emotions varies depending on components of emotional complexity: - - Aspect of emotion - - Type of emotion - - Emotional context - - Individual
36
Components of emotional complexity: aspect of emotion
Intensity (we experience emotions with different levels of intensity); highly intense emotions “flood” the system, making it difficult for culture to play a role
37
Components of emotional complexity: emotional context
cues for emotional expressions; presence of cues indicate what emotional expressions are appropriate; cues are a part of cues
38
Components of emotional complexity: the individual
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
39
Components of emotional complexity: type of emotion
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
40
historical heterogeneity
- 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
41
influence of high vs. low levels of heterogeneity
- 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)
42
role of historical heterogeniety
- 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