Emotions and Personality Flashcards
What is an emotion?
- Discrete, momentary experience in a specific situation
- Traits, or dispositional tendencies to chronically experience certain feelings, mood, temperament, emotional disorder
What are the parts of an emotions?
- Thoughts/Cognition
- (Different patterns of) Brain activation
- Physiology
- Feeling
- Nonverbal Expression
The Emotion Process?
Antecedent Event (a bear) -> Cognitive Appraisal of Event (simple, like “there is danger”) -> Emotional experience & Physiological Feelings (increased heart rate) -> Emotional expressions (Facial expressions, Behaviors like crying)
Emotional Regulation can be interrupted by the Cognitive Appraisal of the event (This scary clown is actually funny), or Emotional expression (I need to not show my fear)
Which personality traits predict happiness?
- Extraversion and Neuroticism
Situations that might lead to happiness
->
Personality-specific response
->
Emotional Response
->
Subjective well-being
Alternative model, that personality shapes the situations we get into?
Personality-specific Behaviours
->
Situations that might lead to happiness
->
Emotional response
->
Subjective well-being
Personality and Subjective Well-being, does personality affect a person’s emotional responses to a situation, or, does personality determine which situations a person engages in?
- Evidence for that personality affects a peron’s emotional response to a situation
Placed in the same situation, extravers and neurotics have different emotional responses:
- Extraverts become happier from pleasant photos
- Neurotics become more upset from unpleasant photos
Emotions as Personality Traits?
Stable tendency to experience certain feelings, or have certain emotional reactions. E.g., Grumpy, versus happy
Definitions of Happiness? According to Aristotle, Rousseau, and James
Aristotle: The goal of life, attained thigh virtuosity (being “good”)
Rousseau: Hedonism (being “bad”)
James: Accomplishments
Modern Research Definitions of Happiness? (Cognitive-Affective Approach + Martin Seligam + Daniel Kahneman)
Cognitive-Affective Approach:
Judgment of life’s satisfaction “How satisfied are you with your life?
AND
Tendency to experience positive vs. negative emotions
Martin Seligam: Authentic happiness is based on living a life filled with purpose and meaning
Daniel Kahneman: Positive (but not negative) emotions (hedonism)
Happy Facts?
The average person is…
– Happy 65% of the time
– Neutral 15%
– Unhappy 20%
No gender or age difference, but there is a country diffence
What makes some cultures happier than others?
Countries higher in individualism and wealth tend to be happier
Why are poorer countries less happy? + within poor countries
Health-care
Civil rights
What about within countries? Are poorer people more unhappy?
- Only if you compare people who can’t afford basic necessities
- Above that level, rich are not too much happier than the poor
Happiness and Inequality (Oishi, Kebesire, & Diener 2011)
- Examined happiness and income inequlity in the US
- Found a negative correlation between happiness and inequality
- Relation was due to perceived trust and unfairness among the poorest 60%
Happiness and Set-Point?
- Emotions change in response to major life events
- BUT, they quickly retun to a basic set point, which varies by indiidual
- The average set point is more happy than neutral
New behavioral genetics research on trait happiness, Zheng Plomin, & Stumm (2016)?
- 447 17-year old twins rated daily positive and negative affect
- Variation in trait negative affect is largely genetic (heritability = .53)
– Variation in trait positive affect is largely due to shared environmental factors (.52) (No significant genetic effect)
