Exam 3

Question 1

To avoid adaptive problems, the mind must be equipped with

Answer 1

Superordinate programs that override some programs when others are activated
Superordinate programs that coordinate programs/modules into the right configuration

Question 2

Emotions

Answer 2

To behave functionally according to evolutionary standards, the mind’s many subprograms need to be orchestrated so that their joint product at any given time is functionally coordinated, rather than cacophonous and self-defeating.

Question 3

An emotion is:

Answer 3

A superordinate program whose function is to direct the activities and interactions of subprograms

Subprograms include:
Perception, attention, inference, learning, memory, goal choice, motivational priorities, categorization and conceptual framework, etc.

For this reason, an emotion is not reducible to any one category of effects
No sine qua non of emotions

Question 4

Basic Emotions (Ekman, 1999)

Answer 4

Distinctive universal signals
Distinctive physiology
Automatic appraisal
Distinctive universals in antecedent events
Distinctive appearance developmentally
Presence in other primates
Quick onset
Brief duration
Unbidden occurrence
Distinctive thoughts, memories, images
Distinctive subjective experience

Question 5

Emotions Are Not Merely Socially Constructed

Answer 5

Universality is good evidence that emotions are not socially constructed
Disgust face is
Recognized all around the world
Spontaneously made all around the world
(in response to appropriate stimuli*)

Question 6

Primary function of emotion is to

Answer 6

mobilize the organism to deal quickly with important interpersonal encounters

Question 7

Basic Emotions

Answer 7

Calling certain emotions “basic” obscures the fact that all emotions solve problems in the world
Emotions, like all biological constructs should be defined in terms of their function
What class of real-world problems was this emotion a solution for?

Question 8

Joy

Answer 8

Facilitates strong social bonds

Serves as an antidote to stress

Sustains coping in taxing situations

Contributes to the well-being of the social surround

Question 9

Sadness

Answer 9

Strengthens social bonds
Slows cognitive and motor systems
Promotes deeper reflection
Facilitates plans for better future performance
Generates empathy and altruistic behavior from others

Question 10

Anger

Answer 10

Expression may prevent aggression in others

Expression may elicit an immediate apology from others

Expression communicates threat

Mobilizes and sustains energy at high levels

Question 11

Disgust

Answer 11

Motivates to keep clean and sufficiently sanitary
Motive for environmental cleanliness and personal hygiene
Protects people from harmful substances
Protects people from the psychological consequences of violating norms

Question 12

Fear

Answer 12

Motivates escape from dangerous situations
Motivates to alleviate fear-inducing stimuli
Threat can be physical or psychological
Focuses attention on the source of the threat (tunnel vision)

Question 13

What is The function of happiness?

Answer 13

The function of happiness is to mobilize the mind to seek the keys to Darwinian fitness

We are happier when we are healthy, well fed, comfortable, safe, prosperous, knowledgeable, respected, non-celibate, and loved

Question 14

In order to know what to strive for, we must know what we can attain.
How do we know what we can attain?

Answer 14

A good source of information is what other people have attained

Another good source of information is what you have now
If what you have now is attainable, chances are you can do at least a little bit better
People adapt to their circumstances, good or bad, the way their eyes adapt to sun or darkness
From this neutral point, improvement is happiness, loss is misery

Question 15

Happiness is relative

Answer 15

Wealth is like health
Not having it makes you miserable, but having it does not guarantee happiness
… and relationships, too

Question 16

The Happiness Treadmill

Answer 16

Happiness is brief and recalibrates
If we stayed happy for long after each increment of fitness, our happiness could not continue to grow with each fitness improvement
Happiness needs to be able to register increases and decreases so we can respond appropriately

Question 17

Rational choice models

Answer 17

typically assume that people choose among possible actions so as to maximize the extent to which they achieve their goals-

These models appear to be incomplete

Question 18

The Ultimatum Game

Answer 18

Two players (Proposer and Responder) bargain over some amount (say $10.00)

Proposer first makes an offer to the Responder

Offers x to the Responder
Leaving $10.00 – x for herself
Responder then has two choices:

Take the offer
The Responder gets x
Proposer gets $10.00 – x
Reject the offer
Both get nothing

Question 19

The Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

Answer 19

Why would either party remain silent?
The dominant strategy is to confess rather than remain silent

Difficulty is that when each behaves in a self-interested way, both do worse than if each had shown restraint
Their problem is a lack of trust

Question 20

both parties act selfishly, neither does as well as if they both acted cooperatively

Answer 20

In Ultimatum scenarios
If only a Responder could prove to a Proposer that she wouldn’t accept a low offer, both could avoid losing the entire pot
A credible commitment to reject a low offer would work

In Prisoner’s Dilemma scenarios
If both players could prove that they will act cooperatively, both could avoid the low payoff of mutual defection
A credible commitment to behave cooperatively no matter what would work

Question 21

commitment device

Answer 21

something that provides the victim with an incentive to keep his promise

Question 22

Moral Sentiments

Answer 22

Anger, contempt, disgust, envy, greed, shame, and guilt
These sentiments can and do compete with the feelings that spring from rational calculations about material payoffs
For exactly this reason, they can help people solve the commitment problem

Question 23

Emotions as Incentives

Answer 23

Consider a person capable of strong feelings of guilt

This person will not cheat even when it is in their material interests to do so

Not because he/she fears being caught, but simply because he/she does not want to cheat
The aversion to feelings of guilt effectively alters the payoffs he/she faces

Question 24

Irrationality

Answer 24

is an essential ingredient to the emotion of love

Question 25

dating is a marketplace

Answer 25

People differ in their values as potential marriage partners

Most people agree that Mr. or Ms. Right should be good looking, smart, kind, stable, funny, and rich.
People shop for the most desirable person who will accept them

This is why most marriages pair a bride and a groom of approximately equal desirability

Question 26

Committed by an emotion

Answer 26

An emotion that the person did not decide to have and so cannot decide not to have

An emotion that was not triggered by your objective mate-value and so will not be alienated by someone with a greater mate-value

Romantic Love
Irrationality is an essential ingredient to the emotion of love

Question 27

The way to a person’s heart is to declare

Answer 27

That you are in love because you can’t help it

Question 28

Romantic love as an incentive

Answer 28

Guilt would be most strongly summoned by disloyalty to a beloved person

Question 29

Romantic Love- Suitors

Answer 29

Usually people don’t want a suitor who wants them too badly
Shows that the suitor is desperate, so they should wait for someone better
Shows that the suitor’s ardor is too easily triggered, hence too easily triggered by someone else
The contradiction of courtship comes from 2 parts of romantic love
Setting a minimal standard for candidates in the mate market
Capriciously committing body and soul to one of them

Question 30

Honest Signals

Answer 30

costly, reliable, and hard-to-fake evidence of quality

Question 31

The Full-Disclosure Principle

Answer 31

if some individuals stand to benefit by revealing a favorable value of some trait, others will be forced to disclose their less favorable values

Question 32

The Face is a Dual-Processing System

Answer 32

Capable of both spontaneous and deliberate expressions

Question 33

The Inhibition Hypothesis

Answer 33

Difficult to Deliberately Activate (Melina)
Difficult to Inhibit or Mask (Fauci)

Question 34

Deliberate vs. Spontaneous Innervation of the Face

Answer 34

Separate UMN pathways
Deliberately induced movements
Cortical Motor Strip

Spontaneously induced movements
Extrapyramidal Motor System

Question 35

Emotions as Incentives

Answer 35

Emotions compete with feelings stemming from calculations of rational self-interest
Threats
Someone who becomes enraged when dealt with unjustly will act out even when:
He cannot gain back what he has lost
The act of revenge will put him at risk
He will seek revenge because he wants to
Promises
A person capable of strong guilt feelings won’t cheat even when:
It is in her material interests to do so
She won’t cheat because she doesn’t want to

Question 36

The Strategy of Conflict

Answer 36

Schelling (1960)
The trick to coming out ahead is “voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice”

Freedom, information, rationality are all handicaps

Question 37

To defend yourself against threats, make it impossible for the threatener to make you an offer you can’t refuse

Answer 37

“Driver does not know combination to safe”
“Register does not hold larger than $20.00 bills”
A man who is worried that his daughter might be kidnapped can…
give away his fortune
leave town and remain incommunicado
lobby for a law that makes it a crime to pay ransom
break the hand he uses to sign checks

Question 38

self-incapacitation

Question 39

The Doomsday Machine Theory

Answer 39

States that emotions are guarantors of threats and promises

People consumed by pride, love, or rage have lost control.

They may act against their interests

These sacrifices of will and reason are effective tactics in the countless bargains, promises, and threats that make up our social relations

Threats and promises can only be effective if there is good reason that they will be carried out
If they are honestly signaled

A hypothesis on why we express emotions on our faces. Like the doomsday machine, emotions would not be effective unless other people know that you are experiencing them. They need to be honestly communicated.

Question 40

Why We Express Emotion on Our Faces

Answer 40

Selection has handcuffed each emotion to a physiological control circuit
This activity is visible to observers
Flushing, blushing, blanching, sweating, trembling, quavering, croaking, crying, laughing, etc.

Question 41

Why We Express Emotion on Our Faces & Honest Signals

Answer 41

people have an interest in showing everyone that an emotion is holding their body hostage and their angry words are no bluff
This is an explanation for why emotions are so intimately tied to the body.

Question 42

Expressions of emotion serve as

Answer 42

effective guarantors of threats and promises because they are difficult to fake

Question 43

PTSD

Answer 43

syndrome of emotional reactions to extremely stressful events
Intrusive symptoms
“Events so powerful that they threaten life or well being, severely tax or overwhelm coping capabilities, and challenge the assumptions that people make about the world and the way it works.”

Question 44

human-engineered disasters

Answer 44

20% to 50% of individuals exposed to human-engineered disasters get PTSD

PTSD can be seen as a susceptibility to stress that overwhelms our normal defense against threats
The frequency of its occurrence reflects that mismatch between our evolved defenses and modern environment
Think of PTSD as a sunburn; we don’t have an adaptive response to man main disasters.

Question 45

The Smoke Detector Principle

Answer 45

The cost of getting killed even once is enormously higher than the cost of responding to a hundred false alarms

Question 46

Defenses vs. Defects

Answer 46

Distinction is crucial for someone who is sick
Correcting a defect is almost always a good thing
Stopping the clank in the car or doing something to turn the pneumonia patient’s skin warm pink is almost always beneficial

Eliminating a defense by blocking it can be catastrophic
Cut the wire to the light that indicates a low fuel supply and you are more likely to run out of gas
Block your cough excessively, and you may die of pneumonia

Question 47

Fever As Defense Against Infection

Answer 47

Kluger showed that cold-blooded lizards benefit from fever
When infected, they seek out a place warm enough to raise their body temperature about two degrees Celsius
If they cannot move to a warm place, they are more likely to die
Body temperature is carefully regulated
When the lizard is infected, it just has a higher set point
Fever is an adaptation to combat infection

Question 48

Chemoprophylaxis hypothesis

Answer 48

The human propensity to consume neurotoxic plants prevents or limits infection by helminths

Question 49

Chemotherapy hypothesis

Answer 49

Chemotherapy hypothesis
Consumption of psychoactive substances should be
Up-regulated by infection serving to limit infection levels
Down-regulated if and when the infection is cleared