Failure to Control Emotion Flashcards
What does it look like?
- consumatory behaviors
- panic attack
- lash out
- stay alone to reflect and meditate
- cry
common attempt to control moods
- involves getting out of a bad mood
1. Underregulation-failure to try to control emotions
2. Misregulation- attenpt to elimiate anger or bad mood ineffectively; venting actually prolong the anger state
Ventng
- unrestraining expression of emotions ranging from the mere disclosure of emotional states to outrageous or widely inappropriate behaivior stimulated by emotions
- can lead to prgression-you flip someone off then they do it back so you honk then they honk and it just gets more out of control
Strength
- people do not want to bother exerting control over their emotions
1. belief that people are unable to control their emotions- lighter sentences given for crimes of passion
2. belief that it is psychologically damaging to alter emotions–distortion of Freud’s discarded “catharsis” theory
Underregulation of Attention- Venting compoments incompatible with other self-regulatory responses
a. involves focusing on feelings of anger of sadness- attentional failure
b. prevents people from distracting themsleves
- if you would just do something else they would feel so much better but you won’t
c. venting directs attention to the wrong place
- focusing more on negative states
Misregulation- Venting
- the mistaken belief that venting is an effective means of bringing feelings under control
- fails to address the root cause of the anger and work toward its resolution
Venting increases arousal
- associated with increased heart rate and blood pressure
- long-term consequences include vulnerability to coronary heart disease
emotional expressivity effect
- patterns of expressive behavior can be used in the management of emotion
- Darwin
- James’ theory of emotion -if you smile when you dont want to it will make you feel better
emotional expressivity effect
- when one expresses an emotion, one is likely to experience that emotion
1. autonomic hormonal emotional system - core psyiology
2. attentional - what we pay attention to
3. arousal-brain - can become hypervigulant to confirm a mood state
Autonomic Sympathetic
fight or flight
- increased blood pressure
- increased heart rate
- increased bronchial dilation
- decreased G.I. motility
Autonomic Parasympathetic
- opposite effects
- restoration of balanced emotion
- homeostasis
Venting-Anger
-lapse activated causal pattern
ineffective at decreasing or elimination mood state- actually prolongs the mood state
-domestic violence-one partner vents, the other responds in angry fashion; escalating anger
Silent Seething
refraining for expressing one’s anger can produce harmful effects
a. holding in anger-also increases arousal
b. associated with sympathetic response
- Really destructive to stay angry
Venting- sadness and depression
- may parallel self-regulation failure proposed for anger
1. venting may fail to eliminate bad mood/ negative affective state
2. continuing to ruminate silently about the problem may be just as bad
3. persistence of the bad mood is the problem
Rumination
- perseveration
- concept of dwelling
- stuck in your head about some negative event
a. reduces time and energy
b. increases accessibility of negative cognitions
c. thinking about bad mood does not result in mood change
Evidence the crying does not reduce sadness
- increases heart rate
- lower level of autonomic arousal
- if we had the ability to hold back then we should exert the cognitive control and do so
Beck’s Cognitive Triad of Depression
- Negative thoughts about oneself
- Negative thoughts about one’s experiences
- Negative thoughts about the future
Distractors that backfire
- use of distractions appears to be useful in regulation cognitions and emotions
- this is ineffective if the distractor is distressing
- reckless, dangerous or violent activities are ineffective
- psychological inertia- mood state creates conditions that make it more difficult to escape the mood
Consuming Behavior-eating of favorite food
a. not effective
b. may backfire- misregulation
Consuming Behavior- alcohol
a. may intensify depressive symptoms
b. sets up pattern- vicious cycle
c. attentional problem
- myopia- focusing on negative aspects
- transcendence failure
d. similar problems with anger and alcohol
e. disinhibitions
How to control anger?
- Cooling off period
- no brooding
- no escalation of anger
- appropriate distractors - Rational discussion
- Directly confront problem
- Engage in instrumental progress at trying to change the state of affairs that led to the negative mood
