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
