Final Flashcards
1
Q
Describe the function of basic emotions as a toolkit for survival
A
- Basic emotions are thought to be evolved, hardwired responses adapted to solve specific survival problems
- Core principles:
- Each emotion has an adaptive function
- Emotions coordinate cognition, physiological responses, subjective experiences, and behaviour
2
Q
What qualifies as a basic emotion?
A
- Universality (should appear across all cultures, and
maybe in other species) - Distinct expressions (cross-culturally recognizable facial, vocal, and behavioural patterns)
- Early emergence
- Physiological distinctiveness
3
Q
What are the 7 emotional systems that Panksepp (1998) argued for?
A
1) Seeking
2) Rage
3) Fear
4) Lust
5) Care
6) Panic/grief
7) Play
4
Q
Describe the seeking emotional system (Panksepp, 1998)
A
- Seeking system energizes and works together with emotions
- Foundation of goal-directed behaviour
- Function: generates enthusiasm, curiosity, sense of purpose
- Trigger: new or promising stimuli (ex: food, mates, exploration)
- Behavioural Output: foraging, exploration, goal-directed behaviour
- Neurobiology: Dopamine- driven; centered in the mesolimbic pathway
- Subjective feeling: interest, anticipation, excitement, enthusiasm
5
Q
Describe the rage emotional system (Panksepp, 1998)
A
- System underlying anger and aggression
- The system prepares the body for aggressive action
- Function: mobilizes an aggressive response to threat, restraint, or frustration
- Trigger: physical restraint, blocked goals, perceived injustice
- Behavioural Output: fighting, attacking, asserting control
- Neurobiology: centered in medial amygdala, hypothalamus, and periaqueductal gray
- Subjective feeling: anger, frustration, irritation
6
Q
Describe the fear emotional system (Panksepp, 1998)
A
- Function: promotes survival through avoidance and escape behaviours in the face of danger
- Minimizing threat and maximizing safety
- Trigger: threats, pain, unfamiliar or dangerous stimuli
- Behavioural Output: freezing, fleeing, avoidance
- Neurobiology: amygdala, hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray
- Subjective feeling: fear, anxiety, dread
7
Q
Describe the lust emotional system (Panksepp, 1998)
A
- Function: drives reproductive behaviour and sexual attraction
- Prepares the body and mind
- Trigger: presence of sexually relevant stimuli (ex: pheromones, cues of fertility)
- Behavioural Output: sexual arousal, courtship, mating behaviour
- Neurobiology: hypothalamus, testosterone, estrogen, oxytocin
- Subjective feeling: sexual desire, attraction, arousal
8
Q
Describe the care emotional system (Panksepp, 1998)
A
- Function: promotes nurturing and caregiving
- The response we would expect to be activated with the baby schema
- Trigger: presence of offspring or vulnerable others
- Behavioural Output: protecting, feeding, soothing
- Neurobiology: ventromedial hypothalamus, oxytocin
- Subjective feeling: warmth, affection, compassion
9
Q
Describe the panic/grief emotional system (Panksepp, 1998)
A
- Function: promotes social reconnection and attachment maintenance
- Trigger: social separation, loss, neglect
- Behavioural Output: crying, protest, withdrawal, sadness
- Neurobiology: ACC, periaqueductal gray, endogenous opioids
- Subjective feeling: sadness, loneliness, grief
10
Q
Describe the play emotional system (Panksepp, 1998)
A
- Function: encourages social engagement, learning social rules, building social bonds, emotion regulation
- Trigger: safe, relaxed environments and familiar social partners
- Behavioural Output: rough-and-tumble play, laughter
- Neurobiology: Dorsal thalamus, dopamine, opioids
- Subjective feeling: joy, amusement, social pleasure
11
Q
Describe Panksepp’s studies on rats and the basic emotion of play
A
- He would conduct studies where he tickled rats
- Rats would emit these hypersonic frequency vocalizations
- Interpreted these as a form of laughter
- Interpreted these during rough-and-tumble play which we also see in mammals and humans
12
Q
Why did Panksepp argue rough-and-tumble play is important?
A
- Learn how to modulate their emotions and how to not get too aggressive
- Learn to recover quickly from emotion arousal (important for emotion regulation)
- Creates emotional muscle memory
13
Q
Describe Russell (2003) dimensional approach to emotion
A
- Dimensional models suggest emotions exist on continuous scales rather than in discrete categories
- 2 key dimensions:
1) Valence (pleasant vs unpleasant - negative vs positive valence)
2) Arousal (high vs low activation) - People differ in emotional granularity
- These 4 dimensions should hang together predictably
- These components don’t always align perfectly (ex: may be anxious but smiling)
- So instead researchers started looking at subjective feelings
- Proponents of this type of view have argued that in real life we can’t always tell emotions apart
14
Q
What’s emotional granularity?
A
Ability to finely differentiate emotional experience
15
Q
Describe psychological construction theories of emotion
A
- Psychological construction theories argue that emotions aren’t biologically hardwired categories but are constructed using concepts we learn from those around us
- Similar to Schachter-Singer theory, constructionists argue that people rely on situational cues and learned concepts to interpret and label feelings
- Unlike S-S theory, they don’t believe that bodily arousal is necessary
- Merit and Russell argue that emotions like fear, anger, sadness are the result of psychological construct
- Human invention and socially constructed
- These psychological concepts are going to vary across cultures and languages
- Evidence that physiological reactions and emotions tightly align with behaviour is very clear cut
- How we interpret those feelings (how we label them) is going to depend on what we learn
- Less physical arousal according to this view and conceptual knowledge is more important
16
Q
Describe the debate between the basic emotions approach and psychological construction approach to emotions
A
- Debate is ongoing
- Maybe integration of both is possible (ex: Panksepp acknowledged both
biological and learned components) - Primary processes: raw emotional systems rooted in subcortical brain regions, shared across mammals
- Ex: you can stimulate an animal’s brain and trigger an emotional response -> this response doesn’t depend on higher learning or higher brain regions
- Animals feel shame in the same way that we do but they may be experiencing a more primitive type
- Secondary processes: learning and memory systems that shape responses based on past experiences
- Tertiary processes: higher-order cognitive systems (ex: language and culture) that conceptualize and label emotions
- Ex: shame may be rooted in social pain (panic/grief) but shaped by cultural and cognitive processes
17
Q
Describe fear and anxiety
A
- Fear is a response to a specific, immediate threat (ex: bear, car going the wrong way)
- Involves intense feelings, facial expressions, physiological reactions, and action tendencies (freezing, escape, avoidance)
- Anxiety is more diffuse, non-specific (ex: free-floating type of dread)
- Social anxiety is specific to social situations (especially meeting new people or public speaking), driven by fears of judgment, rejection, or negative evaluation
- Behavioural cues of fear and anxiety: distinct facial expression (raised and drawn together eyebrows, widened eyes, tension around the mouth)
- Freezing is a characteristic behavioural response
- Physiological response: heart rate speeds up (with freezing it drops)
- Sympathetic nervous system facilitates flight
- Adaptive value: heightens attention to threat, prepares body for action
- Anxiety can be very debilitating (ex: might lead us to procrastinate or do things we should avoid doing)
18
Q
Describe the value and costs of negative emotions
A
- Negative emotions are not only inevitable but they’re also essential
- Evolutionary perspective: emotions are here because they helped our ancestors survive
- Goal is not a life free of negative emotions but having negative emotions that are well-calibrated to the situation
19
Q
Describe sadness
A
- Sadness is most often triggered by losses that threaten social bonds or valued goals
- Often measured with Beck Depression Measure Inventory
- Signals need for support
- Sad facial expressions are easily and universally recognized
- Body language and nonverbal cues are also recognizable
- Crying increases recognition
- Sadness might motivate others to help us and signal to them that we’re sad
- Sadness promotes more careful, systematic thinking (less reliance on stereotypes and heuristics, more realism)
- When goals are no longer attainable, sadness may help break through rigid goal persistence (goal shielding) & lead to realistic reassessment and openness to shifting goals, especially with help from others
- Associated with 2 physiological patterns:
1) Increased arousal (higher heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance) - Seen when crying
- More likely when loss is imminent/impending
- May reflect active coping, call for social support
2) Decreased arousal (lower heart rate, skin conductance) - More likely when loss is final
- May reflect energy conservation
- Could be that there’s a time course for sadness
- Research shows that when you’re watching a romance movie, you may experience these physiological patterns along with the character (1 - when the breakup is about to happen and 2 - for the aftermath)
- Sadness that’s pervasive (turns into depression) can make it hard for us to achieve our goals
