L7 - Emotion: Physiological Factors Flashcards
1
Q
What is the classical definition of emotion?
A
- Born with innate suite of emotions
- Feel emotions by perceiving stimulus = triggers circuit in brain
- Causes bodily response = behaviour in a certain way
2
Q
What is prototypical emotions?
A
- Prototype preserves emotions from instances when we have been e.g angry, and this stays in memory and turns this into the bodily response
- Involve physiological change where emotions are not reactions to the world
- Emotions construct our world BECAUSE of interoception e.g pleasantness, unpleasantness, arousal and calmness
3
Q
What is the textbook definition of emotion?
A
- A brief, specific response, involving appraisal, experiences, expressions and physiology that helps people meet goals, including social goals
4
Q
What is appraisal?
A
Construal/interpretation an individual gives to a situation that gives rise to the experience of emotion
5
Q
Why do we have emotions?
A
- Emotions help to interpret our surrounding circumstances, leading us to act in different ways
- Emotions guide our actions, motivating action that advance our goals
- Gives us different options of behaviour and emotions play a big role in the way we grow
6
Q
What are evolutionary approaches for emotions?
A
- Emotions are adaptive reactions to promote survival and reproduction and emotional expression as physiologically based
- Emotions are universal but their expression is not
7
Q
What are Constructive approaches for emotions? (Cultures)
A
- Emotions are influenced by language, social roles, values and institutions and emotional expression as varying between cultures
- Cultures are changing to help regulate emotions e.g what emotions are socially acceptable - cant be trained to show same emotions in same way in same situations
8
Q
What was Darwin’s theory of emotional expression?
A
- Human emotions derive from motivations and displays that were evolutionarily advantageous for our mammalian and primate ancestors
9
Q
What was Darwin’s hypotheses?
A
- Emotions are universal
- All humans have the same facial muscles
- As humans share an evolutionary history with other mammals, our emotionally expressive behaviours should resemble those of other species
- Blind people, lacking the visual input a culture provides relates to how display emotion, will show expressions similar to those of sighted people
10
Q
What is the universality of facial expression? (Humans)
A
- Recognised cross culturally
- Cultures never exposed to western media can accurately identify expressions of happiness, surprise, anger, disgust and fear shown by westerners
- US college students accurately identifies facial expressions from the east.
11
Q
How many emotions are there universally?
A
More than 25 distinct facial expressions which are similar cross-culturally
12
Q
What are emotional expression in other animals?
A
- Human facial expressions resemble displays of other primates
- e.g anger resembles other primate’s threat displays
- Chimps have a relaxed open-mouth display that resembles human laughter
- Embarrassment resembles the appeasement displays of other social mammals
13
Q
Expressions of the blind?
A
Facial expressions are similar between blind and sighted people e.g pride after winning a competition for both sighted and blind people
14
Q
What are focal emotions?
A
- Emotions that are especially common within a particular culture?
- Societies with a culture of honor may express more anger at insults
15
Q
What is James’ Theory 1?
A
- Natural way of thinking is that mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion and this state of mind gives rise to bodily expression
- Bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact and feelings of the changes as they occur is the emotion
(Perception = affect = body expression)
16
Q
What is James’ Theory 2?
A
- Hypothesis to defend is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike etc.
- Without bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form
17
Q
What is James’ Theory 3? (Evolutionary)
A
- Bodily changes he refers to are internal e.g heart rate and external e.g muscle contractions in face and body
- Perceptions lead directly to bodily changes on the grounds that our mind are pre-programmed to respond to certain stimuli = anticipates by approx 100 years key developments in social cognition e.g activating a stereotype has been shown to result in behaviour consistent with the stereotype
18
Q
What was a study on James’ Theory
A
- John Barge
- People came to lab and read story about elderly people. Did not mention anything about physiological stances but when ppts were leaving they were recorded.
- They moved slower out of the room - noticeable change in their walking style
- Stereotype elicited body response automatically = automatic connections between stimuli and bodily response
19
Q
What was Cannon’s Critique?
A
- Visceral aspect of the James-Lange theory
- Total separation of the viscera from the CNS does not alter emotional behaviour
- Same visceral changes occur in very different emotional states and in non-emotional states
- Viscera are relatively insensitive structures
- Visceral changes are too slow to be a source of emotional feeling
- Artificial induction of viceral changes typical of strong emotion does not produce emotion
20
Q
What was Maranon’s study?
A
- Injected ppt with adrenaline
- Found that fewer than 1/3 of them reported any emotional reaction
- People typically only reported pseudo emotions e.g I feel as if I were afraid
- Ppts knew they were being injected with adrenaline
21
Q
What is Schacter’s two factor theory?
A
- Work on anxiety and affiliation
- Those who were anxious preferred to be in the company of others
- Explanation: uncertainty about appropriateness of anxious feelings led to need to engage in social comparison
- Social context can help us to interpret internal states
- Often interpretations of arousal is unproblematic
- Physiological arousal is necessary but not sufficient BUT you also need cognitive input to interpret the arousal
22
Q
What were 3 propositions of Schacter’s two factor theory?
A
- If an individual is aroused but has no immediate explanation for the arousal, they will want to explain it and will label it and describe it with whatever explanations available
- If individual is aroused but has completely appropriate explanation for the arousal, they will not need to explain it = unlikely to label feelings in terms of the alternative explanation
- In any given situation, the individual will react emotionally or describe his/her feelings as emotions only to the extent that they experiences a state of physiological arousal
23
Q
What was the Schachter and Singer experiment?
A
- Testing the 3 propositions using 3 manipulations
1. State of physiological arousal
2. Degree to which ppts had an explanation for this arousal state
3. Availability of alternative explanations for the arousal
24
Q
What was the methodology for the experiment?
A
- Manipulation of arousal: cover story of effects of vitamin on vision: either epinephrin or placebo
- Manipulation of appropriateness of explanation for arousal: Side effects warning either correct, incorrect or none
- Manipulation of alternative explanatory cognitions: Euphoria condition or anger condition
25
Q
How was the data collected?
A
- Self report
- Observation
26
Q
What were the results?
A
- When informed in the euphoric condition positivity is low, but in the anger condition, positivity is highest. (weird)
- Placebo is identical on both = indicates you need a physiological stimulus
- In euphoria = if you know why = feel less euphoric = because you attribute the euphoria to the right cause = ignorance has higher level of euphoria
In anger = if you dont know why = less positive
27
Q
What were the conclusions of the experiment?
A
- Manipulations of explanation for arousal state generally worked as predicted
- Some problems with arousal manipulation: results from placebo condition often did not differ from those in the arousal conditions
- Manipulation of alternative cognitions did not result in the same state of arousal being labelled euphoria or anger
28
Q
What is the current status of the two-factor theory?
A
- Few attempts to replicate the study
- Only one provides support for the central prediction
- Notion that perceived cause of arousal can be important is generally accepted
29
Q
What do people currently believe?
A
- More evidence that there used to be different emotions are characterised by different patterns of physiological activity
- Revival of interest in non-visceral aspect of James’ theory with facial and postural feedback
30
Q
What is facial feedback?
A
- How we feel is partly shaped by feedback from the facial musculature
- Ppts evaluated cartoons while holding a pen either with their lips or with their teeth
- Cartoons judged funnier in teeth condition than in lips condition
