Lecture 3: Positive Emotions Flashcards
1
Q
Who is Mark Frerking?
A
- Started having attacks where he couldn’t move his body. He went to several doctors but no one knew what the cause of these strange attacks were. 3 years later he got a diagnosis, narcolepsy with cataplexy. The triggers of these attacks vary, but the most reliable triggers are strong positive emotions (paralyzed by emotions).
- Provides a contrast with the research on emotions before positive psychology. If you look at the emotions psychologists tend to study, there has been a focus on negative emotions
2
Q
What is some data by Zelenski et al., on positive emotions?
A
- First graph: Experience sampling method (report current emotional states 3 times a day). Over 60% of the time they reported excitement, interest and enthusiasm. Over 80% of the time they reported happiness, relaxed and quiet
- Second graph: happiness dominated (around 15% of the time it was the dominant experience) compared to negative emotions dominating 1% of the time
- Even if we want to just understand average/neutral emotions we need to study positive emotions
3
Q
What isn’t an emotion?
A
Contrasting emotions with: – Sensations or bodily pleasure • (appraisal; physical stimuli) – Moods*** • (‘aboutness’; timeframe) – Dispositions • (timeframe, even more so) – “Affect” • (a more general term)
4
Q
What is a sensation?
A
- appraisal; physical stimuli
- To have something that is emotion there needs to be more of a cognitive piece (i.e., an appraisal), a sensation is an automatic bodily experience (e..g, you don’t need to think about how good a doughnut is for it to be good)
5
Q
What is a mood?
A
- ‘aboutness; timeframe
- Emotions are fleeting or relatively short in duration whereas moods are states that maybe last for hours or days, during a mood you may have different emotional experiences (seeing a funny video when you’re sad). Moods are not a reaction to a particular event it is usually with us and shifts more slowly.
6
Q
What is a disposition?
A
- timeframe, even more so
- An individual difference or personality trait/characteristic, longer term than moods. Averages of moods over a long period of time (e.g., prone to joy)
7
Q
What is affect?
A
- (a more general term)
- People use affect when they are trying not to make a specific claim (e.g., to be less specific about the timeframe or particular experience), it is generic term.
8
Q
What is the basic view of emotions?
A
- Distinct facial expression (that are recognized cross culturally) physiology (distinct physiological changes that set each emotion apart), appraisal (cognitive interpretations that lead to an emotion), etc
- Universality, cross culture & species
- Clear lists (joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust… surprise is often on the list ) E.g., inside out
9
Q
What is the dimensional view of emotions?
A
- Organized in a conceptual space based on similarity (e.g., circumplex)
- More general ‘causes’ (of emotions)
- Positive to negative is one main dimension
- The second main dimension is arousal, ranging from low to high
- By crossing these two dimensions (e.g., high arousal and high positive affect lead to enthusiasm) we can capture many emotions. Has the strength of organizing lots of feeling states.
10
Q
What is an emotion?
A
- Multiple, loosely coupled components (the idea is that we have an emotion when many of these components come together, e.g., increase in heart rate is combined with an appraisal of a stressful situation)
- Functional, evolutionary perspective prominent (emotions are adaptive or evolutionarily significant)
11
Q
What are the components of an emotion?
A
- Appraisal (cognitive assessment)
- Physiological change (sweating, heart racing)
- Expression (facial, posture, etc.)
- Subjective experience
- Action tendency (motivation shifts)
- (but basic vs. dimensional views here)
- Basic emotion view would emphasize that there is a distinct physiological signatures where as dimensional may not associate it with one)
12
Q
What is an appraisal?
A
- Cognitive component (it happens quickly and unconsciously, usually.)
- Quick assessment (our mind is constantly monitoring the environment)
- Good or bad for me (primary appraisal)?
- Can I cope? (secondary appraisal- do I have the resources to cope)
- Who/what is responsible?(e.g., if im responsible for this good thing that has happened to me I might experience pride or if someone else is responsible I might experience gratitude or joy)
- Different appraisals produce different emotion states
- Can explain individual differences in experience (people make different appraisals based on past experience)
- Provides ‘core themes’ for distinguishing emotions
13
Q
What is physiological change in the peripheral autonomic NS?
A
- Peripheral autonomic NS (E.g., EDA, HR, breath, finger temperature)
- Cf. James lange theory (TheJames Lange theory of emotionsuggests thatemotions are a result of these physiological responses, and not their cause. E.g., my heart rate is up, I must be experiencing anxiety. Posits that the brain becomes aware of physiological changes and knows what emotion you are experiencing).
- Undoing hypothesis (positive emotions)
- It seems like unpleasant emotions get us worked up (e.g., a high level of arousal) whereas positive emotions may help down regulate unhealthy arousal (returning to baseline)
14
Q
What is physiological change in the brain?
A
- EEG and hemispheric asymmetry (hard to identify specific parts of the brain that deal with emotion because they are deep down but EEG is good for a more broad measure (e.g., more activation in the left hemisphere is associated with approach (even anger)/pleasant emotions whereas the right hemisphere is associated with withdrawal (sadness,fear)
- fMRI and PET correlates
- fMRI: put people in a magnetic field and it tracks blood flow in the brain, we infer that the parts of the brain with more blood flow are more active during the specific activity.
- PET: inject people with radioactive isotope and track it
- Distinct signatures are elusive
15
Q
Is there a difference between wanting and liking in the brain?
A
- Dopamine actually doesn’t have a whole lot to do with liking (i.e., the happy licks that rats do). If you take dopamine out of a rats brain they wont be motivated to go consume the pleasurable stimuli but if you put in in their mouth they will still enjoy it (i.e., the happy little licks). Thus, there seems to be separate neurochemistry for wanting and liking (pleasure is associated with opioids). In addicts there seems to be a dissociation between wanting and liking, they are highly motivated for a substance but they don’t experience pleasure while consuming.
