Lecture 3: Positive emotions

Question 1

What is a basic emotion?

Answer 1

The “in the moment” feeling you get when reacting to a stimulus (clear trigger)
ex: fear

Question 2

When asked about their emotional states throughout the day, the majority of people report what? What does this mean for PP?

Answer 2

Happiness, relaxed, quiet
Shows that the average experience is happiness
This justifies the study of PP as a field of interest

Question 3

Name a few states that are NOT emotions?

Answer 3

Sensations or bodily pleasure (appraisal, physical stimuli)
Moods (aboutness, time frame)
Disposition (time frame, even more so)
Affect (general term - catch all for when you cant decide what it is)

Question 4

How does the dimensional approach differ from the basic emotions approach?

Answer 4

Dimensional

• organizes lots of feeling states by their similarities and differences (circumplex)
• more aroused or low energy, pleasant or unpleasant
• allows for better recognition of emotions as it is not limited to a list

Question 5

What are the key components of emotions?

APE AS lol

Answer 5

Appraisal
Physiological change
Expressions

Action tendency
Subjective experience

Question 6

Explain the appraisal component of emotion

Answer 6

Appraisal cognitive/subjective component
Quick assessment
- is this good or bad for me?
- Can I cope with this?
- Who/what is responsible?
Can explain individual differences in emotions/provides core themes for distinguishing emotions

Question 7

Explain the physiological change that occurs during emotion? Specifically, what structures are activated and how is this measured

Answer 7

Physiological change
Peripheral autonomic nervous system
- Measured via: EDA (skin conductance), HR, breath, finger temp
Brain
- Measured via: EEG and hemispheric asymmetry, fMRI and PET correlates

Question 8

When measuring emotion in the brain what are the hemispheric differences? How are fMRIs and PET scans read/how are they useful?

Answer 8

Left - approach/pleasant
Right - withdrawal/negative
PET - electrode in blood, shows parts of brain where blood is going as “active/lighting up”
fMRI - scan, helps to be able to identify parts of brain and functions

Question 9

What is the James-Lange theory? is it reliable?

What is the Undoing Hypothesis?

Answer 9

James-Lange: all emotions come from interpretation of physical changes that occur subconsciously
(brain) Not really, distinct signatures are elusive and it does not seem reasonable that physical changes are the only cause of psych states (no evidence in trials)

Undoing hypothesis (posi emo): body rampt up by negative emotions and positive emotions are able to down-regulate this arousal

Question 10

What is the significance of the wanting vs. liking study in the brain?

Answer 10

Happy rats
Dopamine = wanting/motivation
Opioids and cannabinoids = liking/enjoyment
Things in the brain do not always map onto our subjective experiences - we do not always like the things we want

Question 11

What are the different methods of expression? what is a Duchenne smile?

Answer 11

Face (facs, emg, duchenne smiles)
Posture
Sounds and vocalizations
Touch

Duchenne smile or genuine smile includes
expression in the eyes

Question 12

Explain how the component of subjective experience in emotion is measured?

Answer 12

Typically relies on self-reports
Which emotion term to choose
- theory (basic emo)
- subjective similarity (circumplex)

Question 13

Explain what action tendencies are as a component of emotion

Answer 13

Motivates us to do
Seems more clear for unpleasant emotions
Motivates the broaden and build model

Question 14

In the broaden and build theory, what is broadened? what is built? in relation to action tendencies of positive emotions

Answer 14

Broadened

• perspective, focus and attention
• open to trying new things or different kinds of activities
• happens in the moment

Build

• happening over-time
• social relationships, skills and resources for later

Question 15

How does the B & B theory explain the impact of negative emotions?

Answer 15

Action tendencies of negative emotions narrow focus - makes us want to do less

Question 16

What suggestive evidence has been provided related to the broadened effect?

Answer 16

Dependent - What would you like to do?
- people are assigned emotion states (joy, content, neutral, fear, anger - all had different images/videos attached)

Global vs. local processing

• images that suggest that people are either focusing on small details or broader image
• happy people saw more globally/was looking at bigger picture, negative emotions focused on small details

Question 17

What suggestive evidence has been provided related to the build effect?

Answer 17

Occurs over time, often correlational - many correlations between posi emo and skills, social bonds

Loving kindness meditation experiment
- uses love and kindness meditation to increase posi emo, finds some psych resources increased too (about half)

Question 18

What positive emotion seems to contradict the B&B theory?

Answer 18

Desire or intense approach motivation because it narrows your attention instead of broadening it
- ex: you desire desserts, so you’re less likely to think of anything else

Question 19

What 2 studies explore emotions and social bonds and what do they explore specifically?

Answer 19

Waugh & Frederickson (2006)

• study of new uni roomates over time (pre, post and daily posi emotions)
• self-other overlap & seeing complexity of other (thinking of people as more than one-dimensional suggests closeness)
• roommates who experience more posi emotion had closer bonds, can be seen as building social resources

Whelan & zelenski (2012)

• brief emotion inductions
• desire to socialize (controlling for pleasantness)