Lecture 5 - Emotions

Question 1

Definition of cognition?

Answer 1

Representation of knowledge, thought, and beliefs, and the processes by which these representations are acquired and manipulated

Question 2

Definition of affect?

Answer 2

General term for entire range of feeling states

Question 3

Definition of preferences (evaluations, attitudes)?

Answer 3

Subjective reponses to people, objects, or events

Question 4

Definition of moods?

Answer 4

Chronic, non-specific feeling states

Question 5

Definition of emotions?

Answer 5

Specific, transient feeling of states

Question 6

What are basic emotions?

Answer 6

Discrete states that evolved to mobilise the organism to deal with fundamental life tasks (natural cluster of responses that we have)

Question 7

What are the 6 main basic emotions?

Answer 7

• Happiness
• Sadness
• Anger
• Fear
• Disgust
• Surprise

Question 8

What makes the 6 basic emotions, the main ones?

Answer 8

They are emotional problems that people would face, born out of adaptive problems

Question 9

What are microexpressions, and Ekan’s theory?

Answer 9

• Very brief emotional expressions that people try to hide
• Ekman thinks that deception can be detected through the leakage of microexpressions

Question 10

Where do other emotions come from?

Answer 10

• Emotion families?
• Emotion blends? (e.g. jealousy is a mixture of anger and sadness)
• Emotion plots/complex emotions/social lemotions? (basic emotions that are distorted or in different social contexts)
• More emotionwords than emotions? (More words for emotions then there are emotions)

Question 11

What is the H. Aviezer et al. study?

Answer 11

Cut out the Ekman face and put it on different bodies. People are influenced by the context

Question 12

What are dimensional models?

Answer 12

A model of emotions usually containing positive/negative and high/low arousal

Question 13

What is the James-Lange theory of where emotions come from?

Answer 13

Physiological responses cause emotion (e.g. we are afraid because we run away)

Question 14

What is Niedenthal’s embodied emotion theory?

Answer 14

Emotion concepts are grounded in bodily simulations e.g. we are happy because we are smiling not the other way around (controversial)

Question 15

What is Schacter and Singer’s two-factor theory of emotions?

Answer 15

1. Awareness of unexplained arousal
2. Interpretation of the arousal
   To feel an emotion you need to experience an arousal, need to search for the cause and the cause will tell you what to feel

Question 16

What is misattribution?

Answer 16

Attributing your arousal to the wrong cause

Question 17

What is the Dutton and Aaron (1974) misattribution theory?

Answer 17

• Female interviewed males on side of wobbly bridge or middle
• Those that were interviewed in the middle were more likely to ask out the reporter as they may have misattributed the arousal caused by the wobbly bridge as feelings towards the reporter

Question 18

What is the Smith and Lazarus (1990) appraisal theory?

Answer 18

• Primary appeals: revelance, valence
• Secondary apprasials: accountability, coping ability, stability
  Depending on the combination of appraisals that they make is how they feel (cognitive and almost cold interpretation of where emotions come from)

Question 19

What is mood congruence?

Answer 19

Processing advantage for stimuli that are consistent in meaning with ones current emotional state

Question 20

What is the affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995)?

Answer 20

Knowing when mood and emotions are going to have the biggest effect

Question 21

What are the 4 types of social judgment in the affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995)?

Answer 21

• Direct access (stored information)
• Motivated processing (biased and driven to reach a particular conclusion or decision)
• Heuristic processing (shortcuts)
• Substantive processing (takes most effort)
  These vary in amount of effort is required. The likelihood that your mood will affect your judgement is a function of how much effort is required