lesson 15 emotions and affect Flashcards
affect
umbrella term for feelings
affective experiences
are valenced (good or bad)
are somatic (involve the body)
quick and automatic
two factor model of effect
arousal vs somatic circumflex model
what is affect
voluntary action, complex judgement, symbolic thought more dorsal
emotion, motivation, simple judgement more ventral
brain basis of fear
well poised for engaging in quick behaviors: typically information goes from thalamus to visual cortex but when startled it goes straight to amygdala (so amygdala gets raw, degraded form of stimuli and responds quickly with no processing, sometimes responds too quickly to something perceived as a threat when its not)
amygdala
communicates to rest of body to flight fight or freeze
affective experiences are designed to be
adaptive: certain things we want to eat or avoid due to natural selection (specific solutions to what natural selection found important)
arousal
mammals have two systems for affective experience (sympathetic and parasympathetic motor system) that makes you realize there’s something that requires attention, good or bad
sympathetic vs parasympathetic arousal
fight or flight
rest and digest
example of eliot, who had ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage
diminished sympathetic response, or have response but it doesnt get integrated with other brain parts so they tend to make bad decisions (understand that you feel weird because there’s something wrong with the environment around you, but cant place the feeling so it doesnt guide their future behavior and they make bad life choices like getting scammed)
ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage
moral judgement
making the utiliatarian judgement (like killing a crying baby so we survive while in hiding)
appraisal
stop and think of what this emotion is
determine arousal state (nervous or excited)
spidey sense
there’s a problem, i dont know it so i have to figure it out
Misattribute hunger as anger
schachter and singer model of emotion experiment
Physical processes in the body (such as activation of the sympathetic nervous system, for example), which researchers refer to as “physiological arousal.” These changes can include things like having your heart start beating faster, sweating, or trembling.
A cognitive process, appraisal, in which people try to interpret this physiological response by looking at their surrounding environment to see what could be causing them to feel this way.
In a famous 1962 study, Schachter and Singer investigated whether people would respond differently to a shot of adrenaline depending on the context they found themselves in.
In the study, participants (all of whom were male college students) were given either a shot of epinephrine (which they were told was merely a vitamin injection) or a placebo injection. Some of the participants who received the epinephrine shot were informed of its effects (e.g. shaking, pounding heart, feeling flushed), others were told they would have no side effects, and others were told incorrect information about its effects (e.g. that it would make them feel itchy or cause a headache). For participants who knew what to expect from the epinephrine, they had a straightforward explanation for any effects they felt from the drug. However, Schachter and Singer believed that participants who were uninformed of epinephrine’s effects (or who were told incorrect information) would look for something in their environment to explain why they were suddenly feeling different.
After receiving the injection, participants were put into one of two environments. In one version of the study (designed to induce feelings of euphoria), the participants interacted with a confederate (someone who appears to be a real participant, but is actually part of the research staff) who acted in a happy, joyful way. The confederate flew a paper airplane, crumpled up balls of paper to play a mock “basketball” game, made a slingshot out of rubber bands, and played with a hula hoop. In the other version of the study (designed to induce feelings of anger), the participant and confederate were asked to fill out questionnaires, which contained increasingly personal questions. The confederate became more and more irritated by the invasiveness of the questions, and eventually tore up the questionnaire and stormed out.
Schachter and Singer’s Results
The Schachter-Singer theory would predict that participants would feel happier (or angrier) if they did not know to expect the effects of the drug. Since they had no other explanation for the symptoms they felt, they would assume that it was the social environment making them feel this way.
misattribution of arousal experiment
washington state experiment with one strong bridge and one weak
people who crossed rickety bridge more likely to call attractive woman (feeling arousal due to scary experience crossing bridge)
attributing arousal to experimenter, not bridge
false feedback arousal experiment
give people headphones and play their heartbeat back to them
sub in fake heartbeat, then tell subject to look at people and see if theyre attractive (convince them they had a moment of sympathetic arousal)
cognitive behavioral therapy
change your appraisal from therapy to excitement
emotional expression
an observable sign of an emotional
state, and, although robots can be taught to exhibit them, human beings do so naturally
we can read other people’s emotional expression
other primates have fewer facial muscles so they dont have expression
six basic emotions
disgust
fear
happiness
sadness
anger
surprise
why express emotion
adaptive physiological changes:
darwin said emotions help your body determine best response to environment (you smell feces so your mouth and nose close so feces cant get into body)
communication: we tear up due to emotional experience, so we’re communicating mental states to other people
duchenne vs posed smiles
hard to fake emotions, honest
different muscles involved from fake smile to real smile
brain basis of emotion
amygdala- fear
insula in temporal lobe- disgust
implication of the Schachter-Singer theory
One implication of the Schachter-Singer theory is that physiological activation from one source can essentially transfer to the next thing we encounter, and this can affect our judgment of the new thing. For example, imagine that you’re running late to see a comedy show, so you end up jogging to get there. The Schachter-Singer theory would say that your sympathetic nervous system is already activated by running, so you would feel subsequent emotions (in this case, amusement) more strongly. In other words, the theory would predict that you’d find the comedy show funnier than if you had walked there.
two dimensions of emotion
valence and arousal, can be high or low