Module 32 - introduction to emotion

Question 1

3 aspects of emotional response

Answer 1

1. bodily arousal (heart pumping)
2. expressive behaviors (quickened pace)
3. conscious experience (thoughts and feelings)

Question 2

evolutionary benefits of emotion

Answer 2

• functions as a motivator and facilitator of behavior
• encourages behaviors that helped us survive and reproduce
• discourages behaviors that threatened our survival

Question 3

James-Lange Theory

Answer 3

• arousal comes before emotional feeling

Question 4

Schacter-Singer two-factor theory

Answer 4

• arousal comes first, then cognitively analyzed and labeled as a particular emotion
• arousal fuels emotion - cognition channels it
• spillover effect

Question 5

spillover effect

Answer 5

• arousal from one event can lead to an emotional response to a later event
• arousal from watching a soccer game can lead emotional confrontations afterwards

Question 6

experiment demonstrating the spillover-effect

Answer 6

• subjects were given a mystery injection that they were told would affect their vision
  
  • it was actually just adrenaline
• subjects told it would increase arousal were less easily provoked to emotional responses
  
  • they had something to credit their arousal to
• subjects who weren’t expecting arousal were more easily provoked
  
  • misinterpreted their arousal as reflecting some present urgency

Question 7

Cannon-Bard theory

Answer 7

• a stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and emotional feeling

Question 8

Zajonc and LeDoux

Answer 8

• theorized that sometimes emotional response takes a neural shortcut that bypasses the conscious processing in the cortex and goes directly to the amygdala

Question 9

Zajonc and LeDous’s two tracks of emotion

Answer 9

1. some information goes from the thalamus to the cortex for analysis before being sent to the amygdala
2. some info goes from the thalamus directly to amygdala for an instant emotional reaction

Question 10

10 basic emotions

Answer 10

• Carroll Izard
  1. joy
  2. interest/excitement
  3. surprise
  4. sadness
  5. anger
  6. disgust
  7. contempt
  8. fear
  9. shame
  10. guilt

Question 11

Carroll Izard’s take on emotions

Answer 11

• isolated 10 basic emotions
• argues that other emotions are really combinations of some of the basic 10 emotions
• can be observed beginning in infancy

Question 12

emotion and the autonomic nervous system

Answer 12

• arousal is regulated by the autonomic nervous system’s sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions
• crisis mobilizes the sympathetic (arousing) fight-or-flight
• parasympathetic reverses these effects after crisis

Question 13

patterns of brain activity during negative emotions

Answer 13

• more right frontal lobe activity on average
• generally hard to tell emotions apart using brain activity

Question 14

patterns of brain activity during positive emotions

Answer 14

• more left frontal lobe activity on average
• generally hard to tell emotions apart using brain activity

Question 15

polygraph

Answer 15

• “lie detector” test
• actually detects various physiological stress-responses
• may detect lies more often than not, but no consistently enough to be reliable in general
• false positives and negatives very common
  measures:
• breathing
• sweat
• physical activity (fidgeting)