Nature of Emotion

Question 1

What are the six perennial questions

Answer 1

1. What is an emotion
2. What causes and emotion
3. How many emotions are there
4. What good are the emotions
5. Can we control our emotions
6. What is the difference between emotion and mood

Question 2

What is an emotion

Answer 2

Emotions are short lived, feeling-purposive-expressive-bodily responses that help us adapt to the opportunities and challenges we face during important life events

Question 3

What does emotion consist of

Answer 3

neural circuits, response systems, and a feeling state/process that motivates and organizes cognition and action

Question 4

How to emotions relate to motivation

Answer 4

two ways

• emotions are one type of motive, like all other motives emotions energize, direct and sustain behavior
• emotions serve as an ongoing ‘‘readout’’ system to indicate how well or how poorly personal adaption is going.

Question 5

Two-systems view

Answer 5

idea that cognition and biology cause emotion.

• system one is the physiological emotion system cam first in humankind’s evolution (sub cortical brain)
• second system is experience-based cognitive system that reacts interrogatively by evaluating the meaning or persona; significance of the emotional stimuli. The cognitive emotion system came later as human beings became increasingly cerebral and social (the cortical brain) together the primitive biological system and the contemporary cognitive system combine to provide a highly adaptive, two-system emotion mechanism

Question 6

What ends an emotion

Answer 6

two reasons

• the removal of the significant life event
• emotions generate coping behaviors, and these coping behaviors are often successful in managing and altering the significant life event.

Question 7

Biological perspective of emotion

Answer 7

typically emphasizes basic emotions, with a lower limit of two or three to an upper limit of eight. biological perspective agrees that there are a small number of emotions that exist, basic emotions are universal to all human beings (and animals) and basic emotions are products of biology and evolution

Question 8

Cognitive perspective of emotion

Answer 8

Asserts firmly that human beings experience a greater number of emotions than half-dozen or so highlighted by the biological tradition. cognitive emotion theorists argue that cognitive activity is a necessary prerequisite to emotion and because this is so an almost limitless number of emotions exists.

Question 9

What does reconciliation strategy number one argue

Answer 9

that each basic emotion is not a single emotion but rather a family of emotions that revolve around a particular theme.

Question 10

What are the specific characteristics of basic emotion

Answer 10

1. Distinct facial expression
2. Distinct pattern of physiology
3. Automatic (unlearned) appraisal
4. Distinct antecedent cause
5. Inescapable (inevitable) activation
6. Presence in other primates
7. Rapid onset
8. Brief duration
9. Distinct subjective experience (feeling state)
10. Distinct cognition (thoughts, images, memories)

Question 11

Why dont biologically minded theorists consider jealousy, hope, anxiety, depression, aggression and worry emotions?

Answer 11

1. Many emotions are experience-based derivatives of basic emotion (anxiety is a derivative of fear)
2. Many emotion terms actually better describe moods (irritation)
3. Many emotion terms better describe attitudes (e.g. hatred)
4. Many emotion terms actually better describe personality traits (e.g. hostile)
5. Many emotion terms actually better describe disorders (e.g. depression)
6. Some emotions are blends of basic emotions (e.g. romantic love blends interest, joy and the sex drive)
7. Many emotion terms refer to only one specific aspect of a basic emotion e.g. what elicits the emotions homesick or what behavior is associated with it aggression)

Question 12

What is reconciliation strategy number two

Answer 12

to distinguish between the first-order and the second-order stage in the lifelong development of a basic emotion. basic emotions can be conceptualized as sub-cortical brain circuits that are rooted in evolutionary adaption to major life tasks that have automatic connections with feelings, expressions, bodily preparations and motivational action tendencies

Question 13

in Differential emotions theory basic emotions can be identified by meeting what seven criteria

Answer 13

1. Is present at birth or emerges during infancy
2. Requires only simple or minimal cognitive processing for its activation
3. is derived through evolutionary processes
4. Features a unique feeling state; its own unique subjective, phenomenological quality.
5. Features a unique expression; its own unique facial-expressive signal
6. Features a unique function: it serves its own unique purpose
7. Features unique motivational force important to survival and well-being

Question 14

How are emotions used socially

Answer 14

1. communicate feelings to others
2. influence how others interact with us
3. invite, smooth, and facilitate social interaction
4. create, maintain and dissolve relationships

Question 15

Why do we have emotions

Answer 15

life is full of challenges, stresses and problems to be solved. and emotions exist as solution’s to these challenges, stresses and problems.

Question 16

Emotional regulation

Answer 16

how we try to influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience and express the emotions we have. it also refers to what part of the emotion we try to gain control over-our feelings, bodily response, motivational urge, our expressive display, emotional regulation further involves efforts to change and emotions latency, magnitude and duration.

Question 17

What are the five emotional regulation strategies?

Answer 17

-Situation selection
-situation modification
-attentional focus
-reappraisal
all above are pro-active
-suppression (reactive)

Question 18

Situation Selection

Answer 18

The earliest opportunity to intervention to influence the trajectory of an emotional experience is situation selection. situation selection is taking action to make one emotional experience more or less likely. (is deciding in what to do, where to go, who to spend time with, ect.)

Question 19

Situation modification

Answer 19

essential involves problem-focused coping, efforts to establish primary control over a situation, and the search for social support.

Question 20

Attentional focus

Answer 20

Changing ones focus simply redirects one’s attention within that situation. With any emotional experience, there are always multiple aspects of that experience that we might potentially attend to. many attentional strategies are possible, but distraction seems to be peoples favorite. The opposite of this would be rumination.. rumination over positive event is referred to as “savoring” and can produce positive benefits. but rumination over negative events simply increases the duration and intensity of the negative emotion such as distress and fear or anger.

Question 21

Rumination

Answer 21

persistent focus

Question 22

Reappraisal

Answer 22

changing the way an individual thinks about a potentially emotion-eliciting situation in order to modify its emotional impact. (involves changing a situations meaning) Reappraisal is a highly effective emotion regulation strategy because people who tend to use reappraisal also tend toward better psychological, social and physical well-being.

Question 23

Suppression

Answer 23

unlike the previous four emotion regulation strategies in that it is used to modify an already occurring emotional experience, including any or all of its components of feeling, bodily activation, sense of purpose, or expression. Suppression is a strategy to down regulate one or more of these four aspects of emotion, such as to lessen a feeling or a bodily activation, as by taking a deep breath or trying to inhibit a facial expression. suppression mostly involves ‘‘do nots’’ such as do not laugh at an inappropriate joke. suppression backfires when we try to suppress an emotion or a component of emotion, because it usually produces more, not less, of that emotion or emotional component. Suppression also tends to lead to social costs, because we typically feel uncomfortable with interaction partners who try to suppress their emotions.

Question 24

What are the best emotional regulation skills

Answer 24

reappraisal and attentional focus

Question 25

What is the difference between moods and emotions

Answer 25

1. moods occupy the background of consciousness, whereas emotions are clearly in its foreground.
2. as to different action-specificity, emotions mostly influence cognition and direct what a person thinks about.
3. as to different time course, emotions emanate from short-lived events that last for seconds or perhaps minutes, whereas moods last for hours or perhaps days. hence moods are more enduring than emotions.

Question 26

What do moods act as

Answer 26

A barometer of our underlying psychological and physiological functioning. it is also ever-present in the background of consciousness

Question 27

Mood exists as a blend of two dimensions

Answer 27

Valence and arousal
Valence refers to a dimension of pleasure verses displeasure
Arousal refers to a dimension of activation versus deactivation. together mood is simply feeling good or bad, drowsy or energized.

Question 28

What is the Circumplex model of affect

Answer 28

Mood model with activation/deactivation Displeasure/pleasure

Question 29

Positive affect

Answer 29

Refers to the everyday, low level, general state of feeling good. if someone brings the pleasant mood to our attention, such attention paradoxically is the beginning of the end of the positive affect. This lack of awareness of the positive affect stands in contrast to the more intense, attention-grabbing positive emotions such as joy. The purpose of an emotion is to capture attention and direct coping behavior. Positive affect is more subtle, It affects neither attention nor behavior. instead, positive affect subtly influences the information processing flow what we think about, decisions we make, creativity, judgements, risk-taking, and so on.

Question 30

Does positive affect facilitate our willingness to help others

Answer 30

yes it does.

Question 31

What are some of the benefits of positive affect

even when thinking of a pleasant memory

Answer 31

• facilitates our willingness to help others
• facilitates cognitive flexibility
• facilitates creativity, decision making efficiency, sociability, prosocial behavior, persistence