PSY331 - 2. What Are Emotions and How Do We Study Them? Flashcards
What is Emotion?
Reaction to specific event
cf. drives are internal states
Requires cognitive appraisal of situation
Emotions are a guide to our drive
What is Emotion?
Can tell us we are tired, but are distinct
Moods have no source
Don’t last indefinitely, moods persist
Components of Emotion
Valence – positive/negative
Eliciting Object – response to
Enables Goal Pursuit
Multi-Component Response
Multi-Component Response
Subjective experience (phenomenology): experience it
Core affect
Outward behavioural expression – sweating, bodily responses
Physiological
What is Emotion?
emotion is a component process
that’s why it’s hard to define
all can influence emotions we feel
both as antecedent + consequence
What is Emotion?
Keltner & Gross
episodic, relatively short term, biologically based patterns of perception, experience, physiology, action + communication that occur in response to specific physical + social challenges and opportunities
Theories of Emotion
A. Evolutionary Theories
Evolutionary theories - emotions biologically based
Darwin - natural selection
animals showed similar expression as humans when reacting
Theories of Emotion
A. Evolutionary Theories
Communication: served communication role
anger: bore our teeth to bite as animals
animal signals to our advantage
Evolutionary Theories
Emotions help us solve environmental problems:
Evolutionarily recognizable, adaptive problems
Activate adaptive bodily/physiological responses
disgust: recoil, to avoid, shut our mouth + nose
problem back in the day led to disgust
Evolutionary Theories
we don’t eat toxins, we survive
first trimester - sensitive to bitterness - adapted to avoid tetragens
we get joy from fruit to get our vitamins
tells us what stimuli will result in what emotion
limited in what causes the emotion, the process, what leads to it
B. Social Constructionist Theories
Social constructionist theories = cultural rules of emotion
Driven by societal goals
Reject biological nativism
B. Social Constructionist Theories
women allowed to cry
roles ppl are trying to fulfill
Emotions are a Component Process
[Subjective experience]
[Expressive reactions] may be diff
[Psychological reactions] - indication of importance
Emotions are a Component Process
[Coping responses] - More influenced by culture
“no single response or subset of responses, which is essential to an emotional syndrome”
Emotions are a Component Process
both solve problems - make attachment
functional + adaptive
biological - hardwired
constructionist - current problems in society
C. The James-Lange Theory: William James (1884) and Carl Lange (1885)
stimulus-physical-emotion/reaction
“perception of bodily states, as they occur, is emotion” (James, 1884)
C. The James-Lange Theory
everything is going to be intellectual state without it
common sense - happens so fast - hard to figure out process
initial reaction + emotion is from interpreting physical reaction
C. The James-Lange Theory
bear in circus - changes in physical reaction
recognizing changes is the emotional experience
taking away bodily responses takes away emotions
emotion is the pattern of bodily responses
The Cannon-Bard Theory: Walter Cannon (1927) + Philip Bard (1934)
Subcortical input/categorization of stimulus
stimulus - reaction + emotion
animals even more emotional without connection to body
no need to hear signals from body
The Cannon-Bard Theory
Feelings causally independent of physiological arousal + behaviour
brain controls emotion - regulation of emotion
The Cannon-Bard Theory
Simultaneous: physical reaction + appraisal + reaction separate + simultaneously
emotion experienced as all these things happen
take components into consideration to interpret emotion
most think appraisal is missing
adds a predictive value
Schachter-Singer’s Two-Factor Theory: Stanley Schachter + Jerome Singer (1962)
Label our emotions using:
1. Basic level of physiological arousal
2. Cognitive interpretation of label
physical response + cognition = emotion
The Schachter-Singer (1962) Experiment
IV1: 2 groups injected with epinephrine + 1 placebo group
IV2: 1 group forewarned about arousal
IV3: Confederate acted euphoric/angry
DV: Ps’ emotional state
The Schachter-Singer (1962) Experiment
have to feel arousal first
1 epinephrine group told it was placebo
in euphoric - confederate had fun
angry - confederate getting angry + annoyed
look to environment for explanation for arousal
The Schachter-Singer (1962) Experiment Results
Placebo Ps: Same ratio of happiness/anger
Unwarned Ps: Rated own emotions the same as
confederate’s
emotional state matched so used confederate to match
Warned Ps: Contrasted from confederate’s emotions
not matching so they correct
The Schachter-Singer Theory
Unspecific arousal - Come up with reasonable explanation
Cognitive labeling- Experiencing emotion
Cognitive appraisal, not feeling/physiologies, determines
difference between emotions
The Schachter-Singer Theory
misattribution of arousal - misattribute arousal to attraction
Cognitive Appraisal Theories
Appraisals - “psychological representations of
emotional significance”
link emotions to immediate cognitive processes:
Evaluation of meaning: good/bad
Causal attribution: why it happened
Cognitive Appraisal Theories
Assessment of coping capabilities: determined it’s threatening, i’m rich so i can buy a new car or i’m poor now i’m screwed
can i control it, can i reasonably react, is it actually happening
Cognitive Appraisal Theories
Arnold; Lazarus
stimulus-appraisal-physiological changes + action tendencies - emotion
if you don’t think the bear is threatening you won’t feel fear
no emotion without cognition
Cognitive Appraisal Theories
intuitive appraisal - subcortical activation - quick impulsive
survival purposes
rational appraisal - consciously thinking about what’s appropriate, how else can i deal with it
Cognitive Appraisal Theories
reflective appraisal: not as imperative as intuitive appraisal
attraction/repulsive reaction to object leads to positive/negative schemas
physiologically respond to pictures within seconds
even if shown only to subconscious (millisecond)
III. How Can we Study Emotions?
Never observe emotions, only infer them
Emotions = private
internal: relatively diff physiology even if similar (resting heart rate)
III. How Can we Study Emotions?
we can only observe signals + brain activation
ppl can fake their emotions
experimental manipulation
A. Naturally Occurring Emotions
Correlational research
Use multiple methods:we need to use many methods to convince that it’s real
Problems?
Manipulating Emotions
Valenced photographs: pretested photograph repository
Movie scenes: repository of films
Music (tonality/pitch)
Manipulating Emotions
In vivo emotional situations: real life situations - in the emotion
imagining isn’t the same as real life
Read scenarios
Manipulating Emotions
Memories: more invested in memories, but not the same level of emotion
reflection unlikely the same as in the moment feeling
Manipulating Emotions - Memories
Bower’s (1981) associative network model of emotion -
emotions stored as nodes in memory + link to other
info associated with the emotion
Manipulating Emotions - Memories
Memories of past events producing same emotion
Verbal labels/descriptions of emotion
Behaviour/physiological reactions
Manipulating Emotions - Memories
code in our memory - schemas for each emotion - link experience to each emotion node
link our reactions
Memories include information about one’s emotional state at the time
Measuring Emotions
Self-reports - Ps describe emotional feelings, cognitions, behaviours…
subjective experience
Measuring Emotions
Physiological measurements - measures of blood pressure,
heart rate, sweating, brain activity, cortisol, hormones…
could be diff causes for increases in heart rate
Measuring Emotions
Behaviours - observable actions like facial/vocal
expressions, running away, or attacking
within subject design can alleviate some of the bias on scale
Measuring Emotions
facial expressions: quick so hard to get data
use a bunch and use the one that best suits study
