W5: Emotions Flashcards
What are emotions?
Brief, specific psychological and physiological responses that help humans meet goals, many of which are social
- different from moods and disorders
What’s the difference between emotions, moods and disorders (duration, specificity, function)?
Emotions - brief, specific responses to people/events, to meet social goals
Moods - hours/days, no specific reason, no function
Emotional disorders - weeks/months/years, biological underpinnings, no function
What social goals do emotions help us meet?
Gratitude: motivates us to reward others for good actions
Anger: motivates us to right social wrongs
Guilt: motivates us to make amends
What is emotional appraisal and how does it work?
We construe situations and label emotions through emotional appraisal.
It is a dual-process
- Primary: unconscious, fast and automatic (e.g. positive/negative)
- Secondary: conscious more deliberate, slower (e.g. anger, fear, disgust)
What is the downside of emotional appraisal?
Misattribution of arousal
- Bridge experiment (heart beating v fast = actually they were fearful of the heights, but thought that they found that woman attractive)
What is the universality approach to emotions?
To some extent, emotional responses are innate and universal (Charles Darwin) due to the principle of serviceable habits (beneficial for survival and reproduction)
- Universality: all humans have the same facial muscles (6: happiness, sad, surprised, anger, fear, disgust)
- Our expressions are similar to other primates or mammals
- Emotions are encoded, not learned.
What is the cultural approach to emotions?
Different cultures have different emotional accents and display rules.
- Focal Emotions: : Emotions that are especially common within a particular culture.
(e. g. collectivist, guilt and shame vs individualist, pride) - Ideal Emotions: emotions that are particularly values
- Affect valuation theory: emotions that promote important cultural ideals are valued and will be more prominent in an individual’s lives (e.g. excitement in the US, calmness and contentment in East Asia) - Display rules: Cultural rules that govern how, when, and to whom particular emotions should be expressed
- social norms
- collectivists tend to temper positive emotions with negative emotions
What is the relationship between emotions and social relationships?
- Oxytocin and commitment
- related to love, trust, compassion and commitment. - Touch and communication
- Emotions can be communicated through touch
- Touch also signals trust. - Emotion and social status
- status can be signalled through emotions (e.g. anger and high status)
What is the relationship between emotions & social cognition?
Many judgments are too complex to fully review all the relevant evidence, so people rely on emotions to provide them with fast and reliable information.
- Emotions and processing styles
- Emotions and moral reasoning
What are the two processing styles?
- Top-Down: greater use of stereotypes, lesser attention to situational details (e.g. anger)
- Bottom-Up: lesser use of stereotypes, greater attention to situational details (e.g. sadness)
What are the benefits of positive emotions?
Broaden-and-Build Hypothesis
- broaden our thoughts by enabling creativity and building emotional/intellectual resources
- build: social resources (e.g. friendships, social networks)
- good social consequences e.g. negotiating to an optimal agreement
What is the relationship between emotions and moral reasoning?
Morality is about regulating behaviour to fit into society.
- Moral dumbfounding: having a specific emotional reaction toward a moral situation, but not really knowing exactly why
- Social intuitionist model of moral judgement: people have automatic reactions to moral situations which guide moral reasoning
(1) automatic emotional reaction
(2) deliberative process (cost/benefit, causal attributions, norms etc.)
What is the moral foundations theory? (domains, concern and emotion)
- Care vs Harm - Suffering - Sympathy
- Fairness vs Cheating - Acting in just ways - Anger
- Loyalty vs Betrayal - Commitment to groups - Pride, Rage
- Authority vs Subversion - establishing one’s place in social hierarchy - embarrassment, shame, fear, pride, awe
- Purity vs degradation - avoiding contaminants - disgust
CFLAP
What is happiness and it’s determinants?
Happiness = life satisfaction & emotional well-being
- Peak
- End
- Duration Neglect
What is affective forecasting and why are we bad at it?
Predicting future emotional states
- We often assume that we will like or dislike a future event more than they actually do when it occurs
- We are bad at it because:
1. Immune Neglect (we often underestimate our resilience)
2. Focalism (tendency to focus on only one aspect)
