Week 3: Emotion & Interpersonal relationships Flashcards
Explain two theories of emotions
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James-Lange Theory of Emotion: James proposed that emotions are the physiological responses to stimuli in the world. Carl Lange proposed that these physiological responses were products of the autonomic nervous system, such as changes in heart rate, pupil dilation, blood flow, etc.
The theory maintains that our body responds to environmental stimuli by preparing us to react in order for survival (such as running away from the bear), and our emotions are the bodily cues that signal how we should behave.
–> emotion words are descriptions of bodily states/processes - Two-Factor Theory: This theory maintains that emotions are based on two factors: physiological responses and the interpretation of those responses. This view redirected the focus of emotions away from the physical body and into the mind.
Explain the experiment by Schacter and Singer on the Two-Factor Theory of emotion
Participants were assigned to a euphoria or an anger condition, in which they were made to feel these particular emotions. They were then given one of three options;
- placebo shot; participants got a saline shot and were told it would not have an effect on their arousal
- epinephrine-informed; participants were told it would increase their arousal
- epinephrine-uninformed; participants were falsely told it would not increase arousal
The study showed that the participants who received epinephrine-uninformed experienced the strongest emotions, because they had no good explanation for their arousal and interpreted it in the light of the situation they were in.
–> The same physiological responses can be interpreted as different emotions.
–> People do not have a precise awareness of their bodily sensations and rely on cues from the environment to help them label (interpret) them.
Compare the two theories of emotion
If the various extensions of the James-Lange theory are correct, this suggests an evolutionary origin for human emotions. The theory thus suggests that people in all cultures should have the same emotional experiences.
–> Researchers have identified distinct physiological patterns of emotions that are similar across people from diverse cultural backgrounds.
If the two-factor theory is correct, this suggests that in addition to a physiological basis, emotions are constructed from the belief systems that shape people’s interpretations. Because belief systems are influenced a great deal by culture, the two-factor theory suggests that people might interpret their physiological signals in different ways across cultures.
–> Research reveals important cultural differences in the experience of emotions.
Explain facial expressions as varieties of emotional experience
Facial expressions are a way to communicate with others. We recognize the same facial expressions in young and old, and even in blind people, suggesting that they are part of our biological make-up. However, they also seem to differ between cultures, and people are more accurate at identifying their own culture’s facial expressions.
Explain the study showing the universality of basic emotions
Participants from the US, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Japan were shown photos of people making the basic emotional expressions (happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, anger, and fear). They were asked to select which emotion best matched the feeling a person was showing in a photo. Participants identified the emotion correctly in around 80-90% of the photos.
–> There seem to be universal basic emotions of happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, anger, and fear.
–> However: all 5 cultures included in the study were industrialized, literate cultures, which implies exposure to a lot of the same media images: they could have learned how to interpret typical emotional expressions of other cultures.
Explain a study done on basic emotions outside the West
Participants from the Fore culture (Eastern Highland, Papa New Guinea), who have minimal exposure to the West, were asked to imagine how they would feel, and to make a corresponding facial expression, in response to different situations.
The results showed that the Fore people made facial expressions that were highly similar to the ones Westerners make in the situations.
–> Showed that certain basic facial expressions/emotions seem to be universal (happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, fear).
—> However, the emotions sadness and surprise were not recognized by the fore
Provide some evidence for cultural variability in identifying facial expressions (5)
- The success rates for identifying American-posed faces was better for English speakers than speakers of other Indo-European languages (e.g., Swedish, Greek, etc); they also performed better than those who spoke non-Indo-European languages (e.g., Japanese, Turkish, etc.); and all these groups performed better than those from preliterate societies (e.g., the Fore). All groups performed significantly better than chance; however, Americans performed best of all at identifying the emotions posed by American actors.
- On average, people were about 9% more accurate in judging the facial expressions of people from their own culture than from another culture. Therefore, there is a large universal component of recognizing facial expressions and a smaller culturally specific component. The link between certain facial expressions and inferred emotions thus appears to be a functional universal: The faces are interpreted to indicate similar emotions across cultures, but the degree to which each expression is recognized varies.
- Brain imaging reveals a stronger fear response when people look at fearful facial expressions on people in their own culture, as opposed to foreigners.
- Researchers found that Americans can guess better than chance whether an individual is from the United States or Australia, or whether a person is Japanese or Japanese American, just by looking at the face, but only when he or she is expressing an emotion. Participants cannot make these same distinctions when the subjects are showing neutral faces.
- Japanese and American participants viewed photos of people’s faces in which the top half of the face had a different emotional expression than the bottom half. Participants were asked to say what emotion the person was expressing. The results revealed that the judgments of Japanese were more influenced by the top half of the photos than those of of Americans; the judgments of Americans were more influenced by the bottom half of the photos.
Explain (cultural) display rules
= culturally specific rules that govern which facial expressions are appropriate in a given situation, and how intensely they should be expressed. Some cultures encourage people to show their emotions clearly and somewhat exaggerated, while other cultures encourage the expression of emotions in muted form, or even concealed. Heterogeneous cultures often have more expressive display rules.
–> Implies that emotional experiences are universal and that differences in recognition and expression are due to these display rules.
Give one possible explanation for the variety in display rules in different countries
One explanation involves immigration history. Some countries have very heterogeneous population (eg. the US), which means that people share less knowledge among eachother and the need for more open and clear communication is high in order to be understood. In contrast, in homogeneous populations (eg. South Korea), there is a lot of shared accumulated knowledge, which means the need for explicit communication is less.
Explain ritualized displays
= facial expressions that are expressed in some cultures but not in others; such facial expressions differ from the alleged universal facial expressions
Explain the facial feedback hypothesis
= One’s facial expression directly affects their emotional experience. Specifically, physiological activation of the facial regions associated with certain emotions holds a direct effect on the elicitation of such emotional states.
—> Theory that states that facial expressions are a source of information that is used to infer our emotional experiences. This implies that emotional experiences and expressions are not completely unrelated as the display rule argument implies.
Explain a study done on the facial feedback hypothesis
Participants were made to smile or frown without being explicitly aware of it by holding a pen in their mouth. They were asked to either hold the pen between their teeth without touching their lips (smiling condition) or between their lips without touching their teeth (frowning condition). After this they rated how amused they were with a number of cartoons.
- The smiling condition found the cartoons to be more amusing than the frowning condition.
–> Emotions are influenced by the expressions of their faces.
–> Display rules cannot be used to argue that emotions are experienced the same at the core universally and only their expression differs.
Explain differences in describing emotional experiences in terms of emotional intensity
East Asians compared to Westerners tend to experience emotions for shorter periods of time, less intensely, are more likely to not feel any emotions at all and are less attentive to their emotions.
This may be because in some cultural contexts, expressing intense emotions may make it hard to fit in well with others.
Explain a first study done on anger expression/experience and a second study investigating the same thing by measuring physiological changes with Chinese Canadians and European Canadians
First study
In a first study, people considered some scenarios that typically provoke feelings of anger. Participants were asked how angry they would be, and how they would respond: express the anger; suppress outward signs of anger; distract oneself from the anger source; or generate a less-angry appraisal of the event.
Results revealed that European Canadians found scenarios to be more anger-provoking, and the most common response was to openly express their anger. In contrast, for the Chinese Canadians, their most common response was to reappraise the situation in a less angry way, or to make efforts to distract themselves from the anger-provoking event
Second study
CC and EC participants were exposed to a rude and unprofessional experimenter while their blood pressure was being measured.
- Initial reaction: both groups initially responded with similar degrees of anger
- After initial reaction: Chinese Canadians’ blood pressure returned to normal much more quickly than European Canadians’
None of the participants openly expressed their anger, so they all suppressed it. This led to a slower decrease in anger for European Canadians, but not for the Chinese Canadians.
–> East Asians seem to experience less intense anger and seem to be more comfortable with strategies of suppressing their anger, while Westerners seem to suffer from physiological consequences after not being able to express their anger.
Explain differences in describing emotional experiences in in(ter)dependent cultures terms of kinds of emotions
Independent
Focus on:
- Personal differentiation
- How events might distinguish one from others
Emotions are:
- Intrapersonal states that lie within the individual
Kinds of emotions:
- Interpersonally disengaged emotions (proud, anger)
Interdependent
Focus on:
- Interpersonal harmony
- How events affect close others as well as oneself
Emotions are:
- Interpersonal states that connect people to each other
Kinds of emotions:
- Interpersonally engaged emotions (respect, shame)
Explain a study done on positive feelings in Japanese vs American participants
Japanese and American participants answered questions about their emotional experiences based on 2 dimensions: (1) positive or negative and (2) interpersonally engaged (connecting with others) or disengaged (separate from others). These dimensions were correlated with general positive feelings.
- American: more positive interpersonally disengaged emotions were correlated with more positive feelings in general.
- Japanese: more positive interpersonally engaged emotions were correlated with more positive feelings in general.
–> People with an interdependent self-view tend to feel happy when they have interpersonally engaged positive emotions, while people with an independent self-view feel happy when they experience interpersonally disengaged positive emotions. The causes of feeling positive appear to vary in important ways across cultures.
Explain differences in emotion and language in terms of number of words and categorization of emotion
There is much cultural variation in how different cultures describe their emotional experiences verbally:
- Number of words: there are differences in the number of emotion words a language has (English has 2000, while Chewong has only 8).
- Categorization of emotion: there are differences in the ways emotions are categorized (Luganda speakers in Uganda do not make a distinction between sorrow and anger).
Despite the enormous number of emotion words in English, there are many emotion words in other languages that have no equivalent in English. Some of them reflect feelings that might be familiar to English speakers despite not having a word for it, while other words might express feelings that the English do not recognize. It still remains a debate whether we can experience an emotion for which we do not have a word.
