L8 - Emotions: Cognitive Factors

Question 1

What are the multiple roles of cognition in emotion?

Answer 1

• Labelling or arousal in Schachters’s two factor theory
• Other cognitive accounts of emotion emphasis is on the generation of emotion
• These are not mutually exclusive

Question 2

What is the appraisal theory? (Overall)

Answer 2

• Emotion is based on an appraisal of the meaning and significance of an event
• Lazarus is one of the most influential appraisal theorists

Question 3

What is the appraisal theory?

Answer 3

• Primary: whether something of relevance to the person’s well-being has occurred (happened to me?)
• Secondary: what it is, what coping options do we have, will it harm, and how can I overcome it (good/bad), changes character
• Reappraisal: Takes a longer time before it is accepted in the mind. Constructed by the mind to regulate emotional distress or protect one’s ego identity, what situations will be recall that memory

Question 4

What is the role of appraisal in the emotional process?

Answer 4

• Each emotional reaction is a function of a particular kind of cognition or appraisal
• Frijda says emotions arise in response to the meaning structures of given situations; different emotions arise in response to different meaning structures

Question 5

Describe Primary appraisal:

Answer 5

• Goal relevance
• Goal congruence/incongruence
• Type of ego-involvement e.g self-esteem or moral values

Question 6

Describe secondary appraisal:

Answer 6

• Blame/credit
• Coping potential
• Future expectancy

Question 7

How to test if emotion is caused by appraisal?

Answer 7

• Empirical evidence
• Lab experiments
• Correlational studies

Question 8

What was the lab experiment by Speisman?

Answer 8

• Ppts shown a film titled subincision depicting adolescent aborigins undergoing circumcision rituals
• Different voiceovers used to manipulate viewers appraisal of film’s emotional context
• Intellectualisation: detached perspective
• Denial: occasion for joy rather than pain
• Trauma: Emphasised unpleasant aspect of procedure
• Emotional response measured in terms of physiological measures: skin conductance and heart rate

Question 9

Results for Skin conductance levels in Spieisman?

Answer 9

• If aroused and adrenaline = sweat = skin is a better conductor
• Those in trauma condition, line is a lot higher, can indicate cognitive preparation = appraisal was conducted
• Intellectualisation dampened and had a lower skin conductance

Question 10

What was correlational evidence?

Answer 10

• Ppts recalled autobiographical episodes of each of 15 emotions and answered questions about them
• Each episode was them rated for pleasantness, degree of own versus others responsibility/control, uncertainty, attentional activity, anticipated effort, degree of situational control
• Different emotions were associated with distinctive appraisal profiles

Question 11

Results of correlational evidence?

Answer 11

• Appraisal profiles built for anger, guilt and pride
• Anger = unpleasant and effort is high, others are low
• Guilt = unpleasant and responsibility is high
• Pride = Responsibility is high, other factors are low
• Characteristics of emotions = can work out quality of emotions

Question 12

What were problems of the lines of evidence above?

Answer 12

• In experimental research: no measure of appraisal, unsure what is exactly being manipulated, strength of emotion is shown to vary but not the quality
• In correlational research: no manipulation, dependent on memory, are we aware of ongoing appraisals?, what about emotions with sudden onset?

Question 13

What are alternative causal sequences?

Answer 13

• Feedback from face and body
• Affective primacy: preferences need no inferences, we can form evaluations without being aware of having been exposed to stimuli
• Context: In many everyday situations, there is no need to appraise what is happening: context provides enough info for emotion to occur, just requires an env trigger

Question 14

What is the mere exposure effect? (Exp)

Answer 14

• Stimuli were Japanese ideographs: seen 0, 1, 3, 9, 27 times
• Ppts made recognition and liking judgements
• Relationships between the measures were then examined
• Exposure influenced affect independently of recognition
• The ideographs you see more often you like better than the rarer ones, the ones I see more, the ones I recognise better, however those you remember well are not the same you like most

Question 15

How does appraisal affect well-being? (Exp)

Answer 15

• Analysed transcripts of interviews with partners of men who died from aids
• Interviews analysed to extract measures of appraisals, goals, emotions and plans
• Looked at primary measures: positives belief appraisals, positive appraisals of goal outcomes, pos emotions, overall pos appraisals
• 4 measures of psychological well-being: positive morale, positive states of mind, depressive mood and impact of death
• 2 measurement moments: at bereavement and 12 mo later

Question 16

What were the findings of the grieving study?

Answer 16

• The higher the proportion of positive appraisals, the greater the number of short-term and long term plans & the better was psychological well-being at both times

Question 17

How are emotions somatic markers?

Answer 17

• Thought is made from images inc. perceptual and symbolic representations
• Images become marked by positive and negative feelings linked directly or indirectly to bodily states
• Images then become alarm signals
• Somatic markers increase accuracy and efficiency of the decision process
• Absence of such markers (via brain damage) degrades decision performance

Question 18

What did Loewenstein say?

Answer 18

• Feelings can arise without cognitive mediation
• Impact of cognitive evaluations on behaviour is mediated partly by affective responses
• Emotions sometimes produce behavioural responses that depart from best course of action
• Emotional reactions to a risky situation often diverge from cognitive evaluations of risk severity
• Emotional reactions may exert dominating influence on behaviour, which is not adaptive
• Vividness and concreteness make affect more salient, and increase its influence in the decision process

Question 19

What did ditto et al do?

Answer 19

• Said visceral information is immediately linked to emotional responses
• Is risk information disregarded under conditions of hot as compared to cool decision making
• Ppts receive descriptions of cookies vs smell of freshly baked cookies when processing risk info about a gamble they can make to win such cookies
• Gamble to draw one card out of 10, if win = eat as many cookies as you want & no participation needed, if lose = no cookies and extra lab work OR no gamble = no cookies and easy questionnaire to fill in
• 2 risk conditions: either 8:2 or 6:4 winning:losing cards in the stack

Question 20

What were the results of Ditto et al

Answer 20

• Ppts are sensitive to risk only in the non-visceral condition, where cookies are only described
• Win-chances were seen higher in visceral condition
• Mood did not differ between conditions

Question 21

What were the implications of Ditto’s study?

Answer 21

• manipulations enhancing the sensory aspects of appetitive stimuli promote impulsive behaviour
• focus of attention is narrowed on the object of desire, on the present rather than the future
• the more visceral, proximal information is available, the stronger the influence of immediate motivation, and elicited emotional states

Question 22

What did Finucane et al do?

Answer 22

• Inverse relation between perceived risk and perceived benefit
• Risk/benefit are often perceived as inversely related
• People’s overall impression of an activity in terms of emotion impacts on their judgements of its attributes
• Ppts evaluated number of hazard activities in terms of liking then rated risk/benefit for each activity
• Liked activities tended to show a pattern of low risk/high benefit, but disliked activities were high risk/low benefit

Question 23

What did Finucane do pt2:

Answer 23

• Risk and benefit judgments under time pressure, to force greater reliance on affect.
• Rationale: under time pressure, elaborative thinking is limited, judgments have to rely on affect more than under no time pressure
• Method: Participants rate activities in terms of risk and benefit
• Results: stronger negative correlation under time pressure

Question 24

What did Finucane do pt3:

Answer 24

• Manipulating affect by providing risk and benefit information
  Rationale: raising or lowering the “liking” of an alternative should impact on risk and benefit judgments
• Methods:
  Participants first gave ratings of some technologies’ risks and benefits. Then they read a vignette, containing the manipulated information about either risk or benefit Participants repeated their ratings of risks and benefits
• Predictions from cognitive analysis view: second ratings for non-manipulated dimension (risk or benefit) should not change
• Prediction from affect heuristic view: they should change
• Results: Negative correlation, only decisive point is if we like them. If we like them = high benefit, low risk and vice versa