LECTURE 16

Question 1

Two fundamental components of affect

Answer 1

Emotions and Motivation

In contrast to cognitive processes that are calm, collected, and frequently rational, emotions and motivations involve arousal, or our experiences of the bodily responses created by the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system (ANS).

Question 2

Affect

Answer 2

The experience of feeling or emotion

Question 3

Emotion

Answer 3

A mental and physiological feeling state that directs our attention and guides our
behavior.

Question 4

Motivation

Answer 4

A driving force that initiates and directs behavior.

Motivations are often considered in psychology in terms of drives, which are internal states that are activated when the physiological characteristics of the body are out of balance, and goals, which are desired end states that we strive to attain. Motivation can thus be conceptualized as a series of behavioral responses that lead us to attempt to reduce drives and to attain goals by comparing our current state with a desired end state

Question 5

Health psychology

Answer 5

The study of the interface between affect and physical health—that principle that “everything that is physiological is also psychological

Question 6

Basic emotions

Answer 6

Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

The basic emotions are determined in large part by one of the oldest parts of our brain, the limbic system, including the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the thalamus.

Question 7

Cognitive appraisal

Answer 7

The cognitive interpretations that accompany emotions

Although they are in large part cognitive, our experiences of the secondary emotions are determined in part by arousal and in part by their valence—that is, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant feeling.

Our response to the basic emotion of fear, for instance, is primarily determined by the fast pathway through the limbic system. When a car pulls out in front of us on the highway, the thalamus activates and sends an immediate message to the amygdala. We quickly move our foot to the brake pedal. Secondary emotions are more determined by the slow pathway through the
frontal lobes in the cortex.

Question 8

Stress

Answer 8

Physiological responses that occur when an organism fails to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats

Question 9

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Answer 9

A medical syndrome that includes symptoms of anxiety, sleeplessness, nightmares, and social withdrawal. PTSD is frequently experienced by soldiers who return home from wars, with those who have experienced more extreme events during the war also experiencing more PTSD

Question 10

General adaptation syndrome

Answer 10

The three distinct phases of physiological change that occur in response to long-term stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion (refer to graph)

Question 11

HPA axis

Answer 11

A physiological response to stress involving interactions among the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the adrenal glands. The HPA response begins when the hypothalamus secretes releasing hormones that
direct the pituitary gland to release the hormone ACTH. ACTH then directs the adrenal glands to secrete more hormones, including epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol.

Question 12

Cortisol

Answer 12

A stress hormone that releases sugars into the blood, helping preparing the body to respond to threat

Question 13

Arousal accompanying stress

Answer 13

The initial arousal that accompanies stress is normally quite adaptive because it helps us respond to potentially dangerous events. The experience of prolonged stress, however, has a direct negative influence on our physical health, because at the same time that stress increases activity in the sympathetic division of the ANS, it also suppresses activity in the parasympathetic division of the ANS. When stress is long-term, the HPA axis remains active and the adrenals
continue to produce cortisol. This increased cortisol production exhausts the stress mechanism, leading
to fatigue and depression.

The HPA reactions to persistent stress lead to a
weakening of the immune system, making us
more susceptible to a variety of health problems including colds and other diseases. Stress also damages our DNA, making us less likely to be able to repair wounds and respond to the genetic mutations that cause disease

Question 14

Effect of stress on heart

Answer 14

Long-term stress creates two opposite effects on the coronary system. Stress increases cardiac output (i.e., the heart pumps more blood) at the same time that it
reduces the ability of the blood vessels to conduct blood through the arteries, as the increase in levels of cortisol leads to a buildup of plaque on artery walls

Question 15

Daily hassles

Answer 15

Our everyday interactions with the environment that are essentially negative, can also create stress as well as poorer health outcome.

People who experience strong negative emotions as a result of everyday hassles, and who respond to stress with hostility experience more negative health outcomes than do those who react in a less negative way

Question 16

Fight-or-flight response

Answer 16

An emotional and behavioral reaction to stress that increases the readiness for action. Men are more liekly to respond to stress by this.

Question 17

Tend-and-befriend response

Answer 17

A behavioral reaction to stress that involves activities designed to create social networks that provide
protection from threats. Women are more liekly to respond to threats by this.

This approach is also self-protective because it allows the individual to talk to others about her concerns, as well as to exchange resources, such as child care. The tend-and-befriend response is triggered in women by the release of the hormone ocytocin, which promotes affiliation. Overall, the tend-and-befriend response is healthier than the flight-or-flight response because it does not produce the elevated levels of arousal related to the HPA, including the negative results that accompany increased levels of cortisol.

Question 18

Emotion regulation

Answer 18

The ability to successfully control our emotions.

Can we improve our emotion regulation? It turns out that training in self-regulation—just like physical
training—can help. Students who practiced doing difficult tasks, such as exercising, avoiding swearing,
or maintaining good posture, were later found to perform better in laboratory tests of emotion regulation
such as maintaining a diet or completing a puzzle

Question 19

Optimism

Answer 19

A general tendency to expect positive outcomes, finding that optimists are happier and have less stress

Question 20

Self-efficacy

Answer 20

the belief in our ability to carry out actions that produce desired outcomes. People with high self-efficacy respond to environmental and other threats in an active, constructive way. Leads us to believe we control our stressors

Question 21

Hardiness

Answer 21

The tendency to be less affected by life’s stressors can be characterized as an individual difference measure that has a relationship to both optimism and self-efficacy.

Hardy individuals use effective coping strategies, and they take better care of themselves.”

Question 22

Social support

Answer 22

Have positive social relationships with others.

Social support buffers us against stress in several ways. For one, having people we can trust and rely on helps us directly by allowing us to share favors when we need them. These are the direct effects of social support. But having people around us also makes us feel good about ourselves. These are the appreciation effects of social support.

Question 23

Psychologists have found that people’s ability to predict their future emotional states is not very
accurate. Why?

Answer 23

There are several reasons. For one, people are
resilient; they bring their coping skills to play when negative events occur, and this makes them feel better. Secondly, most people do not continually experience very positive, or very negative, affect over a long period of time, but rather to adapt to their current circumstances. Another reason that we may mis-predict our happiness is that our social comparisons change when our own status changes as a result of new events.