Ch.11 Flashcards
(72 cards)
Emotion
Mental state or feelings associated with our evaluation of our experiences
Discrete emotions theory
Siri that humans experience a small number of distinct emotions that are rooted in our biology.
They further argue that because the brains cortex, which plays a key role in thinking, evolved later than the limbic system, which plays a key role in emotion, or emotional reactions to situation proceed or thoughts about them.
Support for an evolutionary basis of emotions
Charles Darwin was among the first to point out that similarities between the emotional expressions of humans and many nonhuman animals. He noted that the angry snarl of dogs, marked by the bearing of their fangs, is reminiscent of the dismissive sneer of humans. Eugene mortar showed deep seated similarities in communication across most animal species, especially mammals and birds, further suggesting that the emotions of human and nonhuman animals share the same evolutionarily heritage. For example, across the animal kingdom high-pitched sounds are associated with friendly interactions and low-pitch sounds with hostile interactions.
Of course, the mere fact that two things are superficially similar doesn’t prove that they share revolutionary roots. Birds and bats both have wings, but their wings evolved independently of each other. Many mammals display similar emotional reactions during similar social behaviours, lending itself to parsimonious hypothesis: perhaps these reactions share the same evolutionarily origins.
Culture and emotion
Another way of evaluating claims that discrete emotions are products of evolution is to examine the universality of emotional expressions. If humans evolved to express emotions in a similar way, we’d expect expressions to communicate the same meaning across cultures.
Recognition of emotions across cultures:
One telling piece of evidence for discreet emotions Theory derives from research showing that people recognize and generate the same emotional expressions across cultures.
Primary emotions
Small number of emotions (perhaps seven) believed by some theorists to be cross-culturally universal.
Specifically, they found that the facial expressions associated with these emotions are recognized across most, if not all, cultures.
•Happiness
•sadness
•surprise
•Anger
•disgust
•Fear
•contempt
Recent research suggests that pride may also be a cross-cultural universal emotion, although the evidence for this claim is preliminary.
Happiness tends to be the most easily recognized emotion. In contrast, negative emotions are more difficult to recognize.
Secondary emotions
Our brains create an enormous array of secondary emotions from a small number of primary emotions.
Just a talented painter’s create a magnificent complex palette of secondary paint colors, like various shades of green and purple, from a few primary paint colors, like blue and yellow.
Schadenfreude- A German term referring to the goalie we experience at witnessing the misfortune of others, especially those we consider arrogant. It seems to be a hybrid of several emotions, like happiness, anger, and pride. We experience Schadenfreude when we feel secretly happy when a classmate who brags about getting A+ on their exams unexpectedly gets an F.
Display rules
Cross-cultural guidelines for how and when to express emotions.
The Finding that certain emotions exist across most or all cultures doesn’t mean that cultures are identical in their emotional expressions. So in many cases, culture doesn’t influence emotion itself, but it does influence it’s overt expression.
Emotions and physiology 
We can differentiate at least some primary emotions by the patterns of physiological responding. The mirror act of making a face associated with a specific emotion alters our bodily reactions in characteristic ways. Our heart rates tend to increase more when we make angry or fearful rather than happy or surprised facial expressions, probably because the first two emotions are more closely linked to the emergency reactions we experience when threatened.
Fear, Disgust, and anger tend to show different patterns of brain activation. Fear is relatively specific to the amygdala; disgust to the insula, a region within the limbic system; and anger to region of the frontal cortex behind our eyes. Surprisingly, happiness and sadness aren’t terribly different in their patterns of brain activation. Moreover, there’s almost certainly no single “fear processor,” “disgust processor”, and so on in the brain because multiple brain regions participate in all emotions.
Real versus fake emotions
In genuine happiness, we set up for turning off the corners of the mouth, along with a tripping of the eyelids and a crinkling of the corner of the eyes. Emotional theorists distinguish this genuine expression, duchenne smile, From the fake or Pan Am smile, which is marked by the movement of the mouth but not the eyes. 
Interestingly, among subjects asked to produce facial expressions, only Duchenne smiles are associated with increased activity of the front region of the left hemisphere, which appears to be specialized for positive emotions.
Cognitive theories of emotions
Theories proposing that emotions are products of thinking.
Discrete emotions theorists empathize the biological underpinnings of emotion. For them, emotions are largely innate motor programs triggered by certain stimuli, and our emotional reactions to these precede our interpretation of them. 
Advocates of cognitive theories of emotion disagree. For them, emotions are products of thinking rather than the other way around. What we feel in response to a situation is determined by how we interpret it, the way we appraise situation’s influences whether we find them stressful. Moreover, for cognitive theorists, there are no discreet emotions, because the boundaries across emotions are fuzzy and there are many different emotions as there are kinds of thoughts.
James-Lange theory of emotion
Theory proposing that emotions result from our interpretations of our bodily reactions to stimuli. 
Snarling dog —> ANS arousal, changes in body—> conscious fear 
“I’m afraid because I’m shaking.”
Somatic marker Theory
Theory proposing that we use our “gut reactions” to help us determine how we should react.
Cannon-Bard theory of emotion
Theory proposing that an emotion-provoking event leads simultaneously to an emotion and to bodily reactions.
Further proposed that the thalamus, which is a release station for the senses triggers both an emotion and bodily reactions. Cannon and Bard were probably wrong about that because later researcher showed the numerous regions of the limbic system, including the hypothalamus in the amygdala, also play a key role in emotion. 
Snarling dog —> subcortical brain activity —> ANS arousal, conscious fear
“I am shaking and feeling afraid at the same time”
Common sense theory
“I’m shaking because I’m afraid”
Snarling dog —> conscious fear —> ANS arousal
Two factor theory
Theory proposing that emotions are produced by an undifferentiated state of arousal along an attribution (explanation) of that arousal.
By “undifferentiated”, Schachter and Singer meant that this arousal is the same across all emotions.
Once we figure out what’s making us a route, we label that arousal with an emotion. This labelling process, Schachter and Singer proposed, typically occurs so rapidly that were not aware of it. According to this view, emotions are the explanations we attached to our arousal. Emotions, Schachter and Singer concluded, requires both physiological arousal and an attribution of the arousal to an emotion-inducing event.
Moreover, research suggests that all the arousal often intensifies emotions, emotions can occur in the absence of arousal. Contrary to what Schachter and Singer claimed, arousal isn’t necessary for all emotional experiences.
Starling dog —> cognitive appraisal ANS arousal, changes in body —> conscious fear
“This snarling dog is dangerous and that makes me feel afraid” 
Pulling it all together (Theories of emotions)
Discrete emotions Theory is probably correct that are emotional reactions are shaped in part by natural selection and that these reactions serve crucial adaptive functions. Nevertheless, discrete emotions Theory doesn’t exclude the possibility that our thinking influences our emotions in significant ways, as cognitive theorists propose. Indeed, each of the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and somatic marker theories are probably correct in assuming that our influencers concerning our bodily reactions can influence our emotional states. Finally, two-factor theory may be right that physiological arousal plays a key role in the intensity over emotional experiences, It’s unlikely that all emotions require such arousal. 
Automatic generation of emotion
Research suggests that a good deal of our behaviour is produced automatically that is, with no voluntary influences on our part. The same may hold for our emotional reactions; many may be generated automatically, much like the knee-jerk reflex.
Facial feedback Hypothesis
Theory that blood vessels in the face feedback temperature information in the brain, altering our experience of emotions in predictable way. (You’re likely to feel emotions that corresponds to your facial features.)
Zajonc viewed this process as purely bio chemical and noncognitive— that is, as involving no thinking. It operates outside of our awareness. 
Nonverbal leakage
Unconscious spillover of our emotions into nonverbal behaviour. Is often a powerful cue that we are trying to hide an emotion.
Our nonverbal behaviours are often more valid indicators of our emotions then our words, Largely because we’re better at discussing our verbal language than our gestures and tone of voice.
The importance of non-verbal cues
Without nonverbal cues to our emotions, embarrassing miscommunications can arise. Many of us have experienced this affect to when a person to whom we send an innocuous or humorous text or email misinterpreted as hostile. Without being able to hear our vocal inflections or see your facial emotions, recipients may misinterpret what we meant to say. The problem is compounded by the fact that we overestimate how easily others can figure out the intended meaning of our email messages. More broadly, psychologists refer to this problem as the curse of knowledge: when we know something, in this case we intend to say, we often make the mistake of assuming that others know what too.
Body language and gestures
Our postures can convey a lot about our emotional states. Slumped posture can convey sadness and an right posture can convey happiness or excitement, although an upright posture involving a lot of body tension may also convey anger. This nonverbal leakage is largely unconscious. When interpreting the emotional states of others, we typically take both facial and body information into account. Research on embodied cognition even shows that our postures affect our readiness to engage in certain behaviors. When participants are insulted, they’re more likely to display brain response is typical of anger (activation of the left frontal lobes) when sitting straight up then when reclining. That’s probably because were more prepared to strike others when upright than one laying down.
Gestures come and seemingly endless forms. When talking, we often use illustrators: gestures that highlight or accentuate speech, such as when we forcefully move our hands forward to make an important point. When stressed out, we may engage in manipulators: gestures in which one body part strokes, presses, bites, or otherwise touches another body part. For example, when cramming for an exam, we made twirl our hair or by our fingernails.
Emblems: gestures that convey conventional meanings recognized by members of a culture, such as the hand wave and nodding of the head. Some of these gestures are consistent across cultures, such as crossing ones finger went hoping for good luck or struggling on the shoulders to indicate “I don’t know.” Yet others different across cultures. The “thumbs up” is a sign of approval Among Westerners but an insult in much of the Muslim world. 
As useful as body language can be in communicating information about emotional states, we must be careful in drawing conclusions about its meaning for any given person. Some popular psychologists specialize in “translating”body language into emotions, as if they were a universal dictionary of body language. Yet these psychologists overlook the fact that within a given culture, people differ greatly in the body language do you speak to expressed certain emotions. 
Proxemics
The study of personal space
Anthropologist Edward hall observed that personal distance is correlated positively with emotional distance. The further we stand from a person, the less emotionally close we usually feel to them, and vice versa. But there are exceptions. When we’re trying to intimidate people, we typically get closer to them. According to haul, there are four levels of personal space.
- Public distance (3 metres/12 feet or more): typically used for public speaking, such as lecturing.
- Social distance (1.25 to 3 metres/4 to 12 feet): typically used for conversations among strangers and casual acquaintances.
- Personal distance (0.5 to 1.25 metres/1.5 to 4 feet): typically used for conversations among close friends or romantic partners.
- Intimate distance (0 to 0.5 metres/0 to 1.5 feet): typically use for kissing, hugging, whispering “sweet nothings,” and affectionate touching.
When is implicit rules are violated, we usually feel uncomfortable, as when a stranger gets in our face to ask us for a favor.
Hall argued that culture is different and personal space. In many Latin and Middle Eastern countries, personal space is relatively close, whereas in many Scandinavian and Asian countries, personal space is more distant. Nevertheless, data suggests that although these cultural differences are genuine, they aren’t as large as hall believed. There are also sex differences in personal space, with women preferring closer space than men. Personal space also increases from childhood to early adulthood, perhaps because the young haven’t yet developed clear interpersonal boundaries.
Humans as a lie detector’s
We spend a sizeable amount for every day lives trying to figure out if others are “being straight” with us or putting us on. To do so, we frequently rely on peoples nonverbal behaviors. When researchers ask people to lie about something, like whether they enjoyed watching a gruesome film, their illustrators tend to decrease, whereas their manipulators and emblems tend to increase. Yet none of these gestures are full proof indicators of dishonesty, so we shouldn’t place too much stock in any one of them. The best way of finding out whether someone is lying is to listen to what they’re saying rather than how they’re saying it; for example, dishonest statements tend to contain fewer details and fewer qualifiers (such as “I’m not sure about this, but I think that…) than truthful statements 
Although many of us are confident of our ability to detect lies, research suggests that giving a 50-50 chance of being right, most of us achieve only about 55% accuracy, and few exceed 70%. Moreover, occupational groups we expect to be especially accurate detectors of lies, like people who administer so-called lie detector (polygraph) tests, customs officials, and psychiatrists, usually do no better than the rest of us— meaning not much better than chance. Researchers have found only a few groups, including the secret service agents, clinical psychologist who studied deception, and perhaps some judges and law enforcement officials, to be especially adept at lie detection. These correlational findings me indicate that years of experience in spotting lies make people better at it: practice makes perfect. Or perhaps the casual arrow is the first: people who are inter-personally perceptive may pursue professions that allow them to exercise his talent.
Another sobering finding is that there’s typically little or no correlation between peoples confidence in their ability to detect lives and their accuracy. We should “take it with a grain of salt”
Lying in children
While both parents and educators will admit that lying among children can be a serious problem, One of the only longitudinal studies of its kind to track when consistent lying develops. The researchers asked both mothers and teachers to rate (over three years) the degree of disruptive behaviours and lying among more than 1100 boys and girls ages 6 to 8 years. Teachers also rated children’s disruptive behaviours at ages 10 and 11. They found that mothers generally rated their children as lying more often than teachers did. Mothers and teachers also rated boys as lying more than girls. Curiously, the rate of consistent lying didn’t change over time, and the disruptive behaviours as rated by teachers did not increase from age of 6, 7, And 8 to ages 10 and 11. Subsequently, the authors concluded that we put lying appears to be somewhat persistent by seven years of age and occurs concurrently with disruptive behaviors.