Emotion Flashcards
(28 cards)
Bargh, Chen and Burrows (1996)
Demonstrated that activating a stereotype of elderly people without mentioning anything about how they walk or speed caused participants to walk away slower, demonstrating a consistent bodily response to a stimuli.
Cannon (1927)
Lesioned cats spinal cord and argued that total separation of the viscera from the CNS does not alter emotional behaviour and the same visceral changes can occur in emotional and non-emotional states (so the same change doesn’t always elicit the emotional response).
Furthermore he argued the viscera are relatively insensitive and slow structures.
Marañon (1924)
Study involved injecting participants with adrenaline but fewer than 1/3rd reported an emotional reaction (mostly pseudo – not linked to experience).
Schachter and Singer (1962)
Tested 3 propositions by manipulating, state of physiological arousal (given adrenaline or placebo unknowingly), degree to which participants had an explanation for this arousal state (given side effect warning that was either correct, wrong or none at all) and availability of alternative explanations for the arousal (changing environment to euphoric or angry)
Response was measured using self report and observation.
Manipulation of explanation for arousal state generally worked as predicted.
There was some problems with arousal manipulation as results from placebo condition often did not differ from those in the arousal conditions Most crucially, manipulation of ‘alternative cognitions’ did not result in the same state of arousal being labelled ‘euphoria’ or ‘anger’.
Strack, Martin and Stepper (1988)
Tested this by having participants evaluate cartoons while holding a pen either with their lips or their teeth and found that cartoons were judged to be funnier in teeth condition as the face is smiling.
Spiesman et al. (1964)
Ps shown film of adolescent undergoing circumcision with 3 different voice overs to manipulate ps appraisal of film’s emotional content; intellectualisation (stating anthropological facts), denial (suggesting occasion of joy) and trauma (unpleasant).
Emotional response measured using heart rate and skin concordance – found sig higher skin concordance in trauma condition – does not explicitly measure appraisal.
Smith and Ellsworth (1985)
P’s recalled autobiographical episodes for 13 emotions and answered q’s about them. Each episode was rated in accordance with primary and secondary appraisals results showed different emotions were associated with distinctive appraisal profiles.
Furthermore it is clear that one dimension has the power to determine the whole outcome of the emotion as guilt and pride are very similar on every dimension except pleasantness.
Limitations of this study include the reliance on memory as accuracy of the emotional state may be reduced. Additionally we may not be aware of ongoing appraisals and the sudden onset of an emotion may be instantly forgotten.
Stein et al. (1997)
Found that the higher the proportion of positive appraisals the greater the number of short and long term plans (especially in relation to self).
The more positive appraisals the better psychological well-being was, both at bereavement and 12 months later.
Moreland and Zajonc (1979)
Found this effect with Japanese ideographs as particpants that had more exposure to them also judged them more positively.
Susskind et al (2008)
Argued that displaying fear enhances sensory acquisition by modifying preparedness for perception and action.
Results showed that when subjects expressed fear on their face they had subjectively larger visual field, faster eye movements during target localization and an increase in nasal volume and air velocity during inspiration.
The opposite pattern was found for disgust.
Ekman et al (1969)
3,000 pictures of people expressing the 6 basic emotions were categorised accurately 70-90% of the time by 5 different cultures
Key flaw they had all been exposed to western media
Ekman and Friesen (1971)
Used a non- literate version to Fore tribe in Papa New Guinea and gave them a choice of three emotions when fear and surprise were both options there was confusion but they performed accurately in all other cases
Story was flaws the design as its unclear if ps are responding to perceived emotion of character or events of story
Crivelli et al (2016)
Replicated the study with suggested improvements and found the preliterate group performed much worse than controls as they now had a choice of all 6 facial expressions to chose from
Tracy and Matsumoto (2008)
Blind from birth and sighted athletes showed same facial expression of pride and joy after winning a medal.
Ekman, Friesen and Ancoli (1980)
Investigated whether spontaneous facial expressions provide information about more specific aspects of emotional experience i.e intensity and quality (within positive-negative).
They showed participants 3 positive films (but only analysed 2) and 1 negative film (containing 2 unpleasant scenes).
They measured facial expressions using participants who showed no lip corner puller were less happy than those who did; therefore were correlated with self report for happiness.
Similar results were seen for nose wrinkling and disgust etc. they concluded that facial action provides accurate information about different aspects of the subjective experience of emotion.
What is an emotion?
A brief, specific response, both psychological and physiological, that helps people meet goals, including social ones.
Emotions are different to moods as they only last a few seconds or minutes. Although emotional disorders like depression can last years.
Emotions help achieve social goals in the sense that they motivate your actions, e.g gratitude can motivate a person to reward people.
What are the components of emotion?
The first component is the appraisal process which are patterns of construal for evaluating events and objects in the environment based on their relation to current goals.
The first is a fast and automatic appraisal of whether an event is consistent with our goals and results in a feeling of (un)pleasantness.
Following this more deliberate appraisals of causality, responsibility, fairness and likely courses of action transform this feeling into a specific emotion.
The second component is physiological responses that follow in concordance with emotion. They also involve expressive behaviours and subjective feelings which are the qualities that define what the experience of the emotion is like. Finally action tendencies is the final component.
What are the different views on emotion?
The classical view of emotion states you’re born with an innate set of emotions (happiness, sadness, anger and fear). You feel these emotions be perceiving a stimulus which triggers a circuit in your brain and causes a physiological response.
The prototypical theory proposed by Feldman Barrett (2017) argues that emotions aren’t just reactions to the world but they construct our world through interoception. This is our sense of the physiological condition of our bodies which monitors our internal processes and informs the brain in one of 4 ways; pleasantness, unpleasantness, arousal and calmness. Barrett argues emotions result from our brains interpretations of this info using learned concepts. Emotion prototypes make intuitive sense and people can readily access representations of them.
What is William James’ theory of emotion?
His theory argues that although we think perception causes an emotion which causes physiological changes, the order is in fact that perception is followed directly by bodily changes and our feeling of these changes is the emotion.
Alternatively without the perception preceding the bodily change then emotion would be only in cognitive form and not be intense or linked to any event so James describes it as colourless.
Lock and key analogy
What is Schachter’s two factor theory?
He believed social context helps us interpret internal states.
A state he argues is usually unambiguous and simple to interpret is arousal.
His two factor theory of emotion consists of physiological arousal (necessary but not sufficient) and cognitive input (to interpret arousal)
What were the three propositions of Schachters theory?
1 - If an individual is aroused but has no immediate explanation for the arousal, he/she will want to explain it and will therefore label it and describe his/her feelings in terms of whatever explanations available.
2 - If an individual is aroused but has a completely appropriate explanation for the arousal, he/she will not feel the need to explain it and is unlikely to label his/her feelings in terms of the alternative explanations.
3 - In any given situation, the individual will react emotionally or describe his/her feelings as emotions only to the extent that he/she experiences a state of physiological arousal.
What is the appraisal theory of emotion?
The basic claim of all appraisal theories is that emotion is based on an appraisal of the meaning and significance of an event.
The law of structural meaning states emotions arise in response to the meaning structures of given situations; different emotions arise in response to different meaning structures.
What are the three types of appraisal distinguished by Lazarus?
1 -Primary - whether something of relevance to the person’s
well-being has occurred.
> Goal relevance – law of concern: emotions arise in
response to events that are important to the
individuals goals, motives or concerns
> Goal congruence
> Type of ego involvement – self-esteem, moral values
or life goals
2 - Secondary - concerns coping options - that is, whether any
given action might prevent harm, ameliorate it, or produce additional harm or benefit.
> Blame/credit – who is accountable?
> Coping potential – how can I deal with the situation? o Future expectancy – are things likely to change for
better or worse?
3 - Reappraisal - distinguished from appraisal only by coming
later and by the fact that it includes appraisals that are constructed by the mind to regulate emotional distress or protect one’s ego-identity.
What is the alternative causal sequence?
Affective primacy suggests that preferences need no inferences. We can even form evaluations without being aware of being exposed to stimuli as seen in the mere exposure effect.
Context is often enough information for emotion to occur without appraisal of what’s happening. Lazarus stated “Much in life is a restatement of past struggles, which as a feature of our personal history is an integral part of the emotion process. … In effect, many appraisal decisions have been all but made, and need only the appropriate environmental cue to trigger them”.
