exam ch6 Flashcards
(26 cards)
Q1emotions, feelings and affect
emotions= bioregulatory responses to environmental cues - BRAIN PROCESSES
feelings= mental representations of the physiological changes that characterize emotions (consequence/experience of an emotion) - LEVEL OF THE MIND
affext= basic, unconscious state produced by the brain; constructs emotions.
it operates beneat conscious awareness and is defined by the dimensions of valence (pos/neg) and arousal (H/L)
BET (basic emotion theory)
emotions are distinct, universal states that exist independently of conscious thought, with feelings emerging as the subjective experience of these emotions
TCE (theories of constructed emotions)
emotions are not pre existing entities but are produced by affect, a basic unconscious state (produced by the brain)
Q2 facial expressions of emotions as adaptive functions?
Ekman basic theories (might help to read emotion)
Emotion is adaptive cause makes us survive
no cause we suck at it: senders nd receivers are not aligned on the info being transferred (we suck with all non versbal cues actually, we can’t detect liars either).
hence, communication via facial expression is an effect, not a product.
Philogenic: faciial expression has a very long history (also in animals) and there are universal similarities in facial expressions BUT they do not serve as adaptive functions
emotions
complex chain of connected events
- stimulus
- feelings, psychological changes
- impulses to action
(=communicate what is about to happen)
=interaction stimuli-individuals, aimed at restoring balance
emotions as adaptive responses
actiated for issues of survival and reproduction ad an interaction between the indivisual and teh environment (to restore balance and increase survival chances)
they serve to regulate interactions and maintain cohesion
!can have maladaptive functions (social anxiety)!
self conscious emotions
evolved for clear adaptive functions: pride, shame, guilt
pride
push to perform socially valuued actions
shame
helps limiting what devaluates us in the eye of others
guilt
helps addressing neglect of other’s welfare
misreading darwing (aldso response to Q2)
facial and body expressions are not universals; tehy did not evolve for communicative purposes
obsession towards body language and facial expression
theory of mind teaches that people have different emotions and emotional responses compared to us, and for how much this allows us to predict those, we can’t always be right. we are control freask and we wanna know whats gonna happen
universal facial expressions
what is universal: physiology, muscles and POTENTIAL use
what is not universal: use and way of using (not always related to emotions).ù
EKMAN: the context here is key (once again) - to fully understand an expression we should know what happened before that (what trigegred it). studying a facial expression w/ context is studying a possibility: what could e communicated instead of what is communicated
basic emotions (ekman)
- anger
- fear
- sadness
- surprise
- disgust
but those emotions can corrispond to similar expressions even if the emotions considered are fully opposite. there is no limited set of combinations for facial structures (same that goes w language - compositionality)ù
hence tryingf too interpret expressions is hard af
ekman points
- there can be emotion w/ facial expression (+tehre are eotions w no specific facial expression - awe, nostalgia…)
- there can be facial expression w/ emotion (false expressions: expressing emotion when not felt - duchenne marker for smiling; referential expressions: not felt at the moment of the talk but is in what it’s talked about; mock: opposite of what’s felt)
3.individuals differ in facial expressions (you can’t compare between people but u can have their neutral face as benchmark)
Q3 Facial Action Coding
linking muscle groups to facial expressions.
it helps us to connect better with others, since it gives us a good start studying facial expressions
(ofc doesnt allow us to read minds or tells us shit ab emotions, but its a clear invitation to ask ab smth isntead of assuming)
Q6. facial expressions and blind people
TCE thory of constructed emotions says that we have facial expressions by imitation others (purely learned)
- blind people should struggle to produce them
study on people who do judo: very similar to people who are not blind
+study on kids (sighted and unsighted) aged 8-11
- unsighted people had clerer and mroe congruent facial expression (less control over facial expression)
-higher % of sighted kids would smile in negative situations: they’re better at hiding socially undesirable emotions (sighted children don’t learn facial exprewssions either, but they adjust them to societal expectations)
individualistic vs collectivistic cultures
individualistic: emotions as PERSONAL EXPERIENCE - openly expressed (directly and indirectly)
MINE (mental, inside a person and essentialist)
represents what we share as humans (all individual emotions)
collectivistic: RELATIONAL EXPERIENCE - shaped by social norms and no big displace to avoid disruption of social harmony (sometimes full absence to maintain sooth interpersonal relations)
OURS (outside the person, relational and situated) - social interaction+emotions= 1 system (cant be separated) hence difefrent interactions for difefrent relationship and even cultural dependence for the same emotion
represent (social and cultural) context dependency
different types of smiles
1.reinforce desired behavior (reward smile) - you activate reward centers of their brains: “well done, do more” (developed by kids in first 3 moths, works only w their mom’s brain)
2. forming and maintaining social bonds (affiliation smile) - “social smile” to maintain mutually positive and beneficial social bonds (not necessarily feeling joy, like when meeting strangers)
3. negotiate social hierarchies (dominance smile) - sgns of superiority; also in case whne u wanna take the distance from sb else’s trasgression; sometimes is simply the display that reduces the prob of violent social encounters
Q5: heterogeneous vs homogeneous smile
heterogeneous: present day population from greater number of source countries
- more bonding motives to smile due to increased socual uncertainty
+cues to trustwortiness and cooperation (especially affiliation smiles)
homogeneous: fewer source countries
-more hierarchy related motives due to a silent (not disturbing social group) negotiation of one’s status
+social norms, structures and messages more easily predicable in those countries due to historically well estabilished institutions and codes
emotional dialects
cultural difference in cues, potential for miscommunicatio
being better t recognising your own group’sfacial mimic (faster and more accurate)
Q6 facial expressions, emotions and autism + miscommunication
alexithymia=difficulty identifying and describing emotions (goes for yourself and others) - pretty common in autistic people but also in non autistic people
autistic peole express less emotions and in shorter periods of time (especially in everyday situations)
- might fail to meet expectations of neurotypical individuals (they both struggle at reading them; mismatch and potential misunderstanding - mostly depending on different styles in expression between the two groups)
!experience and training can help skills (animated serie +test to assess ability to interpret emotions)
_- digital age is poorer or richer in expressing emotions?
2008 reviwe paper: online communication reinforces the expression of emotions (more frequent and explicit emotion communication in CMC)
-disinhibition effect (kinda safe space)
emojis (media richness theory)
-enhance digital interpersonal communication
-communicate facial expressions, emotions…
-help out w meaning of a message
-helps understanding the mood and the level of interest
!BUT NOT ALL EMOJIS ARE INTERPRETED THE SAME!
hence not individual nor universal, noise occurs (impossible to have eevryone reading every eemoji as u intrended it)
