PSYC 102 Midterm 3 Flashcards
Emotions + Moods + Feelings
Emotions (affect): an immediate in the moment, specific negative or positive response to environmental events or internal thoughts
Moods: diffuse, long-lasting emotional states that do not have an identifiable object or trigger
Feelings: subjective experience of the emotion
3 Components of Emotion
Bodily Arousal (physiological component):
* Fast Path: receiving stimuli → thalamus –(skipped for fast path - cortex processes more) → amygdala → experience of fear
* Slow Path: receiving stimuli → thalamus – cortex processes more → amygdala → experience of fear or → relief
* Fight or Flight (Sympathetic) vs Calm (Parasympathetic)
Subjective Conscious Experience (cognitive component): what we are thinking
* Cultural influences, highly personal, subjective experience
* Depend on cognitive appraisals/interpretations (ex. Who are you talking to, situation - roller coaster vs airplane)
Characteristic Overt Expressions (behavioral component)
* Non-verbal expressiveness: faces, gestures, body positions
Discrete Emotions Theory
Humans experience only a
small number of distinct
emotions – even if they
combine in complex ways.
* Each emotion has
distinct biological
roots that comes
from evolutionary
functions, and motor
program.
Motor Program: A set of genetically influenced physiological
responses that are essen0ally the same in all of us.
Ways to evaluate/support Discrete Emotions Theory:
1. Evolutionary psychology
2. Examine the universality of emotional expressions (culture)
Universality Hypothesis + Evidence + Lab +
Almost all researchers now agree that emo0ons are adaptive
responses that arise from mechanisms shaped by natural
selection.
Universality Hypothesis: emotional expressions have the same meaning for everyone
Evidence: blind smile when they are happy, babies have disgust face
Lab: unexposed to western society, tribe asked to show expressions
6 Adaptive Survival Advantages
- Disgust: facial expression lowers the volume of oxygen taken in, closes eyes, lowers exposure to the stimuli/chemical/smell
- Fear: facial expression intakes greater volume of oxygen taken in, fight or flight response, prepare to act
- Communication without talking: way for one animal to communicate to another how it feels or how it is prepared to act without verbal language, lowers cases of fighting to the death
- Smiling: increase likelihood of affiliation & to reduce likelihood of aggression b/w interaction partners and is thought to be a signal of benign intent
- Sadness/Crying & Empathy/Support: types of expressions incurs diff experience emotions & behavioral response
- Those crying: more experienced distress/sadness less aversion, behavioral response higher emotional support and less avoidance
- Guilt/Embarrassment & Social Bonds: important for social creatures, nonverbal apology that elicits forgiveness in others, thereby repairing & maintaining relationships, embarrassment represents submission to and affiliation with the social group
- Head moves down and to the side, lips press together & corners turn up slightly
4 Cognitive Theories of Emotion: Process + Crit
Interplay b/w physiological & cognitive activity, both are cause & consequence of emotional experience
Non-Theory - Common Sense Approach: stimulus → conscious subjective feeling → autonomic arousal
James-Lange Theory: distinct patterns/perception of autonomic activation leads to the conscious experience of different emotions
* Process: Stimulus →Autonomic Arousal→ Conscious Subjective Feeling
* Criticisms: (1)Physiological arousal can occur without subsequent emotion such as sprinting (2)Some physiological changes are too slow to precede conscious experience of emotion such as embarrassment (3)The experience of fear, joy, surprise, anger exhibit almost the same patterns of autonomic arousal/common physiological responses exist/Although some emotions can be physiologically distinguished, not all are distinct
Cannon-Bard Theory: Subcortical brain activity SIMULTANEOUSLY sends signals to the cortex (results in ‘feelings’) and the autonomic nervous system (arousal)
* Process: stimuli → Thalamus → Common Arousal & Subjective Feeling
* Criticisms: lleft out contributions of hypothalamus & amygdala. Although some emotions display similar physiological responses, there is not one common response
Schachter-Singer Theory: common pattern of autonomic arousal & cognitive interpretation of that arousal based on the environment results in emotion
* Process: stimuli → Common Arousal → Cognitive Interpretation →Subjective Feeling of fear or relief
* Criticisms: Although some emotions display similar physiological responses, there is not one common response. Some emotions are experienced without arousal
7 Primary Emotions + Secondary Emotions + Facial Expressions
7 Primary Emotions: joy, surprise, contempt, sadness, anger, disgust, fear
Pride: blind individuals when they win judo paralympics show same face
Secondary Emotions:
Circumplex Model of Emotions: mild-intent, unpleasant-pleasant: tired, alarmed, depressed, bored, content, frustrated, annoyed
Facial Action Coding System (FACS): AU6 cheek raiser, AU9 nose wrinkle
Display Rules of Emotion
Display Rules: rules that govern how and when people exhibit their emotions
* Dictate when emotional expression is suitable in specific situations
* Learned through socialization
* Cultural variations in expression & recognition of emotions
Japanese vs American disgust face alone show, Japanese try to suppress when authority figure around, Americans just let it show
Japanese look to eyes: to hide emotions, people look to eyes
Americans pay more attention to mouth
Individual differences too, personalities different & intensely
Recognizing Emotion: Context, Americans look at central person 99%, Japanese 80% + surrounding 20%
Gender Differences in display rules: culture to culture, display rules tend to be different b/w men & women
Women tend to be more readily, frequently, intensely & easily display emotions
Especially crying & laughing
Men display more anger
Report more intense emotions
Be better at articulating their emotions
Bio (evolution) or socialization?
What role does nonverbal expression play?
Absence of nonverbal cues leads to miscommunica0on.
o Ex) reading text messages and be like: is that person angry with me…?
* Curse of Knowledge: People overestimating how easily others can figure out the intended meanings of my communica0on.
5 Emotion Regulation Types
Emotion Regulation: how individuals control which emotions they have when they have them how such emotions are experienced and expressed
Situation Selection: before situation forward thinking, refers to approaching or avoiding certain people, places or objects in order to regulate emotions
* Ex. Avoid a scary person when walking to class, karaoke after test
Situation Modification: within a situation, modifying external, physical environments in order to change a potentially emotion-eliciting situation
* Ex. Here are chocolates, I’m going partying
Attentional Deployment: within a situation, diverting attention away from one’s attention within a given situation in order to influence one’s emotions, positive or negative
* Different from concentration: focusing on activities that absorb cognitive resources, focusing on emotions to amplify them (ex. Guitar singing to distract from emotions)
* Rumination: attention is directed towards feelings & their consequences
* Positive, exists in order to seek help & talk about it
Cognitive Change: cognitively transforming the situation so as to alter its emotional impact, usually about negative events
* Positive Reappraisal: finding silver lining, rainbow in rainstorm (ex. Fired from job, but now can pursue something you are passionate about)
* Downward Social Comparison: comparing one’s situation with that of a less fortunate person, thereby altering one’s construal & decreasing negative emotion (ex. Win silver, better than getting bronze)
Response Modulation: occurs slate in the emotion generative process, after response tendencies have been initiated
* Modulation of Behavioral Responses: suppression of emotional expression, initiation/exaggeration of emotional expression
* Modulation of physiological responses: exercise, biofeedback (feel pulse & slow it down), drugs & alcohol, meditation & yoga
Why might there be such high rates of obesity today?
- Increased abundance of fast food & processed foods
- Widespread consumption of high-sugar, high-calories of drinks
- Sharp decline of exercise & activity levels
- Increased portion sizes of food & drink
- Abundance of highly varied foods: predictable & routine diets result in decreases in intake
Anorexia vs Bulimia vs Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Anorexia Nervosa (¼ men, less quickly to get treatment):
Criteria:
* Restriction of energy intake relative to requirements leading to a significantly low body weight in the context of age, sex, developmental trajectory & physical health
* Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though they are underweight
* Disturbance in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight
Warning Signs (don’t memorize): significant weight loss, distorted body image, intense fear/anxiety about gaining weight, preoccupation with weight, calories, food, denial of low weight, think, pale, dule, dry hair, hypothermia, fatigue/fainting, abuse of pills, excessive compulsive exercise
Health Complications (don’t memorize):
* Amenorrhea: cessation of menstrual cycle, abnormally slow/irregular heartbeat, dehydration, osteoporosis, memory loss, anemia
Bulimia:
Criteria:
* Recurrent episodes of binge eating characterized by both eating in a discrete amount of time within 2 hr period large amount of food, sense of lack of control over eating during an episode
* Recurrent inappropriate compensatory behavior in order to prevent weight gain (purging)
* Binge eating & compensatory behavior both occur, on average, at least once a week for 3 months
* Self-evaluation is unduly influenced by body shape & weight
* Disturbance doesn’t occur exclusively during episodes of anorexia nervosa
Cycle: strict dieting → diet slips/difficult situation arises → binge eating triggered → purging to avoid weight gain → feelings of shame & self-hatred
Warning Signs: binging, purging, visits to bathroom after meals, weight fluctuations, broken blood vessels, discoloration of teeth
Health Complications: irregular heartbeat, seizures, dehydration, vitamin & mineral deficiencies, irregular bowel movements
Body Dysmorphic Disorder: eating disorders & body-image distortions among boys & men are increasing too
* Compulsive Exercise
* Steroid Abuse
What environmental factors are associated with eating behaviour?
Portion Sizes:
* Unit Bias: tendency to view a unit of food as an appropriate amount
Bottomless Bowl Study: bowl is continuously refilled with soup, never able to be finished 73% more soup than with normal bowl
Container Size Studies: same amount of food, different sized plate, people will eat more when plate is big, food looks small, perceive they’ve eaten less
Portion Size >PalibilityPopcorn: larger containers influence consumption more than palatability of food
Proximity & Visibility:
* IV1: Visibility(transparent vs opaque container), IV2: proximate (your desk or co-worker desk), DV: # of candies eaten. More visible & proximate the more the candy consumed. The farther the more time to think about eating the candy. Don’t see it more often.
Variety: greater variety 43%>less variety. Mixed 69%> separated
* Evolution: diverse foods means more variety of nutrients
What social/emotional/cultural factors are associated with eating behaviour?
Social Factors:
Eating with Others: tend to eat more the larger the group, 1 28%> 2 41%> …
* Take cues from others, more relaxed enjoyable, longer meals, distracted from monitoring consumption from socializing, unfamiliar (less) vs familiar others (more)
Emotional Factors
* Mood: comfort foods
* Lab: sad (less raisins more M&Ms), happy (more raisins less M&Ms)
Cultural/Cognitive Factors
Ideal Body: changed overtime, socioeconomic patterns,
* Women: Curvy body - child bearing, 70s & 20s - women in workforce/mothers weren’t intelligent/slimmer figure/masculine, nowadays - slim & curvy, women are often more critical of their bodies
* Men: nowadays-chiseled & slim/time & money to go to gym, past-chiseled was manual work/boot collar job/low SSE/slimmer man more attractive
What biological factors influence our motivations to eat?
- Growlies Lab: measuring stomach contractions while subject presses key each time feels hungry, correlation doesn’t equal causation, crits: contractions occur even when not hungry, don’t occur when hungry
- Lateral Hypothalamus “hunger center”: lesion- will stop eating/skinny, stimulate - will eat/fat
- Ventromedial Hypothalamus “Satieity center”: lesion-fat, stimulate-skinny
- Grehlin: hormone produced in the stomach sends “hunger” signals to the hypothalamus (appetite increaser)
- Leptin (Genetic Influence): a hormone released by fat cells to inhibit hunger (appetit decreaser)
- Genetic Factors (account for 40-70% of the variation in body mass among women & men): twin studies found more than 200 genes have been identified as possible contributors to human obesity
Motivation
Process that influences the direction, persistence, & vigor of goal directed behavior tied to emotions
