Chapter 6: Emotion and Affect

emotion

a conscious evaluative reaction that’s clearly linked to some event

consciuous emotion

a powerful and clearly unified feeling state that corresponds with the deliberate system, and includes mental aspects (subjective feelings an interpretations) and physical aspects (racing heartbeat or tears)

arousal

a physiological reaction linked to most conscious emotions

mood

a feeling state that is not clearly linked to some event

affect

the automatic response that something is good (positive affect) or bad (negative affect); a result of mapping all emotions onto a single good–bad dimension.

automatic effect

a quick response of liking or disliking toward something that corresponds with the automatic system

James-Lange theory of emotion

the proposition that the bodily processes of emotion come first and the mind’s perception of these bodily reactions then creates the subjective feeling of emotion

facial feedback hypothesis

the idea that feedback from the face muscles evokes or magnifies emotions

Schacher-Singer theory of emotion

the idea that emotion has two components: a bodily state of arousal and a cognitive label that specifies the emotion

excitation transfer

the idea that arousal from one event can transfer to a later event

apprasial theory of emotion

the idea that emotion is determined by how an event in the environment is appraised (e.g., evaluated, interpreted, explained)

affect balance

the frequency of positive emotions minus the frequency of negative emotions

life satisfaction

an evaluation of how one’s life is generally and how it compares to some standard

hedonic treadmill

a theory proposing that people stay at about the same level of happiness regardless of what happens to them

emodiversity

refers to how much a person experiences a variety of different emotions

anger

an emotional response to a real or imagined threat or provocation

catharsis theory

the proposition that expressing negative emotions produces a healthy release of those emotions and is therefore good for the psyche

guilt

an unpleasant moral emotion associated with a specific instance in which one has acted badly or wrongly

suvivor guilt

an unpleasant emotion associated with living through an experience during which other people died

shame

a moral emotion that, like guilt, involves feeling bad but, unlike guilt, spreads to the whole person

digest

a strong negative feeling of repugnance and revulsion

mood maintainenance theory

argues that people who are in a good mood try to maintain that good mood as long as they can

affect-as-information hypothesis

the idea that people judge something as good or bad by asking themselves “How do I feel about it?”

affective forecasting

the ability to predict one’s emotional reactions to future events

risk-as-feelings hypothesis

the idea that people rely on emotional processes to evaluate risk, with the result that their judgments may be biased by emotional factors

broader-and-build theory

the proposition that positive emotions expand an individual’s attention and mind-set and promote increasing one’s resources

Yerkes-Dodson law

the proposition that some arousal is better than none, but too much can hurt performance

emotional intelligence (EI/EQ)

the ability to perceive, access and generate, understand, and reflectively regulate emotions

“dark tetrad” of personality

consists of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism