Psychology of Emotion Final - PSY331

Final exam prep with lectures 6 to 11

Infant attachment - Bowlby

Infants are biologically biased to have attachments to caregivers → evolutionary pressures like crying, sucking, clinging and these enhance survival in infants and future success

Attachment behavioural system

a neural program designed to keep infants protected from danger and ensure proximity to caregivers

Why do attachment behaviours emerge?

Improved vision, object permanence, and crawling → leads to a child exploring and seeing their environment in a better view

Strategies for Proximity seeking in infants

infants use a set of goals and strategies for active approach behaviours that leads to achievement of the goal or failure of goal

Example of a achieved or failed proximity goal in infants

ex. a baby cries and gets attention vs a baby that cries and does not get attention ends up crying more loudly

Secondary attachment strategies

When the primary strategies are unsuccessful → either hyperactive, more loud crying or de-active, shutting off the desire

Attachment and cognitive operations (3)

Monitoring internal and external environments → internal as hunger and external as where the attachment figure is

Monitoring and appraising attachment figure → create schemas based on attachment figure

Monitoring viability or strategies → are they working or not?

Internal Working Models (IWMs)

Mental representations of the person and environment interactions and become more stable with repeated activations

What underlies infant attachment? (3)

Oxytocin → skin-skin, birth, parental bonding

Endorphins - decrease when separated from parent

Synchrony → behaviour between infant and caregiver - helps internal clock

Mary Ainsworth and Attachment styles(4)

Quality of infant bonds and attachment styles

Secure = seperated and upset but easily consoled

Insecure avoidant/anxious = separated and not upset and ignores mother’s proximity - deactivation

Insecure resistent = becomes very upset and not easily consoled by mother → hyper activation

Disorganized/disoriented = infant confused, freezing behaviour

Attachment style causes

genes = serotonin gene receptor, moderatly consistent over time

Caregiving style

Caregiving style for each attachment

Secure = responsive, allows independence but responds quickly

Anxious = intrusive parents, ignore independence

Avoidant = distant, unresponsive

Adult relations = Attraction

Physical proximity = available, convenient, familiar → mere exposure effect(frequently encounter more liking)

Attraction - Physical Characteristics

Signs of physical health

average features

varies across culture

Attraction - Personality

Intelligence and Kindness more important as well as happiness and humour

Attraction - Similarity

Like those who are like us - attitudes and values, demographics, personality

more inclined to like us back and beliefs and more enjoyable to spend time with

Reciprocal liking

attraction to someone like us reduces the chances of rejection by being more inclined to like us

Falling in Love

Passionate love = intense desire, want to be near → more dopamine

Self-expansion and attraction

partners start to like things the other likes but may overestimate the others likes

Companionate Love

More care, trust, mutuality, interdependency, commitment - protection and love → more life satisfaction but doesn’t replace passionate love

Adult attachment

Use of IWMs → similar to infant-caregiver relations

Adult attachment questionnaire study

adult attachments were shown to be similar to infant attachments → questions about beliefs and experiences → secure, avoidant, or anxious

Adult attachment interview experiment

Autonomous = + and - things discussed collaboratively

Dismissing = deny or normalize - behaviours

Preoccupied = overwhelmed, confusion, emotional and fearful → more anxiety

Adult attachment dimensions

Views of self = anxiety of abandonment

Views of caregiver = avoidance of intimacy

• high on both shows fearful

Adult attachment as safe havens experiment

see prime word that was neutral/negative word and an affiliative word → secure adults identified + words faster

Miscommunication and negative affect

Four horsemen of the apocalypse

• Criticism

• Contempt

• Defensiveness

• Stonewalling

Criticism

blame other for problems, attack the other verbally

Contempt

sarcasm, rolling eyes, insult

Defensiveness

makes excuses, counter criticise

Stonewalling

shutting the other down and not listen

State of relationship = Happy

enhance relations internal stable state if positive behaviours or external state unstable if negative behaviours

State of relationship = Unhappy

distress - if positive then external state unstable and if negative then internal state is stable

What enhances relations?

New activities, see whole partner, equity, communication open

Caring for others

Sympathy = concern, and Hr slows

Compassion = caring

Personal distress = self-focused anxiety - HR high

• prosocial behaviour

Effortful control

ability to regulate one’s attention and behaviour → prevent being overwhelmed by another’s distress

Nurturant Love

emotion elicited by cues of youth and vulnerability - cuteness or protection

Empathy

ability to determine what the other is feeling

Emotional empathy

actually feeling what the other feels → mirror neurons

Is empathy good for romantic relationships study

Guess what partner may think/feel during videotaped sessions

• non threatening feelings lead to better accuracy

• threatening feelings led to decline of accuracy and closeness

Graditude

unexpected kindness leads to emotions

in relations → find, remind, bind(connect)

Moral Barometer

helps us consider the and notice the kindness others give us - orent towards others kindness

Moral Reinforcer

Reinforces prosocial behaviour - Kind to other, they kind back to us

Moral Motivator

kind to us, grateful, do something nice for them because you want to.

Embarrassment

Violate social norm → mix of smile, gaze aversion, face touch - less anger and more liking

Pride - authentic

When you accept the credit for causing a + outcome and support your self-concept from our effort - high-status culture display rules

Hubris - false pride

Smug, uncontrollable - not authentic pride - effortless

Attention

When our cognitive resources are focused on specific aspects of the environment

Attention and strong emotions

help increase attention and alertness

Selective attention

focus on a specifc/one aspect - momentarily stimulus draws attention to itself

Attentional interference tasks

ability to focus on a piece of information with distractions

Stroop tasks

give the colour of the ink while ignoring the word → slower when emotional word present

Dot-probe test

Fixate to the middle, then 2 stimuli appear(emotional and neutral, word or face); then probe appears on one side and press button ASAP

Congruent trial when emotional word and dot on same side

Incongruent when emotional word and dot of different sides

Find that when on same side, faster to respond

Emoional stimulus probe

Emotional stimulus draws attention to it → probe on same side, less cognitive resources and faster response

Selective attention and eye-tracking

angry faces - more intense emotion - draws attention faster, whether in line of sight or periphery

Limitations to selective attention tasks

Those with anxiety more drawn to negative emotions - less reliable

fixation and time - more focused at start and less at end

Attention and + emotions

• emotions may influence attention

Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-build hypothesis

Positive emotions help expand out attentional focus - appreciate more in the environment

Global Local tasks

Global are more broad and local more narrow

Find that those who look at + stimuli before hand choose more global

Valence and Attention

some studies state it may not be valence(ex. sadness broadens focus and anger narrows it) but a factor of strength → approach motivation

Emotion and memory

memory better for stimuli that is emotional

Arousal and memory

stronger arousal more likely remembered

Yerkes-Dodson Law

attention, learning and other memory things best when arousal is intermediate

too much or too little bad

Does emotional memory depend on physiological arousal experiment?

beta blocker or placebo injected - look. and hear an emotional or non-emotional story

those with placebo and emotional story remembered middle best

Flashbulb Memories

intense, vivid, high emotion - but can be inaccurate - more repeated, more it can change

Are emotionally intense memories more accurate than less intense memories?

wrote ordinary event, war happend that day, see recall after 3 months of both events

found that confidence of war was higher but accuracy on both equally low

Water cooler effect

every time a memory is retrieved, the possibility of altering increases

Emotional memory and consolidation

memory strengthens after a period it is formed ex. sleep → strengthening of memeroy pathways

amygdala and locus coeruleus helps consolidate emotional memories

Emotional arousal releases

Epinephrine, Noepi, cortisol that stimulate vagus nerve and amygdala to aid in consolidation

Synaptic tag-and-capture hypothesis

brain tags new info for consolidation later so that later info can help show info is relevant

State-dependant Retrieval

more likely to recall something if we are in the same state from when we made the memory - memory that matches mood/emotion recalled better in same state

Emotion and information processing

processes how inforamtion and emotion are processed

Systematic cognition

local reasoning, careful and effortful

Heursitic Cognition

Superficial, make decisions based on shortcuts - automatic

Persuassion

communication alters or changes our behaviour

Elaboartion liklihood

Central route = pay attention to teh main argument

Peripheral route = a heuristic, rule of thumb → ex. 4/5 dentists liek this toothpaste -. experts always right!

Does mood alter cognitive processing?

Undergrads, describe personal event either pleasant or unpleasant - induce a = or - mood - a strong argument or weak argument to raise fees - how much participants agree

Found that those with the sad mood were persuaded with string argument, not weak

Those with happy mood were persuaded equally - more heuristic

Sterotypes on heusritics?

belief we have, not always accurate → rely on stereotypes and automatically use heuristic - automatic shortcut

Happy or sad mood induced → told some names are criminals, politicians, basketball players → all were made up names - may rely on stereotypes like African names or White Americans

Sad ones where more reliant on cognition, happy more heuristic → valence of emotion

processing style dependant on valence or appraisal?

surprise, contempt, anger - read essay by prof or student - and do you agree or not?

Valance or certainty?

Writer status needed when high certainty emotions → content and anger → pay attention to who wrote it based on higher certain emotion

Uncertain emotions = surprise and worry - doesn’t matter who wrote it → heuristic

Affect infusion model not all works

Somatic Marker hypothesis

Imagine how we are going to feel if a possibility will occur → simulated emotion → high intensity may alter decisons

Damage to orbitofrontal cortex and decisons

fail to learn from mistakes → choose risky option, negative outcome → emotional responses iportant for decisions

Cognition and motivation

Fixed and growth mindet

Fixed mindset

Can’t control things that are fixed ex. genes - lower motivation, and less likely to experience + outcomes

Growth mindset

Can improve if I try harder, can change → can put in more effort and more + outcomes

More beneficial

Acheivment motivation

Drive and compete

Drive = internal or external standard you want to achieve and compete with → can compete for performance reasons or for mastering that skill to prove to themselves,

Performance goals

can lead to demotivation, more competition

Mastery goals

Less competition, more + and higher motivation and + outcomes

Intrinsic vs extrinsic vs achievement motivation

Depends on what you try to achieve and need

Best for wellbeing = intrinsic motivation

Achievement = own standards, mastery best

What is fear?

response to perceived danger, the self on loved one

What is anxiety?

general perception something bad might happen

Social Anxiety

intense anxiety during social interactions like meeting someone new or attention on yourself

Behavioural Manifestation of Fear

Behaviour after a fear is illicit

Startle Response

muscles tense rapidly, shoulders close to neck, arms pull to heads → sensory input by pons, medulla, spinal cord in under 0.2 seconds

Freezing Behaviour

When danger is uncertain, freeze to wait - slow HR, muscles tense

Flight behvaiour

danger imminent - sympathetic activation and increases BP and HR

Biology of fear

uses amygdala(not fear center) and higher SNS activity - startle potentiation

Fear and NTs

Use of GABA, serotonin, epi/noepi, CCK, cortisol

Amygdala

anger, desire, fears, emotions

The value of Fear

oulls attention to possible danger and helps avoid them - immediate and concrete

Are fears innate?

Some seem to be, like dark noises, seperation, phobias - but also be socially learned

Little Albert

developed a fear of white rats over time by conditioning → fears can be conditioned