Psychology of Emotion: Motivation, Evolution, Culture, Appraisals, and Biology

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering the psychology of emotion: motivation, classical and modern emotion theories, evolutionary adaptations, cultural influences, appraisal mechanisms, facial expression, and neurobiological foundations.

How is motivation defined, and what three components does it involve?

Motivation is defined as energy directed toward achieving some goal, and it involves activation, intensity, and persistence.

What is the distinction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation?

Intrinsic motivation involves engaging in an activity for its own sake (e.g., pleasure), whereas extrinsic motivation is driven by external pressures, rewards, or punishments.

According to Self-Determination Theory, what are the five regulatory styles along the continuum from non-self-determined to self-determined behavior?

Along the continuum, the styles progress from External Regulation (external rewards and punishments), to Introjected Regulation (internal rewards and punishments), Identified Regulation (personal importance of an activity), Integrated Regulation (synthesis with the self), and Intrinsic Motivation (interest, enjoyment, satisfaction).

What are the two distinct motivational systems proposed by E. Tory Higgins' Regulatory Focus Theory?

People pursue goals through two systems: a promotion focus and a prevention focus (involving approach or avoidance motivation), which are not mutually exclusive but can be in opposition.

What behavioral response pattern was observed by Krieglmeyer et al. (2010) in their evaluative compatibility experiment?

Participants were fastest when instructed to move the figure upward toward positive words and downward toward negative words, demonstrating compatibility between approach/avoidance and valence.

What is the functional relationship between motivation and emotion?

Emotions provide the 'energy' for motivation and offer feedback regarding whether, and how well, an individual is fulfilling their goals and other motivational needs.

What are the recognized core features of emotion?

Emotions are functional; are responses to internal or external stimuli; involve subjective experience; involve evaluation (appraisal); involve physiological changes; involve changes in mental processes and behavioral dispositions; and manifest distinctive expressions.

How was emotion conceptualized during classical Antiquity in Ancient Greece and Rome?

Reason was viewed as superior to emotion; emotion was viewed negatively because it could move the soul (mind); only adult humans were deemed capable of emotion; and emotions, personality, and illness were linked to bodily humors.

What major concept did Plato introduce to the philosophical understanding of emotion?

Plato introduced the distinction between positive versus negative emotion, introducing the concept of valence.

How did Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers view the relationship between the soul and emotions?

They distinguished between actions of the soul and passions of the soul, positing $6$ primitive true passions (e.g., love, joy, hatred) that combined into nonprimitive blends (e.g., Pride = love + joy), and viewed emotions as moving the soul to prepare the body for motion.

What was Charles Darwin's major 19th-century contribution to the study of emotion?

Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection and argued that nonhuman animals possess emotions similar to humans due to evolutionary links, shared nervous systems, and similar facial expressions.

What is the central premise of the 19th-century James-Lange theory of emotion?

Emotion-provoking events elicit specific bodily changes, which directly give rise to subjective feelings; bodily changes are necessary for emotion, and distinct emotions possess unique bodily profiles.

In William James' 'Bear in the Woods' example, what is the exact sequence of events leading to the feeling of fear?

1. Person sees a bear in the woods; 2. Person's body prepares them to run away, and they run; 3. Person's perception of their own physical change and action is the feeling of fear.

What were the three major criticisms leveled against the James-Lange theory of emotion?

1. Situational factors are often more influential than the emotional object; 2. Bodily changes happen more slowly than emotional experience; 3. Bodily changes are not specific enough to differentiate distinct emotions.

What does the Cannon-Bard theory propose regarding the sequence of emotional responses?

Emotion-provoking events elicit appraisal, feelings, physiological changes, and behavior simultaneously but independently.

How does the Schachter-Singer two-factor theory explain the generation of emotional feelings?

A physiological change occurs; the individual searches for a plausible eliciting event in the environment; an appraisal of that event occurs; and this appraisal determines the feeling and behavior.

What arousal manipulations were utilized in Schachter and Singer's (1962) study?

Participants received an injection of epinephrine with accurate information about its physiological effects (Epi-informed), epinephrine without information about effects (Epi-uninformed), or a placebo.

What two situational manipulations were used in Schachter and Singer's (1962) experiment?

A 'Euphoria' condition (a confederate acting happy and playing around) and an 'Anger' condition (an insulting questionnaire with an angry confederate).

What were the observed results in the Schachter and Singer (1962) experiment across conditions?

In the Epi-uninformed group, participants were happier in Euphoria and angrier in Anger; all conditions reported more happiness than anger overall; and the happiness ratio was unexpectedly highest in the Epi-informed Anger condition.

What is misattribution of arousal?

The psychological process wherein physiological arousal is mistakenly attributed to an unrelated environmental source, influencing how an emotion is experienced.

What is the core premise of Basic/Discrete Emotions Theory?

Emotions are categorically distinct entities that each serve a unique adaptive function and coordinate different aspects of emotional responding into an evolved, universal package.

What are the four proposed criteria for classifying an emotion as a basic emotion?

1. Universal among humans (and possibly some other animals); 2. Universal, innate form of non-verbal expression (facial, vocal); 3. Evident early in life; 4. Physiologically distinct from one another in body and brain.

How does the Circumplex Model describe Core Affect?

It maps emotion and feeling words onto a two-dimensional circle organized along continuous axes of valence (pleasantness vs. unpleasantness) and physiological arousal.

How does the Evaluative Space Model differ from the traditional Circumplex Model?

It rotates the dimensions to represent positive activation and negative activation rather than valence and arousal, thereby allowing for emotional ambivalence.

What are the primary assumptions of the Core Affect perspective?

It prioritizes subjective feeling as the defining aspect of emotion, describes emotions in continuous dimensions, and assumes physiological arousal is non-specific across emotions.

What is Klaus Scherer's Component Process Model of emotion?

A model proposing that individuals continuously interpret their environment using all-purpose appraisals, with each appraisal having independent effects on cognition, physiology, and behavior that combine into emotion.

What is the central assertion of Lisa Feldman Barrett's (2013) Psychological Construction theory?

Different aspects of emotion are only loosely correlated, and emotion categories are learned concepts rather than innate, universal, or objectively real entities in nature.

In Psychological Construction theory, what creates the apparent package of emotional responses?

The package that connects emotional responses (physiology, behavior, feelings) together is a psychological construction.

Which early psychological theory of emotion is Psychological Construction most closely aligned with?

It is most closely aligned with the Schachter-Singer two-factor theory.

What five criteria evaluate what makes a good scientific theory in psychology?

Comprehensiveness (explains all observations), Heuristic value (guides new discoveries), Testability/usefulness (generates testable hypotheses), Parsimony (fewest premises), and Compatibility/integration across domains.

What are the primary criticisms of Instinct Theory in explaining human motivation?

It relies on circular reasoning, is untestable, and cannot define how many distinct instincts exist.

How did Clark Hull (1943; 1952) formulate Drive Theory, and what are its shortcomings?

Bodily needs create a pool of energy (drive) that energizes behavior to satiate needs based on habit and past reward; however, it cannot account for intrinsic motivation, conscious goal pursuit, or psychological needs.

What are the seven tiers in Kenrick et al.'s (2010) renovated pyramid of fundamental motives, from bottom to top?

Immediate Physiological Needs, Self-Protection, Affiliation, Status/Esteem, Mate Acquisition, Mate Retention, and Parenting.

In the study by Ko et al. (2019), which fundamental motive was selected as the least important goal by over $30\%$ of participants?

Mate Seeking was selected as the least important goal by over $30\%$ of participants.

What is natural selection, and how is an evolutionary adaptation defined?

Natural selection removes problematic mutations and spreads beneficial ones; an adaptation is a beneficial, gene-based characteristic that has become species-typical as a result of natural selection.

What three outcomes define a characteristic as 'adaptive' or 'functional' from an evolutionary perspective?

It increases the probability of living through the full reproductive lifespan, increases offspring number/rate of offspring reproduction, or increases the survival and reproduction of genetic relatives.

What is the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA)?

The specific time and place in the evolutionary past when an adaptation spread through the population via natural selection.

What is the evolutionary argument proposing that emotions are adaptations?

Genes enabling emotions began as random mutations; individuals with emotions had more offspring or protected relatives better, causing emotion-supporting genes to become species-typical in humans.

In evolutionary biology, what is a by-product?

A neutral effect or characteristic resulting from a beneficial gene mutation rather than direct selection (e.g., cuteness).

What is the difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal functions of emotion?

Intrapersonal functions directly benefit the individual's own reproductive fitness (e.g., fear escaping harm), whereas interpersonal functions support committed, interdependent relationships that aid survival (e.g., love).

What is the central premise of Joseph Forgas's (1995) Affect Infusion Model?

Emotional feelings act as environmental signals highlighting valence: positive feelings indicate safety and valuable resources, whereas negative feelings signal a problem requiring slower, deeper analysis.

What did Gorn et al. (1993) and Reiner et al. (2011) demonstrate regarding background music and stimulus ratings?

Participants liked stimuli significantly more when positive, up-tempo music was playing, and liked them less when negative music was playing.

How does emotional valence influence cognitive processing and decision making (Bodenhausen et al., 1994; Bless et al., 1990)?

Positive emotion fosters automatic, heuristic decisions, while negative emotion leads to deeper scrutinization and systematic analysis of stimuli.

What is the Dyadic Affect Infusion/Diffusion Model proposed by Goldring & Bolger (2021)?

A model showing that other people's expressed emotions also directly affect how an individual interprets emotions and responds to situations.

What is the evolutionary conceptualization of emotions as Superordinate Neural Programs?

Emotions are overarching neural programs that coordinate and activate multiple subprograms (e.g., predator detection, eye-gaze detection, fight-flight arousal) while inhibiting others to resolve specific fitness-relevant challenges.

What does Randolph Nesse's (2004) Phylogeny of Emotions model describe?

It shows that all emotions branched from general arousal, initially splitting into excitement (opportunity/promotion) and apprehension (threat/prevention), and subsequently differentiating into fine-tuned modern emotions.

Which modern theory of emotion is Nesse's Phylogeny of Emotions most closely aligned with?

It is most closely aligned with the Component Process Model.

What methodology must researchers use to test evolutionary hypotheses about emotion while avoiding post hoc theorizing?

Demonstrate cross-cultural universality, demonstrate presence in non-human animals, test predictions that cannot be explained by culture/learning, and avoid constructing explanations after phenomena are already known.

How do Matsumoto & Juang (2013) define culture?

A unique meaning and information system, shared by a group and transmitted across generations, allowing the group to meet survival needs, pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life.

How does Richard Shweder (1993) define culture?

Meanings, conceptions, and interpretive schemes activated or brought 'on-line' through participation in normative social institutions and practices, shaping individual psychological processes.

What are Geert Hofstede's six cultural dimensions?

Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Masculinity vs. Femininity, Long- vs. Short-term orientation, Indulgence vs. Restraint, and Individualism vs. Collectivism.

What do the cultural dimensions of Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance describe in Hofstede's model?

Power distance is the acceptance of unequal distributions of power; Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which people feel threatened by unknown or ambiguous situations.

What characterizes Individualism versus Collectivism?

Individualism focuses on the self and immediate family, whereas Collectivism focuses on interdependence and members of a larger in-group.

In cultural psychology, what are dialectics?

Discrepancies and tensions that exist between an individual's different cultural groups and their respective values.

What are the major methodological limitations of cross-cultural emotion research?

Most studies compare only two countries (e.g., US/Canada vs. Japan/China); cultures do not strictly follow national borders; cultural groups interpret rating scales differently; and group differences are not identical to culture.

How do the Japanese term 'Jodo' and the Fulani term 'Semteende' illustrate cross-cultural differences in emotion concepts?

'Jodo' includes states like considerate, motivated, and lucky alongside standard emotions; 'Semteende' refers to situations where shame/embarrassment is expected rather than the feeling itself.

In Robert Levy's (1973) study, how did a Tahitian man interpret his feelings after his family departed, and what does this illustrate?

Tahitian has no word for sadness; the man labeled his experience 'pe'a pe'a' (sick, fatigued, troubled), illustrating how physical illness terms can substitute for hypocognized emotional loss.

What two concepts of romantic love did Ann Swidler (2001) uncover in middle-class North Americans?

'Hollywood' love (love at first sight, one soulmate, destiny, flashy but shallow) and 'Prosaic' love (grows over time, many possible partners, compatibility-based, deep and lasting).

How does the emotion lexicon size compare between English and Taiwanese?

English contains over $2000$ emotion words, whereas the Taiwanese emotion lexicon contains approximately $75$ words.

What do the culture-specific emotion terms 'Litost', 'Schadenfreude', and 'Amae' mean?

Litost (Czech): torment from sudden insight into one's own miserable self; Schadenfreude (German): enjoyment of another's suffering; Amae (Japanese): pleasurable dependence on another and license to be childlike.

What is 'Liget' among the Ilongot of the Northern Philippines?

A passionate energy blending anger and drive, experienced in situations involving insult, frustration, envy, and pride.

What does the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis state, and what does evidence show regarding its strong versus weak versions?

Strong version: humans require language to experience thoughts/emotions (weakly supported); Weak version: language influences how easily people think, feel, or label emotional states (supported).

What is colexification, and what did Haidt & Keltner (1999) find regarding the Odia word 'lajya'?

Colexification merges distinct concepts into one word. Odia speakers use 'lajya' for both embarrassment and shame, but their stories proved they still cognitively distinguish wrongdoing (shame) from awkward attention (embarrassment).

What is the distinction between hypercognized and hypocognized emotions?

Hypercognized emotions have elaborate cognitive distinctions and large vocabularies (e.g., Tahitians have $46$ words for anger); hypocognized emotions lack cognitive elaboration and vocabulary (e.g., Tahitians have no word for sadness).

How did American and Chinese participants differ in interpreting the fish school animation in Hong et al. (2000)?

Americans described the lone fish on the right as leading the others (individual agency), whereas Chinese described the school as chasing the lone fish (group-oriented focus).

In Stipek's (1998) cross-cultural study, what difference emerged in anticipated pride regarding university acceptance?

American students felt equally proud of themselves versus their child, whereas Chinese students reported significantly greater pride for their child than for themselves.

In Stipek's (1998) exam cheating scenario, how did anticipated shame and guilt compare between American and Chinese participants?

Both groups reported more shame/guilt if they cheated than if their brother cheated, but Chinese participants reported significantly higher shame and guilt across both scenarios, especially for the brother.

What is the difference between vertical and horizontal societies?

Vertical societies attend closely to social hierarchy and respect status differences, whereas horizontal societies minimize attention to status differences and rarely acknowledge them publicly.

What did Hwang & Matsumoto (2014) find regarding Olympic judo medalists from vertical cultures?

Competitors from more vertical cultures showed significantly greater displays of dominance after winning a medal, but cultural verticality did not affect behavior after losing.

What is the difference between linear epistemology and dialectical epistemology?

Linear epistemology (Aristotelian) holds that truth is unchanging, distinct, and either true or false; Dialectical epistemology (Confucian/Taoist/Buddhist) views reality as changing, interrelated, and allowing contradictions.

What did Shiota et al. (2010) discover about mixed emotions during dating couple conversations among European Americans versus Asian Americans?

For European Americans, felt love and negative emotions were negatively correlated (one or the other); for Asian Americans, love and negative emotions showed zero or positive correlations, indicating mixed emotions.

What does Paul Ekman's (1972) Neurocultural Theory of emotion propose?

Biologically universal Facial Affect Programs automatically link basic emotions to specific facial expressions, but culturally learned Display Rules can intensify, deintensify, neutralize, or mask the observable expression.

How does James Russell (1991) define emotion episodes as socially constructed scripts?

Scripts are cultural beliefs about what events, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors go together in an episode; some components are universal human nature, but perceived causes and behaviors are culturally learned.

What are Keltner & Haidt's (1999) four levels of analysis for emotion functions, and which are universal versus culturally variable?

Universal levels: Intra-individual (individual survival/reproduction) and Dyadic (two-person relationships); Culturally variable levels: Small Groups (negotiating social roles) and Culture (teaching values through stories).

How did Magda Arnold and Richard Lazarus differ in their views on cognitive appraisal?

Arnold asserted that cognitive appraisal is both the cause and defining feature of emotional experience; Lazarus argued appraisal causes emotion, but emotion also includes physiological, motivational, and behavioral responses.

What is Richard Lazarus's (1991) Core Relational Themes approach?

A model proposing that discrete emotions are elicited by universal core relational themes representing prototypical problems or benefits encountered in environmental transactions.

What core relational themes elicit Anger, Fear, and Guilt according to Lazarus?

Anger: demeaning offense against me and mine; Fear: immediate, concrete, overwhelming physical danger; Guilt: having transgressed a moral imperative.

What core relational themes elicit Sadness, Disgust, and Happiness according to Lazarus?

Sadness: experiencing an irrevocable loss; Disgust: an indigestible object or idea; Happiness: progress toward achieving a goal.

What core relational themes elicit Pride, Hope, and Anxiety according to Lazarus?

Pride: taking credit for a valued object, accomplishment; Hope: fearing the worst, but yearning for the better; Anxiety: uncertain, existential threat.

What is Klaus Scherer's (2009) Appraisal Dimension approach?

A framework evaluating situations along common dimensions (expectedness, pleasantness, responsible agent, goal conduciveness, control, certainty, fairness) to predict unique multi-component emotional profiles.

What is the difference between Primary Appraisal and Secondary Appraisal?

Primary appraisal evaluates whether an event is relevant to one's needs, goals, and well-being; Secondary appraisal assesses the individual's ability to cope with and control the situation.

What did Scherer's (1997) study of university students in 37 countries show regarding appraisals?

Appraisal profiles for emotions were far more similar than different across regions, although significant cultural differences emerged in appraisals of fairness and morality (e.g., sadness viewed as unfair and immoral in Africa).

What methodological limitations were present in Charles Darwin's early cross-cultural studies of emotional expression?

Darwin used leading questions that biased responses, and correspondents had to infer emotions by means other than facial expressions alone, introducing measurement error.

What is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS)?

An objective coding system that uses numeric codes (Action Units) to label appearance changes produced by the contraction of each muscle in the face.

What procedure was used in Paul Ekman's New Guinea study, and what were its key findings?

Isolated villagers with no Western exposure heard emotional stories and selected matching FACS prototype photographs; they chose expected expressions at rates far above chance, supporting universal facial prototypes.

What major criticisms did James Russell (1994) raise regarding Ekman's facial expression studies?

Stories were mediated by translators; the forced-choice task allowed process-of-elimination inflation; and the stimuli were extreme posed prototypes rarely observed in everyday life.

How does eye-gaze direction interact with the perception of anger and fear facial expressions?

A direct gaze facilitates the recognition of approach-oriented anger, whereas an averted gaze facilitates the recognition of avoidance-oriented fear.

How do display rules in Japan and the United States differ regarding negative emotion expression?

In Japan, displaying negative emotions to acquaintances is more acceptable than to close friends/family, whereas the reverse is true in the United States.

What did Elfenbein et al. (2007) demonstrate regarding facial expression dialects in Quebec and Gabon?

French-speaking participants from Quebec and Gabon posed recognizable expressions of anger and happiness matching Ekman prototypes, but with subtle, culturally distinctive Action Unit differences.

What did Aviezer, Trope, & Todorov (2012) discover about recognizing valence in extreme emotion from faces versus bodies?

Participants accurately tracked winning versus losing valence from body posture alone or face-body compounds, but not from isolated faces, despite incorrectly believing they were judging the face.

What postural and behavioral cues characterize the cross-cultural expression of pride?

Postural expansion, head lift, and arms placed akimbo or on hips, which resembles primate dominance displays and signals high social status across cultures.

What are the major methodological limitations of brain lesion research in humans versus laboratory animals?

Injury-related lesions in humans rarely damage only one structure and affect multiple brain regions, preventing precise functional attribution, while experimental surgical lesions are rarely ethically possible in humans.

What are the primary advantages and limitations of electroencephalography (EEG) in emotion research?

Advantage: Millisecond-level temporal resolution tracking rapid electrical activity; Limitations: Low spatial resolution, inability to measure deep structures, and high sensitivity to head/eye movement noise.

What is the Error-Related Negativity (ERN) in Event-Related Potential (ERP) research, and how does anxiety affect it?

A sharp negative deflection occurring approximately $100\,\text{ms}$ after committing an error on a task; it is significantly stronger in anxious individuals.

How do PET and fMRI track neural activity, and what are their spatial/temporal limitations?

PET tracks radioactive glucose flow; fMRI detects differences in oxygenated versus deoxygenated hemoglobin with spatial resolution of $1\text{--}3\,\text{mm}$ and temporal resolution of approximately $1\,\text{second}$.

What is 'reverse inference' in functional neuroimaging of emotion?

The invalid logical leap of assuming that because a specific brain region (e.g., amygdala) is active, a specific emotional state (e.g., fear) was necessarily present.

What emotional deficits characterize Klüver-Bucy syndrome and Urbach-Wiethe disease?

Klüver-Bucy (bilateral temporal/amygdala loss) blunts behavioral reactions to threats; Urbach-Wiethe (calcium damage to amygdala) eliminates fear, yet panic can still be triggered by $35\%$ $CO_2$ suffocation.

What did LeDoux et al. (1990) observe regarding lateral amygdala lesions in fear-conditioned rats?

Rats with lateral amygdala lesions displayed significantly smaller increases in arterial blood pressure and spent markedly less time freezing after hearing a shock-predicting tone.

How does the amygdala facilitate emotional memory according to Phelps (2004, 2005)?

It directs attention toward stimuli with emotional implications and enhances activity in the adjacent hippocampus to store vivid personal memories.

What is the function of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in emotional processing?

The anterior ACC responds to painful stimuli, activates during threat appraisal, and increases activity in tandem with the amygdala.