Comprehensive Study Notes on Health Science, Behavior, Appraisal, and Emotion

Generalizability

How well findings from a study can be applied to a broader population or different settings

Ergodicity

• Generalizability of statistical phenomena across levels and units of analysis 

  • group averages equal one person average

• If you do stats on one data source, will they apply to other data source

• For measures to be ergodic they need to be equivalent

Non-ergodicity

patterns observed across a group of people do not match the patterns of a single person over time

Simpsons pradox

• trends in subgroups differ from the aggregate trend when the groups are combined.

• Take measures of individuals and add them together, they create an overall that is not equivalent 

Ecological fallacy

inferences from groups are generalized to individuals when they actually do not apply

Information processing

Information available in the environment is taken in and processed by individual, and this processing is sensitive to the effects of context, emotional factors, existing assumptions

Objective external stimulus value and internal representation of stimulus does not equal

Cognitive Experiential Self Theory

Epstein - individuals engage with information two different ways

• exists in all people, but we have individual differences in the degree of influence a system has on info processing

Deliberative system

1.  Analytical, evidence-based, logical, and probabilistic.

what you rationally do

Experiential system

1. : Intuitive, automatic, and nonverbal

what you instinctively do

Subjective expected utility theory 

• coldly deliberative, rational model of decision-making that dominated decision science for decades.

• Decision Process:

  1. Calculate the probability of each possible outcome.

  2. Determine the utility (personal value) attached to each outcome.

  3. Integrate probabilities and utilities to compute and execute the optimal choice.

*how useful you think a choice will be to you and the probability of it happening

Evolutionary Utility of Emotion

• Emotions are conserved across evolutionary history, with underlying DNA or RNA sequences maintained by natural selection.

• Possess biological utility designed to maximize survival.

Functional Roles of Emotion

• Capture attention (e.g., fear triggering rapid escape responses).

• Direct behavior (e.g., sadness during illness promoting slowed movement and signaling a need for aid).

• Convey social information regarding internal experiences to others.

• Guide decision-making (e.g., anxiety functioning as a detector of potential risk).

Biological utility of Emotion

• coordinated activity patterns across the Central Nervous System (CNS) and Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), including the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric systems.

• Emotion patterns include transitory experiential states.

• Emotions are frequently accompanied by behavioral expressions, though overt behavioral expression is not strictly required (individuals can feel intense emotion without acting).

• Engages evolutionarily older subcortical structures alongside newer primate cortical regions of the CNS.

Motivated behavior

• Focused and goal-directed behavior anchored in genetic mechanisms that preserve life.

• Movements triggered by emotional states tend to be rapid, direct, and urgent.

• Emotion motivates the selection of a specific behavior over alternative available actions.

Osmotic concentration

right balance of sodium and electrolytes

balancing fluidity and salinity = thirst

thirst will motivate behavior to seek liquids

Natural kinds

Discrete, invariant categories existing inherently in nature, reflecting the structure of reality and defined by core facts we deem to be true

Basic Emotion Theory

Controversially posits that specific core emotions (anger, fear, disgust, sadness, happiness, surprise) are natural kinds

•  biologically and evolutionarily caused/accounted for 

• have certain brain activity/arousal/ans patterns and bodily activation that causes the feelings that we experience 

Cognitive Appraisal Experiment (Schachter & Singer)

• cognitive appraisal (evaluation of an event that determines how it affects our emotions)

• Participants were administered epinephrine (adrenaline) under three conditions: informed of true effects, uninformed, or misinformed (told it was a vitamin shot).

• Cognitive context dictated the resulting emotional experience!

Hot-Cold empathy Gap

• we struggle to predict behavior when evaluating states different from our current state.

• In Cold States: Individuals underestimate the impact of affective inputs on future "hot" events (e.g., substance abusers predicting future craving control, pregnant individuals anticipating labor pain management).

• In Hot States: Individuals underestimate the immediate influence of their current state on predictions, overestimating the permanence and stability of present needs, desires, and preferences.

intention-behavior gap 

we fail to do what we say we will

• intentions are integral to behavior change and correlationaly superior to attitudes, norms, and self efficacy

• but they are susceptible to things that stop them

Translating an intention into a behavior

identification and selection of concrete, specific actions and the consideration of situational factors that will promote or obstruct the behavior

intention effectiveness factors

accessibility, certainty, stability

Ambivalence

• the dissociation between the expected utility of a behavior and the enactment of that behavior

• rises when there is disagreement or competition between 

  • Different affective associations 

  • Competing goals and intentions 

  • Affective and cognition levels 

• it selects the lesser of efforts 

• Justify indulgence of alternative action 

  • Distraction, procrastination, temptation

Goal Revision in Situ

• Failure to anticipate visceral experiences that drive emotional states in the moment

  • ex Fear is evolutionarily loaded to prevent from being ignored, triggering hot-cold empathy gap breakdowns - cant act rationally like cold wants

Affective Neuroscience

• Emotions are embedded within and expressed through brain activity, comprising subjective experience (affect), cognitive appraisal, and action impulses.

Walter Cannon

connections between emotions and physiological arousal (fight or flight)

and homeostasis

Richard Lazarus

•  cognition does not require deliberate reflection, strict rationality, or conscious awareness

• Pre-existing cognitive schemas (beliefs, expectations, motives) exert predisposing, instantaneous effects on affect

• individual does not need to be in the physical presence of a threat to experience fear; internal imagination and mental manifestations can induce fear

Two stage appraisal process (lazarus and Folkman)

1. how we feel about it, first processing, is it a threat to wellbeing?

2. second processing, what we do about it, behavior, reappraisal

   1. problem focus coping or emotion focus coping

4 components of cognition

cognition, behavior, visceral outputs, affect

is emotion universal or variable according to Lindquist

• Beyond basic similarities, emotion categories might have different conceptualizations across cultural groups 

• The paper argues that emotions are not natural kinds, they are fuzzy boundaries 

• emotions are shaped by cultural contexts and individual experiences, influencing how emotions are expressed and interpreted across different societies

allostasis

emotions tell us to do behaviors to regulate our emotions 

• emotions affect the physiological mechanisms that maintain homeostasis

allostatic load

the total energy expenditure to maintain homeostasis

we have a finite abilities

Biological model

universal emotion categories that have distinct biological systems with signatures (portrayed in certain ways)

Constructionist theories

emotion is acquired socially and culturally rather than through biological evolution drives - social learning

prospect theory

Kahneman & Tversky - people make decisions under risk by evaluating gains/loses relative to a reference point,

certainty, reflection, framing, isolation and overweighting or small probabilities and magnitudes

Certainty effect

smaller guaranteed outcomes rpeferred to larger riskier outcomes

Reflection effect

• people are more comfortable with risk when minimizing losses and more risk averse when trying to maximize gains

framing effect

risk preference is sensitive to perspective of gains versus losses even when prospects are equal

Isolation effect

people tend to disregard shared (dependent) between options

• focus on isolated elecments simplifies cognitive processing

default biases

tendency to choose the “non-response” regardless of probabilities or utilities

choices are powerfully affected by “opt-in” versus “opt out” defaults

reduces cognitive burden from ambivalence

Omission biases

a bad outcome caused by a failure to act (omission) is better than an equally bad outcome caused by action (comission)

anchoring

peopl are overly reliant on existing probability estimates

adjustment

people tent to be reluctant to incorporating new information

Availability bias

rarer occurring events are often more memorable for their salience

common ordinary events are less memorable, despite their high likelihood

overestimate the probability of low likelihood events because they are more memorable