psych 160 2

Appraisal Theory of Emotion

Emotions are caused by an individual’s appraisal of a situation’s significance to their well-being, rather than just the event itself.

Emotion

Response that have a physiological part that can be expressed in behvaior and help prep for further action.

Charles Darwin’s Cross-Species Continuity

Ekman went to Papua New-Guinea to visit a “visually isolated” culture. Highlanders were then asked to identify 6 basic emotions.

Appraisal Model of Emotion

Experience situation → appraise it initially → reappraise it → less negative, more positive emotion

Eudainomic happiness

Virtue: sense of purpose, good relationships, autonomy, self acceptance

Hedonic happiness

Please: life satisfaction, many positive and few negative emotions

Hedonic treadmill

Tendency for humans to quicly return to relatively stable baseline level of happiness after extreme positive or negative life events

Set-point theory

The level of relative happiness experienced from the hedonic treadmill

Reason 1 why people can’t predict happiness: Impact Bias

Overestimating intensity/duration of emotional responeses

Reason 2 why people can’t predict happiness: Hedonic adaptation

Quickly getting used to new circumstances

Reason 3 why people can’t predict happiness: Focusing illusion

Overemphasizing one aspect of a future event while ignoring others

Attitude

An evaluation of an object in a positive, negative, or mixed fashion

In addition to attitudes, what factors influence people’s behavior?

Subjective norms and behavior control

LaPierre’s findings

Chinese couple; attitude-behavior link is not as strong as we think

Why were US researches mistaken forr so long about the direction of causality concerning attitudes and behavior?

They believed it worked all the time instead of sometimes

Implicit attitudes

Attitudes that influence someone without them knowing

IAT

Score = Reaction Time Block I - Reaction Time Block II

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Holding inconsistent attitudes/cognition → psych tension; people motivated to loose this tension

Psychological dissonance

psychological discomfort in making difficult yet similar choices between two alternatives

Induced compliance

individuals change attitudes to align with counter-atitudinal behavior they were persuaded to do

Insufficient justification

people change attitudes to align with behavior that lack strong eternal reward/threats

Overjustification

external motive dcrease person’s intrinsic motivation to perform task previously enjoyed

Overjustification of effort

People place higher value on outcome they worked hard to achieve, regardless of actual worth

Self-perception theory

People determine their attiudes by observing their own behavior and circumstances in which it occurs (like an outside observer)

System justification theory

People have a psychological motivation to defend, bolster, and rationalize status quo

Three features that make people more persuasive

1. Credibility

2. Attractiveness

3. Certainty

Three elements of persuasion

1. Source

2. Emotion

3. Logic

Elaboration Likelihood Method

Attitude changes through 2 distinct routes: central and perihperal

Central route to persuasion

Motivation is high; focused on facts; lasting attitude change

Peripheral route to persuasion

Motivation is low; focused on attractiveness; temporary attitude change

Is there convicing evidence to suggest that sublimnial messages actually influence behavior?

Yes; aspects of the source, the message, and the audience

Personality factor “need for cognition”

Personality factor associated with central route to persuasion; less susceptible to be persuaded to do wrong

How media is and is not effctive tool of persuasion

• Shapes what we think about rather than how we think

• We dont notice it as much when something/someone is not shown

Attitude inoculation

To protect individuals attitudes/beliefs against persuasion

Social influence

change in person’s behavior or beliefs in response to the influential or unintentional influence

Conformity

changing one’s behavior or beliefs in response to explicit or implicit pressure from others

Obedience

changing one’s behavior and beliefs in response to demands of a more powerful person

Compliance

responding favorably to an explicit request by another person

Informational social influence

Individuals conform to behavior/belifs of others because they believe they have more accurate info

Normative social influece

individuals conform to group norms to be likes and avoid social rejection

Eros love

Sexual/romantic

Philia love

Friendship

Storge love

Familial love

Agape love

selfless love