PSYC 2600 Exam 2

Emotion

Temporary state that motivates adaptive (will help achieve your goals) behavior and causes relevant cognitive and physiological changes

World (exists), perceive a situation, assign a value to it, motivate an action (based on high value/salient situations)

Cycle of emotion

Moods

Raising or lowering the thresholds for negative or positive emotion states; not linked to specific events; may be internally-generated; long-lasting (climate)

Emotions

Immediate response to (or anticipation of) goal-related event; short-lived (weather events)

Building blocks of an emotion

Cognitive change, physiological change, action tendency, communicative signal, feeling

Cognitive change

Prioritizes cognitive resources to focus on relevant situation

EX: Positive and negative emotions (attention and associations)

Negative emotions/affect

Narrow attention; narrow associations

Positive emotions/affect

Broaden attention; broaden associations

Physiological change

Prepares brain and body for appropriate action (hormones, autonomic nervous system, etc.)

EX: Challenge vs. threat construals

Threat

Striving for a difficult goal; construe yourself as NOT being able to achieve the goal; avoiding failure; heart pumps harder and faster, but arteries CONSTRICT; reduced blood flow to periphery

Challenge

Striving for a difficult goal; construe yourself as being ABLE to achieve the goal; approaching success; heart pumps harder and faster, and arteries dilate to accommodate blood flow; increased blood flow to periphery supports action; flow state

Action tendency

Makes goal-oriented behavior more likely, automatic, rapid (different stimuli can elicit different responses); flexibility and context specificity (emotion intensity) determine action

EX: depends on intensity of emotion and available options; fear from state of distress to freeze, flight, or fight

Communicative signal

May cause facial, vocal, bodily, and/or verbal displays that convey intentions and state to other people

EX: At peak intensity, emotion collapses through our faces, can't tell happy versus sad

Feeling

Colors subjective conscious experience; tell us how we're doing, goal-wise, allowing cognitive elaboration so we can choose best action; pleasant/unpleasant to ensure behavior

EX: Valence and arousal

Valence and arousal

Emotional states are most commonly constructed along which two dimensions?

In the two-dimensions of emotional states, what is on the y-axis?

High and low arousal

In the two-dimensions of emotional states, what is on the x-axis?

Positive and negative valence

Negative, high arousal

Anger and fear

Positive, high arousal

Playfulness, happiness

Positive, low arousal

Love, contentment

Negative, low arousal

Sadness, disgust

High arousal

Surprise

Low arousal

Boredom

Appraisal

Synonym for construal

Construal

What determines your emotion state

Ways construal determines your emotion state

Is the focal event in the past, present, or future?

How relevant is this situation to me and my goals? (determines intensity of emotion state; determines how much cognitive and physiological resources you give)

Is the situation good or bad for me and my goals?

What caused this situation? (what or whom should I act upon; what about my behavior needs to change?)

Am I able to act? (what actions can I take; how successful is my action likely to be?)

Assign a value to it and motivate an action

Between what stages in the cycle of emotion do emotions guide our behavior to achieve our goals?

Emotion regulation

Not all emotion states are desirable all the time (cycle of emotion repeats/builds on itself)

Reappraise the situation (change construal), suppress the emotion (change the components of the emotion), change the situation

Emotion regulation strategies

Perceive a situation

What does reappraising the situation (change construal) fall under in the cycle of emotion?

Assign a value to it and motivate an action

What does suppressing the emotion (change components of the emotion) fall under in the cycle of emotion?

World

What does change the situation fall under in the cycle of emotion?

Reappraise the situation and change the situation

What is the best way of regulating emotion (changing emotion)?

Suppress the emotion (change the components of the emotion)

What is the worst way of regulating emotion?

Attitudes

Stable evaluations (good/bad) of people, objects, ideas, etc.

Emotion; attitudes

What is a temporary state? What is a stable evaluation (remains with your life and is elicited when relevant)?

Origins of attitudes

Emotions the object has elicited in the past (conditioning), beliefs about object's instrumentality (is it useful), previous behavioral experiences with the object (lots of experience with something makes attitude automatic and accessible)

High arousal

Is highly affective high or low arousal?

Low arousal

Is highly cognitive high or low arousal?

Sleeper effect

People sometimes remember a message longer than they do information about the message source; in this manner, information from a low-credibility source sometimes becomes more persuasive with the passage of time

Play

Having fun; undirected exploration of environment, social world, ideas (rough-and-tumble play, imaginary play, social play, humor)

Cognitive change, physiological change, action tendency, communicative signal, feeling

Building blocks of play

Cognitive change (play)

Broadened associations; novel connections

Physiological change (play)

Increases pain threshold, decreases stress hormone, increase in abdominal pressure (and decrease cardio output)

Action tendency (play)

Unpredictable, inefficient, asymmetric, awkward movements

Communicative signal (play)

Play signals like laughter

Feeling (play)

Having fun (hyper)

Functions of mammalian play

Develop physical and mental strength and skills; practice adult behaviors (fighting negotiating resources and status; hunting chasing, catching, killing); develop social skills (reading intentions of others); settling disputes; social bonding; learn aggression inhibition; stress inoculation (giving some stress to prepare you for adulthood)

Primacy effect

If speeches are given back to back and there will be a delay before people have to make up their minds, the first speech is more persuasive

Recency effect

If there is a delay between speeches, and people make up their minds right after the second one, it is better to give the last speech

More

An audience that is distracted will be MORE or LESS persuaded

Attitudes

Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas

Cognitive, affective, behavioral

What are the three components that make up a person's attitude?

Cognitively based attitude

An attitude based primarily on people's beliefs about the properties of an attitude object

Affectively based attitude

An attitude based more on people's feelings and values than on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object

Classical and operant conditioning

What are the two forms of conditioning that affect affectively based attitudes?

Classical conditioning

Phenomenon whereby a stimulus that elicits an emotional response is repeatedly paired with a neutral stimulus that does not, until the neutral stimulus takes on the emotional properties of the first stimulus

Operant conditioning

Phenomenon whereby behaviors we freely choose to perform become more or less frequent, depending on whether they are followed by a reward or punishment

Behaviorally based attitude

An attitude based on observations of how one behaves toward an object (self-perception theory; past experiences)

Explicit attitudes

Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report; rooted in recent experiences

Recent experiences

Explicit attitudes are rooted in

Implicit attitudes

Attitudes that exist outside of conscious awareness (involuntary)

Childhood experiences

Implicit attitudes are rooted in

Attitude accessibility

The strength of the association between an attitude object and a person's evaluation of that object, measured by the speed with which people can report how they feel about the object; particularly a good predictor of behavior when it is spontaneous

Higher accessibility

More likely spontaneous behavior is consistent with attitude

Theory of planned behavior

The idea that people's intentions are the best predictors of their deliberate behaviors, which are determined by their attitudes toward specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control

Attitudes toward specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control

According to the theory of planned behavior, behaviors are determined by

Better predict behavior

More specific attitudes

Subjective norms

People's beliefs about how others they care about will view behavior in question

Behavioral control

Intentions are influenced by ease with which one can perform behavior

Spontaneous behavior

In the moment decision

Deliberative behavior

Taking time to make a decision

Cognitive dissonance theory

The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes

Persuasive communication

A message advocating a particular side of an issue

Yale attitude change approach

The study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages, focusing on the source of the communication, the nature of the communication, and the nature of the audience

Source of communication, nature of communication, and nature of audience

What did the yale attitude change approach focus on?

Elaboration likelihood model

A model explaining two ways in which persuasive communications can cause attitude change

Centrally and peripherally

What are the two ways in which the elaboration likelihood model says persuasive communications can cause attitude change?

Centrally (elaboration likelihood model)

When people are motivated and have the ability to pay attention to the arguments in the communication

Central route to persuasion

When people have both the ability and the motivation to elaborate on a persuasive communication, listening carefully to and thinking about the arguments presented

Peripherally (elaboration likelihood model)

When people do not pay attention to the arguments but are instead swayed by surface characteristics

Peripheral route to persuasion

When people do not elaborate on the arguments in a persuasive communication but are instead swayed by more superficial cues

Personal relevance

Motivation to pay attention to arguments is affected by

More central route

Greater motivation/personal relevance means

More peripheral route

Less ability (to pay attention to arguments) means

Central route

A new attitude is more likely to be maintained when persuasive communication takes the

Fear-arousing communication

Persuasive message that attempts to change people's attitudes by arousing their fears; only works when paired with ways to reduce fear

Heuristic-systematic model of persuasion

An explanation of the two ways in which persuasive communications can cause attitude change: either systematically processing the merits of the arguments or using the mental shortcuts/heuristics (peripheral route)

Cognitively based attitudes

Respond most favorably to rational arguments

Affectively based atttiudes

Respond most favorably to emotional arguments

Subliminal messages

Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived by may nevertheless influence judgments, attitudes, and behaviors; don't actually work when encountered in real life, but laboratory evidence exists

Attitude inoculation

Making people immune to attempts to change their attitudes by initially exposing them to small, weaker doses of the arguments against their position (appeals to logic)

Product placement

Forewarnings that product placement is imminent and will try to change attitude makes persuasion less effective (it is more effective when unaware)

Peer pressure

Its persuasive effects may be reduced through role-playing that appeals to emotions (linked to affectively based attitudes)

Reactance theory

The idea that when people feel their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened, an unpleasant state of resistance is aroused, which they can reduce by performing the prohibited behavior

Stereotypes are

Thinking (cognitive)

Attitudes are

Feeling (emotional)

Discrimination is

Behaving

Person, categorize and apply schema (stereotype), evaluate them (attitude/prejudice), act according to prejudice/stereotype (discrimination)

Cycle of general process of prejudice/stereotype (discrimination)

Stereotypes are

Schemas about categories of people