Exam 3

What are Emotions?

Adaptive responses that support survival

Emotional Components

- Bodily arousal
- Expressive behaviors
- Conscious experiences

Theories of Emotion Generally Address Two Major Questions

1. Does physiological arousal come before or after emotional feelings?
2. How do feeling and cognition interact?

Historical Emotion Theories

- James-Lange Theory
- Cannon-Bard Theory
- Schachter-Singer's Two-Factor Theory

James-Lange Theory

- Arousal comes before emotion
- Ex. We observe our heart racing after a threat and then feel afraid

Cannon-Bard Theory

- Arousal and emotion happen at the same time
- Ex. Our heart races at the same time that we feel afraid

Schachter-Singer's Two-Factor Theory

- Arousal + Label = Emotion
- Arousal fuels emotion; cognition channels it
- Ex. We may interpret our arousal as fear or excitement depending on the context

Spillover effect

Arousal spills over from one event to the next, influencing the response

Zajonc

Same embodied responses happen instantly, without conscious appraisal
- Ex. We automatically feel startled by a sound in the forest before labeling it as a threat

Lazarus

Cognitive appraisal sometimes, without our awareness, defines emotion
- Emotions arise when an event is deemed harmless or dangerous
- Ex. The sound is just "the wind"

Emotions and the Autonomic Nervous System

- The arousal component of emotion is regulated by the autonomic nervous system’s sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (calming) divisions
- In a crisis, the fight-or-flight response automatically mobilizes the body for action

Higher Level Arousal's Affect on Performance

Performance peaks at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks

Lower Level Arousal's Affect on Performance

Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks

Depression and General Negativity

Right frontal lobe activity

Happiness, Enthusiasm, and Feeling Energized

Left frontal lobe activity

Detecting Emotion in Others

- People can often detect nonverbal cues and threats as well as signs of status
- Nonthreatening cues are more easily detected than deceiving expressions

Women: Emotion and Nonverbal Behavior

- Tend to read emotional cues more easily and to be more empathic
- Express more emotion with their faces
- People attribute female emotionality to disposition and male emotionality to circumstance

Culture and Emotional Expression

- Gesture meanings vary among cultures, but outward signs of emotion are generally the same
- Musical expression of emotion crosses cultures.
- Facial muscles speak a universal language for some basic emotions; interpreting faces in context is adaptive

The Effects of Facial Expressions

- The Facial Feedback Effect
- The Behavior Feedback Effect

The Facial Feedback Effect

- Facial expressions can trigger emotional feelings and signal our body to respond accordingly
- People also mimic others’ expressions, which helps them empathize

The Behavior Feedback Effect

The tendency of behavior to influence our own and others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions

Two Dimensions That Help Differentiate Emotions

- Positive versus negative valence
- Low versus high arousal

Causes of Anger

- With threat or challenge, fear triggers flight, but anger triggers fight—each at times is an adaptive behavior
- Most often evoked by misdeeds that we interpret as willful, unjustified, and avoidable
- Smaller frustrations and blameless annoyances

Consequences of Anger

- Chronic hostility is linked to heart disease.
- Expressing anger can make us angrier.
- Controlled assertions of feelings may resolve conflicts
- Forgiveness may rid us of angry feelings
- Communicates strength and competence, motivates action, and expresses grief when wisely used

Catharsis

The discharge of previously repressed affects or emotions connected to traumatic events that occur when these events are brought back into someone's consciousness and re-experienced

Better Ways to Manage Anger

- Wait
- Find a healthy distraction or support
- Distance yourself

The Feel-Good, Do-Good Phenomenon

People’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood

Subjective Well-Being

- Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life
- Used along with measures of objective well-being to evaluate people’s quality of life

Positive Psychology

Study of human functioning, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive

Research Areas of Positive Psychology

- Positive health
- Positive emotions
- Positive Neuroscience
- Positive education

Three Pillars of Positive Psychology

1. Positive well-being
2. Positive character
3. Communities and culture

The Short Life of Emotional Ups and Downs

Emotional ups and downs tend to balance out; moods typically rebound

Wealth Does Correlate with Well-Being in Some Ways

- Having resources to meet basic needs and maintain some control over life does “buy happiness"
- Increasing wealth matters less once basic needs are met
- Economic growth in affluent countries provides no apparent moral or social well-being boost
- 82% of entering U.S. college students say that “being very well off financially” is “very important” or “essential”

Two Psychological Phenomena: Adaption

- The tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience
- Prior experience partly influences feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction and success and failure

Two Psychological Phenomena: Comparison

- Satisfaction comes from income rank rather than income level
- Relative deprivation is the perception that one is worse off relative to the comparison group

What Predicts Our Happiness Levels?

Happiness levels are the product of nature-nurture interaction.
- Twin studies: About 36 percent of happiness rating differences are heritable.
- Culture: Variation in groups’ valuing of traits
- Personal history: Emotions balance around a level defined by experience
- Individual happiness level may influence national well-being.

Stress

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging

Stressors: Things That Push Our Buttons

- Catastrophes: Unpleasant, large-scale events
- Significant life changes: Personal events; life transitions
- Daily hassles: Day-to-day challenges

Stress Response

- Cannon viewed the stress response as a “fight-or-flight” system
- Selye proposed a general three-phase (alarm, resistance, exhaustion) general adaptation syndrome (GAS).
- Women may have a tend-and-befriend response
- Men may withdraw socially, turn to alcohol, or become aggressive

Psychoneuroimmunology

Studies mind-body interactions
- Emotions (psycho)
- Affect your brain (neuro)
- Which controls the stress hormones that influence the disease-fighting immune system

Four Types of Cells Active in the Search-and-Destroy Mission of the Immune System

1. B lymphocytes
2. T lymphocytes
3. Macrophages
4. Natural killer (NK) cells

Stress: Animal Studies

Stress of adjustment in monkeys causes weakened immune systems

Stress: Human Studies

- Stress affects surgical wound healing and development of colds
- Low stress may increase the effectiveness of vaccinations

Stress and AIDS

Stress cannot give people AIDS, but it may speed the transition from HIV infection to AIDS and the decline in those with AIDS

Stress and Cancer

Stress does not create cancer cells, but it may affect their growth by weakening natural defenses

Stress and Heart Disease

Stress is related to the generation of inflammation, which is associated with heart and other health problems

Type A and B Personalities

Type A: More likely to die from a Heart Attack
- Competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people
Type B: Less likely to die from a Heart Attack
- Easygoing, relaxed people

Stress, Pessimism, and Depression

- Pessimists are more likely than optimists to develop heart disease
- Depression increases the risk of death, especially from cardiovascular disease

Personality, Pessimism, and Depression

- Happy and consistently satisfied people tend to be healthy and outlive their unhappy peers
- Having a happy spouse predicts better health: Happy you, healthy me

Health and Coping

- Problem-focused coping
- Emotion-focused coping

External Locus of Control

Chance or outside forces control their fate

Internal Locus of Control

They control their own destiny

Self-Control

The ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards

Pessimists

Expect things to go badly and blame others

Optimists

- Expect to have control, work well under stress, and enjoy good health
- Run in families; genetic marker/oxytocin

Social Support

- Calms cardiovascular system, which lowers blood pressure and stress hormone levels
- Fights illness by fostering stronger immune functioning

Reducing Stress

- Aerobic exercise
- Relaxation
- Relaxation training
- Mindfulness meditation

Aerobic Exercise

- Sustained activity increases heart and lung fitness and reduces stress, depression, and anxiety.
- Can weaken the influence of genetic risk for obesity
- Increases the quality and “quantity” of life (~2 years)

Relaxation

More than 60 studies found that relaxation procedures can provide relief from headaches, high blood pressure, anxiety, and insomnia

Relaxation Training

Has been used to help Type A heart attack survivors reduce their risk of future heart attacks

Mindfulness Meditation

A reflective practice in which people attend to current experiences in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner

Faith Factor

Religiously active people tend to live longer than those who are not religiously active

Religious Involvement

- Leads to Healthy Behaviors: Less smoking, drinking
- Social Support: Faith communities, close relationships
- Positive Emotions: Less stress, anxiety
- Better Health: Less immune system suppression, less stress, greater longevity

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

Social Psychologists

Study the social influences that explain why the same person will act differently in different situations

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency for observers, when analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

An underlying psychological tension is created when an individual's behavior is inconsistent with his or her thoughts and beliefs

Attitudes

Feelings influenced by beliefs, which predispose people to have specific reactions to objects, people, and events

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

Role

A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave

Peripheral Route Persuasion

Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness

Central Route Persuasion

Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts

Chartrand and Colleagues (1999)

- Demonstrated the chameleon effect with college students
- The more we mimic, the greater our empathy, and the more people tend to like us
- This is a form of conformity

Conformity and Obedience: Solomon Asch

Found that people are most likely to adjust their behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard
- Feeling incompetent or insecure
- In a group of 3+
- Everyone else agrees
- Group’s status and attractiveness
- Have not already committed to another response
- They know they are being observed
- Culture encourages respect for social standards

People May Conform for Many Reasons

- Normative social influence
- Informational social influence

Normative Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

Informational Social Influence

Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

- People obeyed orders even when they thought they were harming another person
- Strong social influences can make ordinary people conform to falsehoods or exhibit cruel behavior
- In any society, great evil acts often grow out of people’s compliance with lesser evils

Findings from the Milgram Experiments

Obedience was highest when:
- The person giving orders was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority figure
- The research was supported by a prestigious institution.
- The victim was depersonalized or at a distance.
- There were no role models for defiance

Social Facilitation

The presence of others arouses people, improving performance on easy or well-learned tasks but decreasing performance on difficult tasks

Home-Team Advantage

When others observe us, we perform well-learned tasks more quickly and accurately

Crowding Effect

A phenomenon in which the perception of a suprathreshold target is impaired by nearby distractors, reflecting a fundamental limitation on visual spatial resolution

Social Loafing

Tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

Deindividuation

A loss of self-awareness and self-restraint that occurs in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

Group Polarization

Group discussions with like-minded others strengthen members’ prevailing beliefs and attitudes
- Internet communication magnifies this effect
- If group members are like-minded, discussion strengthens the prevailing opinions

Groupthink

People are driven by a desire for harmony within a decision-making group, with this desire overriding realistic appraisal of alternatives

Individual Power

- The power of the individual and the power of the situation interact
- A small minority that consistently expresses its views may sway the majority

Antisocial Relations

- Prejudice
- Stereotype
- Discrimination

Prejudice

An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members
- Generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action

Stereotype

A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members
Implicit prejudice

Implicit Racial Associations

Even people who deny racial prejudice may carry negative associations

Unconscious Patronization

Lower expectations, inflated praise, and insufficient criticism for minority student achievement

Race-Influenced Perceptions

Automatic racial bias

Reflexive Bodily Responses

Unconscious, selective responses when looking at faces

Explicit and Implicit Prejudice

Our prejudice is more often implicit—an unthinking knee-jerk response operating below the radar, leaving us unaware of how our attitudes are influencing our behavior

Psychologists Study Implicit Prejudice

- Testing for unconscious group associations
- Considering unconscious patronization
- Monitoring reflexive bodily responses

Targets of Prejudice

- Racial and Ethnic Prejudice: People with darker skin
- Gender Prejudice: Men are smarter than women
- LBGTQ Prejudice: Not accepted by their families

Roots of Prejudice

- Social inequalities: Often lead to the development of attitudes that justify the status quo
- Just-world phenomenon: Good is rewarded, and evil is punished
- Stereotypes: Rationalize inequalities

Groups

Through social identities, people associate themselves with others
- Ingroup: Us, people with whom we share a common identity
- Outgroup: Them, those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup
- Ingroup bias: The tendency to favor our own group