Chapter 6 - Emotion and Affect
• What is Emotion?
• Emotional Arousal
• Some Important Emotions
• Why Do We Have Emotions?
• Individual Differences in Emotions
• Arousal, Attention, and Performance
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
• Affect Regulation
Emotion and Affect
• “Spam”
•
•
– People cope very differently to this problem
How do emotions guide your behavior?
How do emotions provide you with feedback?
What is Emotion?
• Emotion – conscious evaluative reaction to
•
•
some event
Mood – feeling state not clearly linked to
some event
Affect – automatic response that something is
good or bad
What is Emotion?
• Conscious Emotion
•
– Powerful and unified feeling state
Automatic Affect
– Quick response of liking or disliking; good
or bad feelings
Is Bad Stronger Than Good?
Names for Emotions
• Bad emotions have more influence and
importance than good emotions
– Anthropolinguistic study of emotional
language
• 62% of emotion words refer to bad
• 74% emotional traits were negative
• Of 12 most common emotions listed 11
are negative
Emotional Arousal
• James-Lange theory of emotion
•
– Physiological arousal precedes emotional
experience
– Weakness: Physiological expression does
not always constitute the same emotion
Facial Feedback Hypothesis
– Feedback from face muscles evokes or
magnifies emotions
Emotional Arousal
• Canon-Bard theory of emotion
– Thalamus sends two simultaneous
messages to produces the emotional
experience and the physiological arousal
Emotional Arousal
• Schacter-Singer theory of emotion
– Emotion has two components
• Bodily state of arousal
• Cognitive label specifying the emotion
Misattribution of Arousal
• Excitation transfer
• Mislabeling and relabeling arousal
– Schachter & Singer (1962)
– Dutton & Aron (1974)
Social Side of Sex - Can People Be Wrong
About Whether They Are Sexually Aroused?
• Ambiguities of sexual arousal
•
– Sexual stimulation may effect the brain, or
the genitals, neither, or both
Attitudes may prescribe reactions different
than physiological response
Happiness
• Affect balance
•
– Frequency of positive minus frequency of
negative emotions
Life satisfaction
– General evaluation of one’s life and how it
compares to some standard
Objective Roots of Happiness
• Objective predictors – little effect, except
•
– Couples with children are less happy than
those without children
– People with strong social connections are
happier than those alone
Hedonistic treadmill
Subjective Roots of Happiness
• Happiness is rooted in one’s outlook and
•
genes
Subjective roots are more significant than
objective roots of happiness
Increasing Happiness
• Focused attention on positive things
•
– Forgiving others
– Gratitude for blessings
– Practicing religious beliefs
– Optimism
Happiness is linked to good health
Tradeoffs - Affect Intensity,
or the Joys of Feeling Nothing
• Some people have many intense experiences
•
•
while others have relatively few
– Affect Intensity Measure (AIM)
Positive life circumstances; more enjoyment
from high affective intensity
May intentionally lower affect to prevent hurt
Anger
• Emotional response to real or imagined threat
•
or provocation
Angry people
– Downplay risks and overlook dangers
– Are impulsive and fail to consider
consequences of actions
Causes of Anger
• Perceived reaction to someone else’s
•
wrongdoing
Greater anger accompanies
– More harm the other person does
– Other’s behavior viewed as random or
arbitrary
– Other’s behavior viewed as cruel
Why Does Anger Persist?
• Motivates person to act aggressively and
•
•
assertively
Anger may help reduce aggression
– Act as a warning and allows resolution
prior to the aggression
In the past, anger may have provided needed
arousal
Expression of Anger
• Never show anger
• Vent one’s anger
•
– Catharsis theory
– Intense physical exercise
Get rid of anger
– Decrease arousal
Soothing the Savage Beast
PLAY
VIDEO
Guilt and Shame
• Moral emotion, involves feeling bad
•
•
– Guilt focuses on action that is bad or wrong
– Shame spreads to whole person
Guilt is constructive
Shame is destructive
Effects of Guilt
• Apology can be motivated by guilt
– Conveys implicit agreement that action
was wrong
– Suggests person will try not to do it again
– Counteract implication that person doesn’t
care about the relationship
Effects of Guilt
• Amends can be motivated by guilt
– Try harder to perform positive actions
– Likely learned a lesson
– Try to behave better in the future
Guilt and Relationships
• Survivor guilt
•
– Guilt is an interpersonal emotion
People try to make others feel guilt
Why Do We Have Emotions?
• Comprise powerful and important feedback
• Promote belongingness
• Rarely causes behavior directly
• Guide thinking and learning
– Without emotion, difficulty adjusting to life
and making decisions
Food for Thought - Mood and Food
• People who feel bad – often eat badly
•
– Both in terms of type and amount of food
– May lead to binge eating
Mood (emotion) doesn’t cause eating
(behavior)
– You want to feel better and eating is a
strategy for feeling better
Why Do We Have Emotions?
• Comprise powerful and important feedback
• Promote belongingness
• Rarely causes behavior directly
• Guide thinking and learning
– Without emotion, difficulty adjusting to life
and making decisions
– Affect-as-information hypothesis
Why Do We Have Emotions?
• Anticipated emotion guides decisions and
•
choices
– Affective forecasting
Help and Hurt Decision Making
– Risk-as-feelings hypothesis
– Strong conscious emotions influence risky
behavior
– Make people disregard probabilities
Positive Emotions
• There are fewer positive emotions and they
•
are studied less
Appear to solve problems of personal growth
and development
– Broaden-and-build theory
Positive Emotions
• Good mood helps flexibility, creativity, and
•
•
problem-solving
People in a good mood perform better, are
more persistent, more motivated
Being in a good mood, avoid risks
Are Emotions Different Across Cultures?
• Six basic emotions
– Happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness,
and disgust
– People in many different cultures can
identify facial expression of these emotions
Cultural Differences in Emotion
• Asian Americans place greater emphasis on
•
•
emotional moderation than European
Americans
– Presence of Duchenne smiles
Collectivist cultural emotion based more on
assessment of social worth, outer world, selfother relationships
Cultural difference in amount of concealment
of emotion
Culture and Emotion
PLAY
VIDEO
Men and Women and Emotion
• Contrary to stereotype, no gender differences
•
•
exist
In young children, greater emotionality in
boys
Men may be slightly more emotional, but
women are more willing to report emotions
Men and Women and Love
• Men fall in love faster
• Women fall out of love faster
• Men have more experiences of loving
•
•
someone who does not reciprocate their love
Women have more experiences of receiving
love but not reciprocating it
Men suffer more intense emotional distress
after a break up
Arousal, Attention, and Performance
• Yerkes-Dodson Law
•
– Some arousal is good for performance
– Too much arousal can hurt performance
Arousal helps narrow and focus attention
– Easterbrook (1959)
Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
• Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence
Test (MSCEIT)
– Perceiving Emotion
– Facilitating Thought
– Understanding Emotion
– Managing Emotions
Affect Regulation Strategies
• Altering your mood
– Do things that produce good feelings
– Do something to take your mind off the
problem
– Raise or lower your arousal level
– Seek social support
Affect Regulation Strategies
• Dealing with the problem
– Reframe the problem
– Use humor
– Vent your feelings
– Religious activities (i.e. prayer)
Goals of Affect Regulation
• For both positive and negative emotions
•
– Get into the mood
– Get out of the mood
– Prolong the mood
Prior to social interactions, tend to neutralize
mood
Gender Differences in Affect Regulation
• When distressed, women tend to ruminate;
•
•
men to distract themselves
When feeling bad, women tend to eat; men
turn to alcohol and drugs
Men use more humor to regulate affect;
women more likely to shop of turn to friends
What Makes Us Human?
• Human emotion is tied to meaning
•
– Can respond emotionally to ideas and
concepts
– Larger range of emotion
Emotion aids in social acceptance
– Provides feedback
– Reliance on anticipated emotion
– Regulation of emotions
