Emotions
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Lecture contents
• Basic emotions
 E.g., Izard’s DET
• Two emotion/motivation frameworks
 E.g., Carver & White’s BIS/BAS scales
• Emotion regulation
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Izard’s Differential Emotions Theory (DET)
Each basic (discrete) emotion has three components:
 Neural
 Motor-expressive
 Mental
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Izard et al. (1993)
How often in your daily life do you [mothers in the first 3
years after childbirth] feel:
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
“Five” features of emotions (Izard et al., 1993)
1) Motivational
 Selective perception
 Cognition selecting
2) Continuity and stability
3) Individual difference threshholds/personalities
4) Networks with other emotions, e.g., sadness-anger
5) Networks with cognition-netweorks (I.e., schema)
6) Situation-emotion-cognition links  Action tendencies
 Personality traits
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Behavioural Approach/Inhibition Systems
BIS/BAS: Carver & White (1994)
• Centrality of positive/approach and negative/avoidance.
• Positive and negative affect as independent dimensions
(as individual difference variables).
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Russell’s (1980) Circumplex model of affect
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Gross (1999): 5 features of emotion regulation
1) Individual differences in situation selection.
2) Situation modification.
3) Attentional deployment.
4) Meaning construal.
5) Emotion expression modulation.
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Lazarus & Folkman (1984)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Learn how to relax
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Ways of coping scale (revised)
(Folkman et al., 1986)
Confrontive Coping
 Stood my ground and fought for what I wanted.
Distancing
 Made light of the situation; Refused to get too serious about it.
Self-Controlling
 I tried to keep my feelings to myself.
Seeking Social Support
 Talked to someone to find out more about the situation.
Accepting Responsibility
 Criticised or lectured myself.
Escape-Avoidance
 Wished that the situation would go away or somehow be over with.
Planful Problem Solving
 I knew what had to be done, so I doubled my efforts to make things
work.
Positive Reappraisal
 Changed or grew as a person in a good way.
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
COPE
(Carver et al., 1989)
Problem focused coping
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Active coping
Planning
Suppression of competing activities
Restraint coping
Seeking of instrumental social support
Emotion focused coping
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Seeking of emotional social support
Positive reinterpretation
Acceptance
Denial
Turning to religion
Arguably less useful strategies (in this study)
 Focus on and venting of emotions
 Behavioural disengagement
 Mental disengagement
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
More on Lazarus on coping and stress
• Central role of appriasal means normative and
idiosyncratic aspects.
• Coping appraisals and strategies each have individual
differences and situation-specific aspects.
• Can all occur at conscious and/or unconscious levels.
• Affected by learning/experience.
• Coping is effortful.
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
Traumatic writing
(Pennebaker et al., 1988)
20 min writing for 4 days on trauma or trivial topic.
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)
ATP: PAID, Lecture 9: Emotions
Tom Farsides (SOC)