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

PLAYVIDEO

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, self-other relationships

• Cultural difference in amount of concealment of emotion

Culture and Emotion

PLAYVIDEO

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