Psychology of Emotions and Thinking Errors

Appraisal in Emotions

• Emotions often begin with interpreting the situation, a process called appraisal.

Components of Emotions

• Emotions are marked by expressive behaviors, subjective experiences, motivated behaviors, and physiological changes.

Discrete Emotions

• Theories suggesting distinct emotions believe fear and anger are distinguishable, natural, and evident in facial expressions.

Thinking Error: Belief Perseverance

• Refers to maintaining beliefs even when contradicted by evidence, like Dorothy Martin's UFO cult leader example

Thinking Error: Confirmation Bias

• A tendency to favor information confirming existing beliefs.

Thinking Error: Belief Perseverance

• A tendency to maintain beliefs despite contradicting evidence.

Critical Thinking and Biases

• The bias blind spot is the tendency to lack self-awareness of biases.

Better-Than-Average Effect

• Individuals tend to rate themselves favorably compared to others.

Fundamental Attribution Error

• Attributing behavior to internal factors rather than external circumstances, like blaming unemployment on laziness, as in the example of Eliza's thinking error.

Motivated Reasoning

• Individuals interpret events to match desires, like interpreting external factors for job success while blaming personal factors for job failure.

Dual process model

• This model describes two systems of thinking, one fast and intuitive (Type 1), the other slower and more deliberate (Type 2).

Heuristics

• Mental shortcuts in judgment and decision making, often leading to errors; for example, the availability heuristic and representativeness heuristic.

Representativeness Heuristic

• Judging probabilities based on resemblance to existing prototypes, like the mistaken belief that "like goes with like" in judging probabilities.

Availability Heuristic

• Estimating likelihood based on how easily relevant examples come to mind, like the ease to recall tornadoes compared to asthmatic deaths.

Gambler's Fallacy

• Erroneous belief that prior outcomes influence random events, like Jose's belief that after six daughters, they are definitely due for a son.

Overconfidence Effect

• Individuals tend to be overly confident in their judgments and estimations.

Status Quo Bias

• A preference for the existing state of affairs, such as opting into organ donation.

Language and Cognition

• Language is a tool for externalizing and expressing thought processes.

Explore the intricate relationship between emotions and cognitive biases in this quiz. Delve into the concepts of appraisal, discrete emotions, and various thinking errors like confirmation bias and belief perseverance. Enhance your understanding of how emotions influence our thoughts and behaviors.