Emotion and Affect (SLK 220) - Past Notes

1 c h a p t e r 6 – EMOTION AND AFFECT social psychology a south African perspective 2nd edition explain the duplex mind’s contribution to our emotional experience and contrast conscious emotion and automatic affect. compare the three theories of emot...

1 c h a p t e r 6 – EMOTION AND AFFECT social psychology a south African perspective 2nd edition explain the duplex mind’s contribution to our emotional experience and contrast conscious emotion and automatic affect. compare the three theories of emotion and identify the role of physiological arousal. explain how specific emotions such as happiness, anger, guilt, shame, and disgust ̶ serve interpersonal functions. describe the role of emotion in feelings of belongingness and relationships, in behaviour, in thinking and learning, and in decision making. describe the research on whether emotions differ across gender and culture. summarise physiological changes associated with different emotions and explain how they can contribute to our conscious experience of emotions. define emotional intelligence and explain how it relates to emotional regulation. 6.1 WHAT is emotion?  the most common definitions emphasise emotion as a fully developed, conscious state that is clearly linked to some event. (def) emotion – a conscious evaluative reaction that is clearly linked to some event.  emotion is a reaction to something, and the person who has the emotion knows it.  you may feel angry because someone was mean to you, or you may be happy because you passed a test (emotion is the reaction and you are aware of the emotion & know it)  a mood is sometimes defined as a feeling state that is not clearly linked to some event.  you may not know why you are in a good or bad mood, but you do know that you feel happy or sad. (def) mood – a feeling state that is not clearly linked to some event.  affect, is defined as a result of mapping all emotions onto a single good–bad dimension.  positive affect encompasses all good emotions: such as joy, bliss, happiness, love, and contentment.  negative affect encompasses all bad emotions: such as anger, anxiety, fear, jealousy, and grief. (def) affect – the automatic response that something is good (positive affect) or bad 222222222 (negative affect)  most researchers argue that positive and negative affect are separate dimensions, not opposite ends of the same dimension. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  2 other researchers use affect to refer to still, some affective reactions can occur emotion-type reactions that can occur without consciousness. regardless of consciousness. you can have a quick positive or negative feeling about something as simple as a it makes no sense to say that someone is word without being fully conscious of it. happy but doesn’t know it; in that sense, the conscious feeling is the essence of the emotion.  emotions are very important to humans, and the ability to recognise emotions starts very young. babies as young as three-months-old can ‘hear’ emotions. researchers scanned the brains of 21 babies and found that their brains responded to tapes playing ‘emotional sounds’, such as laughing and crying. the limbic brain region, which regulates emotions, responded strongly to negative or sad sounds, but it did not differentiate between neutral and happy sounds. 6.1 conscious emotion versus automatic affect: there are two different phenomena that correspond roughly to the two dimensions of the duplex mind: 1. conscious emotion 2. automatic affect conscious emotion is felt as a powerful, the automatic effect is felt as liking or single (unified) feeling state. disliking, or as good and bad feelings toward something, and may occur outside of consciousness. the term is used to refer to the conscious reaction, often including a bodily response, to something. IN CONTRAST : the term is used to refer to the automatic response that something is good or bad (liking versus disliking).  affective reactions to things that are “good” and “bad” are automatic and very fast, occurring in the first microseconds of thought.  as soon as you know what something is, you start to know whether you like or dislike it.  this initial evaluation even occurs for things people have never encountered before.  IN CONTRAST : full-blown emotion takes time.  automatic affect & conscious emotion ARE BOTH IMPORTANT !!  emotions have both mental and physical aspects. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  3 6.2 emotional arousal.  emotions bridge the mind and the body.  emotions have both mental aspects (such as subjective feelings and interpretations) and physical aspects (such as a racing heartbeat or tears).  one important area of connection involves the bodily response of arousal, which is linked to most conscious emotions, but not necessarily to automatic affect. (def) arousal - a physiological reaction that occurs within the body, including faster 222222222 heartbeat and faster or heavier breathing, linked to most conscious emotions.  it should not be confused with sexual arousal, as it is a general bodily state. 6.2.1 James-Lange theory of emotion:  in 1884, American psychologist William James and Danish psychologist Carl Lange both independently proposed a theory linking the mental and physical aspects of emotion.  this is now called the James–Lange theory of emotion. (def) James–Lange theory of emotion – the proposition that the bodily processes of 2222222222 emotion come first, and the mind’s perception of 22222222222 these bodily reactions then creates the subjective 2222222222 feeling of emotion. James–Lange theory of emotion: emotional stimulus physiological arousal experienced emotion the emotional stimulus (hearing footsteps behind you in a dark alley) produces physiological arousal (increased heart rate), which then produces an experienced emotion (fear).  when something happens, your body and brain supposedly perceive it and respond to it, and these physiological events form the basis for the emotion you feel.  one important aspect of the theory is that different emotions must arise from different bodily responses.  the James–Lange theory led to an important contemporary hypothesis – the facial feedback hypothesis. (def) facial feedback hypothesis – the idea that feedback from the face muscles evokes or 222222222222 magnifies emotions.  according to the facial feedback hypothesis, facial expressions can evoke or magnify emotions because the brain reacts to what the facial muscles are doing. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  4 one of the cleverest manipulations of facial feedback consisted of having participants hold a pen either between their lips or their teeth while rating cartoons. when you hold the pen between your teeth, your face resembles a smile, whereas when you hold it between your lips, your face resembles a frown.  the facial feedback hypothesis holds that if you are smiling, you will enjoy things more than if you are frowning (and this is what researchers found).  participants who held the pen in their teeth thought the cartoons were funnier than participants who held the pen in their lips did.  so, if you put on a happy face, you will be happier & enjoy external events more. facial feedback may also help us recognise emotional expressions in others: A STUDY : Botox injections are used to reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging, by preventing the muscles from moving, and so stopping the person from frowning or moving in another way that will cause wrinkles. these injections can have an unintended negative side effect – they reduce muscular feedback from the face, so the brain doesn’t get all the usual input that helps it process emotional information. seeing people smile normally makes you start to smile a little, and that helps your brain understand their emotions. if you’ve had Botox, your face doesn’t react to the other person’s smile (or frown or whatever emotional expression), and this impairs your ability to understand other people’s emotions. 6.2.2 Schachter-Singer theory of emotion:  Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer developed their theory in the early 1960’s partly in response to the failure of the James–Lange theory.  instead of claiming that feeling emotion is a direct result of the bodily reaction, Schachter and Singer said that emotion has two separate components – physiological arousal and cognitive label.  BOTH OF THESE ARE CRUCIAL !!  physiological arousal is similar in all emotions.  the cognitive label is different for each emotion.  the arousal is the mix of feelings that you get when your sympathetic nervous system is activated – your heart beats faster, more blood flows to your muscles and brain, the bronchioles in the lungs dilate so that more oxygen goes into the blood and so on.  the feeling of nervousness, such as when you are about to take a big test or a major public performance, is what it is like to have arousal by itself (not to be confused with sexual arousal) – nervousness is a kind of generic emotional state: the arousal part of the emotion, without the label. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  5 Schachter–Singer theory of emotion. emotional stimulus physiological arousal cognitive label experienced emotion  the emotional stimulus (hearing footsteps behind you in a dark alley) produces physiological arousal (increased heart rate) and a cognitive label, which produces an experienced emotion (fear).  in the Schachter–Singer theory of emotion, emotion is something like a television programme – the arousal is the on/off switch and volume control: it determines that there is going to be an emotion, and how strong it will be.  the cognitive label is like the channel switch: it determines what emotion will be felt. 6.2.3 misattribution of arousal:  one aspect of the Schachter–Singer theory is that it allows for arousal states to be mislabelled or re-labelled.  That is, arousal may arise for one reason but get another label, thereby producing a different reaction. example: someone may not realise that what they are drinking has caffeine (mistaking regular coffee for decaffeinated coffee), which may create an arousal state.  the mind then searches for a label to make sense of the emotional state.  if something frustrating happens, someone who has this extra, unexplained arousal may get much angrier than they would otherwise. the arousal from the first event (drinking caffeinated coffee) transfers to the second event (frustration).  this process is called Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  6 (def) excitation transfer – the idea that arousal from one event can transfer to a later event. take your partner on an exciting date, such as to a theme park or an action-packed movie, and then kiss them. according to excitation transfer theory, the arousal from the amusement ride or movie will transfer to raise your date’s attraction to you. is the bodily arousal state really the same in all emotions?  later research suggested that there is not just one single state underlying all emotions.  it is more likely that there are at least two basic arousal states that feel quite different – one of these is pleasant and the other is unpleasant. many research however, the some studies studies have state of have explicitly been done emotional "good" shown that with neutral arousal that arousal cannot when people states, such as comes from these states be converted experience someone actual events, can be into "bad" pleasant receiving generated by converted into arousal, nor arousal, they caffeine or the body in almost any can "bad" will not another response to emotion, good arousal be misattribute stimulant (like experience or bad. converted into that state as exercising, rather than "good" an unpleasant watching a chemically arousal. emotion, or sexually induced, is the other way explicit usually either around. movie). good or bad.  if there are two types of naturally occurring arousal states – one good and one bad – we may be able to explain why real, everyday emotions cannot be converted by considering automatic affect.  conscious emotion takes time to build, but automatic affect arises quickly.  if an arousal starts to build to form the basis for a conscious emotional reaction, it will be shaped by the automatic reaction – this means that it too will feel good or bad.  so, it will be hard to re-label a bad emotion as a good one, or the other way around.  converting one positive emotion into a different positive one, such as turning joy into pride, will be much easier. 6.3 some important emotions five important emotions include: 1. happiness. 2. anger. 3. guilt. 4. shame. & 5. disgust. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  7  inner processes serve interpersonal functions.  some emotions may serve more basic biological needs, especially survival and reproduction.  people mainly achieve survival and reproduction by forming and maintaining good relationships with other people. 6.3.1 happiness  human beings and many animals share one form of happiness.  it refers simply to feeling good right now. other forms of happiness are unique to human beings, in part because they involve a broader time span and the meaningful integration of multiple experiences. so, someone might be a happy person because he enjoys many positive emotional experiences, or because she hardly ever feels bad emotions.  one measure of happiness relates to the frequency of the type of emotions:  referred to as affect balance. (def) affect balance – the frequency of positive emotions minus the frequency of negative 22222222222 emotions.  the most complex form of happiness is sometimes called (def) life satisfaction – an evaluation of how one’s life is generally and how it compares to 2222222222 some standard.  it involves not only evaluating how your life is generally, but also how it compares to some standard.  probably most animals can feel good or bad, but only humans have life satisfaction because only humans can think meaningfully about their life as a whole and decide whether it measures up to their hopes and goals.  life satisfaction has a much broader time span than current emotion and affect balance. a) objective roots of happiness: what would make you happy?  most people answer this question by referring to objective circumstances. for example, a happy marriage or having enough money, a good job, some friends, good health etc. note that most of those objective predictors involve succeeding by biological and cultural standards – if people strive to feel good, they will do things that the culture values (such as marrying and succeeding at a good job) AND if everyone were to do those things, the culture will thrive and flourish. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  8 the one odd exception is having children. couples who have children are less happy than couples who have no children. the drop in happiness has been shown repeatedly, with many different research samples and methods. it goes against intuitive beliefs, and in fact most parents expect that having children will increase their happiness. what’s more, they continue to believe that having children has made them happier, even though the research clearly shows otherwise. possibly this is because parenthood is filled with self-deception and illusion. parents do not want to believe that they made a big mistake by having children, and they also want to rationalise the efforts and sacrifices they have made. having children is, however, a powerful source of meaning in life, so that even if becoming a parent reduces happiness, it may make life richer and more meaningful.  culture plays a big role in all this.  nearly all cultures encourage people to have children (by birth or adoption), and so they help promote the idea (even when false) that having children will make you happy.  if enough people expect to become happy by having babies, the culture will increase in population, which cultures have generally found to be beneficial.  cultures that do not produce new generations will not survive, so nearly all successful cultures encourage reproduction.  in addition, cultures compete against others, and at some very basic level, those that have more people will triumph over those with fewer people.  it is not surprising that most cultures glorify parenthood and award social approval on those people who reproduce most. if you want to reduce the negative effect on happiness, you can take several steps: 1. have a stable relationship to avoid the added stresses of being a single parent. 2. extend the “newlywed” phase of life between marriage and birth of first child, rather than rushing into parenthood – that phase may allow the relationship to become stronger, helping it to withstand the stresses of parenthood better. 3. save up some money, which can be used to cover new expenses and thereby reduce some of the financial stresses that parenthood puts on the couple. children can be expensive! Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  9 the fact that having children reduces happiness may actually be a fairly recent, modern phenomenon. when the throughout family most of when you childlessness changed from history, most grew too old was a being an people were to work the disaster for a economic unit farmers, and farm, you married to focusing on they lived in would starve, couple, in the intimate societies that offered no unless you terms of relationship, had children their the emotional social security to take over practical and impact of systems, the farm and economic parenthood pensions or shifted to other means support you. prospects. become more of support. negative.  the effects of the objective predictors of happiness are weak.  there is only one objective circumstance that has been shown to make a big difference in happiness, and that involves social connections.  people who are alone in the world are much less happy than people who have strong, rich social networks. (this strong link shows once again that inner processes, in this case happiness, are linked to interpersonal relationships, in this case forming and maintaining good connections to other people. the human emotional system is set up so that it is very hard for a person to be happy while alone in life.) people who reach their if you think career goal generally, for all other that reaching may people who circumstances, your goals will experience meet their even including make you some goals are health, injury, happy, you temporary briefly happy, money and are likely to be happiness, but but then they career, the disappointed, they do not go back to differences are even though live happily where they small. technically ever after. were before. you are right. most things wear off pretty soon. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  10 b) the hedonic treadmill  the tendency for objective changes to wear off led some social psychologists to speak of the hedonic treadmill. (def) hedonic treadmill – a proposing that people stay at about the same level of happiness 222222222 regardless of what happens to them.  like a person on a treadmill, you may take big steps forward but end up in the same place.  a big success will bring joy for a while, but then the person goes back to being as happy or unhappy as before. that does not mean that everyone goes back to the same level.  happy people go back to being happy, and unhappy ones go back to their former level of unhappiness. for example: researchers in America studied people who had won the lottery (thereby gaining hundreds of thousands of dollars) and other people who had been severely paralysed in an accident. at first, of course, the lottery winners were very happy, whereas the accident victims were very unhappy. a year afterward, however, the effects had largely worn off. winning the lottery was wonderful, but the winners seemed to have lost their ability to appreciate everyday pleasures. in general, a year after the big event the differences in happiness were not very noticeable. it appeared that people got over big, good events faster than they got over big bad events. people did not recover emotionally from being paralysed as fast or as thoroughly as they got over the joy of winning the state lottery.  two large studies that tracked people across many years found that the hedonic treadmill does not work very well when life gets worse.  in other words, people who suffered a disabling injury became less happy than they had been and, although they adjusted to some degree, they tended not to get back to being as happy as they had been before the accident. c) subjective roots of happiness if objective circumstances do not cause happiness, then what does?  happiness appears to lie more in our outlook and personality than in our circumstances.  in general, people who are happy now will be happy in the future, whereas those who are grumpy or depressed or irritable now will continue to be so.  major events bring joy or sorrow, but these feelings wear off, and people go back to their own baseline.  one reason happiness often remains the same across time is that happiness is rooted in a person’s outlook and approach to life. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  11  the importance of a person’s outlook is clear in the difference between subjective and objective predictors of happiness.  subjective predictors are much stronger. (def) subjective – refers to how you feel about something. (def) objective – refers to the thing itself. example: how much money you make (objectively) has only a weak relationship to happiness, but how you feel about your income (subjectively) is a strong predictor of happiness. d) increasing happiness: several psychological patterns have been shown to increase happiness: forgiving others. expressing gratitude. counting up good things that have happened recently. practising religious beliefs. being optimistic.  these all share the idea of focusing one’s attention on positive things.  no matter what causes happiness, happy people are healthy people.  positive emotions may have direct effects on the body that improve health, such as boosting the immune system.  it may also be that happiness is linked to good social relations, and perhaps good social relations promote health, whereas being alone in the world weakens bodily health. e) happy all the time?  happiness is simply all good.  it feels pleasant, and it is natural to prefer pleasure over pain, and good feelings over bad ones. there are benefits to happiness: happy people: make more money and have superior jobs. are better leaders and negotiators. are more likely to marry and to have fulfilling marriages. are less likely to divorce. have more friends and social support. have stronger immune systems. are physically healthier. live longer. are more helpful and philanthropic. show more resilience to stress and trauma. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  12  on the other hand, various findings suggest that some people who seem extremely happy are actually less healthy, more rigid, and more likely to overlook genuine dangers and threats.  feeling very happy may also be counterproductive in some situations, such as funerals.  happy feelings can blunt negative emotions, leaving people without important signals and other benefits of negative emotion.  negative emotions presumably serve useful functions, and so sometimes it is appropriate and helpful to feel bad.  in relationships, bad moods enable people to detect when others are lying and to resist social influence. they can also reduce bias due to stereotypes and prejudice. unpleasant emotions: pleasant emotions: unpleasant emotions cause people to focus pleasant emotions signal that the external away from the self, attending more to the world is fine and so the person can turn environment and analysing things carefully. inward and take it easy.  some work has suggested that the healthiest pattern is to experience a broad variety of emotions.  people who are happy all the time are only using part of their emotional range and may be missing out on some valuable parts of the human experience. (def) emodiversity – the degree to which a person experiences the variety and relative 2222222222 abundance of human emotions.  high emodiversity is linked to better mental and physical health.  emodiversity does not necessarily mean extremity of emotion.  a person can have plenty of emodiversity even though all emotions are relatively mild.  some people often experience intense emotions, both positive and negative, whereas others rarely feel intense emotions of any sort. f) worker happiness globally and in South-Africa:  being able to recruit and retain top talent is critical for a company to maintain a competitive edge and drive innovation.  in this regard, employee satisfaction and loyalty is important to consider. the global workforce happiness index assessed: a) employee satisfaction at their current job. b) likelihood of recommending their current employer. c) their stated sense of job loyalty. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  13  the study linked staff happiness with employee retention and productivity, so it makes a case for a company to try to directly increase its staff’s perceived levels of happiness. the global workforce happiness index. South African employees rated themselves as satisfied and felt positive about their companies as a place of work. 6.3.2 anger (def) anger – an emotional response to a real or imagined threat or provocation.  anger can range in intensity from mild irritation to extreme rage.  many events make people angry. these events can be: interpersonal stressors such as a provocation. such as frustration. physical pain. exposure to violent media. discomfort caused by heat, crowding, noise or foul odours.  chemicals inside the body, such testosterone, contribute to getting angry.  much of life can be understood as deriving from approach and avoidance tendencies.  approach and avoidance have their origins in simple processes of animal learning.  for example, does the animal move forward to check out the new stimulus, or does it run away?  emotions, including anger, are often helpful signals for what to approach and avoid. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  14 generally, positive emotions signal that you negative emotions are mostly avoidance should approach something, typically signals because they tell you something is because it is good. bad. fear, sadness, jealousy, anxiety, depressed feelings, and others tend to motivate people to avoid and withdraw.  anger is a rare example of an emotion that feels bad but that still signals approach.  being angry often makes people want to approach or confront the problem, such as by fixing it or by arguing with the person who made them angry.  anger can be a powerful force in helping people stand up for what they believe is right. example: the civil rights movement. the feminist movement. the struggle against apartheid. the #feesmustfall movement. the #blacklivesmatter movement. the #metoo movement. and other causes probably used anger to motivate people to take action against unfair practices.  anger is often linked to aggression which is one form of approach behaviour.  the association between anger and approach motivation may be due to the increase in aggressive motivation that typically accompanies anger.  anger is widely recognised as a problem.  it is one of the most heavily regulated emotions, in the sense that cultures have many different norms about anger.  some of these norms conflict with each other.  for example, norms say that sometimes it is justifiable to be angry, while at other times anger is wholly inappropriate. at other times there is an obligation to be angry.  anger is one of the least regulated emotions. a) is anger maladaptive?  anger seems maladaptive – useless, counterproductive, harmful, divisive, and problematic.  when people become angry, they do things they will regret later.  they are impulsive, aggressive, and worse. why would anger exist if it is harmful and maladaptive? Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  15  it is reasonable to assume that it is (or was) adaptive, or else natural selection would likely have favoured people who did not feel anger, and anger would gradually have disappeared from the human repertoire of emotions.  despite all its faults and drawbacks, anger must have some positive value that helps the organism survive – or at least it must have had some positive value in the evolutionary past.  anger is adaptive because it motivates the person to act aggressively and assertively.  emotions exist in order to motivate actions. each emotion points toward a certain kind of act. anger helps get people ready to: defend themselves. assert their rights. pursue goals that might be blocked. perform other useful acts. why not go directly to the aggression? why become angry first? 1. anger tips off your enemies that you might attack them, allowing them to prepare themselves or even attack you first. 2. anger helps reduce aggression.  both anger and aggression occur in situations where there is conflict, frustration, or provocation.  if human beings had evolved to skip feeling anger and go directly to aggression, there would still be plenty of aggression.  anger helps warn friends and family that something is wrong and that aggression may be coming.  this gives people time to resolve the conflict before it reaches the point of violence.  anger may therefore actually reduce aggression, compared to what the world would be like if people went directly into aggressive action as soon as they experienced conflict or frustration. example: some powerful people manage to get their way with just a brief frown of displeasure or a slight raising of the voice. a hint of anger is enough to make other people rush to do their orders, and the powerful person hardly ever has to express a full-blown angry outburst, let alone engage in aggressive action.  anger may be social in an important sense & may help enable people to live together.  if anger is a warning sign of coming aggression, anger may help defuse conflict and prevent aggression.  yet as a sign of conflict and problem, anger may be antisocial. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  16 the action-motivating function of anger may conflict with the social conflict-defusing aspect. angry people may say or do things that make the problem worse. if one person wants to go out and the other wants to stay in, conflict is already there – but angry, insulting remarks will aggravate it and make it harder to reach a compromise.  research on negotiation has shown some social benefits of anger.  when two people are negotiating and one shows anger, the other takes this as a sign to give in. it is a sign that the angry person will not compromise or make concessions, so one had best go along.  anger is thus useful for a negotiator.  certainly, people dislike angry negotiators, so anger can backfire, especially if the non- angry negotiator has other options. but if they have to settle a negotiation, they concede more to the angry person than to the non-angry person.  people seem aware that anger can be useful.  some people actually try to increase their angry feelings when they anticipate a social interaction in which anger might be useful, such as a difficult confrontation with a rival or enemy.  sometimes anger does improve performance in such difficult situations.  anger might help you have the arousal to fight off a predatory animal, but it may be useless and even counterproductive to have the same feelings toward your computer when the hard drive crashes, or when the taxi breaks down and makes you late for work. b) dealing with anger: there are three possible ways of dealing with anger: one standard approach that a second approach is to vent one’s the third approach is to try to get rid has been endorsed by many anger. of one’s anger. societies is never to show anger. this view treats anger as a kind of this solution is important because the inner pressure or corrosive substance problems of both the other approaches (nature supplies the impulse to that builds up over time and does (that is, pushing and venting) arise be angry, but culture tells harm unless it is released. because the person stays angry. people to try to stop it.) the catharsis theory falls in this the important thing is to stop feeling it can end up prompting people category because it holds that angry. anger can be reduced by getting to push their anger deep inside expressing anger (including verbal rid of the arousal state, such as by and repress it. expression or even aggressive, relaxing or by counting to 10 before violent action) produces a healthy responding. long-term concealed anger can release of emotion and is therefore anger can also be addressed by mental be quite destructive to the good for the psyche. tactics, such as by reframing the person, increasing the risk of problem or conflict, or by distracting such illnesses as heart disease. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  17 on the other hand, inner states (def) catharsis theory – the oneself and turning one’s attention to follow outward expressions, so proposition that expressing negative other, more pleasant topics. if people generally act as if to emotions produces a healthy release show they are not angry, some of those emotions and is therefore certain behaviours can also help get rid anger may be diminished. good for the psyche. of anger. for example, doing something incompatible with anger unfortunately, findings do not show and aggression can also help, such as that venting one’s anger has positive petting a puppy, watching a comedy, value. instead, it tends to make making love, or performing a good people more aggressive afterward deed. and to worsen interpersonal conflicts. these incompatible behaviours work venting anger is also linked to higher because it is difficult or impossible to risk of heart disease. even among experience anger and another positive people who believe in the value of emotion at the same time. venting and catharsis, venting anger increases subsequent aggression, perhaps the simplest thing to do is even against innocent bystanders. lean back, in your chair for example. one variation of venting is intense anger motivates people to approach physical exercise. although exercise is things. good for your heart, it is not good for reducing anger. angry people often lean forward and the reason exercise doesn’t work is are ‘in your face’. recent research has that it increases rather than shown that doing the opposite (leaning decreases arousal levels. when backward in your chair) can reduce people become angry, their feelings of anger, especially for people physiological arousal increases. the who are prone to anger. goal is to decrease arousal rather than increase it. also, if someone provokes you after exercising, excitation transfer might occur. that is, the arousal from the exercise might transfer to the response to the provocation, producing an exaggerated and possibly more violent response. venting keeps arousal levels high and keeps aggressive thoughts and angry feelings alive. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  18 some people also become ‘hangry’ (hungry + angry) when they don’t get enough to eat. thus, don’t forget to give your brain the fuel it needs to regulate anger. the brain uses 20%– 30% of the calories we consume and is a very demanding organ. the part of our brain just behind our forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is in charge of executive functions. one of those functions is controlling our emotions, including anger. we are better able to control our anger when we give our brain the fuel it needs by eating healthy foods. 6.3.3 guilt and shame  the underlying idea is that guilt is a useless (or even harmful) form of self-inflicted suffering. most people seek to avoid guilt.  guilt is actually quite good for society and for close relationships.  you would not want to have a boss, a partner, a roommate, or a business partner who had no sense of guilt.  such people exist (they are called psychopaths), but they are often a disaster to those around them – they exploit and harm others, help themselves at the expense of others, and feel no remorse about those they hurt. a) guilt versus shame:  guilt is a negative emotional feeling, and it is usually associated with some implicit reproach that one has acted badly or wrongly. (def) guilt – an unpleasant moral emotion associated with a specific instance in which one 22222222 has acted badly or wrongly.  generally, everyone occasionally does something wrong; the difference between people lies in whether they feel bad about it or not.  recent research suggests that guilt triggers specific behaviours intended to right the wrong, rather than simply doing anything that might help guilty people feel good about themselves.  guilt is especially associated with acts that could damage a relationship that you care about. guilt must be distinguished from shame : the difference lies in how widely the bad feeling is generalised. guilt focuses narrowly on the action. shame spreads to the whole person. guilt says, “I did a bad thing”. shame says, “I am a bad person”. guilt is usually constructive. shame is usually destructive Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  19  there is no remedy for being a bad person, so shame makes people want to withdraw and hide, or to lash out in anger. in contrast, guilt signifies a good person who did a bad thing. there are plenty of ways that a good person can remedy an isolated bad act: apologise. make amends. reaffirm one’s commitment to the relationship. promise not to repeat the action. b) effects of guilt:  guilt motivates people to do good acts, such as apologising. apologies can help repair damage to relationships because they: a) convey the implicit agreement that the act was wrong. b) suggest that the person will try not to do it again. c) counteract any implication that the bad action meant that the person does not care about the relationship. example: if your partner cooks you a lovely dinner but you arrive an hour late and the food is spoiled, your partner may not care very much about the food itself but be upset by the implication that you do not care about the relationship. a sincere apology cannot revive the spoiled food, but it may prevent your partner from feeling that you do not care about the relationship.  guilt also motivates people to make amends.  when people feel guilty about something they have done, they try harder to perform positive or good actions.  they are more likely to learn a lesson and try to behave better in the future.  this too can help salvage a relationship from the damage done by some misbehaviour.  many social psychology studies have found that guilt makes people behave in more socially desirable ways.  these research findings suggest that guilt is good for relationships, even though feeling guilty is unpleasant.  sometimes, in order to make a relationship more successful, people must sacrifice their own selfish interests and do what is best for the other person.  guilt is a force that pushes people toward making those relationship-enhancing sacrifices. guilt can help make you a better person. does it make your own life better?  guilt has a positive effect on relationships. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  20  researchers showed that guilt can increase pleasure, mainly because people have learned to associate guilt with pleasures such as eating, drinking and having fun when they should be working.  a bit of guilt can increase one’s happiness! c) guilt and relationships:  some forms of guilt do not revolve around doing anything wrong.  sometimes people feel guilty simply because other people have suffered more than they have.  the term survivor guilt emerged after world war ii based on observations of victims who had not suffered as much as others. some people who survived the mass murder campaigns in concentration camps felt guilty for having survived when so many others died. (def) survival guilt - an unpleasant emotion associated with living through an experience 222222222 during which other people died.  people who survive other natural or human-caused disasters feel guilty for having lived when so many others died.  these people had not done anything wrong, but the phenomenon of survivor guilt shows that people are deeply sensitive to a sense of fairness and have some unease when life is “unfair” in their favour.  a more modern version of survivor guilt has been observed during economic recessions, when large companies must lay off many workers.  those who remain often have some feelings of guilt for keeping their jobs when other deserving individuals have lost theirs.  an example of survivor’s guilt could be seen during the covid-19 pandemic.  all of this shows that guilt is a very interpersonal emotion.  the stereotype of guilt depicts it as a solitary emotion, but even if someone feels guilty while alone, most likely the guilt is about something interpersonal.  people mainly feel guilty about things they have done to others – hurting them, ignoring them, letting them down, or failing to meet their expectations.  they mainly feel guilty toward people they care about.  guilt is more linked to close relationships than other emotions.  for example, people may often be afraid of total strangers, or annoyed by casual acquaintances, or frustrated by someone in a shop or restaurant, but guilt is mainly felt toward family, good friends and other loved ones.  guilt over hurting someone else depends partly on how useful that other person is.  guilt focuses on relationships that are beneficial to us. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  21  that is presumably why people feel more guilt toward their parents and romantic partners than toward strangers.  many people count on guilt to push their loved ones to behave properly.  guilt is one emotion that people actively try to make others feel.  some people become quite skilled at knowing what to say to make someone else feel guilty. the essence of most guilt-inducing strategies is ‘see how you are hurting me’. if you do not care about that person, you may not feel guilty for hurting them. in contrast, if the person is someone you love and care about, you will usually change your behaviour to avoid hurting the person.  guilt is thus an emotion well suited to cultural animals such as human beings.  it depends on one’s connections to others, and it makes people maintain better relationships with others.  it also benefits a large system of interrelationships, which is what a culture is.  and it encourages people to live up to cultural standards and rules. d) washing away the guilt:  research by modern social psychologists has confirmed that the average person actually does feel less guilty after washing their hands.  however, guilt is not so easily escaped.  sometimes guilt can be most directly alleviated by providing restitution to those harmed.  efforts at restitution aim to repair the damage done by one’s wrongdoing by restoring justice for both perpetrator and victim.  retributive justice seeks to punish the wrongdoer.  those feeling guilt are highly motivated to seek forgiveness to make restitution, so the process of forgiveness is linked to the emotion of guilt. e) forgiveness  guilt may be partially alleviated by forgiveness, which is a process that consists of a change in emotion and attitude toward an offender.  some researchers view forgiveness as an intentional and voluntary process, driven by a deliberate decision to forgive coupled with a letting go of negative emotions toward the offender.  forgiveness is the result of the victim’s full recognition that they deserved better treatment. some researchers view reconciliation or the restoration of a relationship as an aspect of the forgiveness process. others see reconciliation as an independent process, arguing that Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  22 forgiveness may occur in the absence of reconciliation, and that reconciliation may occur in the absence of forgiveness. theorists have found that forgiveness has some benefits: a) it fosters psychological healing through positive changes in affect. b) it aids physical and mental health. c) it restores a victim’s sense of personal power. d) it helps to bring about reconciliation between the offended and offender. e) it encourages hope for the resolution of real-world intergroup conflicts. there are a large number of interventions designed to improve individuals’ abilities to forgive, both at the interpersonal level (distressed couples, incest survivors, victims of parental abuse) and at the group level (human rights abuses, intergroup conflict, and war). interventions that promote understanding the roots of violence can foster reconciliation and forgiveness after mass violence and after individual injury. 6.3.4 disgust (def) disgust – a strong negative feeling of repugnance and revulsion.  disgust is captured by statements such as “gross” or “yuck!”  it is different from anger, in that anger motivates people to approach rather than avoid things, whereas disgust is a strong signal to avoid something.  the prototype of disgust is the feeling of wanting to vomit after eating something that is intolerable and that the body naturally wishes to get rid of as fast as possible (hence the urge to vomit).  it is not confined to humans and may be widespread in the animal kingdom because it helps motivate animals not to eat things that could make them sick or even kill them.  disgust thus helps keep people healthy.  disgust may be especially important among humans because our constitution is delicate compared to most other animals, and there are many things we should not eat; yet human children naturally try to learn about things by putting them in their mouths.  women seem to have stronger disgust reactions than men.  men high in masculinity are less willing to show disgust.  there are various theories to explain this, including males being socialised to do dirty jobs, but the gender difference may reflect the importance of health for reproduction.  pregnant women typically are highly sensitive to disgust, which nature may have arranged because an infection would endanger the foetus. although disgust is unpleasant, it does have its benefits.  it can motivate a broad range of healthy behaviours. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  23 (besides avoidance of things that will make you sick)  many people do not wash their hands often enough, including after going to the toilet.  cultivating a sense of disgust helps motivate people to wash more often.  another use of disgust to motivate healthy behaviour is in the policies by which some governments (such as Australia’s) require cigarette companies to put disgusting pictures on cigarette packs to motivate people to quit smoking. disgust can be considered part of a ”behavioural immune system” that supports health. the body’s inner immune system for fighting off infections requires considerable energy and is not always successful, so it is safer to avoid things that could bring infection. this system does more than stop people from eating spoiled food. it may discourage people from being friendly toward strangers when there are concerns about disease. it may motivate people to avoid having sex or even being friends with people whose faces have ugly marks on them because in the past some diseases left marks on the face. indeed, sex brings two people into such close contact that many germs can be exchanged, so it carries a disease risk, especially with someone who has slept with many partners. sexual disgust may therefore motivate people to avoid risky partners and finding highly promiscuous people ‘disgusting’ may protect one’s health.  some thinkers have concluded that prejudice against strangers may be partly derived from the greater risk of infection that came from socialising with them.  the more people feel disgust toward particular groups of other people, the more prejudice they show against those groups.  this includes groups such as obese people, and even some religious groups, such as Muslims and atheists. groups regarded as disgusting are even viewed as not quite human.  people also regard some forms of immoral behaviour as disgusting, and they elicit similar facial responses and attitudes as do unpalatable foods, filthy toilets, and bloody wounds.  in particular, behaviours associated with purity, such as cleanliness and physical health (also sexual propriety) are particularly linked to disgust.  the more strongly research participants find an activity disgusting (like reading about a brother and sister kissing passionately), the more strongly they condemn it.  even being disgusted by a film caused people to make harsher moral judgements about some activity unrelated to the film when the behaviour violated the moral virtue of purity. 6.4 why do we have emotions?  emotions make up an important and powerful feedback system.  emotions tell us whether something is good or bad.  you do not have much emotion about things you do not care about!  caring (motivation) is therefore one ingredient necessary for making emotion. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  24  as we go through life and things happen to us, emotions follow afterward and help us determine whether each event was good or bad.  this is true for both automatic affect and conscious emotion.  whatever else emotions may do; they help to formulate our reactions to whatever has just happened. 6.4.1 emotions promote belongingness:  emotions help people get along better.  people’s emotions promote their ties to others.  forming social bonds is linked to positive emotions. for example: people are happy at weddings (even if they cry). they are usually delighted when are accepted to a tertiary institution (even if they know that they will have to go through years of study and stressful exams). on the other hand, many bad emotions are linked to events that end, damage, or threaten relationships. divorce and other forms of social being treated badly having an enemy rejection foster or rejected unfairly leads to fear or hate. sadness, depression, causes anger. and anger. being a victim of the threat that your crime or racism also doing something partner might leave causes anger, that hurts a loved you for someone else sadness and one causes guilt. causes jealousy. depression. the prospect of being losing a loved one abandoned and causes grief. alone causes anxiety.  happy feelings often reflect healthy relationships, whereas hurt feelings often reflect damaged relationships.  if you want to feel good and avoid emotional distress, form and maintain good social relationships with other people! Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  25  social contact, especially with loved ones, can help people deal with stressful emotions. a moment of the biggest female physical stress- holding research contact with reduction someone’s participants another gains were hand reduces recent research anticipating person can found among how suggests that painful electric reduce bad the women unpleasant human touch shocks showed emotions whose stressful events can also help big reductions caused by marriages were are judged to people with in stress if they stress, and the happiest be and even low self- were permitted greatest (indicating reduces bodily esteem cope to hold their emotional they may have arousal, with anxiety husband’s boost comes felt the especially if the about dying. hand during from holding strongest person is your the waiting hands with positive social spouse. period. someone you connections). love.  the fact that emotions promote belongingness proves that what happens inside people serves what happens between people.  emotions (inner processes) help promote good interpersonal relations.  people want to feel good and avoid bad emotions, and this desire drives them to try to form and maintain good relationships. 6.4.2 emotions communicate social information:  emotions fit the general pattern that nature says go, culture says stop.  children do not need to be taught to have emotions.  rather, they learn to conceal their feelings when appropriate.  apparently, the natural state of an emotion includes visible display, so that others can tell what you are feeling.  emotions are thus not purely for the inside.  no one can tell your thoughts unless you choose to speak to them, but people can read your emotions.  evolution must have benefited people whose emotions were read by others.  possibly this starts with babies, who cannot take care of themselves and therefore have to let their caregivers know when they feel bad (such as by crying).  also, anger could help prevent harm by signalling that a person is unhappy, so that there is time to discuss the problem rather than having a fistfight.  much prosocial behaviour (for example, helping others) is motivated by empathy, which involves being able to feel what someone else is feeling.  it is beneficial to show emotions that can be easily read by others.  they are more likely to help you if they feel your pain or share your distress. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  26  indeed, there is a variety of evidence that emotions can be contagious, presumably because there is value (probably for strengthening social bonds) to having people be in a similar emotional state. 6.4.3 emotions cause behaviour – sort of:  it has been assumed that emotions guide behaviour.  this view is consistent with physiological arousal.  arousal gets the body ready for action.  some theorists have proposed that emotion does not exist without a readiness for action.  other theorists have proposed that implicit muscle movements are part of emotion. that is, an emotion naturally and normally starts your body moving.  then again, maybe emotions do not guide behaviour.  people have plenty of emotions without doing anything.  additionally, we do not associate most emotions with any single action.  maybe anger inspires you to fight, but most angry people don’t fight. the objection that emotion is too slow to guide behaviour applies mainly to conscious emotion, of course.  automatic affect – the feeling of liking or disliking something – arises in a fraction of a second and therefore can be very helpful – if you had to wait around for arousal to build and a full-fledged conscious emotion to occur, it would be too late to help you make that decision.  when emotion causes behaviour, it is often because the person wants to change or escape the emotional state. for example, researchers have long known that sad, depressed moods make people more helpful. this could be true for multiple reasons – for example: that sadness makes people have more empathy for another person’s suffering and need or that sadness makes people less concerned about their own welfare.  on the other hand, perhaps sadness makes people more concerned about themselves, in that they want to feel better. researchers concluded that sad moods only lead to greater helping if people believe that helping will make them feel better.  the emotion (sadness) does not directly cause behaviour; rather, it makes people look for ways to escape the bad feeling.  there is another reason to suspect that the purpose of emotion is not to directly cause behaviour – when emotion does cause behaviour, as in the so-called heat of passion, it often produces behaviours that are not wise or beneficial to the individual. for example, angry people often say and do things that they later regret. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  27  evolution favours characteristics that bring benefits and advantages.  if emotions mainly caused foolish actions, then natural selection would have gradually phased emotion out of the human psyche.  the irrationality of emotional actions is therefore a reason to suspect that the natural purpose of emotion is elsewhere.  one seeming exception to the view that emotions do not cause behaviour is communication – it seems that emotions are meant to be communicated, and, in this sense, emotions do cause behaviour.  it may be natural to show one’s feelings and artificial to hide them.  young children, for example, typically express their emotions freely and without reserve.  as they grow up, they slowly learn to hide them sometimes, which is another sign that the influence of socialisation is to restrain and conceal feelings rather than to instil them.  once again, nature says go and culture says stop! 6.4.4 emotions guide thinking and learning:  emotion does influence thinking and learning.  emotions make up a feedback system that helps people process information about the world and their own actions in it. emotions change the way people think and sometimes help them learn better.  psychological studies have shown that people who lack emotions (often because of brain injuries or other problems) are not better off. they have great difficulty adjusting to life and making decisions.  emotions help people learn from their mistakes.  without emotions, people do not learn – patients without emotion (due to damage to a particular brain area) failed to learn.  emotions help people learn.  having an emotion alters memory: it makes people remember important things better while impairing memory for low-priority information.  both positive and negative arousal seem to operate like a filter that puts priorities on what gets into memory and what gets ignored and forgotten.  emotions also help learning from experience.  bad emotions may help people think about their mistakes and learn how to avoid repeating them.  sometimes this process is aided by counterfactual thinking, which is the process of thinking about what might have been.  emotions make people engage in more counterfactual thinking, as in “i wish i had not said that”. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  28  emotion can constitute valuable information that people learn about the world.  according to the affect-as-information hypothesis, people judge something as good or bad by asking themselves, “how do I feel about it?” (def) affect-as-information hypothesis – the idea that people judge something as good or 2222222222 bad by asking themselves “how do I feel about it?” if they feel good, they conclude that the if they feel bad, then they conclude that thing is good. whatever they are dealing with must be bad.  when people are in an emotional state, they seem to see the world in a more emotional way, and this changes the way they process information. people put things in categories based more on their emotional tone than on their meaning. for example: does the word joke go more with speech or with sunbeam? people who are not having an emotion at people who are happy or sad tend to the moment tend to group joke with sunbeam because both group joke with speech because both words have positive emotional meanings. involve talking (a logical grouping).  emotion thus links you to emotional connections out in the world. 6.4.5 (anticipated) emotion guides decisions and choices:  emotions are a feedback system in the sense that they give us dramatic and powerful evaluations of whatever has just happened.  in a sense, therefore, emotions focus on the recent past. is that any help toward the future?  one way they could help would be with learning.  people can learn to anticipate how they will feel if something happens.  as a result, they can begin to guide their behaviour based on how they expect to feel.  if emotion rewards and punishes behaviour, then perhaps people decide how to act based on how they expect to feel afterward.  they avoid acts that they expect will make them feel bad, and they favour acts that they think will make them feel good.  so, anticipated emotion is important.  a review found that anticipated emotion has a much stronger effect on human thought and behaviour than does actual emotion.  guilt is a good example. guilt can really organise someone’s life even if the person hardly ever feels guilty. if guilt does its job, the person will anticipate and avoid acts that might Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  29 lead to guilt. the person will end up behaving in a morally and socially desirable manner, and so will almost never actually have to feel guilty.  humans are the only animals that can travel mentally through time, preview a variety of different futures, and choose the one they think will bring them the greatest pleasure (or the least pain). (def) affective forecasting – the ability to predict one’s emotional reactions to future events. how do you think you would feel, and how long would this emotional state last, if: (a) you won first prize in some athletic tournament. (b) you found out your romantic partner was having an affair. (c) you got a great job offer with a high starting salary. (d) you were wrongly accused of cheating and had to withdraw from university?  most people are fairly accurate at predicting which emotions they would feel, but they substantially overestimate how long they would feel that way.  people also overestimate the intensity of their emotional reactions.  the odds are that if any of these things did happen to you, you would get over it and return to your normal emotional state faster than you think.  people are rarely happy or unhappy for as long as they expect to be.  this error may occur because people focus too much attention on the event in question and not enough attention on other future events.  predicting wrongly could carry some costs.  revenge, for example, is something people often pursue on the basis of affective forecasting errors.  people believe that punishing someone who did something bad will bring them satisfaction and a feeling of closure.  in reality, when people get revenge by punishing someone else, they continue to think about the event and end up feeling worse than people who did not have the opportunity to take revenge. (the latter tend to move on and gradually forget about the issue.)  even when it comes to something as simple as deciding whether to go for a walk indoors (on a treadmill) or outdoors, people lose out because they fail to predict these emotions.  the outdoors walk produces a better mood than the indoors walk, but people fail to predict this, and so they miss a chance to feel good.  anticipated emotion can be a powerful guide to behaviour.  one of the most studied effects of anticipated emotion is anticipated regret. researchers have argued that people make decisions more on the basis of how they expect to feel than on the basis of a fully logical, rational analysis of what will yield the greatest reward. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  30  decision making shows a “status quo bias”, which means that people tend to stick with what they have and be too reluctant to make changes, even if changing would logically put them in a better position.  researchers explain the status quo bias on the basis of anticipated regret: if you made the wrong decision, you would probably regret it more if you had made a change (thus given up the good situation you had in favour of a worse one) than if you had stuck with what you had. 6.4.6 emotions help and hurt decision making:  without emotions, people have trouble making up their minds.  people can think through the good and bad features of different choices, but they have trouble settling on which one is best. decisions are also guided by on the other hand, the traditional anticipated emotion, usually for awareness that people make bad the better. decisions under the influence of emotion suggests that emotion can harm decisions as well as helping them.  evolution seems to have prepared humans and other primates to experience fear and anxiety in response to certain objects (for example snakes and spiders)  anxiety has been called because it motivates people to plan ahead and avoid taking unnecessary risks. according to the risk-as-feelings hypothesis, people react to risky situations based on how severe the worst outcome is and how likely it is to occur. they do this at a gut level. if their gut tells them the situation is too risky, they avoid it. (in terms of the duplex mind, gut reactions usually refer to the automatic system – in this case, automatic affective reactions.) (def) risk-as-feelings hypothesis - the idea that people rely on emotional 222222222 processes to evaluate risk, with the result that 22222222 their judgements may be biased by emotional 2222222 factors.  strong conscious emotions can also influence people to engage in risky behaviour and ignore future consequences.  sexual arousal often interferes with decision-making ability.  negative emotional responses to sex such as anxiety, guilt and fear interfere with sexual behaviour and also interfere with learning and retaining sexually relevant material, such as contraceptive information.  other negative emotions, such as depression, are associated with maladaptive decision making. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  31  emotions call attention to good and bad outcomes but seem to make people disregard probabilities and odds.  anticipated emotions generally seem to help and inform decision making, but current emotional states can bias the process and lead to risky or foolish choices. 4.6.7 positive emotions counteract negative emotions:  positive emotions are studied far less than negative emotions.  compared to negative emotions, there are fewer positive emotions, and they are relatively undifferentiated. it is difficult to distinguish joy, amusement, happiness, and contentment. in contrast, it is easier to distinguish anger, fear, sadness, and disgust. what adaptive function do positive emotions serve?  one possible answer is that positive emotions appear to solve problems of personal growth and development.  according to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, positive emotions prepare an individual for later hard times. (def) broaden-and-build theory - the proposition that positive emotions expand 2222222 an individual’s attention and mindset and 2222222 promote increasing one’s resources.  positive emotions broaden and expand an individual’s attention and mindset.  for example, joy broadens by creating urges to play, push the limits and become creative. these broadened mind-sets build an individual’s: physical resources. intellectual resources. social resources positive emotions broaden and expand an individual’s attention and mindset. these broadened mindsets, in turn, build an individual’s intellectual, physical, social, and psychological resources. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  32 develop problem-solving develop coordination. skills. develop strength and learn new information. cardiovascular health. solidify bonds. develop resilience and make new bonds. optimism. develop sense of identity and goal orientation.  research has shown that positive events are strongly related to positive emotions but not negative emotions, whereas negative events are strongly related to negative emotions but not positive emotions.  however, in some studies, bad events affected both good and bad emotions, whereas good events mainly affected good emotions.  the value of positive emotions is found mainly in connection with positive events. however, research also suggests that much of the value of positive emotions may lie in their power to overcome or prevent bad emotions. 6.4.8 other benefits of positive emotions:  being in a good mood helps flexibility, creativity, and problem-solving ability.  being in a bad mood does not help flexibility and creativity.  work can benefit from positive emotions. people in a positive mood: perform better. are more persistent, try harder. more motivated than people in a neutral or negative mood.  people are more motivated to perform tasks they enjoy doing, and being in a good mood makes tasks more enjoyable.  being in a good mood can also serve a protective function.  people in a good mood tend to avoid risks, such as in gambling.  people in a good mood want to remain in a good mood, and they would feel bad if they gambled away their money.  having a positive mood does, however, have a darker side. people in a positive mood are: less logical. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  33 have poorer short-term memory. are more easily distracted by irrelevant information.  these effects might be due to the fact that positive moods promote heuristic thinking that relies on mental short cuts. 6.5 group differences in emotion 6.5.1 are emotions different across cultures?  some experts now agree that most emotions may be quite similar across cultural boundaries. Paul Ekman and his colleagues have identified six basic emotions that can be reliably inferred from facial expressions: 1. anger. 2. surprise. 3. disgust. 4. happiness (or joy). 5. fear. 6. sadness. their research group showed these photos to people all over the world, and regardless of cultural differences, people interpreted the same facial expression as indicating the same inner emotion.  these findings suggest that, based on facial cues, people have similar emotions everywhere and can recognise and understand one another despite their very different cultural backgrounds.  new research produced bodily maps of the six basic emotions, six more complex emotions (anxiety, love, depression, contempt, pride, shame, and envy), and a neutral control.  emotions are not just in your mind or face. rather, they affect much of the body. example: although it might not be a “basic” emotion, the facial expression for “that’s not a good idea” or “i don’t like that” – called the “not face” – might be universal. before we learned to say the word “not”, we simply make the face. the “not face” is a combination of the facial expressions we use to show disgust, anger, and contempt. 6.5.2 are women more emotional than men? a long-standing stereotype depicts women as more emotional than men: is this stereotype accurate? Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  34 women are supposed to be more in contrast to men, who make readily overcome with feelings decisions based on cool, rational and to be more guided by them. deliberation. in south africa, some cultural norms suggest that men are not allowed to show their pain (physical or emotional). expressing pain in any manner is frowned upon as it is considered a sign of being weak. the sesotho idiom “mona ke nku a female, on the other hand, can ha ile” literally translates as ‘a express a level of discomfort, as it man is a cow, he does not cry’. will ensure she receives help. it implies that crying is a sign of thus, cultural, and social norms weakness, and that men are impact on the perception of supposed to toughen up and take pain. whatever comes their way.  in laboratory studies, women sometimes report stronger emotional reactions, although this outcome could be affected by social norms that put pressure on men to underreport emotional reaction.  lab studies that use physiological measures do not find women to show stronger reactions. if anything, those measures suggest that men sometimes have stronger emotional reactions than women.  one way to get around social norms (such as expecting men to restrain emotion) is to look at small children.  research showed that little boys have more frequent angry outbursts and temper tantrums than girls.  studies of infants either find no difference in emotionality or find that baby boys are more emotionally intense than baby girls. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  35 observations of boy’s play indicate that they seek out exciting, arousing themes but try to learn to manage fear and other emotions. partly for this reason, boy's games last longer than girls’ games. boys may find it more difficult than girls to calm themselves down when upset, so they work harder to avoid emotion in the first place. disputes are settled by in games, boys put an appealing to abstract rules this pattern continues into emphasis on keeping their or, if necessary, replaying adulthood and marriage: when emotions under control so the disputed event, married couples argue, that feelings do not disrupt whereas girls’ games are husbands show stronger and the game. likely to end when emotion longer-lasting physiological erupts. arousal than wives. as a result, husbands tend to avoid marital conflicts, whereas wives are more willing to argue and confront their spouse with problems  men may be slightly more emotional than women, whereas women feel more willing to report their emotions and claim to have stronger feelings.  social norms may put pressure on men to supress their emotions and not admit to having strong feelings, but the greater emotionality of women may be an illusion. what about love?  here too there is little support for the female emotionality. men confess “i love you” before women do, and men feel happier than women when someone expresses love to them. men fall in love faster than women, and women fall out of love faster than men. men have more experiences of loving someone who does not love them back, whereas women have more experiences of receiving love but not reciprocating it. when a love relationship breaks up in a heterosexual relationship, men suffer more intense emotional distress than women.  based on the research findings, one could even speculate that men are more emotional than women.  the findings of greater male emotionality in love and work, plus during infancy, fit this pattern. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  36  possibly male emotion has presented problems for society, as when male emotion leads to violence, risk taking, intoxication and other potential problems.  holding up an ideal of men as cool, rational, and unemotional may be a way for society to keep the dangers of male emotion under control. the apparent lack of gender differences in observed emotion may conceal a pattern suggesting that boys and men are actually by nature more emotional but, as a result of this emotionality (and inability to get over the emotion), develop ways of avoiding emotionally intense situations and emotional provocations. 6.6 arousal, attention, and performance:  that emotion contains arousal, in the sense of being physically excited.  many people believe that emotional arousal is harmful – that it is better to calm down, especially when one is trying to make a logical decision or perform effectively in a crisis.  yet the arousal that goes with emotion seems designed by nature to make a person perform better, not worse – for example, when the person is aroused, more oxygen is sent to the brain and muscles than otherwise. is emotional arousal good or bad?  one answer is that the relationship between arousal and performance is an upside-down u-shaped curve.  that is, increasing arousal first makes for better performance, then for worse.  put another way, some arousal is better than none, but too much arousal can hurt performance. (def) Yerkes Dodson law – the proposition that some arousal is better than none, but too 2222222222 much can hurt performance. according to the Yerkes–Dodson law, some arousal is better than none, but too much can hurt performance. the curve is lower for complex tasks than for simple tasks because performance is generally lower for complex tasks. in both cases, though, the link between arousal and performance resembles an inverted (upside-down) u, going up and then back down.  arousal also seems good for narrowing and focusing attention.  this is probably why people drink coffee or tea when they work: they want to be alert and focused, and consuming a drink that arouses them will produce that state. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  37  a famous theory by psychologist J. A. Easterbrook proposed that one major effect of arousal is to narrow attention.  this can explain both slopes of the inverted u-shaped curve of Yerkes and Dodson. Easterbrook’s main idea was that arousal makes the mind remove information and focus more narrowly: when people have very low arousal, they do as arousal increases, the mind begins to not perform very well because the mind is screen out irrelevant information, which filled with all sorts of information (including helps it focus better on the task at hand, much that is unhelpful or irrelevant, such as and performance improves. at some point, noise outside when you are studying), so it corresponding to the peak on the curve and has a difficult time focusing on the task at the best possible performance, the mind is hand. processing all the information relevant to the task and nothing else. that’s when you do your best work.  however, as arousal increases beyond that point, the mind continues to focus ever more narrowly – and this further narrowing requires that it has to throw out helpful, task- relevant information (because all the irrelevant information has already been screened out, so only the good stuff is left).  hence, highly aroused people will be intensely, narrowly focused on what they are doing, but they may miss crucial information that is relevant or helpful.  as a result, they end up performing worse than people with a moderate level of arousal.  the effects of stress on thinking appear to go along with Easterbrook’s theory.  under stress, people focus more narrowly on the task at hand, so up to a point, stress makes people perform better – but beyond that point, stress makes people ignore relevant information. e x a m p l e: research using multiple-choice tests has shown how this can happen. under stress, people just scan the multiple answers until they find one that seems correct, and they pick that one, sometimes without considering all the options. thus, if answer b sounds good, they might choose it without even considering answer d. this gets them done faster, but they may make more mistakes, especially if d was really a better answer than b. 6.7 emotional intelligence (EI or EQ) (def) emotional intelligence – the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate, 2222222222222 emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions 222222222222 and emotional knowledge, and reflectively regulate 222222222222 emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth.  emotional intelligence is denoted by EI or EQ rather than IQ. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 – CHAPTER 6 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  38 emotional intelligence has four parts: 1. perceiving emotions. 2. facilitating thought. 3. understanding emotions. 4. managing emotions. 1. perceiving emotions defined as the ability to recognise how you and those around you are feeling. it also involves perceiving emotions in objects, art, stories, music, and other stimuli. 2. facilitating thought defined as the ability to generate an emotion and then to reason with this emotion. 3. understanding emotions defined as the ability to understand complex emotions and how emotions can transition from one stage to another. 4. managing emotions defined as the ability to be open to feelings, and to modulate them in oneself and others so as to promote personal understanding and growth.  people high on emotional intelligence are better than others at affective forecasting (predicting future emotional states) and less susceptible to common errors.  that is, they predict their future emotions more accurately than other people.  scoring high on managing emotions was particularly conducive to being able to predict future emotions correctly.  emotional intelligence seems especially important in the business world.  employees who had previously scored high on emotional intellig