PSY1011 Complete Revision - Lecture 1: Pet Keeping

Lecture 1: Why do we love our pets? Learning objectives: - Explain why pet-keeping poses a problem from an evolutionary point of view - Recognise the genetic links between domestic animal temperament and morphology - Identify cross-species facial characteristics that humans find 'cute' Pet Keeping: The Problem - Pets cannot contribute to the family economy or look after elderly parents as with human adoption - Not only seen in affluent societies - Why does pet keeping not make sense? Artificial selection - **Human-controlled selective breeding of plants and animals for desirable characteristics** - Characteristics can be physical or behavioural - Dogs are the classic example - Through the process of sexual reproduction, these traits that are carried in the genes are passed on to the next generation - **Humans are the selective agent** Natural Selection - Developed by **Charles Darwin** during his voyage around the world on the Beagle (**1831**) as a naturalist - Natural selection is the key mechanism of evolution - **Nature is the selective agent** - This is not a conscious process- the environment dictates who survives to mate and pass on particular characteristics - Natural selection is the process by which evolution occurs - Natural selection is the process through which species adapt to their environments - **Traits that enhance survival will be passed from one generation to the next** Kin selection - Helping relatives increases your 'inclusive fitness'- the ability of an individual to transmit genes to the next generation, including genes shared with relatives - The more genes that are in a relative, the more interest individuals have in helping them, if the gain for the recipient is much greater than the cost to the donor Domestication of companion animals - Animals such as cats and dogs were likely domesticated via the commensal pathway; - Animals feed on waste/other animals around human settlements - Usually, little benefit to humans initially - Develop bond over time - Animals benefited from food while there was a neutral effect on humans Domestication: changes in development Paedomorphosis -- having features of the juvenile stage, whilst being an adult - Animals pass through fewer developmental stages - The further from the ancestral wolf, the fewer stages that are seen - King Charles Spaniel goes through the least amount of stages Farmed fox experiments - Domesticated animals may have developed communication signals for interacting with humans - Tame foxes produced cackles and pants but never coughed or snorted - In unselected and aggressive strains, foxes coughed or snorted but never cackled or panted Domestication: Infant schema - 'kindchenschema' was first coined by Konrad Lorenz (1943) - Commonly found in both human and animal infants - This configuration of features triggers an innate mechanism for caregiving Lecture 2: Why do we love our pets? Learning objectives: - Analyse how companion animals manipulate our caregiving instincts - Describe the benefits of pet-keeping - Evaluate some of the adaptive and non-adaptive theories for the existence of pet-keeping - Come to an evidence-based conclusion on the reason for the existence of pet keeping in humans Parasitism - The theory: pets are social parasites that manipulate the behaviour of their owner via social releasers to obtain fitness benefits Evidence for parasitism: Feline solicitation purr - Ppts were played purrs recorded while cats were and were not actively seeking food - The purrs were at equal amplitude - Participants judged the 'solicitation' purrs to be more urgent and less pleasant - There is a high-frequency component embedded within the naturally low-pitched purr - The isolation cry of domestic cats is like the human infant distress cry Evidence for parasitism: Motherese & doggerel - Speech directed towards infants and children - Heightened pitch - Exaggerated intonation - Increased repetition of words - DOGGEREL - We ask twice as many questions to dogs than to human adults - 90% of doggerel is present tense- 45% to human adults - Higher tone - Use of diminutives- shortened form of a name, typically informal - We distort words and phrases to make them less formal Evidence for parasitism: inner eyebrow raise - Infant features can be enhanced with facial muscles - Waller et al found that dogs who produced a high frequency of inner eyebrow raises were adopted quicker from shelters - Suggests that dogs have evolved to manipulate the human preference for infant features Evidence for parasitism: cute cats are adopted more quickly - Subjective cuteness predicted the length of stay in an Irish animal rescue - Roundness of the eye was the only objective measurement of cuteness associated with subjective cuteness rating Pet keeping as mutualism - Stroking an animal decreases blood pressure and heart rate - Indirect exposure to pet allergens in childhood is associated with a lower risk of developing allergies - Companion animals can facilitate social interactions between people - Cats purr at a healing frequency between 25 and 140HZ- shown to aid healing of wounds and broken bones in humans hypothesis Benefits to pet owners Fitness effect (adaptive) or mechanism of maintenance (nonadaptive ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Adaptive** **Social buffering** Enhanced survival Keeping pets provides a social buffer against the negative health effects of psychosocial stress **Parenting experience** Increased reproduction success Keeping pets provides experience of parenting which translates into higher reproductive success when the pet owner breeds Honest advertisement of parenting ability Enhanced future probability of breeding Keeping pets demonstrates an individuals parenting skills, thereby increasing their probability of being chosen as a mate **Nonadaptive** Neutral trait none Pet keeping is a selectively neutral trait, maintained by genetic drift Social parasitism none Pet keeping is maintained as an unavoidable low-cost byproduct of parental care motivations that are exploited by other species Lecture 4: Domestication: The broader picture Learning objectives - Discuss three pathways to animal domestication - Evaluate the physiological, behavioural and morphological changes induced by domestication in - ANIMALS - HUMANS Animal domestication - Relaxation of certain natural selection factors - Intensified selection of traits preferred by humans - New selection pressures under captivity, leading to adaption - Behaviours or morphology previously selected against may be uncovered - Genetic drift- groups of animals isolated from each other What traits make an animal 'pre-adapted' for domestication? - Large social groups - Males and females joined - Precocial young -- immediately mobile and somewhat able to defend themselves - Generalist feeders- feed on a wide variety of things - Tolerant of varying environments - Low reactivity to humans Undesirable characteristics - Family groupings - Territorial structure - Males in separate groups - Monogamous mating system - Altricial young - Specialised dietary requirements - Suited to very specific environments - Easily disturbed by humans Pathways to domestication 1. The commensal pathway 2. The prey pathway 3. The directed pathway Commensalism- 'an association between two organisms in which one benefits and the other derives neither benefit nor harm' The commensal pathway - Animals feed on waste/other animals around human settlements - Usually little benefits to humans initially - Examples: dogs and cats The prey pathway - Animals did not initiate the relationship - Experimentation by humans with hunting strategies to increase prey availability - Over time, species with the necessary temperament came increasingly under human control - Examples: cattle, sheep, reindeer The directed pathway - Initiated by humans with the goal of domestication - Developed after commensal and prey pathways - Animals may not have 'pre-adapted' characteristics - Examples: horses, donkeys, minks, silver foxes How did domestication change animals? - Behaviour - Morphology - Physiology Physiology: how did domestication change animals? - Seasonal reproductive pattern disappears - Reduced stress response - Reduced anti-predator response - Increased growth rate Animal welfare issues - Physiology - Morphology - Reduction in brain size of domestic animals Development - Animals pass through fewer developmental stages - The further from the ancestral wolf, the fewer stages that are seen The domestic phenotype: - Can breed more than once a year - Reduced HPA-axis activity - Reduced body size - Reduced brain size - Juvenile morphology - Early sexual maturity How did domestication change humans? Human tool use: - Humans have made tools for more than 2.6 million years - Extrasomatic adaption -- development of something that exists external to and distinct from the human body - Stone tools used for carcass processing - Widespread use of tools in modern humans= adaptive advantage Symbolism Domestication: - Poland 7000 years ago- fragments of pottery found - Milk was once a toxin to adults - Two-step milk revolution - Milk was fermented to reduce lactose levels - Genetic mutation- the Lactase persistence allele - Most people can digest milk are of European ancestry - People with LP mutation produced up to 19% more fertile offspring than those without it - Gene culture co-evolution Health and human behaviour - WHO defined health as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity' - Psychologists aim to help people behave in ways that promote health and wellness, adapt to developing health problems, and engage in treatment and rehabilitation - Health psychology takes a whole-person approach, adopting the biopsychosocial model of health - A lifespan approach considers changes in health and health-related behaviours 17-19^th^ century: - People primarily died from either - **Dietary diseases**- malnutrition - **Infectious diseases**- acute illnesses caused by bacteria or viruses - **Epidemics** e.g. small pox, measles, influenza, diphtheria - By the end of the 19^th^ century deaths from infectious diseases decreased significantly - Preventative measures: **better personal hygiene, better nutrition, water purification, sewage treatment** 20^th^ century: - **Death rate from infectious diseases declined**, and average **life expectancy increased** - Life expectancy- increased from 48 to 79 - People live longer and die from different causes - Main causes in developed countries are **chronic diseases**- heart disease, cancer, stroke Body mind and illness connections- beliefs through the ages - Philosophers from ancient Greece (500-300BC) left the first written beliefs about the connections between the body, illness, and the mind - Proposed a humoral theory of illness - The body contains 4 humours, when the humours are balanced, people are healthy, but diseases follow when there is an imbalance 1. Body as machine 2. Mind and body communicate through the pineal gland 3. The soul of humans leaves the body at death 18^th^ and 19^th^ centuries - Improvements in the microscope, and use of dissection in autopsies led to increased knowledge in medicine and science - Microorganisms cause certain illnesses- humour theory rejected - Antiseptic techniques and anaesthesia- mid 19^th^ century - Reputation of physicians and hospitals improved - Disease= an affliction of the body **The biochemical model** - All illnesses are due to injury, biochemical imbalances, bacterial or viral infection - Infectious diseases were conquered e.g. measles, polio, due to the development of vaccines - Antibiotics were developed to combat bacterial infections - People are more aware of signs and symptoms and take more care of their health - The person is not included in the biomedical model **The Biopsychosocial model** - adds the person to the biochemical model- provides a broader picture about the causes of health and illness - suggests that all 3 factors (biological, psychological, social) affect and are affected by the person's health - looks at the whole person: - biological- body structures and systems - psychological- behaviour and mental processes- emotion, cognition, motivation - social- family friends, wider community, societal values, media - these are **interplaying** **systems** what is health behaviour? - Activities people engage in to maintain or improve their health - **Well behaviour**- exercising, eating healthy, vaccinations - **Symptom based behaviour**- determine the problem, and find a remedy by seeking help - **Sick role behaviour**- adjusting to a health problem e.g. getting a prescription, staying home to recover Preventing illness - **Behavioural, environmental, and medical prevention** - **Primary:** actions taken to avoid disease or injury - **Secondary:** actions are taken to identify and treat illness or injury early to either stop or reverse - **Tertiary:** actions are taken to contain or delay the damage/ rehabilitate the patient Promoting health 1. **Individual obstacles** - Lack of incentive - Longstanding habits- addiction - Self-efficacy - Need knowledge and skills - Less appealing 2. **Interpersonal obstacles** - family might counteract/ undermine with own motivations and habits 3. **Community obstacles** - insufficient health projects and research - lack of safe and convenient places to exercise - lots of fast-food outlets Determinants of health behaviour - perception and cognition - genetic - learning - social - emotional - personality theories of health behaviour -- social cognitive models 1. **theory of planned behaviour** - attitude + subjective norm + perceived behavioural control - intention - behaviour 2)**health belief model** - **modifying factors**: age, gender, geographic location, education, ethnicity, income, race, wealth - - **Individual beliefs** - 1\) perceived susceptibility to diseases - 2\) Perceived severity of disease - 3\) perceived benefits of preventative action - 4\) perceived barriers to preventative action - 5\) perceived self-efficacy - - **Actions** - Individual behaviours - Cues to action - Media campaigns - Physician reminders 2. **The stages of change model of behaviour** 1. Pre-contemplation -- unaware of the problem 2. Contemplation -- aware of the problem and of the desired behaviour change 3. Preparation -- intends to take action 4. Action- practices the desired behaviour 5. Maintenance- works to sustain the behaviour change Problems with social cognitive models - Theories are **hard to falsify** -- factors are broad and therefore hard to test empirically - **Social aspects are secondary**- cognitive aspects are dominant- individual responsibility arising from individual virtues - **Unhelpful in changing behaviours of those who struggle most** -- - implies that the cause of the problem lies within the individual -- **stigma directed at them is justified**- Stigma and blame are often directly harmful to physical and mental health - **low body satisfaction predicts weight gain over time** - a desire to change one's eating is not sufficient for actual behaviour change - more comprehensive understanding of eating behaviour needs to encompass its social, contextual, and environmental underpinnings fully Nutrition and Health - Water, carbs, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals -- make up the human body and food and contribute to cell's metabolic processes - Food also includes fibre - Increased use of processed foods has made our diets less healthy- additives to prolong shelf-life- some can cause allergic reactions or be carcinogenic - FSA- Eatwell guide - Too much vitamin A and E - serious health risk to liver and kidneys - Diets vary by gender and culture- survey of 20,000 university students in 23 countries; women eat healthier diets than men in most countries Why do people eat what they eat? **Biopsychosocial** **factors** (Peckenpaugh, 2007) - In countries such as Ethiopia, Guatemala, and India, around 50% of children have stunted growth due to malnutrition - Regional and social class differences in growth result from many factors; genetics, nutrition and disease - The ability to **set** **goals**, **plan** and **monitor** **food** **consumption** is linked to healthy diets - **Environment and experience**- availability of and experience with certain foods strongly affects preference - **Inborn** **processes**- newborns prefer sweet tastes - **Brain** **chemicals**- can bias people to fatty foods, activating brain pleasure centres - **Genetic** **factors**: strongly affect perception of sweetness and preferences for fruit, veg and protein Eating behaviour - In many countries**, dietary excesses are the main nutritional problem**, especially in developing atherosclerosis, hypertension and cancer - The most common factors contributing to preventable disease burden are related to **both not eating enough fruit and veg and being overweight or obese** - Eating is one of the biggest contributors to health - **Consequences** of under- or over-eating: obesity, diabetes, cancer, eating disorders, malnutrition, depression, early death Eating disorders - These can be seen as points on a spectrum of eating pathology - The **most common type** **BED**- co-occurring or preceding obesity - Often associated with an **extreme emphasis on body, weight, and appearance in terms of evaluating self-worth** - Those who struggle are often **distressed** and **dissatisfied** with their body, weight, and appearance - **Younger women (15-25) are at particular risk of under-eating pathologies**- almost 90% experience body dissatisfaction - **10% experiencing an ED are men**, gender disparity is smaller for BED and obesity - Nationality powerful predictor of obesity: prevalence ranges from 1.1% of Bangladesh\'s adult population to 71.1% Nauru Models of eating behaviour 1. **Biological model** - The role of serotonin - E.g. genetic make-up and metabolism - Anorexia, obesity, and bulimia are believed to have a genetic basis - Several genes regulating hormones like leptin and ghrelin are implicated in obesity development - **Abnormalities in the neuroendocrine system (serotonin in particular) were found pre-dating anorexia and persisting after treatment** - Key benefit: help identify individuals in a population most at risk of engaging in unhealthy eating behaviour - However, genetic and metabolic factors alone cannot provide a plausible, comprehensive explanation for unhealthy eating 2. **Individual difference model** - Research focuses on **psychiatric disorders** i.e. behaviour that departs from culturally expected or accepted behaviour and causes significant distress or impaired functioning - Under-eating factors: **perfectionism**, **low self-esteem, need for control**; some research suggests these characteristics present prior to disorder - Under eating**- maladaptive strategy to buffer negative effects of these personality traits** - Over-eating factors: **impulsivity, poor-self monitoring, emotional dysregulation** - Unhealthy food is rewarding in the short term, **those who over-eat lack the capacity to control the urge to eat, especially with strong negative emotions present** - Bulimia- characteristics from over- and under-eating pathologies - Lack of stability of diagnoses shows **no clear link between personality features and diagnostic categories** - BUT, research indicates robust associations between certain eating behaviours and personality variables - Individual difference approach allows us to anticipate which individuals are most likely to exhibit unhealthy eating behaviour **Socio-cultural models** - modern environments are **obesogenic**: urban density and **hyper-availability of fast food make weight gain almost inevitable** - evolutionary perspective- **nourishing food has been scarce and difficult to obtain** - tendency to over-consumption is seen in almost all mammals when placed in a food-rich environment - car ownership reduced people's average calorie expenditure - increase in obesity over last century- changes in social environment which encourage higher calorie consumption and reducing the daily need for calorie expenditure - rapid increase in portion sizes - under-eating affects mostly women- western developed countries hold **thin ideal- successful and attractive women are portrayed by media as unrealistically thin- dangerous** - ideal weights often physiologically unattainable- women may engage in increasingly harmful and extreme weight loss strategies - link between exposure **to thin ideal, increased body dissatisfaction and under-eating pathology** - after exposure to barbie dolls, girls 5-8 expressed more body dissatisfaction and a thinner ideal - spreading of under-eating pathology to new nations**- Fijian girls risk of eating pathology doubled within 3 years following introduction of western TV programmes** - socio-cultural explanations for unhealthy eating are useful in identifying variables responsible for macro-level differences in eating behaviour observed across time and demographic groups - **helps explain why women are more prone to undereating pathologies (thin ideal targets women) and why men and women are prone to over-eating pathologies (equal exposure to obesogenic environment)** **Interactionist models** - efforts **to integrate multiple levels of analysis** - **interaction between individual level variables and environmental factors**: epigenetic models have the potential to identify relationship - focus on variables that increase or decrease individual vulnerability to social influence so the gap between socio-cultural phenomena and individual behaviours can be bridged - protective re internalised societal standards e.g. high in self-determination, self-concept clarity, tendency to resist pressures to conform to social norms - risk factors, e.g. heightened sensitivity to food cues - common features of model - identify features at individual level e.g. confidence in one's self image - strength: more nuanced- acknwoeldge the role of both individual level factors and social environment play in shaping behavioural outcomes **Social Identity approach to eating** - Integrates previously suggested models and specifies how these interact - Clarifies how **societal norms, discrimination, or food environment structure the psychology of an individual and shape their eating behaviour** - E.g. obesity is defined in biological terms (BMI over 30), range of variables predict accumulation of body fat (e.g. family history, particular genes) but biological factors are immutable (unable to be changed) and so unsuitable for intervention - Biological risk factors are expensive to monitor and so risk may only become clear at late stage, when disease is already evident - Biological variables do not usually account for the majority of variance in obesity - As such, researchers and health professionals turned to analysis at individual level (behavioural and psychological) 1. Risk factors e.g. saturated fat intake, physical inactivity, poor self-control 2. Attention to these improves capacity for intervention/prevention 3. Risk factors at the socio-cultural level are at least as powerful as risk factors at the individual or biological levels 4. Importantly, socio-cultural models lack an explanatory framework and thus have limited influence in terms of intervention 5. Particular focus of social identity approach is on specifying processes through which individuals represent and internalise features of their social environment Social context How social processes affect physical health - **Social context contains both stable and dynamic elements against which we evaluate ourselves, others, and the world** - Central tenet of SIA: all perception is relative. - **Contextual information provides cues to both social identities and social norms** that are likely relevant in any given situation - Body of evidence indicates the interactive impact of social identification and social norms -- **people only conform to an eating norm when they identify with its source** - Studies demonstrate that eating behaviour is always a reflection and enactment of identity - Norms exert a very powerful influence on eating behaviour which is both consistent and generalisable 1. Norms have also been found to influence the eating behaviour of young women at higher risk of EDs 2. social norms shape both typical and pathological eating 3. the norms of a particular social group with which a person identifies are critical in predicting a person's behaviour 4. Cruwys's et al concluded that shared social identity is a moderator of the powerful influence of social norms on eating behaviour 5. **group norms exert powerful influence over eating behaviour but are contingent on eaters internalising the group membership with those norms are associated as parts of their sense of self** 6. food consumption is important way of living out valued identities but from a psychological perspective identity is moveable Group based stigma - **moralisation of eating behaviour has negative consequences** e.g. exacerbates low status position of obese people, and marginalising those who deviate from the thin ideal - **overweight category often lumped together with obesity** by media, commentators, and health researchers - **demonstrated the influence of cultural beauty standards, leading to the stigmatisation of those whose body shape does not conform** - **discrimination against obese is so severe** its considered a significant contributor to eating pathology - people will seek to leave the low-status group using strategies of individual mobility i.e. dieting, purging, exercise - successful weight loss stories in mainstream women's media foster the belief that weight is controllable and transitioning into a high-status 'thin' group is possible - however, research shows **most people only achieve a brief plateau in a longer trajectory of weight gain** - **dieting at best is ineffective**, at worst, actively counterproductive for weight loss - health at every size- **body acceptance movement allows people who are obese to draw on a range of identity resources giving them confidence to escape a vicious cycle of body dissatisfaction and dieting** - there is evidence that this is **beneficial** for both the **mental** and **physical** health of the individual Emotion What are emotions? - Episodic, short-term, biologically based patterns of perception experience, physiology, action, and communication that occur in response to specific physical, and social challenges and opportunities Key features- - **Brief responses** to things, people, events, and our thoughts - Have **social functions**- people use emotions as social information to infer other's motivations - Involve different components- evaluation, physiological changes, expressions, subjective experience, mental processes, behavioural dispositions - **Tools by which we evaluate experience and prepare to act** Theories of emotion - Testable statements about emotions - Consider and emphasise different components of emotion **Evolutionary theories** - Charles Darwin and Paul Ekman - **Emotions are feelings and dispositions** (qualities) **to** **act** - Continuity between human and animal expressions - Emotions **have survival and signalling functions**: 'serviceable habits'- certain habits we perform in certain states of mind - Emphasis on facial expressions - Focus on basic emotions - Main emotions- happiness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, sadness STIMULUS **AFFECT PROGRAM** EMOTION Affect program = motivational state **Appraisal Theories** - To arouse an emotion, the **object must be appraised** (identified) as affecting you in some way, affecting you personally as an individual with your particular experience and particular aims - Emotions involve **action tendencies** (an **urge to carry out certain expressive behaviours that is linked to a specific emotion**) and physiological changes (increases or decreases in heart rate, sweating, cutaneous blood flow- blushing, turning pale) - **Patterns differ for different emotions** - **Nico** **Frijda** and **Klaus Scherer** STIMULUS **APPRAISAL** EMOTION **Social constructionism**: body and mind - William James: emotion is an **awareness of physiological adjustments in response to an exciting event** - Emotions = bodily changes - Autonomic NS, facial and bodily feedback - James Averill: emotions are **social constructs, can be fully understood only on a social level of analysis** - **Socially prescribed set of responses to be followed by a person in each situation** - Emotions are learned by being socialised into a particular culture - Lisa Feldman Barrett: **emotions are constructed from social and historical knowledge** STIMULUS **CORE AFFECT** **CATEGORISATION** EMOTION Core affect= consciously accessible processes of pleasure and activation Categorisation= into a basic type of emotion -- sadness, happiness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise Social constructionism is the thoeyr that people develop knowledge of the world in a social context, and that much of what we perceive as reality depdns on shared assumptions Culture - A part of the **environment made by humans** (Oyserman, 2017) - A set of patterns of historically derived beliefs and their embodiment in institutions, practices, and artifacts - What **influences people's behaviour in each time and context** Functions of culture - Provides predictability - Perpetuates social rules and expectations - Facilitates successful life in groups - Facilitates social coordination - Sustains individual welfare - Clarifies group boundaries - Feels like reality - We need to step out of culture to notice it What cultures are there? - Countries- easiest way to study culture - But cultural groupings do not always mean countries - **Many levels of culture**- subcultures which are part of a larger culture - Examples of culture- social class, religion, skin colour, professions, political preferences Cultural Psychology - Focuses on the **universal mechanisms** by which **everyday cues** that are **particular to a society, time, and place**, **are interpreted** to **form perception, judgement, and behaviour** (Oysterman, 2017) Challenges of cross-cultural psychology - Culture is understudied - Cultural expertise is transparent -- open and honest - Broad claims only tested in WEIRD samples: - **W**estern - **E**ducated - **I**ndustrialised - **R**ich - **D**emocratic - Reliance on WEIRD samples is problematic for psychology - Easy to miss the influence of culture - Psychological theories may be limited: - Questions only relevant to specific countries - Answers may only fit people from certain parts of the world - Cultures are changing: - Migration - Demographic differences between groups - Population growth - Social stratification - Measuring complex psychological processes Techniques of measuring emotions - Questionnaires and self-report - Reaction times - Decision-making - Facial expressions and movements/gestures - Physiological measures: heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, hormone levels - Neuroimaging - Many measures- none of them perfect Emotional theories: - Consider and emphasise different components of emotion - Theoretical perspectives on emotion affect how emotions are studied across cultures - Evolutionary viewpoints emphasise biology or innate capacities - Constructionist theories highlight the importance of context and cultural learning The Universality Hypothesis - Are **emotions innate or culturally learned**? - Universal = shared by humans of any gender, race, and culture - Or are emotions a product of cultural evolution - **If innate and universal= lots of cross-culturally similarity** - **If learned= little or no similarity** - Important to evolutionary theorists Looking for universal emotions - Would people all over the world recognise the same expressions as signifying the same emotion? - Studies of 6 basic emotions (Ekman, Sorenson, and Friesen, 1969) - Matched photographs of expressions with emotion labels - **People label photographs accurately at rates greater than chance** - Could these findings be due to cultural learning? - Studies of isolated preliterate cultures e.g. tribes in Papua New Guinea - Simple stories about emotional situations e.g. 'Her friends have come and she is happy' - Matched the stories to photographs of facial expressions and produced facial expressions - **Agreement across cultures in the facial expression that fit the situation or emotion label** Cross-cultural similarities - Studies of natural emotion expressions - Induction of emotion states or observations of people experiencing emotion e.g. Matsumoto and Willingham (2006) - Olympic athletes from 35 countries - Gold and bronze medallists- genuine smiles - Silver medallists -- sadness or contempt - **No cultural differences in facial expressions** - Blind and sighted athletes displayed same expressions - No cultural differences Emotions in music - **Music induces basic emotions** - There are similarities between human music and emotion vocalisations of primates (Snowdon and Teie, 2013) - Dissonant pitch intervals- induces threat and alarm - Minor intervals- induces sympathy or sadness - Major intervals: positive lively affect - **Similarities observed across cultures** Movement and Music - Sievers, Wheatley et al.,2013 asked ppts to animate a bouncing ball or to make music - **Similar patterns of music and movement in the US and in a remote community in Cambodia** Emotion Experience - Scherer and Walbott (1994): cross-cultural similarity in events of emotion - Levenson et al. (1990): American ppts asked to produce facial expressions of emotion - Distinct patterns of physiological responses - **Stressful discussions among east Asian and European American couples associated with similar changes in physiological responses (Tsai and Levenson 1997)** Self-reported bodily sensations - Ppts used pictures to indicate the bodily sensations they experienced when they felt certain emotions - Maps were concordant across 101 cultures Kama Muta (Seibt et al., 2017) - Positive emotion of being moved - Warmth, teary eyes, goosebumps, chills - Induced by communal closeness (hugs, reunions, imagining loved ones) - Promotes social bonds - **Associated with similar perceptions and bodily feelings in the US, Norway, China, Israel, and Portugal** Cross-cultural differences Display rules (Ekman, 1962; Friesen, 1972) - **Culturally prescribed rules that dictate the management and modification of the universal expressions (emotions), depending on social circumstances** - Describe how emotions should be expressed, and when and where emotion is appropriate - E.g. American and Japanese ppts watched stressful movies alone or with experimenter - Dependent measure- facial expression - No differences when alone - **Japanese inhibit their emotion expressions in the presence of an experimented** In-group Advantage (Elfenbein and Ambady, 2002) - **Observers are more accurate when they judge facial expressions of members of their own culture** - Partly explained by the Dialect Theory of Facial Expressions (Elfenbein, 2013) - **Different cultures may exhibit slight variations in innate expressions** - Basic emotions= universal language - Variations= accents Other differences - Southerners more expressive than northerners (Pennebaker et al., 1996) - Irish more expressive than Scandinavians (Tsai and Chentsova-Dutton, 2003) - Variations in antecedents (characterisations attached to emotions) and appraisals - Imada and Ellsworth (2011): different appraisals of successes and failures in Americans and Japanese Cultural Dimensions - There are cross-cultural similarities and differences in emotion expression and experience - We cannot examine all the countries in the world - Cultural dimensions- **value constructs used to describe a specific culture** - Allow comparisons and clustering of cultures - Each culture can be given a value for each dimension - Five main dimensions are identity, power, gender, uncertainty, and time Collectivism and Individualism (Hofstede, 1980, 2001) - Culture= software of the mind - Survey of IBM employees 1967-1973) - Framework of 6 cultural dimensions - Regularly updated - Extent to which people see themselves as either: - Autonomous personalities (individualism) - Members of communities (collectivism) - **North American countries- individualistic values** - **East Asian and Eastern Eurpoean countries- collectivistic values** Independent and interdependent self (Markus and Kitayama, 1991) - **Different cultures have different interpretations of themselves and others** Individualistic cultures Collectivistic cultures -------------------------- ------------------------------- Independent self-concept Interdependent self-concept Unique self Self-connected to the group Personal goals Communal goals Express one's uniqueness Maintain connections, harmony Implications - Display rules: expression of negative emotion less desirable in collectivistic than individualistic cultures - E.g. Japanese ppts inhibit emotion expressions in front of experimenter - E.g. Matsumoto et al, 2008, **individualistic countries encourage greater expressivity** - Thinking styles: - **Independence- analytical thinking styles- object-oriented** - **Interdependence- holistic thinking styles- context-oriented** - Implications for emotion perception: observers **from collectivistic cultures are more influenced by emotional tone of a context** than observers from individualistic cultures Ito, Masuda, and Li (2013) - Central character expresses emotion among other faces - Task: judge intensity of happiness or sadness - Compared to European Canadians, Japanese ppts are more influenced by context Cultural dimensions 1. Dialectical doctrines of emotion - **Dominant religious doctrines influence the experience of emotion** - Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism are major religions in East Asia - Dialectical understanding of the experience of positive and negative emotions - Good feelings and experiences are connected to bad feelings and bad experiences - Dominant in western countries - Historically value negative emotion and experience - **18^th^ century + - cheerfulness becomes a sign of virtue** - **Happiness= valued emotion in Western cultures** - **Positive emotions universally more valued than negative emotions** - Difference starker in western countries - Compared to Americans, **East Asians are more likely to mention negative features of happiness** (Uchida and Kitayama, 2009) - **East Asians also report feeling more moderate positive and negative feelings, and more often feel both** (Kitayama et al., 200; Mesquita and Karasawa, 2002) 2. Affect Valuation Theory - **Differences in how people value positive and negative emotions** - Striving for ideal affect - **East Asian**= seeking **low-arousal positive emotion** e.g. contentment - **Western**= **seeking high-arousal positive emotion** e.g. excitement and happiness 3. Honour - **Self-esteem determined by own reputation or by reputation of one's family** - Family members uphold reputation through avoidance of humiliation - Cultures of honour: South America, Spain, Mediterranean countries - **Anger and violence more acceptable in honour cultures as responses to insults to honour** (Cohen et al., 19996) - Same effect for southern than northern ppts Cultural dimensions: social ecology - **How natural and social habitats affect human mind and behaviour** - Collectivism linked with pathogen prevalence (effects of pathogen risk on personality traits) (Fincher et al., 2008) - Or with rice agriculture - Traditional use of plough predicts gender inequality (Alesina et al., 2011) - Demography matters How do people establish and maintain relationships now and in the past? - R**elational mobility** (Thomson et al., 2018) - **Freedom and opportunity to choose interpersonal relationships based on personal preference** - Romantic relationships (Yamada et al., 2017) - Study of romantic passion in Japan and USA - Measures of relational mobility and passionate love - Passion associated with greater commitment in both societies - **Levels of passion higher among American than Japanese ppts** - Difference partially explained by relational mobility Historical migration and emotion (Niedenthal et al., 2018) - **Historical heterogeneity (diversity) positively associated with smiling, laughter and positive emotion** Emotion and AI What is emotion? - A key component of human existence - It is an important aspect of everyday life - Very problematic when it is wrong - The focus of TV, news, sports, art, drama, literature - We do not want to upset other people - We value our emotional lives and want them to be our private concern Emotion and AI - AI has its origins in psychology and cognitive science - Neural networks are an old psychology crossover theory with computer science - Recently - The world has gone crazy because AI seems to have worked out language - What happens when AI works out our emotional existence? Should we worry? 3 topics: - Evolution, facial expressions and facial AI recognition - The body, physiology, sensors, and wearables - Cognitive and social views on emotion, sentiment analysis **Charles Darwin (1872)** Emotions are - Not only feelings, but **dispositions to act** - **Continuum from animals to humans** - They **contributed to survival** - Not least by **signalling** to other animals - The underlying patterns were laid down by evolution - Some survival function - Some signalling purpose - Human emotions are recognisably continuous with animals - But not necessarily still adaptive - Serviceable associated habits Importance of faces for humans - As humans we place an enormous emphasis on faces - Newborn infants orient to faces rather than jumbled distractors - Adults readily focus on faces rather than alternative stimuli - Such strong preferences suggest an innate and deeply embedded mechanism **Pareidolia** - The **tendency to see faces in vague and random stimulus** - A predisposition from evolution towards seeing faces - Often have religious overtones Darwin and evolution-based views of emotion - Two important issues: - **Are emotions the same across all cultures?** - If they are they set up by evolution they should be- **universality** - **Is** **there a fixed number of emotions**, or do they come in an infinite variety of shades? - Basic/discrete emotions Paul Ekman - Darwin and facial expressions (1973) - **One of the most famous emotion researchers** - Tended to be concerned with the face Cross-cultural studies - Adults and children shown photographs - Given a story - Select a story that matches - The Fore tribe from Papua New Guinea - Universality of emotion 6 main emotions - Anger - Fear - Disgust - Surprise - Happiness - Sadness The **behavioural ecology view** (**Fridlund**, 1994) - Modern evolutionary thinking - **Signals are an opportunity for manipulation** - **Giving away information leads to exploitation** - **Facial expressions must serve the sender not the receiver** - A simple readout of emotion is unlikely - Expressions are **socio-communicative** - an individual\'s perception of another person based on that person\'s communication patterns Facial action coding system - Muscle groups - Action units - AU6 + AU12 - Objective measurement - Agnostic to emotion ![](media/image2.png)Uncanny valley - Difficult task due to acute sensitivity in humans, particularly to facial social signals - Repair mechanisms - Difficult in films - Even more so in real-time Facial expression evidence - Are there universal facial expressions? - Are there fundamental emotions? - What are the functions of these expressions? - Actually very contentious in emotion research - Fridlund- behavioural ecology approach - Lisa Feldman Barrett- theory of constructed emotions Lecture 2 **William James** - The subjective feeling is not the core - Suppose we see a bear coming out of the woods - Common sense says we run because we are afraid - James says we are afraid because we run - **Emotion is awareness of physiological adjustments in response to an 'exciting fact'** - So, **if we can measure bodily changes we can measure emotion** - **If we could not sense our bodies, we would have no emotion** Scary bears - Role of the ANS - James-Lange Theory - Autonomic specificity **Event physical response emotion** **Cannon (1927)** - Strong **critic** **of the James Lange approach** - Separating the viscera from the CNS does not alter emotional behaviour in cats - Visceral changes are the same in different emotional states - **Autonomic changes occur too slowly to account for emotions** - Visceral organs have insufficient afferent nerves to account for differences in emotional experience - Artificially inducing changes does not produce emotion - Cannon view/ cannon-bard view - Fight or flight - **Event emotion physical response** **Schachter** (1962) - **Two factor theory of emotion** - Physiological arousal - Situationally appropriate cogntion - **Arousal + cognition emotion** **Schachter-Singer theory** - **Event physical response reasoning emotion** Spinal cord injuries - **Hohmann (1966)** - **Less emotion felt, less intensity** - Supported James Lange - Chwalisz, Deiner and Gallagher (1988) - More reliable measures - No difference in overall intensity Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) - Parasympathetic NS- resting state - Sympathetic NS- Fight or flight - Controls bodily arousal -- sometimes called activation - Arguments between cognitive theorists and evolutionary/ functionalist theorists - Top-down versus bottom up - Levenson 2014 Facial feedback - Role of the face in experience of emotion - Facial and postural feedback - Strack et al (1988) - Pens in mouth - **Physiology follows facial expression** - Original Strack finding has been called into question - Did not replicate **Botox studies** - **Reduced ability to express emotions** - **Reduced ability to feel emotions** - **Reduced ability to understand emotions in others** **Embodied** **cognition** - New lease of life - **Cognition is distributed through body not just in brain** - Action-perception links Physiological measures - Hands- pulse and watch - Electrocardiogram - Smartphones - Photoplethysmography - Wearables - Fitbit, apple watched - Blood pressure (with app) - Levels of accuracy issues Electrodermal measures - Skin conductance level - Galvanic skin response - Basis of polygraphs Body motion capture - Marker or marker-less - Qualisys - Suits - Xsens - Notch- low cost/smartphone based - Kinect - Cleaning data and post-processing are big issues Lecture 3- cognitive and social views Cognitive theorists (c 1960) - A gap in James: how do we detect the 'exciting event'? - Cognitive theory emerged 1960, focused on 'information processing' - Emotion tackled by cognitive approached **Magda Arnold** - Emotions and thought - Appraisals - **Bodily responses and impulses to action** - The felt tendency **toward anything intuitively appraised as good, or away from anything that intuitively appraises as bad** - This **attraction or aversion is accompanied by a pattern of physiological changes** - Patterns differ for different emotions **Nico Frijda**- action tendencies - All emotions are situated - They have a motivational component - They create an action tendency/ readiness - Appraisal determines the intensity and quality of action tendencies - E.g. fear may lead to a tendency to withdraw, with the action tendencies of hiding, running, postponing etc. Lazarus - **Cognitive-Motivational-Relational Theory** - For cognitive theorists, emotions rest on distinct appraisals, involving 'core relational themes' - ANGER -- an offence against me and mine - ANXIETY- facing uncertain threat - FEAR- facing immediate danger **Mandler** - Information processing approach - **Cognitive** interpretation of arousal - Arousal is relatively undifferentiated - Interruptions - Troubleshooting Communicative theory - Oatley and Johnson Laird - Computational model - Modules communicate - 2 types of communication - Propositional - Emotional - Emotion modes Component process model of appraisal- Scherer EMA : a process model of appraisal dynamics (Marsella and Gratch, 2009) ![](media/image4.tiff) Roseman's structural theory - Underlying cognitive dimensions of emotion - Five dimensions = fourteen emotions - Situational state - Probability - Agency - Motivational state - Power ![](media/image6.jpeg)Mehrabian and Russel - Valence/pleasure - Arousal - Dominance - VAD model **Fontaine** et al. (2007) - **Valence** - Evaluation or pleasantness - **Potency** - Control - **Arousal** - Activation - **Unpredictability** - Surprise **Averill** (1980) - 'emotions are not just relics of our phylogenetic past, nor can they be explained in strictly physiological terms. Rather, they are **social constructions**, and they can be fully understood only on a **social level of analysis'** Syndromes - A **collection of things that co-occur** (usually symptoms) - In emotion - Subjective experiences - Expressive reactions - Patterns of physiological response - Coping reactions - Not very emotion is associated with all components - Some are sufficient, none are necessary Social roles - Not how we feel, or bodily changes - Too many varieties - 'a socially prescribed set of responses to be followed by a person in a given situation' - Learned by being socialised into a particular culture - Appraisals - Gripped by fear - Seized by anger - Paralysed by anxiety - Social interpretation - Disclaim responsibility Anger - One has been wronged intentionally and unjustifiably - Socialisation teaches someone what their culture says are circumstances for anger - Anger is not aggression - Beneficial (62.5%) Averill 1982 - Norms of retribution - Norms of conciliation - Politics of everyday life Lisa Feldman Barrett (2017) - Emotions are not pre-wired or innate - There are no emotion circuits in the brain - Signals and feelings associated with emotion can mean different things in different contexts - There is a predictive quality to the way the brain works, past experiences inform the interpretation of the present - **Emotions are constructed from social and historical knowledge** - There are innate 'feelings'- emotions come with a combination of feelings to context - Responsibility -- if we are more in control of emotions, they are not passions like Averill suggests Language - How we talk about emotions influences how we experience emotions - Emotional lexicon - Fago, amae, verguenza, schadenfreude- emotions from other langauges used in English - Emotional granularity - Emojis -- emotional words? Sentiment analysis - Based with computation linguistics and natural language processing - Term-document matrices - Search engines - Layering emotions into search terms - Trip advisor/amazon reviews - Social media- Facebook/twitter sentiments - Opinion mining -- valence polarity - Sentiment analysis- more complex - Transformers ChatGPT, RoBERTa Contemporary synthesis - What is an emotion - A feeling? - An evolved pattern of actions and signals? - Visceral response? - Cognitive appraisal? - Pattern of activity in the brain? - Social role? - Almost all these things - An emotion is a syndrome, in which many mental and physical systems 'click' into a co-ordinated pattern - Some integration of Darwinian, Jamesian and cognitive perspectives Parental Conflict 1 Learning objectives: - Define parental conflict - Describe the potential consequences for the child/adolescent - Understanding the impact on the family- with particular focus on parenting quality - Describe theoretical perspectives associated with child's individual perspective - Understand the concept of resilience Parental Conflict -- defined - **Adverse childhood experience** - Conflict is a normal part of family life - **Ongoing hostile emotional tone**, chronic unresolved conflict, angry confrontations repeated over time - **Destructive conflict behaviours**- shouting, blaming, criticising, lack of respect, emotional control and physical assault Constructive vs destructive behaviours **Destructive**: - **Aggression/violence** - **Nonverbal conflict** - **Verbal aggression** - **Withdrawal** - **Hostility** - **Aggression against objects** **Constructive** - **Progress** towards **resolution** - **Change of topic** vs continued arguing - **Problem solving** - Explanations of conflicts being **resolved** Risk factors for children and adolescents: - Externalising problems - Internalising problems - Academic problems - Physical health problems - Social and interpersonal relationships - Future life chances 1. Externalising problems - **Most common outcome** across all ages - Attributing to causes outside of the self - Broad set of negative behavioural difficulties - **Aggression, non-compliance, verbal and physical violence, conduct disorder and delinquency** - Associated with a range of LT negative outcomes, e.g. **academic failure, depression, peer victimisation, substance misuse, and conduct disorder** 2. Internalising problems - Characterised by symptoms of **withdrawal, inhibition, fearfulness, sadness, shyness, low self-esteem** - Children may feel **emotionally insecure** - Higher rates of **anxiety and depression** in pre- and post-adolescent aged children (Harold et al., 2016) 3. Academic Problems - Associated with children's academic performance - Hypotheses to explain these outcomes - **Disruptions to normal sleep patterns** - **Negative peer relationships** - **Negative perceptual/attributional process engendered in children** - **Parental engagement associated with higher educational achievement** 4. Physical health problems - E.g. **tiredness, headaches, and reduced physical growth** - Impact on physical health through its effects on physiological responses on the **ANS** (fight/flight system) and **hormonal systems** associated with managing stress response processes- **cortisol and adrenaline** (Harold et al., 2016) 5. Social and interpersonal relationships - Children from high conflict homes are more likely to have: - **Poor interpersonal skills, problem-solving abilities and social competence** - High conflict homes are associated with : - More **hostile relationships** with **siblings** and **increased conflict with peers** - Difficulties extend into **future personal relationships** - **Poor quality romantic relationships** (Cui and Fincham, 2010) 6. Future life chances - Accumulation of outcomes - **Significant reduction in overall life chances** - Set the stage for patterns of relationships to be repeated - Intergenerational transmission - Parental conflict recognised as a significant risk factor for short term and long term negative outcomes Process model of family stress effects ![](media/image8.png) Children see more than we think - Discord between parental and child report - Identify parental threats to leave the marriage/ expressions of fear as particularly distressing (cummings et al., 2014) - Seemingly subtle expressions of discord also elicit distress (Cox et al., 1999) **Emotional security (Attachment) processes** (Davies and Cummings, 1984) - **Child's sense of emotional security is threatened** - Draws from **attachment theory** - Feelings of **emotional reactivity** - **Representations** of **family** **relationships** - **Motivation to regulate exposure to inter-parental emotion** Cognitive contextual framework (Grych and Fincham, 1990) - Children's **psychological responses occur through their cognitive (attributional) processing of the conflict** - Two stages of cognitive processing: - **Primary processing**- awareness and initial arousal - **Secondary processing** -- attempts to understand and respond - **Empirically** **supported** (Grych, Raynor, and Fosco, 2004) **CAPRD** - **Child affected by parental relationship distress** - DSM-5 -- other conditions which may be a focus of clinical attention Impact on family - Family functioning - Parenting - Sibling relationships - Parental depression - Alcoholism - Physical and sexual abuse Parenting styles - Baumrind (1967) identified four dimensions to parenting - **Disciplinary strategies** - **Warmth and nurturance** - **Communication styles** - **Expectations of maturity and control** - Baumrind -- authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive - Maccoby and Martin (1983) -- further developed, neglectful 1. Authoritative -- BEST OPTION - **Demanding** - **Responsive** 2. Authoritarian - **Demanding** - **Unresponsive** 3. Permissive - **Undemanding** - **Responsive** 4. Neglectful - **Undemanding** - **Unresponsive** 1. **Authoritative parenting** - Use **warmth, firm control, and rational discipline** (Arnett, 2010) - More likely to **explain and reason with the child** rather than being punitive - More involved- **set standards and maintains boundaries** - **'exert firm control' but do not 'hem the child in with restrictions'** (Baumrind) Parenting styles and child outcomes - **Authoritative parenting style**- associated with **better social skills and success at school** (Baumrind et al., 2010) - **Permissive and authoritarian associated with less positive outcomes** e.g. internalising, externalising and attention problems (Hoskins, 2014) - **Neglectful parenting- worst off children** - Associated with many negative outcomes e.g. **poor mental health, lower educational attainment and increased risk of offending behaviour** (Steinberg, 2001) Parental monitoring - Defined as the process of **observing and supervising children's activities** and whereabouts (Dishion and McMahon, 1998) - **Foundation of parental monitoring is the quality of the communication between parent and child** (Weintraub and Gold, 1999) - Research suggests **parents who systematically monitor** their children's behaviour have adolescents who are: - **Less likely** to engage in **delinquent** behaviour - **Less likely** to use **substances** - **Less likely** to engage in **premature** **sexual** activity - **Less likely** to be involved in **delinquent** peer groups (Dishion and McMahon, 1998) Resilience - **Not all children exposed to parental conflict will suffer negative outcomes** - Some children fare better than others - Why? - RESILIENCE- **positive or protective processes that reduce maladaptive outcomes under conditions of risk** (Greenberg, 2006) - Protective factors - **Caring and supportive relationships** - **Positive and high expectations** - **Opportunities for meaningful participation** **[Measuring the problem ]** Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model Methods of measurement - **Questionnaire/survey** - **Daily records/ parental home reports** - **Observation** - **Interviews** 1. Questionnaire Advantages - **Time** and **cost** **efficient** - **User** **friendly** - **Large amounts of data** Disadvantages - **Breadth not depth** - **Low response rate** - **Subject to literacy levels** Self-report - **Social desirability** - **Subjectivity** - **Sensitive nature of the data** - **Objective standardised measures** Parental conflict (parental report) - Parental problem checklist (PPC, Dadds and Powell, 1991) - O'Leary Porter Scale (OPS, 1980) - Conflicts and PS Scale (CPS, Kerig, 1996) - The Spanier Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS, Spanier, 1976) - The Interparental Conflict Questionnaire (Forehand and McCombs , 1989) Parental Problem checklist (PPC, Dadds and Powell, 1991) - Inability to resolve disagreements about childcare - Disagreement over what is problem behaviour - Parents favouring one child over another - Disagreements about sharing childcare workload - Disagreements over type of discipline and who should discipline Child report - Accurate and reliable - Ethical? - Difficult to engage children in research e.g **Children's perception of interparental conflict scale** (Finchman, 2013) - E.g. 'I never see my parents arguing or disagreeing' - 'my parents get really mad when they argue' - Marital conflict scenarios - Videos of target marital conflict behaviours - Isolate effects effectively - Compare children's responses across a range of destructive and constructive marital behaviours Daily records/parental home reports - Long history in marital research - Day to day records of marital interactions - Improved design of method - Daily reports- complete brief checklists - Increased accessibility of methodology - Increased breadth, precision, and user friendliness Advantages - **Less demands on memory** - **Can incorporate personal meaning** - **Able to assess specific events rather than global impression** Disadvantages - **Parents need to be trained in the use** - **Self-selects educated affluent families** - Can be **subjective** - **Time-consuming for parents** - **Time-consuming and expensive for researchers** Observation - **True picture** - Time consuming- training, resources - Ethical issues - More difficult to get participants **Interviews** Advantages - **In-depth info** - **Suitable for sensitive information** - **Ppts can deem what is most important** - **Ecologically valid** Disadvantages - **Small numbers** - **Time and resource consuming** - **Dependent on interviewer expertise** **Parental conflict research** - More focus needed on EDI principles (equality, diversity, and inclusion) - Under-represented - **Few couples seek support** - **Stigma** attached to those seeking support - **Those in need are often the hardest to reach** - Generally **sensitive nature**- reluctance to participate Effects of parental conflict on children - 'Process orientated' approach - Identify multiple pathways of influence on parental conflict and other family factors - Family wide perspective on influence on child development - Not only parent/ child system - Emphasis on complexity and dynamic interplay - Effects of marital conflict are not static, but reflect dynamic interplay of influences over time - Longitudinal designs Longitudinal research - **Repeated observations or measurements of the same group/people over an extended period of time** - Can look at **changes over time +** - Can be **expensive -** - **Drop out** can be high - - **Time consuming** for ppts and researchers. - - **Qualitative and quantitative data +** **Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT)** - Ppts **randomly assigned to either one or more treatment groups to determine the efficacy of a treatment/intervention** - Use of randomisation ensures that **confounding variables are evenly distributed across groups** Advantages - **Gold standard in evaluation** - **Ability to make causal inferences** - **Randomisation minimises bias** - **High internal validity** Disadvantages - **Expensive and time-consuming** - **Ethical considerations** - **Recruitment and retention issues** - **Applicability?** ![](media/image10.png) **[Interventions]** Public spending -- we cant afford not to - Each child with **behavioural problems** costs an average of **70,000£**, 10x cost of those without - Annual cost of youth placed in a **young offenders institute is £59,000** - Lifetime costs of **conduct disorder**, measured against a baseline of moderate behavioural problems, has been estimated at **around £175,000** per case (Scott et al, 2001) - Typical cost of a parenting programme/intervention? Personal cost? - 2x more likely to **binge drink and have a poor diet** - 3x more likely to be a **current smoker** - 4x more likely to **have low levels of mental wellbeing and life satisfaction** - 5x more likely to have had **underage sex** - 6x more likely to have an **unplanned teenage pregnancy** - 7x more likely to have been involved in **violence** - 11x more likely to have used **illicit drugs** - 11x more likely to have been **incarcerated** **Early intervention** - Identify '**at risk' children and families** - Aim to **enhance capabilities of every parent and improve life chances of children and families** - Cost of late intervention - Public cost **£17 billion spent a year by the State on late intervention in England and Wales** - Human cost-lasting **impact on generations of families** Effective interventions have specific components - Help couples understand the **impact of conflict** and **what they can do differently** - Focus on **stress management, effective coping and problem solving** - Building skills: **modelling, roleplay, and feedback to communicate more effectively** - For parents who are separating, encouraging them to **coparent** **respectfully** - Targeting couple relationship communication and conflict management skills at key transition points - The EIF foundation **Intervention to support couples** - Programmes with a couple relationship component are most effective - Risk of conflict is higher at crucial transition points - Relationship difficulties are often viewed as private, couples tend to seek help when in crisis Opportunities to intervene - Primary care- GPs - Midwifery - Health visiting - Mental health practitioners Parent gender - Parental conflict can differentially affect parenting in mothers and fathers - **Father-child relationship is more at risk than the mother-child relationship** - Effects **spill-over into father child relationship** -- emotional spillover - **Fathers more likely to withdraw** after parental conflict Child characteristics - Children's **temperaments** can serve to increase or decrease their vulnerability (Whiteside-Mansell, 2009) - **Older children appear to be more vulnerable** to the impact of conflict than young children (Rhoades, 2008) - **Emotion focused coping strategies rather than problem solving strategies** (Shelton and Harold, 2008) Evidence - **Lack of evidence of effective programmes** in the **UK** - Interventions with robust evidence are mainly international - Evaluations that do exist are often **methodologically limited** Current agenda - **Reducing parental conflict programme 2019** - Aims to reduce parental conflict- integrating services; testing new approaches and gathering evidence - Home is where the hurt is, but school is where it shows - Workshops for educators - Parenting NI, Family Mediation Targeted- early intervention programmes - Parenting programmes- **interventions that utilise a structured format, work with parents in groups that are aimed at improving parenting practices and family functioning** (Kane, Wood, and Barlow, 2007) - **Enhanced Triple P** - **Family Foundations** - **Incredible Years (Advanced)** - **Brining Baby Home** - Evidence Based Interventions- strong evaluation evidence of improving outcomes Bringing Baby Home - 2 day psycho-educational workshop - Aims: **strengthen couple relations/ prepare parents; facilitate father and mother involvement; provide info on child psychological development** - Lectures, demonstrations, role play - Focus on **conflict management, positive communication, coping with transition to parenthood** - RCT- 38 ppts - Marital quality, postpartum depression, and expressed hostility - 1 year follow up - Intervention group- depression and marital conflict improved for both mothers and fathers - Improved marital quality for males only - Marital quality declined for both mothers and fathers in the control group (Shapiro, Gottman and Fink, 2015) **FRAME** (Fatherhood, Relationship, and Marriage Education - Targeted psycho-educational intervention - Aims to **strengthen the ability of low income mothers and fathers to reduce conflict, cope with stress and co-parent effectively** - 14 hours - Relationship education - **Stress and coping skill training** - Child-centred parent training **Incredible Years** - **Psychoeducation programme delivered to parents of children 'at risk' of conduct problems and antisocial behaviour** - Founded on **SLT** - Advanced programme- adult relationship difficulties - Aims to - Promote **positive parenting, improve parent-child relationships, reduce critical and physical discipline and increase the use of positive strategies** **Brighter Future Strategy** -- (Little et al., 2012) - High level of need - **High proportion of low-income families**, unemployment was twice the national average, four times as many one-parent households - Participants -- 161 parents of 3- and 4-year-olds showing symptoms of conduct disorder, 'at risk' of a social-emotional or behavioural disorder - Measures- strengths and difficulties - Reductions in reported negative parenting behaviours - Reductions in child behaviour problems - Improvement in relationships Implications for practice - Universal or targeted - Tailored to different circumstances and requirements of group - Delivered with fidelity - Conditions of access to the programme (compulsory/voluntary) - Source of funding/amount of funding Recruitment and retention - Careful consideration of time, accessibility, length of session - Awareness of social stigma - Providing additional services e.g. creches - Wide and thorough recruitment drive What does evidence-based mean? - Refers to **interventions with strong evaluation evidence of improving outcomes** - **Strong evidence that programme results are the direct result of the activities of the programme** [The Psychology of International Justice 1] Overviews of today - What is international justice? - Challenges of addressing mass atrocities - Common approaches - Major goals - Psychological notions of justice - Retributive vs. restorative justice - Justice from victim and perpetrator perspectives What is international justice? - Broadly speaking, it refers to **a set of measures and processes specifically devised to address systematic or widespread violations of human rights** - These crimes are of concern to the international community and subject to international jurisdiction e.g. war crimes, genocide - More commonly known **as 'Transitional Justice' in societies undergoing political transitions** - Transition from conflict to peace and stability e.g. NI, the Balkans - Transition from totalitarianism to democracy e.g. Eastern Europe after 1989 Nuremberg Trials (1945) - The most **high-profile and well-known case** of justice pursued at the international level - **Brought nazi leaders to justice and punished some of the most horrendous crimes that humanity has seen** Legacy of the Nuremberg Trials - International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY, 1993-2017) - International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR, 1994-2016) - International Criminal Court in Hague (from 2002) - Issued arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in March 2023 - Applying for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas officials - A clear shift in international legal norms towards prosecuting and punishing perpetrators of the most serious crimes To deal, or not to deal with the past? - The 'Troubles' claimed the lives of over **3,500 people** (**52%** were **civilians**) and **injured 47,000** - In most cases, no one has ever been held accountable - Bitter legacy, 2024 characterised the justice process **as 'widespread, systematic, and systemic' impunity** - **NI Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act**: granting **conditional immunity to perpetrators of Troubles-related crimes, including murderers** - Instead of a criminal investigation, there is an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery Some **challenges of addressing large-scale violence** - **Large number of victims and perpetrators** of mass violence are sometimes beyond the capacity of the judiciary systems - **Categories are not clear-cut** (victims might also be perpetrators) - **Weak, corrupt, or ineffective judicial system** - **Lack of political will, or opposition from perpetrators**- e.g. active paramilitary groups pose real threat to a transitioning society - **Crimes may have been committed a long time ago**- problems gathering physical **evidence** - E.g. over 2/3 of deaths from Troubles happened 30 years ago - likelihood of trial reaching non guilty verdict is very high, lots of resources required; time, money, energy. Rewards can seem small in comparison Approaches to international justice - Judicial approaches: criminal prosecutions e.g. International Criminal Court, ad hoc courts, domestic and hybrid courts) - More recent non-judicial approaches: truth commissions, reparations, lustration and purges, public apologies, memorialisation efforts, etc. Goals of international justice - Accountability and repair - Truth - Reconciliation - Human rights, rule of law, democracy - Not all measures are equally adept to reach all these goals; not all societies want to achieve all these goals - Some goals more long term, some short term How does psychology play a role? - Three approaches to studying international justice The micro-level introduces psychology - how do people think about justice? - How do they react to different justice mechanisms? - How does a specific justice process impact victims, perpetrators, and communities? Psychological notions of justice Retributive vs Restorative justice: **Retributive:** - **Unilateral** assignment of punishment against the offender - The **offender's suffering, humiliation and degradation as key outcomes** **Restorative:** - Achieving a renewed consensus between the affected parties- **bilateral** decision-making processes - **Shared understanding of the wrongdoing, the harm caused, and how to repair the harm as key outcomes** Demographic differences in justice orientations - Age - Gender - Nationality: Asian vs Western - No evidence for people's preference on types of justice - **Asian ppts endorsed restorative justice more strongly than western ppts** - **Asian and western ppts did not differ in their endorsement of retributive justice** **Implications** of different justice mindsets for **attitudes towards justice-restoring interventions** **Retributive justice:** - **Denial of voice** of the offender - **Lack of respect** for the offender - **Unwillingness** to **forgive** - Preference for **unilateral** decision-making processes **Restorative justice:** - **Provision of voice** to the offender - **Respect** for the offender - **Willingness** to **forgive** - Preference for **bilateral** decision-making processes - Apology seeking and acknowledgment seeking from the offender - Alternative punishment e.g. community service **Implications** of different justice mindsets for **attitudes towards peace and reconciliation** **Retributive justice:** - **Preferences for non-normative collective action** - **Support for political violence against the perpetrator group** - **Opposition to reconciliation** **Restorative justice:** - **Preferences for normative collective action** - **Support for peace deals** - **Willingness to reconcile** \*these findings mostly came from the victims perspective\* Justice from victim and perpetrator perspectives - Do people prefer different approaches to justice depending on their group identity (victim or perpetrator)? Group identities in conflicts - **Group members are generally motivated to maintain their positive social identity and restore it if its threatened** - Such a motivation **drives intergroup attitudes and behaviour, especially in conflicts** - Two general dimensions of group identity: - Agency (e.g. power, status, competence) - Moral-social (e.g. moral image and reputation, social acceptance) Needs-based Model **Victim group- retributive and restorative justice** **Threatened identity dimension**- Agency e.g. power, status, competence Enhanced **need**- **restoration of agency** May be achieved through -- **empowerment** **Perpetrator group- restorative justice** Threatened identity dimension- Moral-social e.g. moral image, social acceptance Enhanced need- **restoration of morality** May be achieved through -- acceptance by victim and society What have we learned: - Justice orientations matter: consequences for justice-restoring interventions and reconciliation - Justice should be contextualised: the influences of culture and group identity - Whereas victim group members have a strong motivation to pursue retributive justice, perpetrators are motivated to oppose it - Both victims and perpetrators may be open to restorative approaches to justice Reckoning with the past: The psychology international justice 2 Learning objectives: - Justice measures that have received the most attention in empirical research: - Criminal trials - Truth commissions - Symbolic reparation (apologies) - The actual (?) effects of justice measures Goals of international justice - Accountability and repair - Truth - Reconciliation - Human rights, rule of law, democracy Reconciliation - Mutual trust - Mutual acceptance - Positive changes in psychological state Criminal trials - Judicial investigations of those responsible for human rights violations - Focus primarily on investigating and prosecuting big criminals - Types of trials - International criminal tribunals (e.g. ICTY) - Hybrid tribunals: temporary special courts that **combine elements of ICTs and national courts** (e.g. Special Court for Sierra Leone) - Grassroot courts and. Community justice (e.g. gacaca courts in Rwanda) Trials and reconciliation: Insights from the Needs-based Model Positive effects: - Helps **satisfy victims' needs for retributive justice and thereby promoting reconciliatory attitudes** (ICTY, Li et al., 2018) - **Belief in war crimes trials was positively linked to readiness for reconciliation** (ICTY, Biro et al., 2004) Negative effects and complications - **Generally, reduces a sense of justice when ingroup perpetrators are punished** (ICTY, David, 2014) - **May increase victims' desire for retribution in case of lenient sentences** (David and Choi, 2009; Stover 2010) A survey experiment in Serbia - Serb ppts read about atrocities committed by Bosnians against Serbs and were randomly assigned to - Tribunal condition - Prosecution and punishment of Bosnian perpetrators by the ICTY - Impunity condition - Immunity granted to Bosnian perpetrators - Those on the **impunity condition were more inclined towards retributive justice** than those in the tribunal condition - Those in the **tribunal condition were more inclined towards reconciliation** than those in the impunity condition Trials, healing, and mental health Therapeutic effects - **Improved psychological adjustment** - **Reduced sense of powerlessness** - **However, such therapeutic effects may be temporary** Re-traumatising effects - Higher levels of **depression** and **PTSD** - Witnesses are sometimes interrupted when they become **emotional or express signs of intolerance toward other groups** Impacts of trials: some (tentative) conclusions - Punishment of perpetrators helps address victims' need for retributive justice and has the potential to promote reconciliation from the victim's perspective - Perpetrators opposition could pose an obstacle to reconciliation - The effects of trials depend on their implementation e.g. leniency of sentences - The overall impact of trials on reconciliation is incredibly difficult to establish Truth commissions - **Temporary bodies set up to investigate overall patterns of human rights abuses** (Hayner, 2001) - A typical form of **restorative justice** - Originated in Latin America in the 1980-90s as a response to truth deficits (e.g. enforced disappearances) and the limitation of trials - Responsible for revealing and acknowledging the truth - Strong emphasis on promoting reconciliation and societal healing Case study: Truth and Reconciliation Commission (**TRC**) in **South** **Africa** - Set up in **1996** to deal with the crimes committed during the apartheid - Strong **emphasis on reconciliation** - Hold **public hearings, establish a record of truth and offer reparation to victims** - Conditional amnesty: **granting amnesty in exchange for full disclosure of politically motivated crimes** - Empirical evidence - A survey of 3**,727 South African** adults revealed a **bilateral relationship between acceptance of the TRC's truth and conciliatory attitudes** among **White South Africans** (Gibson, 2004) - But, **NOT among Black South Africans** - ![](media/image12.png)Case Study: TRC in South Africa Impact of truth commissions: some (tentative) conclusions - Empirical evidence on the ability of truth commissions to promote reconciliation is ambiguous - They **may be effective for some groups, but not for others** - No empirical evidence so far to substantiate the idea that forgoing accountability can contribute to sustainable peace - If anything, it could lead to the opposite Symbolic reparation: Political apologies - '**Age of apology'**- dramatic increase of political apologies since WWII, especially after the 1980s - E.g. \

PSY1011 Complete Revision - Lecture 1: Pet Keeping

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