Defining Emotion PDF

Class 1 Monday, January 15, 2024 Introduction - De ning emotion HAPPINESS - Smiling Smiling does not necessarily equal happy Smiling can occur for di erent reasons Depends on what the person wants to convey and wants the other person to interact Smiling alone can imply that the smile is for someone...

Class 1 Monday, January 15, 2024 Introduction - De ning emotion HAPPINESS - Smiling Smiling does not necessarily equal happy Smiling can occur for di erent reasons Depends on what the person wants to convey and wants the other person to interact Smiling alone can imply that the smile is for someone - Study watching/judging cartoons happy people don’t smile most of the time - Might show in other ways (verbal and nonverbal) - Depends on current state of mind and situation (work, school, home, who is present) Smiling is communication Emotions are experienced in a social context. They are best understood in terms of their social functions, in terms of subjective experience and how they are expressed). - humans evolved in groups - Emotions are adaptive - Emotions serve a range of needs for individual and group survival BASIC EMOTION (UNIVERSALITY) APPROACH - different from functional view - Basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise) with prototypical facial expressions - Expressions may be modified/inhibited by display rules, emotion-regulation strategies, and vary by culture - The face expresses emotion in a consistent manner across cultures - Happy = smile - Facial expressions of emotion are recognized in the same way across cultures - Smiling face means the same thing - Especially within cultures - Universal a ect program - Facial expressions communicated information to others - Method: given picture with a facial expression & ask what the emotion is (choose from list) - Universality is not observed: - most of the time, people do not smile when they’re happy in naturalistic setting - If asked, then they’ll smile - Same for all other basic emotions ff fi ff 1 - Not everyone agrees that the prototypical face is correct - People’s behaviour including facial movements and poses is best understood in terms of social context - some features of the basic approach is accurate and compatible with a functional approach - Watered-down (not so specific) may be better - Some facial movements are more likely for some emotions and not others Wednesday, January 17, 2024 Types of smile 1. Reward smile can occur with positive experience can signal positive intentions Reward for others Does not mean the “smiler” is happy - But assumed When reward smile done = seen as more attractive/desirable (vs neutral, sad, angry, etc.) - Other reacts positively = behave positively - “Smiler” then has more positive experience = when I smile, I feel good Smile resembles one of a baby - People react positively to babies (hardwired to care for them) 2. Affiliation smile can be acknowledging others Create and maintain social bonds 3. Dominance smile can be wanting to show higher social or moral status Similar to contempt (looking down at them) Close to mockery - Sadness: pupil is smaller - Depends on personality: empathic = more sensitive to pupil size - People are hypersensitive to facial cues (even unconsciously) E ects of seeing standard facial poses - people show corresponding activation of facial muscles when viewing standard facial poses of emotion ff 2 Spontaneous reaction with distinct facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions in emotion- relevant facial muscles - Ex: muscles at corner of the mouth contract in response to seeing a smile (30 ms) Emotional reaction - Occurs even when people are not conscious of seeing he facial expressions of anger and happiness Shown in comparison for in-groups vs out-groups: white people smile at seeing white people smiling & black people fearful, black people smile at seeing black people smiling - Vs black people reacting negatively to white people smiling Click on (-) faster What is an emotion? Emotion: type of reaction of a person to a situation 1. MEANING 1. Person considers the situation of relevance to their needs, goals, or values 2. Person considers their ability to deal with the situation Positive emotions: felt if the events satisfy (or promise) the goals, needs or values Negative emotions: felt if the events harm/threaten the goals, needs or values More emotional impact when the events change the present situation (vs routine) - even more emotional impact when unexpected Emotions may change - when person changes how they see the situation Emotions are based on the meaning of the situation - not all if reducible to subjective interpretation that can be changed at will - Not only idiosyncratic 2. SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE 1. Pleasure or pain/distress 2. Can also have a subjective sense of physiological reactions (heart pounding) 3. Sense of wanting to do things: approach or avoid “Awareness of state of action readiness” - Might also involve general excitement or general freezing or lack of readiness Flight, fight, tend and befriend, avoidance, approach Exception: sadness has a lack of wanting to do things May be ready to do so but not always expressed Tied to expressive behaviours (facial expressions, body movements, etc.) - Behaviours are usually consistent with the state of action readiness 3 Linked to underlying physiology (autonomic and hormonal systems) - However, there is no consistent distinctive patterns of underlying physiology for different emotions There are differences but not consistent differences between anger and happiness (example) Monday, January 22, 2024 3. BEHAVIOUR behaviour that might follow from action tendency and readiness is part of the emotional reaction - Body is ready to act and the behaviour will follow that readiness - Depends on mental state of the person Behaviour depends on the social context - Great variations Behaviour may include facial and body movement - Depend on many factors, i.e. situational norms and display rules 4. EMBODIMENT emotional episodes/events are important, and likely stored in memory (includes what the body was doing when it recorded that emotion) Representation of an emotion episode/event in memory includes a memory of the motor behaviour that occurred when the emotion was felt - i.e. memory of a snake is of fear and part of the memory includes the movement of moving back from the snake Push/Pull study (measuring reaction time): when seeing alpha = push; when seeing beta = pull - the picture of a snake is flashed, then alpha is shown = faster reaction time - Thinking of the snake will make you faster at pushing away The memories prime the movements The movements can prime emotional reactions - i.e. pushing/pulling can change the way one views/reacts to certain stimuli Approach things we like/avoid things we don’t like If people cannot experience emotions in their bodies, it can interfere with their subjective emotional experience - BOTOX study: facial injections (preventing micro-expressions; smiling) lead to reduced positive reactions to mildly positive video clips (clips that elicited facial expressions in the normal population) Control group: other type of facial injection that did not affect facial expressivity Summary 4 People feel emotion when the situation is meaningful to them They feel good or bad then they are physiologically reacting - Subjective sense of wanting to do something Based n physiological state of action readiness - Emotional events involve behaviour Most variable component - Emotional event is embodied: emotion is represented in memory in its entirety, including motor behaviour - Surprise, according to the above definition, is not an emotion No action readiness Not clear cut between good or bad More of an intermittent phase before another emotion ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL - not all emotional experiences fit this description People may show emotion in their behaviour, but not be aware People may have emotional reactions outside of conscious experience - Dimberg Study on subliminal presentation of faces Subliminal presentation of angry faces leads people to drink less of a novel drink; self reported mood unchanged - Shame theorists: people may experience much shame but are not conscious of these - feelings [Lewis reading] Bereaved individuals react physiologically (BP, HR) when they’re asked about their loss but do not report any distress Empirical Study of Emotion EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES - induced in experimental research Manipulation, deception - From daily life Event sampling: random times, when interactions occur, when emotional events occur Retrospective reports - Tend to be biased - Influenced by cultural theories MEASURING EMOTIONS - Mesures may not correlate with self-report or physiological What do you use? No “best measure” - Self-report questionnaire (Likert scale) 5 To know how people are feeling - Facial expressions (surreptitious recording) - Physiological reactions (HR) - Behaviour (sitting close/far from someone) EXPERIENCING MULTIPLE EMOTIONS - negative: fear, anger, sadness - Positive: happy, enthusiastic, pleased - Mix of positive and negative (i.e. getting married) usually for meaningful events COMPONENTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE - can you label your emotions? - Do you have a complex understanding of your emotions? HOW INTENSE IS EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE - individual differences in how intensely people experience their own emotional reactions Affect intensity: disposition to react strongly to emotion-eliciting events rather Thant o experience intense affect all the time, without triggering events - Related but distinct from affective lability: how much affect changes over time - Affect intensity is in part heritable - Intensity and lability are related but distinct from personality characteristics EMOTIONS AND CORE PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS From the Big Five, neuroticism and extraversion are most correlated to emotions On a day to day level you will experience more: - Neuroticism: disposition to chronically experience distress (sadness and anxiety) - Extraversion: consistent positive affect (happiness, enthusiastic) - Each influence is independent from another EMOTIONS AND CULTURE - distinction between individualistic and collectivistic Individualistic: focus more on the self as unique, bounded, separate - Emotions are within people Collectivistic: focus more on the self as defined by close relationships with others - Emotions are between people - In individualistic relative to collectivistic cultures, people report feeling more happiness and less guilt (more later) 6