Emotions (Chapter 11)

1
Emotions (Chapter 11)

• Second Lecture Outline
• Emotions and culture
• Gender

2
Two Factor Theory of Emotion

• Attributions are cognitive events that contribute
  to emotion
• E.g., Splash through puddle in car Was it
  intentional? If so, anger is greater
• Expectations are important as well
  Overachieving results in positive emotion, bronze
  vs. silver medal winners

EMOTION
Physiological arousal
Cognitive Interpretation
3
Field Experiment

• Go on a blind date
• Before going, eat three chocolate bars
• They are full of caffeine and sugar Results in
  a highly alert, physically, and emotionally
  aroused state
• You may also feel dizzy, ill
• How will you interpret this state?
• Is it attraction to the person you are with?
• Do they make you sick and queasy?
• Is it illness or anger?
• You make cognitive attributions about
  physiological states such as these

4
Guilt and Shame

• John goes home to see his parents for the break,
  but comes back to Wolfville on Friday to have fun
  with friends
• Feels bad because parents were disappointed
  Views behavior as bad
• John does not goes out with his friends because
  he feels so bad about himself
• His parents have made him feel ashamed of his
  behavior Views self as bad
• John resents parents for making him feel bad, for
  putting him in such a bind
• You need a sense of self to feel guilt and shame
  as they are interpersonal emotions

5
What is the adaptive function of fear? How is it
displayed?
6
Primary Emotions

• Primary emotions are common to all cultures
• Fear, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, disgust
• Evidence
• Hard-wired, related to survival
• Universal facial expressions
• Common to all languages
• Common elicitors across culture, e.g., burning
  building threat elicits fear, pie in face is
  funny, bad smells such as ammonia elicits disgust

7
Secondary emotions are influenced by culture

• Guilt and shame
• Culture gives us language for emotions
• There are norms in how emotionally expressive
  people are within a culture
• Display rules Non-verbal signals of emotion
• E.g. What does it mean to extend first and last
  fingers of hand and wave in the air?
• Body language, using hands to talk, what emotions
  do they indicate?

8
Emotion and gender

• Men react more to provocation or interruption,
  physiological evidence supports this
• Men and women may differ in their attributions of
  emotions or what they think is important
• Power interruption during dinner vs. Superbowl
• Women can read emotional signals better
• Same sex expressions easier to read
• Familiar people easier to read than strangers
• How strong are the signals
• Less powerful person becomes better at reading
  cues to fit in with more powerful person

9
More on Gender

• Traditional gender roles express less emotion
• Families vary in the degree of emotional
  expression, both positive and negative
• Situational dependence, e.g., anger expression
  towards inferior but not superior individuals
• Culture directs gender role behavior as well

10
How do you assess emotional experience?

• Self Report/ Subjective
• Behavioral observations (face, actions)
• Physiological measurement arousal, hormones,
  polygraph