Ch. 11

This direct pathway from this area of the brain to the amygdala accounts for the fact that we can respond instantly with fear to the appearance of potentially threatening visual or auditory stimuli.

Thalamus

Research shows that people are more likely to experience pain relief from placebo pills if they believe that the pills are

Very Expensive

Ethnic minorities and stress

ethnic minorities suffer unique stressors, aspects of ethnic minority life may also protect against stress. Unique stressors of minority groups include ethnic discrimination, stereotype threat, and own-group conformity pressure.

methods of coping with chronic stress that have demonstrated effectiveness include:

aerobic exercise, relaxation training and mediation, social support, optimism, religion and spiritual life, and pet ownership.

Define Moods

are longer lasting, less intense emotional states whose origin may be difficult to pinpoint.

Define: Display Rules

are unspoken standards and expectations which regulate the way emotion is displayed in a given culture.

Optimists tend to see bad events as resulting from causes that are

external, temporary, and surmountable

In terms of physiology, the third phase of the GAS, exhaustion, results from the fact that the prolonged stress event has

depleted energy stores and compromised homeostasis

Embodied emotion theorists point to evidence collected by researchers in

facial and postural feedback to support their contention that when an emotion is recognized, recalled, or thought about, the emotion is "reactivated" in neurons and physiological structures which participated in the original experiences of that specific emotion.

Studies of spinal injury patients, substance abusers, victims of terrorism, and married couples reported that the best way to deal with the anger associated with study participants' experiences was for the victims to

forgive the person that caused their anger

One of the most promising methods for reducing anger is

forgiveness, engaged in as a conscious decision.

The factors which contribute the most to overall happiness, well-being, and life satisfaction are social in nature:

friendships, love and parenting relationships, and contributions made to the welfare of others. However, such relationships do not always contribute the most to happiness as an intense and fleeting emotion.

The human fear response is regulated by two pathways, one of which runs to the cerebral cortex. This pathway is

highly specific so that it responds to only certain fear-provoking stimuli

Optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles differ along three dimensions of explanation:

internal/external permanent/temporary catastrophic/surmountable An optimistic explanatory style inoculates a person from the effects of stress.

Define: The relaxation response

is a self-induced alteration in consciousness that results in decreased physiological and psychological arousal, and increased relaxed attention to the moment. The relaxation response is one aspect of most forms of meditation, although relaxation is primarily a "side effect" of meditation and not its purpose.

Define Affects

is an umbrella term for the "raw material" from which emotions and moods are drawn. Affect exists along two dimensions: Valence and activation.

Fight or flight.

is the complex stress response first described by Walter Cannon and elaborated by Hans Selye in the general adaptation syndrome (GAS), which consists of three phases: alarm resistance exhaustion

Define: Ideal Affect

is the sort of affect each person values, prefers, and wishes to experience. This may differ from the person's actual affect. Some evidence shows that Far Eastern peoples may be more attracted to low-activated positive affect, while Americans (and perhaps other Westerners) prefer high-activated positive affect.

Define: Psychoneuroimmunology

is the study of the interaction between psychology, the nervous and endocrine systems, and immune systems.

Define: Stress

is usually defined as the psychological and physiological consequence of any event which challenges a person's ability to cope and which threatens well-being or interferes with important goals.

LeDoux demonstrated

that some emotional experiences, notably fear, may entirely bypass the cerebral cortex and, therefore, cognition. This may occur if sensory signals pass through the thalamus and are routed directly to the amygdala before being processed by the cerebral cortex.

The main weakness of both the James-Lange theory and Cannon-Bard theory of emotion is that neither theory addressed

the cognitive activity that must take place to experience an emotion

Over our lifetimes, the level of happiness we experience tends to

vary around a "set point," similar to our baseline body weight

This theory of emotion asserts that when some sort of emotion-laden event is perceived, the sensory impulses are relayed to the thalamus first. The thalamus in turn stimulates both the autonomic nervous system and the cerebral cortex at about the same time.

Cannon-Bard Theory

Basic Emotions

Certain emotions may warrant the term "basic" because they are innate, distinct, and form the basis for "families" of emotions derived from them. Most researchers include: fear sadness enjoyment/happiness anger disgust contempt surprise

Cognitive psychologists have determined that telling a lie is demanding such that it increases a person's

Cognitive load

In a longitudinal study involving 12,000 healthy male volunteers, those facing chronic work and marital stressors were 30 percent more likely to die of this disease than men who did not experience chronic stress.

Coronary Heart Disease

In general, our biological and psychological stress-response mechanisms are most adaptive for handling

Acute Stress

Rational emotions

Although emotion can sometimes overwhelm rational action, emotions are also necessary for rational decisions and behavior to take place. It is unlikely that human beings could have survived as a species without emotions.

Anger: Venting

Anger often causes more suffering to the angry person than to its recipient. "Venting" anger appears to offer relief only when directed at the specific person who has angered you and you are convinced the person will not retaliate. Otherwise, venting increases anger. Although "talking it out" with a friend may sometimes be helpful, it may also serve as a "rehearsal" of the anger.

According to Damasio (1994), after Elliot suffered damage to a circuit between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, and his emotional experiences were blocked from consciousness, Elliot's decision making

Became dysfunctional and unintelligent

In certain cultures or subcultures, one is expected to express grief at funerals of loved ones by wailing, weeping, and pounding the coffin. The cultural standards for such behavior are called

Display Rules

When psychologists refer to happiness, they are talking about

General fulfillment and well-being

Happiness "set-point"

Each person's general level of subjective well-being and life satisfaction is strongly influenced by a genetic "set point" to which each of us tends to return after uncharacteristic levels of increased or decreased happiness. However, these set points are not set in stone, and people are more likely to experience changes in happiness set point than in many other characteristics affected by genetics.

Define: Stressor

Each specific stressful event is known as a stressor.

The following describes the ideal affect describes the dimension known as activation

Emily enjoys action movies mainly because they are exciting and stimulating.

Facial Action Coding System

Emotion researcher Paul Ekman has charted the specific muscular configurations which form facial expressions of basic emotion in his facial action coding system

Stress and religion

For reasons not completely understood, those with higher levels of religious involvement appear to experience fewer negative effects of stress than others. However, it is likely that most, but perhaps not all, of this is explainable by the indirect effects of religion, such as increased social support, superior health habits, increased sense of purpose, and positive emotion.

Define: Happiness

Happiness can be defined as an emotion (intense and fleeting) or a general level of subjective well-being and life satisfaction. Most people describe themselves as generally happy with their lives, and most people believe they themselves are happier than others are.

Detecting Lies

In research studies people do poorly at detecting lies, but when people keep journals of the lies they tell they report that their lying is frequently detected. Police officers viewing video tapes of suspect interrogations are often able to detect lying quite well. Lying increases cognitive load, so that techniques which increase cognitive load further may be helpful in ferreting out liars.

Wealth and Happiness

Increased income results in increased happiness primarily if initial levels of income are quite low. Otherwise, income is not strongly related to levels of emotional happiness. However, citizens of nations with high GDPs are much more likely to express overall life satisfaction. Focusing one's life on making money can result in reduced happiness, particularly if one is comparing one's wealth with that of others or against an ideal standard.

Define Anger

Is a feeling of antagonism toward someone or something. It is generally experienced in response to an event or idea, but it may also exist as a character trait. Anger is generally an unpleasant feeling, but it may sometimes be pleasurable.

This early theory of emotion asserts that we are happy because we are smiling, sad because we are crying, and frightened because our hearts are racing and our palms are sweating.

James-Lange Theory

The psychological disorder most commonly associated with stress is

Major Depression

These psychological states are typically less intense than emotions, but may pervade a person's life for days, weeks, months, or possibly even years at a time.

Moods

Basic emotions and culture

People are better at decoding emotional expressions of others from their own culture, and those in Western societies may use different parts of the face from those in Far Eastern societies when coming to judgments about others' facial expressions of emotions.

Stress and social networks

People whose lives include social support networks are better able to cope with stress. However, it is not necessary for a person actually to utilize his or her social support network for beneficial effects on stress to be felt. Sometimes utilization of social support can be counterproductive.

Psychologist Ed Diener has found that income is related to happiness primarily in terms of a person's

Standard of living

Stress and health

Stress can increase susceptibility to colds, and evidence also strongly suggests that stress and negative emotional style increase the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).

According to Shelley Taylor, the tendency to care for infants and affiliate with others is a response to stress that is at least as common among women as fight or flight.

The hormone oxytocin may trigger the desire to extend care and seek social support.

Pleasant vs. unpleasant emotions

The number of unpleasant emotions greatly exceeds that of pleasant emotions.

Stress Response

The stress response is highly adaptive in the short term and serves important functions. The most common response to short-term stress—even severe stress—is resilience. However, chronic, unremitting stress can be damaging to brain and body.

All of the following statements support the idea that money does not necessarily translate into happiness, EXCEPT:

a. Residents of poor nations like Nigeria and El Salvador report high levels of happiness. b. All nations whose inhabitants report the least happiness are also among the poorest. c. There is very little difference in happiness ratings for Americans earning $100,000 annually compared with people who earn $50,000 annually. d. Though the United States GDP has grown substantially since 1950, happiness ratings have not changed. Answer: B

Just as specific hormones characterize the experience of fight-or-flight, this hormone is the mechanism governing tend-and-befriend.

oxytocin

In the alarm phase of the GAS model of stress responses, the activity of this autonomic system is suppressed.

parasympathetic nervous system

Scientists working in this field study the effects of stress and other psychological variables on the weakening of immune resistance and resultant illnesses.

psychoneuroimmunology

Define Emotions

short-lived, relatively intense psychological states consisting of distinct subjective experience or feeling, physiological changes, and behavioral responses.

Religious affiliation as a coping strategy for stress is most related to which other coping strategy listed below?

social support

The Lazarus cognitive-motivational-relational theory

states no physiological arousal or emotional experience can occur unless cognitive appraisal and/or labeling has already occurred.

The James-Lange theory

states that emotional stimuli trigger a physiological reaction. Only when awareness of this reaction reaches the cerebral cortex is emotion experienced.

The Cannon-Bard theory

states that once emotional stimuli are perceived, physiological responses and emotional experience occur simultaneously.

The Schachter and Singer two-factor theory

states that physiological arousal follows directly after perception of an emotional stimulus, but the process of cognitive labeling of the arousal intervenes prior to the experience of emotion.