PSY 311 - Emotion - Exam 2
In terms of the four components of an emotion, what is an unconscious emotion? What is the most important aspect of an unconscious emotion?
"One aspect of unconscious affect is motivation, even though the affective reaction is not felt. That is, basic effective processes operate in service of action (motivated behavior)
Theoretical Foundation
- Activation of a goal representation automatically produces goal-directed, motivated behavior if the behavioral goal or desired behavioral state (ex. process of doing a puzzle) is associated with positive affect - This automatically signals to the person that the goal or behavioral state is desired and worth pursuing; the individual will work to achieve the behavioral state or goal - This incentive motivation can cover without awareness of its source - Stated directly, a goal or behavioral state that is associated in memory (an emotional memory) with positive affect (reward), has motivational properties; the retrieved associative memory (emotional memory) leads to motivated behavior
Describe the types of stimuli used in the Custer & Aarts (2005) study
- Activity words: (behavioral state words) CS, which were initially neutral, based on pilot study: doing puzzle, studying, changing clothes, writing, going for a walk - Positive affect words: (USs based on pilot study): nice, good, funny, pleasant Example: doing puzzles (the CS) - nice (the US)
Whats is the effect of pointing out to subjects the potential cause or incorrect cause (the weather for example) of their mood states, thereby telling subjects that their moods were irrelevant to risk judgments so don't pay attention to them? What was the role of trait anxiety in their findings?
- For low trait anxiety subjects painting out the cause had an effect - High trait anxiety resisted ignoring their feelings - Implication: People with chronically elevated anxiety may tacitly believe that their emotional sates are always relevant to judgments
Elliot lost his business because he made poor judgments about the trustworthiness of people. Following his surgery he did business with people that he never would have prior to the surgery. What affective feedback information from somatic markers (based on automatic appraisal based on emotional memories) do people use in making judgments about the character of other people. Give examples of types of experiences that may lead to this affective information.
- Interpersonal experiences lead to emotional reactions and the development of emotional memories. For example, a person may have experienced betrayal from people who talk about themselves a lot, or finds that people who frequently say "trust me" may not be worthy of trust. Or that people who say "to be honest with you" a lot lie more than others, or that someone who places his hand over his mouth a lot lies frequently - Or people who are overly dramatic when expressing themselves are less than forthright. Or people who interrupt conversations a lot don't really listen to what you are saying. The emotional memories that develop from these experiences are used subsequently in the process of automatic appraisal to generate automatic emotions and feedback information from somatic markers.
Were Elliot's failures in his business and family life the result of intellectual deficits that resulted from the surgery? Neuropsychological tests were given after the surgery to assess cognitive deficits that may have developed. What were the results of the neuropsychological tests?
- Short term and long term memory - Language ability - Abstract thinking - Performance of mathematical calculations - Ability to learn new material - Ability to focus attention - Ability to reason
Threats that Elicit Avoidance Motivation
- Threat of rejection (a type of ego-threat) - Threat of failure (a type of ego-threat) - Threat of loss of a loved one - Threat of being criticized
Goals that trigger incentive motivation
- To be a kind compassionate person - To be a generous person - To be loyal - To be trustworthy - To be a good friend - To be a good husband or wife - To be a honest person
Describe how the methods used by these and other investigators are used in advertising
-A scene generating a positive emotion (the unconditioned stimulus, UCS) is shown to the viewer ex. something that is funny such as the gecko in Geico insurance adds, people having fun at a party, a person winning a competition a woman playing with her children, a couple kissing. Next the product to be sold is presented (ex. a car, auto insurance, beer). In classical conditioning the product to be sold is a neutral stimulus which becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS), when paired with the US (positive emotional state) - People may come to like a product when advertisers use classical conditioning to teach a person to associate the product with a positive emotion. The more important question for the advertiser is: Will a person actually buy and consume the product?
Describe how an unconscious emotion is developed through classical conditioning
A positive emotional memory is an association between a neutral stimulus (which originally could not elicit an emotion) with a positive emotional experience. The positive emotional memory is developed through classical conditioning by presenting a behavioral goal or desired behavioral state (ex. process of doing a puzzle) numerous times when the person experiences positive affect. The repeated pairing of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) develops the emotional memory which is used in automatic appraisal to evoke motivated (motivational component of an emotion) behavior. This can occur without awareness
Automatic emotions as information used in decision-making
According to the somatic marker hypothesis, once an automatic emotion is generated, feedback information about the characteristic of that emotion is used as a type of knowledge in making decisions. The affective feedback about the characteristics of the emotion is conveyed to regions of the brain, such as prefrontal cortex, that are important to executive functioning and decision-making
The cognitive appraisal of the rate of progress toward a goal or away from a threat is dependent on a number factors such as deadlines to be met, how fast a person works, possible road blocks ahead, and the like. Give examples to show how cognitive appraisal of the rate of progress is dependent on the circumstances that a person finds himself in
An appraised rate of progress that may be appropriate for one circumstance may not be appropriate for another. For example, a low rate of progress in preparing for the second exam of a class one week after taking the first exam may be cognitively interpreted by the person as just fine and no affect (emotion) would be generated. However, that same low rate of progress two days before the second exam would be interpreted as too low and would likely to lead to negative affect that is generated by BIS (anxiety) or BAS (depressed, sad)
What emotions are generated by the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). In terms of the appraised rate of progress, when are these emotions generated?
Approach Motivational System (BAS) - Elation and eagerness (elated, excited, hopeful, anticipatory pleasure) are on the high end (doing well) of approach (neutral in the middle) with sadness and depression on the bottom end (doing poorly) of the approach dimension Approach Motivation System (BIS) - Relief and calmness (relieved, serene, contented and calm) are on the high end (doing well) of the avoidance dimension, and fear and anxiety on the low end (doing poorly) of the avoidance dimension
Describe the experimental paradigm
Behavioral state words, such as "doing puzzles" or non-words were repeatedly and subliminally (23 milliseconds) presented as CSs (conditioned stimuli) followed by supraliminally presented (and thus consciously perceptible) positive affect words that served as USs (unconditioned stimuli). Following classical conditioning, subjects were presented words on a screen that represented various activities and asked if they wanted to engage in the activity
Fundamental attribution error
Believing that the action of others have internal causes even if they are actually caused by external forces or circumstances (ex. believing people are poor because they are lazy)
What basic question about emotion is asked in Topic 3?
Can an emotion that is unconsciously caused (but not felt) lead to changes in motivated behavior (motivational component of an emotion)? That is, can subjects show changes in motivated behavior when they are unable to report feeling an emotion?
Many investigators believe that positive affect increases cognitive flexibility. What is cognitive flexibility?
Cognitive flexibility has been described as the mental ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts and to think about multiple concepts simultaneously
Subjects were asked to complete a different unrelated task (sorting objects based on color, shape, etc) before engaging in "doing puzzles" in order to test how motivated the subjects were. What did the results reveal?
Compared to controls, they showed increased
Results
Conscious feelings were not influenced by the subliminally presented faces, but consumption and rating of the drink were found, among those who were thirsty, to be influenced by the subliminally presented pictures of faces. Those who were exposed to happy faces, compared to those who were exposed to angry faces, poured more from the pitcher, drank more from the cup, and were willing to pay about twice as much for the drink. That is , the affective state created by the pictures influenced the motivational state (the motivational component of the emotion) of the individual. When you are thirsty you are motivated to drink. The positive affective state generated by the pictures increased the level of the motivation to drink
The results of the neuropsycholigcal tests indicate that Elliot's surgery did not impair cognition (cognitive processes or cognitive content) yet he showed major deficits in decision-making. What type of decisions were affected by the loss of functioning in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
Decision-making in the personal domain and the social domain were impaired. A decision in the personal domain is one that to that affects the well-being of the individual who made the decision with respect to its emotional consequences, either reward or punishment. A decision in the social domain refers to a decision that affects the well-being of other people and a person's relationships to those individuals
What was the emotional memory that was developed?
Doing puzzles provided a great feeling
What is the minimal requirement in the appraisal process to produce the motivational component and somatic component?
Emotional memory
Another way to test cognitive flexibility is to use the similarities and differences task. Give examples of the types of questions asked in this task
Ex. (1) What are the similarities and what are the differences among snack foods? (2) What are the similarities among people in this classroom and what are the differences among people in a classroom?
Any potential subject who was thirsty was excluded from the study
False
Cognitive appraisal was used to generate an emotion
False
Cognitive appraisal was used to generate an emotion from the ideograph
False
Declarative memories were used in the appraisal process to generate an automatic emotion
False
Negative affect increases the chances that judgmental mistakes such as the fundamental attribution error will be made
False
People experiencing negative affect are less accurate in making eye witness reports. They are more likely to incorporate misleading information into their eyewitness accounts
False
Subjects who were exposed to angry faces poured more from the pitcher, drank more from the cup, and were willing to pay about twice as much for the drink
False
Describe the major mood (affect) induction techniques in studies of the influence of affect on cognition
False feedback paradigm: - What is the English translation of the following words: rilea, ojbwox, kprael, etc.? Music Unexpected reward - Subjects came into a study and given an unexpected gift (the point is to increase positive affect) Imagery - Imagine a time you were sad or angry The Weather
Elliot was a very successful businessman who had surgery to remove a tumor in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. In what ways did Elliot's life change after he recovered from surgery?
Following the surgery to remove the tumor, he lost his business, was divorced by his wife, remarried a woman who cheated him out of his remaining money. He couldn't hold a job and lived on social security money for his remaining days
What did the results of the similarities and differences task reveal?
High positive affect group answered with more original answers and more total answers
Positive affect and negative affect signal that the person needs to adjust his rate of progress (velocity) relative to his "natural rate" (set point). What does it mean to say you adjusted your rate of progress?
How a person adjusts her rate of progress is dependent on the type of goal involved. For example, if a student has a term paper due on Monday, she may increase her rate of progress by deciding to spend the weekend writing rather than going to the Canes' game and post-game party Saturday. In contrast, increasing the rate of compassion, kindness or of being a good friend would require the person to initiate a behavior such as calling her grandmother to wish her well or treating a friend to dinner at a nice restaurant. Thus, an adjustment in rate must often be translated into terms such as concentration or reallocation of time and effort
The elicitation of positive and negative emotions by BIS and BAS leads to changes in a person's motivational effort and rate of progress. What is the effect of positive affect (appraised rate of progress is high) on motivational effort and rate of progress?
If increase in positive affect then decrease in motivational effort
The cognitive benefits of negative affect: When is sad better than happy?
In terms of processing information
Give 2 examples of the types of questions asked in Topic 8, The influence of Affect on Cognition
In what way does affect influence how people process information? That is, (1) what is the impact of affective state on cognitive processes such as perception, thinking, creativity, problem solving, and on cognitive flexibility (being able to see a problem from a different perspective)? (2) How does affect influence interpersonal interactions such as presenting a persuasive argument or negotiating
Custer & Aaarts (2005) tested the idea that people can be taught to engage in motivated behavior without being consciously aware of why they are engaging in that behavior. What type of learning was involved in the study?
Incentive learning
Incentives and threats
Incentives and threats are related to goals that people have. Incentives are concerned with approach motivation to achieve goals and the associated rewards, whereas threats involve motivation to avoid social punishment. The threat that is the focus of a great deal of research is ego-threat.
Affect
Influences information processing style. Two styles are posited: the accommodative style and the assimilative style
Accomodation
Involves focusing on the demands of the external world, paying careful attention to external stimulus information (more externally oriented thinking) and using more inductive, bottom-up thinking
Assimilation
Is a processing style in which existing knowledge structures in the mind guide processing, thus producing top-down deductive thinking
What was the effect of instructing subjects to attend to their own feelings in the study?
Mood affected risk judgment in almost all subjects
Gasper and Clore examined the influence of current mood state on risk judgments (what level of risk a person is willing to take). What did their results reveal abut the role of mood state, attention to current mood, and risk judgments?
Most influence risk judgments in subjects who usually attend to their feelings but not those who don't
Define motivation
Motivation is the general desire or willingness to do something; to take action to achieve a goal. Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors and behaviors that serve to avoid punishment when there is a threat. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge. It refers to the dynamics of behavior - the way our behaviors are initiated, sustained, directed and terminated
What is the effect of negative affect (appraised rate of progress is low) on motivational effort and rate of progress?
Negative affect increases motivational effort and rate of progress
Following the divorce by his first wife, Elliot remarried. The woman he married was of questionable character and intergrity - a woman he never would have considered as a potential partner before his surgery. In fact he would not even have dated her. She soon divorced him and took any money he had left after his first marriage. Elliot's poor choice of a second partner in marriage would have been prevented by negative somatic markers because they send a motivational message used in decision-making. What motivational message is sent by a negative somatic marker and how is it different from the one sent by a positive somatic marker?
Negative somatic marker - A negative somatic marker, which is associated with increased avoidance motivation, is like an alarm bell warning of danger (of punishment in the future) in terms of the emotional consequences (if you make a certain decision) so: "Do what you have to do to avoid punishment." A negative somatic marker sent to the central executive tells it to decide to avoid punishment Positive somatic - A positive somatic marker, which is associated with increased approach motivation, is an incentive (drawn to a reward) that says "go for it" because there will be a positive emotional consequence (a reward). A positive somatic marker sent tot he central executive says "go for it."
Is cognitive appraisal necessary to generate an unconscious emotion?
No
Is the person aware that he is motivated to take action?
No
Were subjects consciously aware that their motivational state has increased?
No
Elliot made poor business decisions (and lost his business) after his surgery, because he couldn't retrieve old emotional memories or form new emotional memories. What was the appraisal process like for him when interacting with potential clients, business associates, buyers or sellers?
No emotion because there were no emotional memories to retrieve in the process of automatic appraisal
Automatic emotions are used in making decisions in the personal and social domains. Following his surgery, what was the nature of the automatic emotion that Elliot experienced when he interacted with potential clients and buyers in his business?
None so he wasn't able to use the affective information in making decisions
A variety of trinkets, such as toy soldiers, plastic animals, and miniature cars were used in the study. Where were the trinkets placed?
On a table after the study
Affect as information
People often make judgments by asking themselves, "How do I feel about it?" Studies in recent years provide evidence that emotions generated by cognitive appraisal or automatic appraisal serve as affective feedback that guides judgment, decision-making, and information processing. Similarly, there is ample evidence that a person's current mood state may be used as information that is similar to the way emotions are used. As stated by Clore, Gasper, and Gavin (2001), "When making judgments or decisions mood is experienced as feedback information."
Summarize the results of the study in terms of the range of responses and the number of responses to the stimulus word
Positive affect group showed a broader range of associations (ex. tree, tree of life vs bark, leaf, root, branch) and more word associations relative to controls
Postive & negative affect
Positive affect is thought to promote a more assimilative style, whereas negative affect calls for a more accommodative, externally focused style
What was the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the conditioned stimulus (CS) in the study? Which stimuli were presented subliminally in the study?
Research provides evidence that when a neutral supraliminal stimulus as a Chinese ideograph (the conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented immediately prior to a subliminally presented picture of happy or angry faces (the unconditioned stimulus (US) altered how much people liked the ideograph. Subjects had positive emotional reaction to the ideographs when happy faces were presented, whereas they had negative emotional reactions to the ideographs associated with angry faces.
Describe the conclusions of a representative study that provides support for the idea that a positive affect decreases motivational intensity and negative affect increase motivational intensity
Self esteem maintenance does not occur all of the time. When people are in good moods they are less likely to engage in self-esteem enhancing behaviors (ex. bragging and put-downs, fishing for compliments, winning at a game, doing well on an exam, helping someone, contributing to your community, giving your girlfriend an unexpected gift). Studies show that as long as the self-image is above the threshold of positivity, there is no effort to prop up self-esteem. Self-esteem enhancing behaviors only occur when affect is negative, not positive.
What types of stimuli are used to alter mood or emotion in the Wickielman & Berridge (2004) and in the Wickielman, Berridge & Wilbarger (2005) studies?
Several studies have shown that subliminally presented pictures of faces elicit pleasant or unpleasant responses. Also, mood has been shown to be altered by subliminally presenting positive (children laughing and playing) and negative (snakes and spiders) images
Explain in terms of emotional memories, automatic appraisal, automatic emotions and somatic markers why Elliot pushed one of his bosses aside at the door and called another one a "pinhead." What type of somatic marker should have been generated?
Should have been a negative somatic marker saying avoid pushing the boss or calling his boss a "pinhead"
Why do we have somatic markers?
Somatic markers help us predict the emotional consequences of decisions: Will a reward or a punishment result from the decision?
The Chinses ideograph study demonstrated that a person can come to like a Chinses ideograph when it is associated with a positive emotional response in a classical conditioning paradigm, but it is possible to use classical conditioning to increase a person's motivation to pay for and consume a product? Wickielman & Berridge (2004) tested this idea. What prediction did they make?
Stimuli such as facial expressions that elicit affective responses should also modulate the incentive value (how powerful the incentive is in motivating an individual) of a subsequent hedonic target such as a beverage. Thus, the presentation of a picture of a person with a happy facial expression should temporarily increase the incentive value of a beverage and facilitate consumption, whereas an angry face should decrease the incentive value and consumption
One way to test cognitive flexibility is to use the word association task. Describe the procedure used in these studies
Subjects are presented to a stimulus word, such as tree, and asked to respond with all of the words that come to mind
In a study on interpersonal persuasion (Bless & Fielder 2005), subjects were asked to convince other college students of a particular view on each of two topical issues, student fees and Aboriginal land rights in Australia. In what way did the subject's affective state influence how effective her persuasive argument was?
Subjects in a negative affective state were more persuasive in their arguments
Schwarz and Clore induced mood changes by having subjects write a description of either a happy or sad event from the recent past. Subjects were asked to rate their degree of life satisfaction on a standard questionnaire. What did they find?
Subjects in the induced happy state made higher life satisfaction ratings than those in sad moods
What are the characteristics of the automatic emotion that generates the somatic marker used in decision making?
Subtle emotional reactions ("gut feeling", intuition, twinge) or virtually no felt emotion -- an unconscious emotion which only has the motivational and somatic component of an emotion
Give an example of how positive affect influences motivation
Suppose that you are writing a 20 page term paper that is due one month from now and you have finished 15 pages of writing. Positive affect would be generated by BAS because you are progressing toward your incentive at a faster rate than expected. The positive affect leads to "cruising" in that the person's motivation level diminishes and less effort is dedicated to pursuing this goal. That is, the rate of progress return to it's reference level (set point). Thus, when positive affect is experience your motivation level for pursuit of that goal decreases
In terms of emotional memories and declarative memories, compare Elliot with the "Minuteman"
The "Minuteman" had damage to the hippocampus and lost the ability to store new declarative memories rather than emotional memories
Trinket Study
The "Trinket Study" sought to assess the role of a person's affect on attention to detail and on the recall of details
What two motivational systems in the brain are involved in incentives and threats?
The Behavioral Activation System or BAS, manages approach to incentives and the Behavioral Inhibition System or BIS, manages avoidance and withdrawal when threatened. BAS and BIS generate emotions based on the appraised rate of progress toward an incentive and the appraised rate of progress in moving away from a threat This is a new language
The experience of negative affect signifies that the person is not moving toward an incentive or away from a threat effectively. Accordingly, the level of motivation (either approach or avoidance, depending on whether the person is moving toward an incentive or away from a threat) increases until the person's negative affect diminishes significantly so affect can return to its set point. Thus, negative affect is associated with increases in motivation. Some would say that the greater the depth of negative affect the greater the intensity of the motivation engendered. Use the LeBron James quotes on the next slide as an example of the effect of negative affect on the motivational intensity
The Miami Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the Finals of the 2011 NBA Championships series. The loss was emotionally devastating to the Miami Heat players, particularly LeBron James. He is quoted in the Miami Herald three year later (Feb 19, 2014) as saying: "They (the Dallas Mavericks) are the reason why I am the player I am today... When they beat us, I went to a place (emotionally) I hadn't been before."
Cognitive appraisal can increase or decrease activity in the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) or the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). What cognitive appraisal is the focus of the Cruise Control Model?
The appraised rate of progress toward incentives and away from threats. "How well am I doing"
What emotional memory should have been forced and retrieved in this situation?
The emotional memory is the association between "rude and disrespectful behavior and punishment (loss of job, loss of promotion, criticism, verbal rebuke, demotion) and negative emotional experience
What functions of emotions are the focus of the Cruise Control Model?
The focus of the Cruise Control Model is the monitoring function of emotions. An individual continuously monitors her rate of progress toward the various goals she has. The question asked is "How well am I doing?" with the respect to progress toward incentives and away from threats
Describe the role of the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) in the results of the study
The reward system (BAS: Behavioral Activation System), which influences the level of incentive motivation, was activated by both the internal drive state of thirst and the motivational component of the positive automatic emotion generated by the picture of the happy face, thereby increasing the desire (motivation) to consume the lemon-lime drink BAS is activated when a person is motivated to pursue a particular reward and anticipates receiving it (experiences hope). It is the pleasure from being motivated to pursue a reward and anticipating obtaining that reward (anticipatory pleasure)
What is a "natural rate" in the Cruise Control Model? What is the difference between someone with a high rate and someone with a low natural rate?
The set point or "natural rate" refers to the rate of progress the person shows when there are no major events that would increase positive or negative affect substantially. The person is moving toward goals and moving away from threats effectively. Most people show a low level of positive affect in this situation. People whose "natural rate" is high are more active and exert greater effort "naturally," compared to their low velocity counterparts
Procedure
The study assessed subjects pouring and drinking of a novel beverage after they were subliminally exposed to several emotional facial expressions (happy, neutral, angry). Only thirsty subjects were used in the study. Subsequently, subjects were asked to rate their feelings on scales assessing emotional experience. They were then given a novel lemon-lime drink to pour, consume, and evaluate
In terms of its effect on brain chemistry why would their procedure increase positive affect and what was the nature of the positive affect they evoked
The subject was given a reward which increased dopamine levels in the brain and prolonged the positive affect
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is important to the ability to use emotions as information in decision-making. What is the function of this region of the brain?
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex along with the amygdala is important to the storage and retrieval of emotional (associative) memories -- the amygdala for processing of all emotional memories and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex for emotional memories involving psychosocial stimuli (ones in the personal and social domain)
Why does Carver call his model the Cruise Control Model?
The way the brain regulated rate of progress toward a goal is similar to the way a cruise control keeps a car moving at a constant speed. If you are driving up a hill the engine is fed more gasoline because the velocity has decreased. When driving down a hill the engine is fed less gasoline because the velocity has increased. In both cases the cruise control is trying to keep velocity constant. That is, both changes in the amount of gasoline fed to the engine serve to return velocity to its set point (ex. 70 miles per hour) Similarly, when the judged rate of progress toward an incentive (or of avoiding threat) is too low, negative affect is elicited and motivation is increased (analogous to feeding more gas to the engine). When the rate of progress is too high, motivation decreases (feed less gas to the engine) and the rate of progress decreases until the set point is reached
Whats it the unconditioned stimulus
The word "nice" (supraliminal) an unconditioned stimulus(US or UCS) is any stimulus that can evoke a response without the organism going through any previous learning; the response to the US
A positive emotional memory was retrieved during automatic appraisal to generate an automatic emotion
True
According to the Cruise Control emotion is only generated when the appraised rate of progress is too high or too low, and no affect when the rate is at the set point (analogous to the speed set on the cruise control)?
True
Following conditioning, subjects were motivated to engage in the behavioral states, such as doing puzzles, connected through classical conditioning with the positive affect words
True
Positive and negative emotions can be generated by either BIS or BAS
True
Subjects in the sad experimental group were more attentive to the trinkets and remembered 4 times as many trinkets as controls
True
Subjects said that they consciously felt an increase in motivation to consume the beverage and to pay twice as much for the drink
True
Subjects were tested on rainy and sunny days, along with corresponding music
True
The CS was presented subliminally so, if asked, subjects would say that they couldn't see when the CS was presented
True
The emotional memory developed was an association between the Chinese ideograph and a positive emotion or negative emotion
True
The positive affective state generated by the pictures of happy faces increased the subject's motivation to drink
True
The somatic component of the emotion was generated but the cognitive component and the subjective experimental were not
True
The unconditioned stimulus in the study was a subliminally presented picture of an emotional face
True
How is positive affect (PA) typically induced in the studies conducted by Sen, Ashby and colleagues (2000)?
Unexpected reward
Affective feedback from emotions is one source of knowledge used in decision-making. What are the other sources of knowledge that are used when making decisions?
When we make decisions we use the major sources of knowledge (1) we use knowledge from our senses (vision, hearing, etc) to take into account the current circumstances - what our situation is (2) we use knowledge from thoughts, the process of thinking, declarative memories and other cognitive content and cognitive processes (3) we use feedback knowledge from somatic markers which are produced when automatic emotions are generated by automatic appraisal. Automatic appraisal only uses emotional memories to produce automatic emotions
What is a conditioned stimulus?
Words "Doing Puzzles" (subliminal) (something that elicits a response only after learning)
What type of memory were they trying to develop in the subjects in the study?
Working memory
Will he actually take action if he is not aware that he is motivated to take action?
Yes
Schwarz and Clore, in another study, had subjects rate their life satisfaction on warm and sunny days, when people are naturally in positive moods, or on cold and rainy days when they felt less positively. Did current mood state influence life satisfaction judgments?
Yes it did
Give a "real world" example of how a somatic marker is used in decision-making
You are driving to campus on a busy day and you are having a difficult time finding a parking space. You see a place at the end of the block but there is not quite enough room for your car and if you park there you will be nudging up against a fire hydrant. Your mind runs quickly through the plausible (emotional) consequences of taking a spot: make it to class on time, check; car get ticketed, you might be able to live with that; car gets towed. Uh oh. According to the somatic marker hypothesis, that last option probably evoked a relatively strong response in you (negative somatic marker), foreshadowing how you would feel if your car was actually towed and this feeling would like dissuade you from the risky parking spot