Chapter 6 Emotion

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Affect Valuation Theory In the United States, excitement is greatly valued, because it enables people to pursue a cultural belief in independent action and self-expression. Asian cultures value calmness and contentedness, because these emotions promote harmonious relationships, which are important to cultural identity. Display Rules In many Asian cultures, people may de-intensify their expressions of pleasure at personal success. Focal Emotions Compared with independent cultures, interdependent cultures like China have far more words to indicate shame and embarrassment.

According to the affect valuation theory, an emotion can become focal in a particular culture because the emotion promotes an important cultural ideal that is valued and will tend to play a more prominent role in the social lives of individuals.

Affect valuation theory; focal; ideal These cultural differences in which emotions are most valued translate into striking variations in emotional behavior—such as the tendency for Americans to be more likely to engage in exciting but risky practices than individuals in other cultures.

Fill in the blanks to complete the sentence about meditation and the brain.

Brain studies of monks who meditate daily have found increased activation in the left frontal lobe, an area believed to be connected to experiences of positive emotions.

Barbara Fredrickson and Daniel Kahneman (1993) conducted research on how people recollect certain emotions from their past. Which of the following are findings of their research and which are not?

Finding(s) How you feel at the end of the event strongly predicts your overall experience of pleasure. The peak moment of pleasure at the start of an event strongly predicts how much pleasure you will remember later. Not Finding(s) The length of a pleasurable experience is strongly related to your overall recollection. When you recollect pleasurable versus painful events, there are differences regarding the relative importance of peak moments, the ends of events, and their lengths. Feedback Peak moments and the ends of events more strongly predict how much pleasure (or pain) you will recall later than do the lengths of the events. This tendency to give relative unimportance to the length of an emotional experience—whether pleasurable or unpleasant—in judging and remembering the overall experience is called duration neglect.

Emotions motivate us to engage in specific actions. Match each action to the emotion that is most likely to prompt it.

Gratitude generosity towards others Anger pursuit of social justice antisocial behavior, such as ending friendships or going to war Guilt making amends after harming someone

We can construe any situation in a number of ways, leading to various actions. Emotions prioritize the information we should focus on and factor into our actions, behavior, and decisions. Emotions often guide perception, reasoning, and judgment in ways that allow quick and adaptive responses to challenges and opportunities in the environment.

Situation; prioritize; often Feedback: It may be easy to recall painful examples of emotions leading to problematic biases in our decisions, but psychologists have made the case that emotion biases in how we perceive the world more typically lead to good results.

Specific steps you can take to increase your own feelings of happiness include the following:

Taking 10 minutes a week to sit quietly and focus on feelings of kindness towards a person you are close to. Taking 10 minutes to think about a current difficulty in your life and imagining what a good friend would tell you to be supportive.

Cross-cultural research by Paul Ekman and others testing Darwin's universality hypothesis found that people across cultures agree in the labeling of certain facial expressions. Which of the following are included in these universal facial expressions and which are not?

Universal Facial Expression(s) disgust, fear sadness, anger happiness, surprise Not Universal Facial Expression(s) love, embarrassment Feedback for Love embarrassment::::While cultures can vary on many aspects of emotions, research suggests that they do not vary in the facial expressions used to display these emotions.

Fill in the blanks with the correct words to accurately complete the passage about perspectives for explaining emotion in humans. An approach which assumes that emotions are strongly influenced by the values, roles, institutions, and socialization practices that vary across societies is a cultural approach. On the other hand, an evolutionary approach proposes that the components of emotion enable adaptive reactions to survival-related threats and opportunities all people face, and thus, that these components are universal.

a cultural an evolutionary adaptive Scientific studies of emotional expression reveal support for both perspectives. The ways we express emotions are both universal and subject to striking cultural differences.

People are often quite accurate when reporting what they are feeling, but their narratives of why they are experiencing particular feelings should be viewed with skepticism.

accurate; what; why; skepticism Feedback: Research examining how people explain their feelings has revealed we often neglect some of the complex reasons that contribute to what we are feeling, some of which can be due to nonconscious, automatic processes.

Unlike moods or emotional disorders, emotions are brief; they only last for seconds or minutes. You can usually identify a person, object, or event that has caused the emotion, so emotions are specific. Also, emotions help us achieve social goals by motivating us to act in ways that help us navigate our environments and relationships.

brief; seconds or minutes; specific; goals Emotions are brief, specific responses—both psychological and physiological—that help people meet goals, including social goals

Emotions impact our construal of stimuli in the environment and also how we prioritize those same stimuli.

construal prioritize Central to our understanding of emotions today is the belief that they drive our construal of situations we encounter.

Research has found that certain emotions communicate our status in a group. Match each emotion to the impact it has upon group dynamics.

facilitates a sense of belonging with others experiencing awe increases the likelihood we will be imitated and followed by others nonverbal displays of pride earns power and status within a group displays of anger Feedback Anger is an effective way to establish one's dominance in a group.

Fill in the blanks to complete the passage. Emoji are used to convey how we feel about what we communicate online. Cross-cultural studies have found that the use of certain emoji is more likely in some countries, making them focal emotions.

feel online focal

Fill in the blanks to complete the passage about emotions and creativity. Labels can be used more than once. In her broaden-and-build hypothesis, Barbara Fredrickson proposes that positive emotions broaden our thoughts and actions to help us develop emotional and intellectual resources that, in turn, build our social resources. This builds on Alice Isen's research linking positive emotions to more creative thinking.

positive intellectual social positive The results of research by Isen and Fredrickson run counter to the popular idea that creativity stems from dark, negative emotions and links positive emotions to simplistic thinking.

Fill in the blanks to complete the passage describing the components psychologists use to measure happiness. Happiness has two measurable components. One is life satisfaction, or how well you think your life is going in general. The other is emotional well-being, which refers to the tendency to experience more positive emotions than negative emotions.

satisfaction well-being more Feedback The meaning and measurement of happiness have changed over time, and it also differs among cultures.

Match each practice of meditation to the effect it describes.

stress-related cardiovascular arousal.Mindfully slowing your breathing reduces Correct label:Mindfully slowing your breathing reduces different sensations in the body.Meditation practices encourage mindful attention to Correct label:Meditation practices encourage mindful attention to thoughts and feelings.Meditation encourages a calm, nonjudgmental awareness of Correct label:Meditation encourages a calm, nonjudgmental awareness of

Match each term related to the influence of emotions on reasoning and moral judgment to its definition.

the idea that there are five evolved, universal moral domains in which specific emotions guide moral judgmentsmoral foundations theory Correct label:moral foundations theory the inability to articulate or state, while also having the firm conviction, that a given act is right or wrongmoral dumbfounding Correct label:moral dumbfounding the idea that positive emotions expand thoughts and actions, helping people increase social resourcesbroaden-and-build hypothesis Correct label:broaden-and-build hypothesis the idea that people first have fast, emotional reactions to morally relevant events, and then rely on reason to arrive at a judgment of right or wrongsocial intuitionist model of moral judgment Correct label:social intuitionist model of moral judgment

Which of the following findings of recent studies on pride and shame as they relate to Darwin's ideas about universality, cross-species similarities, and the expressions of emotion by those born without eyesight are accurate and which are not?

Accurate Finding(s) Dominance-related behaviors including expansive posture, chest expansion, and upward arm thrusts that reliably signal pride are seen in humans and other mammals. Researchers found that a remote tribe in Burkina Faso, in Africa, could readily identify displays of pride from photos. Inaccurate Finding(s) Concerns about and expressions of shame do not appear to be affected by being a member of an interdependent versus an independent culture. Studies of blind individuals have shown that their expressions of emotion differ greatly from those of sighted people. Feedback Another reliable signal of the emotion of pride in humans and other mammals is moving the head up and back. Studies that analyzed the emotional expressions of sighted and blind Olympic athletes from 37 countries found that their expressions of pride after winning and of shame after defeat were remarkably similar. Studies have found that members of interdependent cultures, such as China, have far more vocabulary words to indicate the concept of shame, and they express shame more intensely compared with their independent counterparts.

Which of the following are accurate findings of survey studies on happiness factors in people and which are not?

Accurate Finding(s) People in relationships generally reported being happier than those who were single. Lack of money is associated with greater unhappiness, whereas having sufficient resources results in higher happiness. Inaccurate Finding(s) Romantic partnerships lead to higher levels of happiness, but other types of relationships do not. Feedback However, research by Deaton and Kahneman suggests that life satisfaction levels seem to plateau at a certain level of annual income ($75,000 in 2010). Studies of happiness find that relationships of all kinds—including romantic partnerships, friendships, family connections, neighborhood ties, and links to teammates—tend to lift people's spirits.

Oxytocin is a chemical produced in the hypothalamus and plays a role in long-term relationships. Which of the following statements about oxytocin are accurate and which are not?

Accurate Statement(s) It has been shown to promote pair bonding—the preference for one mate over desirable alternatives—in voles. Released into the brain and circulating throughout the bloodstream, it contributes to building commitment and trust. It is associated with positive indicators of social interaction. Inaccurate Statement(s) It promotes empathy and understanding between adversarial groups. Unfortunately, it does not promote conflict resolution among romantic couples. Feedback In fact, it has been shown to increase bias towards outgroups. When people are given oxytocin, they are observed to be more generous and cooperative, look more consistently into other people's eyes, and report higher levels of empathy. This was shown in a study when promiscuous montane voles were given injections of oxytocin and then stayed close to a sexual partner, even when desirable voles were placed nearby. Pair bonding shows commitment. Research has indicated that oxytocin can help couples to resolve conflict in a constructive manner.

Darwin's hypothesis that the emotional expressions and behaviors of humans resemble those of our mammalian relatives helps explain the origin of expressions and behaviors in humans. Which of the following statements about the research of these resemblances are accurate and which are not?

Accurate Statement(s) To maintain harmonious social relations, humans often exhibit behaviors that are reminiscent of appeasement displays in nonhuman species. Nonhuman primates exhibit emotional displays that resemble the human smile and the human laugh during friendly social situations. Cross-species comparisons show that human expressions of embarrassment resemble appeasement displays in other mammals, often leading to the avoidance of conflict. Inaccurate Statement(s) Nonhuman primates of the same species, but in different parts of the world, have been observed to display emotions in ways unique to their "cultures," just like their human counterparts. Although Darwin's hypothesis has since been backed up by studies, it was based entirely on his unscientific speculations. Feedback In fact, Darwin was able to draw parallels between human emotion and the behaviors of animals he observed in the London Zoo and the behaviors of his own dogs. Humans shift their gaze down, smile in a self-conscious way, move their heads down and to the side thus exposing their necks, and often touch their faces or shrug their shoulders when they feel embarrassed. There is no research evidence to support the idea that primates develop unique display rules. Also, chimps show threat displays and emit whimpers that are remarkably similar to human displays of anger and sadness. In humans, embarrassment signals remorse for social transgressions, prompting forgiveness and reconciliation after someone has violated a social norm.

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Accurate Statement(s) We perceive situations in ways that are consistent with the emotions we are currently feeling. Inaccurate Statement(s) When we are angry, we are more aware of others' aggressive intentions and can look out for our own safety. Psychologists suggest that we not allow emotions to bias how we perceive the world or react to events. Emotions influence how we perceive immediate events, but not broader judgments—such as whether we feel generally safe of unsafe. Feedback While fear helps us perceive danger, anger changes our perception of the intentions of others, whereby we are more likely to interpret behaviors as hostile or aggressive. Psychologists point out that typically emotions are a good thing, since they often guide perception, reasoning, and judgment in ways that enable quick and adaptive responses to challenges and opportunities in the environment. Emotions can also influence our broader judgments, such as our sense that our circumstances are fair and safe, or unfair and dangerous. For example, emotions can influence our sense of how fair, safe, or dangerous a situation is. For example, a soldier in a war zone is more likely to flinch when a car backfires than someone sitting in a park enjoying a beautiful day.

Which of the following statements about how cultural values influence emotion and behavior are accurate and which are not?

Accurate Statement(s) An individual from Asia is more likely to value contentment than someone from America. An individual from America is more likely to value excitement than someone from Asia. Inaccurate Statement(s) Members of independent cultures tend to be more likely to suppress a positive emotional expression than are members of interdependent cultures. In responding to emotional stimuli, people from independent cultures are less likely to show intense smiles of excitement.

Research supports the idea that certain emotions can impact our construal of stimuli in specific ways. Match each construed event to the emotion it would accompany.

Anger perceptions of hostile intent in the action of others perceptions of neutral objects as threats Fear perceptions that one is more likely to be victimized Feedback Fear has been shown to fuel perceptions that we are personally more likely to be victimized, as we may exaggerate the danger around us. Anger has been shown to drive perceptions of personal affronts and hostile intent from others, even when such actions are neutral or harmless. Research shows that anger can trigger perceptions of neutral objects as dangerous, such as mistaking a cell phone in someone's hand as a gun.

Which of the following are findings of studies on the universality of facial expressions for the emotions of happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear and which are not?

Finding(s) People in Japan, the United States, and other countries exposed to Western media showed high accuracy in identifying these emotions in photos of people displaying them. The Fore people in Papua New Guinea who had not been exposed to Western media showed high accuracy in identifying these emotions in photos of people displaying them. Not Finding(s) The Fore adults in Papua New Guinea who had not been exposed to Western media showed high accuracy in identifying these emotions in photos of people displaying them, but children were not as accurate. Studies have found that people from cultures that differ in independence versus interdependence tend to disagree in how they label photos depicting these emotions. Feedback Accuracy was high for both adults and children in this 1971 study by Ekman and Friesen. Studies have consistently found that people from cultures that differ in religion, political structure, economic development, and independence versus interdependence nevertheless agree a great deal in how they label the photos depicting happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear. These studies support a prediction made by Darwin a century before Ekman and others began these investigations.

Research on flirting behavior has identified several "phases" that can be used to predict romantic/sexual encounters. Using the following scenario as context, match each phase of flirting to the corresponding behavior. José and Miguel are strangers, but each notices the other at the gym where they are working out, and they have a mutual attraction.

José makes eye contact with Miguel, who does the same in return. recognition Both José and Miguel lift weights to bring attention to their muscles at work, occasionally raising their shirts to show off their abs. attention-getting Miguel holds José's arms to help him lift heavy weights and squeezes his shoulder when he finishes. touching In the locker room after their work out, their movements parallel each other, and they share laughter. keeping-time Feedback In the recognition phase, the potential partners lock eyes with each other. In the initial attention-getting phase, men roll their shoulders and engage in exaggerated motions to show off their physical size, raising their arms to let others admire their well-developed muscles. In the touching phase, the potential romantic partners move close and create opportunities to touch each other. In the keeping-time phase, the potential partners line up their actions, mirroring each other's movements and laughter.

This graph represents the results of survey data using moral foundations identified by Haidt (2001) that are important to liberals versus conservatives. Label the moral foundations according to which were found to be the most important to liberals or conservatives.

Liberal Harm Fairness Conservative Loyalty Purity Authority Feedback Liberals attach a bit more importance to harm and fairness than conservatives do, whereas conservatives attach greater importance to authority, loyalty, and purity. It may surprise you (especially if you are a liberal) that conservative morality is broader, as it includes concerns about harm and fairness (though less so than liberal morality in these categories) as well as authority, loyalty, and purity.

Match each emotion to its most likely cause, based on what researchers have found from the narratives people produce to explain their emotions.

Lou has worked hard to earn a promotion at work, but the son of his boss was just given the position Lou was hoping to get. Anger Keisha spent too much time hanging out with her friends, despite promising herself she would apply herself in her schoolwork, and has now failed all of her classes. Shame Jim scolded his wife for eating too many snacks because it was making her look fat, which caused her to cry. Guilt Buffy gets home and is told by a neighbor that her beloved cat was struck by a car and died earlier that day. Sadness Feedback::::: When we perceive unfairness in a situation, it is typical for most of us to experience feelings of anger. When we fail to live up to expectations, whether our own or those of others, we will likely experience feelings of shame. Dealing with unpleasant or unwanted situations can trigger feelings of sadness. When we do something that causes harm to others, we will likely experience feelings of guilt.

This bar graph represents the results of an affective forecasting study comparing the impact of a romantic breakup from the point of view of "luckies," those who had never broken up and were asked to imagine the impact of a breakup versus "leftovers," those who actually did break up. Luckies were also asked to indicate their current relationship satisfaction. Label the bars in the graph to indicate the current satisfaction of luckies, their predicted satisfaction if they were to break up (thus becoming "predicted leftovers"), and the satisfaction of leftovers who had actually broken up.

Luckies hightest sadisfaction about 5.5 leftovers about 5.2 predicted leftovers about 3.9 Confirming affective forecasting, participants forecasted that a romantic breakup would make them feel less happy (as "predicted leftovers") than was actually true as indicated by the actual leftovers.

Charles Darwin detailed his evolutionary perspective on emotional expression in The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. In it, Darwin generated three hypotheses about emotional expression. Match the beginning of each of these hypotheses to the appropriate conclusion.

NOT MATCHED because all humans have been socialized the same way regarding the rules to display emotion regardless of culture. Blind individuals will still show expressions similar to those of sighted people... because the tendency to express emotions in specific ways has been encoded by evolutionary processes. People in all cultures should communicate and perceive emotion similarly... because all humans have used the same 30-40 facial muscles to communicate similar emotions in our evolutionary past. The emotionally expressive behaviors of humans should resemble those of other species... because humans share an evolutionary history with other mammals. NOT MATCHED because even though they cannot see, they have touched the faces of others who expressed emotions and thus learned how to display emotions properly. Darwin proposed what he called the "principle of serviceable associated habits," which maintains that the expressions of human emotion we observe today derive from actions that proved useful in our evolutionary past.

In research inspired by Fredrickson's broaden-and-build hypothesis (1998, 2001), participants were induced to be in either a positive or negative mood, and then asked to indicate which of two figures was the best match to a target figure. After examining this figure, which image was chosen to be the best match if participants were in a positive mood?

Select the Zelda Triangle Feedback Participants in a positive mood chose this figure, as it is more similar in its global, or "broader," arrangement of three objects, rather than its specific details (it has three triangles instead of three squares), demonstrating that positive emotions broaden our perceptions. Next QuestionClose Feedback

Identify the true and false statements about how touch can be used to communicate emotions.

True Statement(s) It can encourage people or dissuade them from inappropriate behavior. It can prompt people to act in a collaborative fashion. It can reliably be used to communicate a range of emotions that convey commitment and provide rewarding experiences to others. False Statement(s) It can be used to gauge a person's intelligence. Feedback In one study, students who were touched by teachers in a friendly fashion were much more likely to go to the blackboard to solve a difficult problem than other students. Touch may also help sports teams perform more collaboratively and efficiently. In one study, individuals who did not speak and who could not see each other were reliably able to communicate love, sympathy, and gratitude with brief tactile contact.

Identify the true and false statements about how emotions help people know their place, or status, within social groups.

True Statement(s) Like other mammals, humans find their social rank in groups in face-to-face emotional exchanges. People rely heavily on emotional expressions to signal their status in hierarchies and to know their place. False Statement(s) When we see people expressing anger as opposed to other negative emotions, we attribute lower status to them. Negotiators are less likely to get their way when they express the emotion of anger. Feedback Nonhuman species rely on nonverbal displays to establish their rank—apes pound their chests, chimps show submissive displays, dogs snarl and raise their hair, stags lock their horns, etc. Negotiators are more likely get their way when they express anger, and they are also more likely to prompt more subordinate behaviors in their counterparts.

Fill in the blanks to complete the sentence about cultural specificity of emotional expression. Cultures vary in their specific focal emotions, which are common in everyday experience, as well as in the display rules that guide how and when certain emotions are expressed.

focal emotions display rules These concepts help explain cultural variations in emotional expressions.

There are cultural differences in the display rules that govern how emotions are expressed. Fill in the blanks to complete the passages about how we can manipulate our emotional expressions to conform to these rules. People can mask their emotions, such as by pretending to be happy when they receive a birthday gift they don't like. They can de-intensify their emotional expression—for instance, when they reduce displays of fear while watching a horror movie on a date. People can intensify their expression—laughing enthusiastically when the boss tells a mildly amusing joke, for example. And they can neutralize their expression by showing no emotion when asked about the season finale of Game of Thrones by a friend who has not yet seen it.

mask de-intensify intensify neutralize In many Asian cultures, it's inappropriate to speak of personal enthusiasms; in these cultures, people may de-intensify their expressions of pleasure at personal success. People from interdependent cultures report being more likely to suppress positive emotional expression than people from independent cultures and to temper their experience of positive emotions with negative emotions.

Fill in the blanks to complete the passage describing theories about the influence of emotions on moral judgment. Jonathan Haidt's social intuitionist model of moral judgment is the idea that our moral judgments are the product of fast, emotional intuitions that then influence how we reason about the issue in question. In other words, we feel our way to our moral judgments; we don't reason our way there. These ideas are the basis of Haidt's moral foundations theory.

social intuitionist model of moral judgement feel reason moral foundations theory Our reasoning often serves merely to justify the moral conviction we arrived at intuitively or emotionally.