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Psychology

Psychology. Lecture IV Emotions and motivations in regulating behavior Jolanta Babiak Winter 2019/2020. EMOTIONS. Complex pattern of bodily and mental changes including: Physiological arousal Feelings Cognitive processes Behavioral reactions

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Psychology

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  1. Psychology Lecture IV Emotions and motivations in regulating behavior Jolanta Babiak Winter 2019/2020

  2. EMOTIONS • Complex pattern of bodily and mental changes including: • Physiological arousal • Feelings • Cognitive processes • Behavioral reactions made in response to a situation perceived as significant to an individual

  3. EMOTIONS AND MOODS • Emotions – specific reactions to specific events (example: Feeling of joy and happiness after defense of your master thesis); they are rather short lived and intense • moods – are less intense and may live longer e.g. couple of days; connection between moods and triggering events is rather weak

  4. EMOTIONS AND CULTURE • Are emotional responses universal across cultures? Silvan Tomkins research • Are facial expressions universal? Paul Ekman research • seven universally recognized expressions of emotions • Fear, 2.disgust, 3. contempt, 4. anger, 5. sadness, 6. surprise, 7. happiness

  5. PAUL EKMAN THEORY OF EMOTIONS Paul Ekman’s theory reflects common contribution of the brain and culture in emotional expression • Our brain signals, which facial muscles to move for the face to have specific expression in response to an emotion • Different cultures impose own constraints on expression of emotions beyond biological orders (example: Fore tribe and American students: surprise & fear); Japanese adults were worse at identifying anger than were American adults; Vietnamese adults were worse at identifying disgust

  6. CULTURE AND EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS • different cultures have different standards for how emotions should be managed • There are social rules for when people may show certain emotions • social appropriateness of certain types of emotional displays • Given types of people may express or not certain emotions • Wolof people of Senegal – High-caste members are expected to show great restraint in their emotional display • Middle East– “professionally” wailing women at the funerals • Japan – indicated less approval for open emotional expressions of pain

  7. Physiology of emotions • What happens when we experience a strong emotion? How our body reacts to the situation triggering e.g. strong fear? • Autonomic nervous system, ANS • Sympathetic division: release of hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine • Parasympathetic division: inhibit release of activating hormones • strong emotions such as fear or anger activate the body’s emergency reaction system

  8. CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM • hypothalamus and limbic system: control systems for emotions and for patterns of attack, defense, and flight • Neuroanatomy research has particularly focused on the amygdala as a part of the limbic system that acts as a gateway for emotion and as a filter for memory • Processing of emotional information attaching meaning to negative experiences; • Amygdala acts as a threat detector

  9. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONS AND PHYSIOLOGICAL REACTIONS • Do emotions precede responses? • James-Lange theory of body reaction: – feedback from the body is the source of emotions -we feel after our body reacts – (we feel sorry because we cry) James–Lange theory is considered a peripheralist theory because it assigns the most prominent role in the emotion chain to visceral reactions, the actions of the autonomic nervous system that are peripheral to the central nervous system • Cannon-Bard Theory of Central Neural Processes: emotional trigger is a source of two simultaneous reactions – arousal and emotional experiences; they do not cause each other; neither the body nor the mind dictates the way the other responds

  10. Cognitive appraisal theories of emotions • Schachter’s two-factor theory of emotion: the experience of emotion is the joint effect of physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal. Both parts are necessary for an emotion to occur; arousal is assumed to be general and undifferentiated, and arousal is the first step in the emotion sequence • Lazarus Cognitive appraisal theory: emotional experience is a result of interactions with the environment which are being appraised; experiment: wobbly bridge • Robert Zajonc: there are circumstances, in which people show preference to certain stimuli, and not know why; conclusion: cognitive appraisal is important but not the only element of emotional experience

  11. The impact of mood and emotions on social life • Emotions: social glue and a means to get distanced • Positive and negative moods influence how people process information • Negative moods: information is processed in more detailed and effortful fashion • Positive moods: information is processed more superficially and effortlessly; more efficient and creative thinking, better problem solving than people in neutral emotional state

  12. WELL-BEING • Reasearch supports strong influence of the genes on personal well-being: genetic factors accounted for ca. 50 percent of the variance in subjective well-being • Most traumatic experiences, like loosing a job or divorce have destructive influence on subjective well-being • Social connectedness has strong impact on subjective well-being • After basic needs get secured, there is week correlation between wealth and subjective well-being • An important component of people’s judgments of subjective well-being is the balance of positive and negative emotions in their lives.

  13. Functions of emotion • Motivate to take action • Direct and sustain behaviors toward specific goal • Emotional responses impact the focus of attention (memory experiment of emotionally charged or neutral photographs) • Emotions regulate social interactions • Impact person’s behavior in a social setting; mood - politeness experiment • Stimulate prosocial behavior; feel good – helping behaviors; feel guilty – helping behaviors

  14. Emotions and cognitive functioning • Emotions influence • what is attended to • The way person perceives himself or herself • The way person perceives others • The way person interprets life situations • The way person remembers life situations • Emotional states affect • Learning • Memory • Social judgements • creativity

  15. Questions regarding motivated behavior • Why do young adults pursue higher education? • Why do we strive to achieve particular goals despite the high effort it involves? • Why do we invest our time in a relationship? • What makes us procrastinate? • Why do we quit in the middle of the path to achieve our desired end?

  16. Two sources of motivation: internal and external • Internal • Drives and incentives: equilibrium = homeostasis; disequilibrium = tension • Hunger, thirst • Instinctual behaviors • Some behavior is governed by instincts: tendencies that are necessary for survival • Animal instincts: communication of the location of food, mating trips, nests building • Human instincts: sympathy, sociability, love • Cognitive approach to motivation • Subjective interpretation of reality • Motivation by expectation of future events

  17. Sources of motivation • External • Fritz Heider: outcome of a behavior can be attributed to: • Dispositional forces • Situational forces • These attributions influence the way people behave

  18. Example: behaviors influenced by interactions of motives - eating • Effective food intake requires an organism to accomplish 4 tasks: • Detection of the food need • Start and organize eating behavior • Control how much food is eaten and of what quality • Detect the satiety and stop eating • Cannon and Washburn’s experiment • Does full stomach terminates eating?

  19. Brain involvement in eating behaviors • Dual-center model • Hunger center • Satiety center • Monitoring sugar levels in the blood • Particular hormones regulate appetite • Does our need for food depend only on the cues our body send us?

  20. Psychological factors that motivate people to eat or to avoid food • What does culture has to do with eating habits? • Three meals a day or body cues? • Why do people become obese? • Nature or nurture? • Restrained versus unrestrained eating behavior • Restrained eaters are chronically on diet • They might be overweight • They might not deal well with stressful situations when their self-esteem is in jeopardy

  21. Eating disorders • Anorexia nervosa • Occurs when a person weighs 85% of her expected weight but expresses intense fear of becoming fat • Genetically determined to some extent; perfectionism as a personal characteristic • Bulimia nervosa • Characterized by periods of out-of-control eating followed by behaviors of getting rid of excess calories • Body dissatisfaction: inaccurate perception of the body; impact of media images • These syndromes have serious medical consequences • In extreme cases may lead to death

  22. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

  23. Motivation and personal achievement • What are motivational forces that lead people to seek different levels of personal achievement? • Thematic apperception test: generating stories in response to a series of ambiguous drawings – studying fantasies and dreams • Need for achievement – McClelland (1953) individual difference in planning and pursuing one’s goal • High n Achindividuals display need for efficiency – they quit if they believe the task is too difficult; they need to get the same results for less effort • Low n Ach

  24. attributions • Judgements about the causes of outcomes • Internal • External • Attribution can have effect on motivation • Stability • Variability • Specificity • globality

  25. Attributional styles • The way people explain events in their lives can become lifelong, habitual attributional style • Optimistic versus pessimistic way of looking at the world impacts motivation and behavior • Optimistic attributional style – failure is caused by external forces which are unstable and specific • Pessimistic attributional style – causes of failure are internally generated, perceived as stable and global “doomed to fail” type of thinking

  26. Motivation in Social psychology • Determining the causes of events: inferential tasks facing all social perceivers • Attribution theory – approach to describing the ways the social perceivers use information to generate causal explanations • Fundamental Attribution Error: people on average are more likely to attribute others’ behaviors to dispositional influences and underestimate situational influences • It is not ease to overcome FAE

  27. Self serving bias • Self serving bias – • leads people to take credit for their success and deny responsibility for failure • Dispositional attribution for success • Situational attribution for their failure • Serves short term self-esteem

  28. Assigned reading • Gerrig R.J. (2012). Psychology and Life, London, Pearson Education, Ltd. – chapters 11 an 12

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