Chapter 10

Question 1

Schacter & Singer arousal study

Answer 1

• Had participants either in euphoric or anger-inducing situations
• Injected them with saline or norepinephrine and either told them there would be no effect or that there would be an effect
• Participants injected with norepinephrine who were told there would be no effect had highest arousal, and because they didn’t know it was because of the drug, they attributed it to the situation

Question 2

how to emotions vary across cultures?

Answer 2

• objectively visible aspects (ie. facial expression)

- subjectively experienced aspects (ie. descriptions of emotional experiences

Question 3

objectively visible aspects of emotion: evidence for universality

Answer 3

suggests they’re part of our biological makeup, thus should be fairly consistent worldwide (ie. universal/basic emotions - Ekman’s research)

Question 4

objectively visible aspects of emotion: evidence for cultural variability

Answer 4

• people tend to be more accurate in recognizing facial expressions when demonstrated by people from their own culture (cultural-specific component); better at doing it with people that are familiar to us (even happens with identifying gay people based on faces) and who we perceive as having higher status than ourselves (ex. Low-SES people good at identifying high-SES people)
• Westerners identify expressions more based on mouths; Eastern cultures identify expressions more based on eyes

Question 5

variability in emotion: subjectively experienced aspects of emotion –> emotional experiences

Answer 5

emotional experiences of those who are more interdependent are more interpersonal than those who are more independent → ex. Japanese experience emotions more as interpersonal states (connect people with each other), whereas Americans experience emotions as personal states

Question 6

variability in emotion: subjectively experienced aspects of emotion –> subjective well-being

Answer 6

• the feeling of how satisfied one is with one’s life; varies across cultures (highest in Scandinavia, lowest in underdeveloped countries)
• many factors influence it

Question 7

factors influencing subjective well-being

Answer 7

• Wealth and human rights
• View of self: Satisfaction for independent view of self comes from acting in ways consistent with inner desires, whereas interdependent self are satisfied when living up to others’ standards
• Implicit theories regarding expectations for how happy you should feel: when reflecting on happiness over a long period of time, people tend to remember it in ways that are consistent with how happy they think they should feel (ex. Americans remember being happier because they operate under an implicit theory that they should be happier)

Question 8

cultural differences in happiness

Answer 8

• Happiness more important in Western countries/cultures, and people are more motivated to make choices that make them happy compared to Asian cultures (may be because happiness makes Westerners less depressed, but this does not happen for Asians)
• Being unhappy doesn’t have the same effect cross-culturally either (ex. Russians more likely to brood but not feel depressed, whereas Americans who brood are more likely to feel depressed)

Question 9

ideal effect

Answer 9

• the kind of feelings that people desire and try to achieve
• For Americans, these are positive emotions that are high in arousal, whereas for most East Asians, these are positive emotions that are low in arousal

Question 10

emotion and language

Answer 10

• Language surrounding emotions varies widely by culture (ie. English has 2000 emotion words, whereas the Chewong of Malaysia only have 8); different cultures make different distinctions between emotions (ie. Eskimo don’t distinguish between kindness and gratitude)
• Linguistic relativity (extent to which people are influenced by words they use) debate: some researchers believe this variability leads to differences in emotions themselves, while others do not