What are emotions?
Emotions are brief, specific, subjective psychological and physiological responses that help people meet goals, many of which are social. They are the result of appraisals.
How do emotions differ from moods and emotional disorders?
Emotions last seconds or minutes. Moods last hours or days. Emotional disorders last weeks, months, or years.
What are two key characteristics of emotions?
Emotions are brief and specific. They usually last seconds or minutes and occur in response to a specific person or event.
Example: You feel angry at someone who insulted you, not randomly at everyone.
What functions do emotions serve?
Emotions help us interpret our environment, prompt us to act, and help us respond effectively to challenges and opportunities.
How have attitudes toward emotions changed over time?
About 2,000 years ago, philosophers viewed emotions as enemies of reason and sources of maladaptive behavior. Today emotions are seen as helping people respond effectively to situations.
What is Darwin’s evolutionary approach to emotion?
Emotional expressions evolved because they were beneficial for survival and reproduction. This is called the Principle of Serviceable Associated Habits.
What are the six universal emotions?
Happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear.
What is cultural specificity of emotions?
Different cultures have emotional accents and display rules that influence how emotions are expressed.
Example: Pride is common in Mexico, kindness in Tibet, and modesty in Japan.
What are display rules?
Cultural rules that govern how, when, and to whom people express emotion.
What evidence suggests emotional expressions are innate?
People who are blind from birth display the same emotional expressions as sighted people.
What is the social functional theory of emotion?
Emotions and their accompanying expressions and physiology help people form, maintain, and negotiate important social relationships.
How do emotions promote commitment in relationships?
Through signaling and motivation.
Example: Sympathy signals concern for someone’s well-being, and guilt motivates people to apologize.
What is oxytocin?
Oxytocin is a hormone and neurotransmitter that promotes pair bonding, trust, affection, and compassion. It is released during childbirth and breastfeeding.
How can touch communicate emotion?
People can communicate emotions by touching someone’s forearm for about one second, and the receiver can identify the emotion being expressed.
What aspects of life do emotions influence?
Emotions influence perception, reasoning, and moral judgments.
How do emotions influence perception?
People perceive events in ways that are consistent with their current emotional state.
What is the Broaden-and-Build Hypothesis?
Positive emotions broaden people’s thoughts and actions and help them build social resources such as friendships and networks.
What did the bridge study demonstrate?
Men crossing a dangerous bridge were more likely to call a female experimenter afterward because they misattributed their increased heart rate and arousal to attraction.
What is the social intuitionist model of moral judgment?
People first have automatic emotional reactions to moral situations and then use reasoning afterward to justify their judgments.
What are the five moral foundations?
Harm/care, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and purity/degradation.
What are the two components of happiness?
Life satisfaction (how well people think their life is going) and subjective well-being (people’s cognitive and emotional evaluation of their lives).
What are some benefits of happiness?
Happy marriages last longer, happy people perform better at work, happy people are more creative, and happy people live longer.
What is affective forecasting?
Predicting how future events will make us feel and how long those feelings will last.
Example: People often overestimate how unhappy they will be after a breakup.
Why are people bad at affective forecasting?
Because of immune neglect, focalism, and duration neglect.
