Emotions - Lecture 7

Front 1

Appraisal Theory

Back 1

- Lazarus
- The Cognitive-Motivational Relational Theory
- Holisitic: motivation, cognition, adaptation, physiology
- Arena for study of emotion is person-environment relationship (adaptation encounter)

Front 2

The Adaptational Encounter

Back 2

- Ongoing transaction between person and environment which centres on some personal business
- This business has to do with realising personal goals; managing demands, constraints and opportunities presented by environment

Front 3

Primary Appraisals

Back 3

- Is the goal relevant to me? If so, emotion possible
- Goal congruence? Is it in line with my goals? Positive emotions. Is it against my goals? Negative emotions
- Type of ego-involvement in goals/appraisals:
1) Self and social esteem
2) Moral values
3) Ego-ideals
4) Meaning and other ideas
5) Other persons and their well-being
6) Life goals
- If any of these challenged, strong emotions emerge

Front 4

Secondary Appraisals

Back 4

- Blame or credit: who is accountable or responsible?
- Coping potential: Will I manage the demands of encounter? Will I be able to influence the person-environment relationship
- Future prospects: Are things likely to become more or less goal congruent?

Front 5

Emotion as a Process

Back 5

- Antecedent Variables: Person + Environment
- Mediating Variables: Appraisals, Action Tendencies, Coping
- Outcomes

Front 6

Appraisal

Back 6

- Evaluation of the significance of what is happening in the person-environment relationship for personal well-being

Front 7

Sternberg & Campos (1990)

Back 7

- Infant reactions to arm restraint suggest that emotion develops with cognition
- 3 month: undifferentiated distress
- 5 month: look at restraining arm, marked anger
- 7 month: look at face of person restraining, angry

Front 8

Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Back 8

- Bilateral amygdala damage patient not afraid of creepy haunted place, snakes at pet shop, or scary films
- Patient has been victim of crime, but not afraid, interviewed about this
- Psychiatrist (blind to her condition) characterised her as 'heroic survivor'
- Fear appraisal's missing, paralell effect of lesion on emotion and cognition supports appraisal theory

Front 9

Ekman, Friesen & Simons (1985)

Back 9

- Is startle an extreme form of surprise? Emotion?
- Unanticipated startle (subjects knew gun would be fired but not when) vs. anticipated startle (countdown of 10)
- Rigid response within 200ms across all participants, suggests a hardwired reflex
- Not an emotion because no appraisal (all same response, appraisals vary)

Front 10

A Core Relational Theme

Back 10

- Defines each emotion
- Summarises personal harms and benefits residing in adaptational encounter
- Constructed by appraisals and summarises pattern of all relevant appraisals

Front 11

Action Tendencies

Back 11

- Readiness to engage in action for establishing, maintaining or breaking the relation with particular aspects of environment
- Drive physiological and behavioural reactions
- e.g. approach, avoidance, rejection, antagonism, dominance

Front 12

Frijda (1987)

Back 12

- Asked participants to remember/imagine instance of experiencing labelled emotion
- Asked to rate how strongly they experienced certain action tendencies
- Results:
- Fear: advoidance
- Anger: antagonistic
- Sadness: apathy, submissive

Front 13

Klein, Becker & Rinck (2011)

Back 13

- Automatic action tendencies: approach-avoidance task (with children)
- Push (avoidance) and pulln (approach) reaction times measured when shown pictures of spiders, butterflies, neutral
- Faster to pull away when spider

Front 14

Problem-Focused Coping

Back 14

- Alters the person-environment relationship to change the emotional state

Front 15

Emotion-Focused Coping

Back 15

- Alters the emotion by attention deployment and reappraisal

Front 16

Emotion Regulation Strategies

Back 16

- Gross (2002)
- Situation Selection
- Situation Modification
- Attentional Deployment
- Cognitive Change (Reappraisal)
- Different strategy: suppression