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Psychology Chapter 12 Study Guide
 Emotion is a full body/mind/behavior response to a situation
 Theories of emotion
 James-Lange theory – body before thoughts
 Cannon-Bard theory – body with thoughts
 Singer-Shater theory (two factor theory) – body + thoughts, then label
 Zajonc-LeDoux-Lazanes theory –body/brain without conscious thoughts
 James-Lange
 States that emotion is our conscious awareness of our physiological responses to
stimulus
 Our body arousal happens fast and then the cognitive awareness
 Cannon-Bard theory
 Asserts that we have a conscious cognitive experience of an emotion at the same time
our body is responding not afterward
 Human body responses run parallel to the cognitive responses rather than causing them
 Emotions are not just a separate mental experience when our body responses are
blocked emotions do not feel as intense
 Our cognitions influence our emotions in many ways including our interpretation of
stimuli
 Schachter-Singer
 Two factor theory
 Suggests that emotions do not exist until we add a label to whatever body sensations
we are feeling
 Spill over affect your mood affected by others (study = adrenaline test)
 Highlighted the role of appraisal
 Zajonc-LeDoux-Lazanes
 Some emotional reactions especially fears likes and dislikes develop in a low road to the
brain skipping conscious thought
 Amygdala response without being aware of image/reaction
 Appraisal effects emotion
 Schachter and singer highlighted the role of appraisal being consciously experienced
emotions
 Lazurus: even in emotional responses that operate without consciousness thought “to
down” cognitive functions such as appraisal of stimuli can be involved
 Autonomic nervous system
 The physiological arousal felt during various emotions is orchestrated by the
sympathetic nervous system which triggers activity and changes in various organs
 Ater parasympathetic nervous system calms down the body
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 Embodied emotion
 Hard to see difference in emotion from tracking heart rate breathing and perspiration
 Large overlap in patterns of brain activity across emotions
 Small differences, fear triggers more amygdala activity than anger does
 General brain pattern – hemispheric difference
 Positive “approach” emotions (joy love goal-seeking) correlate with left hemispheric
activity
 Negative “withdrawal” emotions (disgust, fear, anger, depression) correlate with
right hemispheric activity
 Emotions of others
 Emotion content in eyes and faces
 Introverts are better at detecting emotions
 Extroverts emotions are easier to read
 Primed to detect negative emotions quickly, even negative emotion words
 Those who are abused are biased to see fearful faces as angry
 Lies and fakes
 Polygraphs (detecting physiological arousal) fail sometimes at correctly identifying when
people are lying
 Visible signs of lying – eye blinks decrease ad other social movement change
 Real smile- involuntary muscle around the eyes
 Gender and emotional expression and detection
 Women have greater and more complex emotional expression
 Women are more skilled at detecting emotions
 Overgeneralization people tend to attribute women’s emotionality to their dispositions
attribute more to circumstances
 Some emotions more male (anger)
 Universal emotions
 Some universally understood facial expressions
 People more accurately identify emotions from their own culture
 Origins facial expressions
 People who are blind form birth show same facial expressions as sighted people –
origins of expressions are genetic
 Face
 Facial dieback effect – facial position and muscle position can alter which emotion that
we feel
 People’s faces were moved in frowning and smiling positions means that they had a
change in mood
 Middle finger up is associated with hostility, thumbs up associated with happiness
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 Anger
 Flash anger = energy
 Persistent anger causes more harm
 Catharsis – release – refers to the idea of reducing anger by releasing it may reinforce
anger
 Happiness
 A mood, attitude, social phenomenon, cognitive function stay hopeful and motivated,
and connected to others
 Feel good – do good phenomenon: when in a good mood we do more good for others –
doing good, feels good
 Levels of happiness vary over a week/day
 Money can make people happy, if it uplifts them from extreme poverty
 Have an increase in money, spend more money
 Adaptation level phenomenon – when our wealth of other life conditions improve we
are happier to our past conditions however then we adapt to form a normal level,
people need another boost to feel the same satisfaction
 Loss and disability – not a permanent decrease in happiness
 Relative derivation – feeling worse off by comparing yourself to people who are doing
better
 Stress
 Stressor- an overall event or condition which we view as threatening challenging or
overwhelming
 Appraisal – deciding whether something is a stressor
 Stress reaction refers to any emotional and physical responses to the stressor such as
rapid heartbeat or an increase in cortisol levels
 Stress refers to the process apprising and responding to events we view to be
threatening and challenging
 Component of stress
 Process stressor – level/conditions , cognitive appraisal, body response, coping
strategies
 Appraisal – choosing how to view a situation
 Few conditions inherently and universally stressful (extreme chronic physical
threats/challenges)
 Harms and benefits
 Brief experience beneficial
 Improving immune system
 Motivating action
 Focusing priorities
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 Feeling engages energized and satisfied
 Providing challenges encourage growth knowledge self-esteem
 Prolonged stress
 Mental physical coping systems become overwhelmed and fail
 Immune function decreases
Stressors
 Spectrum of levels of intensity and persistence of stressors
 Refer to the events and conditions that trigger our stress response because they are
perceived as overwhelmingly challenging threatening and or harmful
 Four categories
 Catastrophes
 Life changes
 Chronic daily hassles
 Low social status/power
Catastrophes
 Appraisal not really needed most people agree that the event is harmful/overwhelming
 Can be one single event or chronic/harmful conditions
 Short term effects – increased heart attacks on day of the event
 Long term effects - depression nightmares anxiety flashbacks
 Bonding - both the trauma and recovery shared with others
Major life changes
 Even supposedly happy life changes (marriage, college, new job, birth/adoption of a
child) can bring increased challenge and stress
 Change is often challenging
 New roles and priorities new tasks can put a strain on coping resources
Chronic daily differences
 Too many tasks too little time little control
 Bullied, poverty, oppressive, political conditions
Body response to stress system
 General adaption syndrome (GAS)
 Alarm reaction
 Phase one: fight/flight – sympathetic nervous system responds reducing pain
increasing heart rate core of the adrenal glands produces norepinephrine and
epinephrine (adrenalin) identified by Walter Cannon (1871-1945)
 Resistance
 Phase 2: brain sends signals to the outer part of the adrenal glands to produce
cortisol and other stress hormones focus on adopting copint strategies and
resisting defeat by the stressor
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Exhaustion
 Phase three
Prolonged stress
 GAS works well to single exposures to stress
 Too much phase three lads to physical deterioration and premature aging
 Productions new neurons decline
 New circuits brain break down
 DNA telomeres (chromosome tips) shorten and cells lose the ability to divide and
then die and tissue stops regenerating leading to early aging and death
Male/female response
 Women tend and befriend: nurture themselves/others bond together
 Bonding hormone oxytocin
 Women behavioral/neurological signs are more empathetic under stress
 Men socially withdrawal and turn to alcohol
 Men are more likely to be aggressive
 Behavior and brain show less empathy and less turning to others under stress
Stress – illness relationship
 New field in psychology: psychoneuroimmunology the study of how interacting
psychological neural and endocrine process affect health
 Psychologists no longer use the term psychosomatic because it has come to mean an
imagined illness
 Psychophysiological illness a real illness caused in part by psychological factors such as
stress
 Psychological appraisal thoughts feelings
 Neurological factors – brain signals engaging the stress response system
 Immunology stress hormone exposure which suppresses the immune system
 Stressors  appraisal  thoughts  feelings  brain signals  hormonal action 
immune suppression  risk of illness
Stress AIDS cancer
 AIDS – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
 Cant acquire through stress
 Stress response suppresses immune response, exposure to stress obviously worsens
development of AIDS in those exposed to HIV
 Decrease in stress slows progress in AIDS
 Cancer – link to stress isn’t really clear
 May worsen body’s defenses against replication
Heat disease and stress
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 Coronary heart/artery disease the blood vessels that provide oxygen and nutrients to
the heart muscle itself becomes clogged narrowed and closed
 Biological – genetic predisposition to high blood pressure and cholesterol
 Behavioral: smoking inactivity high fat diet
 Psychological: chronic stress personality styles personality styles that worsen experience
of stress
Type A personality
 Type A personality impatient verbally aggressive always pushing themselves and others
 Type B more relaxed and go with the flow
 One study people who had heart attacks were only type A
Pessimism and heart disease
 Refers to the assumption that negative outcomes will happen and often facing them by
complaining and giving up
 Pessimistic men more likely heart disease within 10 years than optimists
Depression and heart disease
 2 problems may both be caused by stress
 Intervening variable excessive inflammation
Health consequences of stress
 Stress hormone cortisol helps bodies respond to brief stress
 Chronically high cortisol levels damage the body
Promote health
 Address stressors
 Soothe emotions
 Increase ones sense cortisol over stressors
 Exchange optimism for pessimism
 Social support
 Aerobic exercise
 Relax and meditate
 Participation communities of faith
 Alternative medicine
Cope stress
 Problem focusing stress – means reducing stressors such as by taking on a difficult
project
 Risk: magnifying emotional distress especially by tying to change something that’s
difficult to change (person’s traits)
 Emotion focused coping means reducing the emotional impact of stress by getting
support comfort and perspective from others
 Risk ignoring the problem
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 May follow style coping when perceive stressor something we can’t change
Stress perceived level cortisol
 Not level of shock level of control of shock with created stress
Social support
 Improved health immune functioning longevity
 Provides a calming effect that reduces blood pressure and stress hormones
 Laugh
 Confiding in others to help manage painful feelings
Aerobic exercise
 Refers to sustained activity that rises heart rate and oxygen consumption
 Triggers certain genes produce certain proteins which guard against more than 20
chronic diseases and conditions
 Decrease in depression and anxiety improves management of stress
 Correlated increase confidence vitality energy and good mood
 Perhaps depression reduces exercise
Lifestyle modification
 Slow down pace of one’s life accept imperfection renew faith
 Decrease heart attack rates
Relaxation and meditation
 Relaxation techniques reduce headaches increase blood pressure anxiety and insomnia
and improve immune functioning
Religious involvement in health
 Health impact may be indirect
 Health may improve because of lifestyle and emotion
Medicine
 Acupuncture hypnosis may be a placebo
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