1. Emotions (Chapter 11) Second Lecture Outline: Emotions and culture Gender

2. Two Factor Theory of Emotion  Attributions are cognitive events that contribute to emotion  E.g., Splash through puddle in car: Was it intentional? If so, anger is greater  Expectations are important as well: Overachieving results in positive emotion, bronze vs. silver medal winners Physiological arousalCognitive Interpretation EMOTION

3. Field Experiment  Go on a blind date  Before going, eat three chocolate bars  They are full of caffeine and sugar: Results in a highly alert, physically, and emotionally aroused state  You may also feel dizzy, ill  How will you interpret this state?  Is it attraction to the person you are with?  Do they make you sick and queasy?  Is it illness or anger?  You make cognitive attributions about physiological states such as these

4. Guilt and Shame  John goes home to see his parents for the break, but comes back to Wolfville on Friday to have fun with friends  Feels bad because parents were disappointed: Views behavior as bad  John does not goes out with his friends because he feels so bad about himself  His parents have made him feel ashamed of his behavior: Views self as bad  John resents parents for making him feel bad, for putting him in such a bind  You need a sense of self to feel guilt and shame as they are interpersonal emotions

5. What is the adaptive function of fear? How is it displayed?

6. Primary Emotions  Primary emotions are common to all cultures  Fear, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, disgust  Evidence  Hard-wired, related to survival  Universal facial expressions  Common to all languages  Common elicitors across culture, e.g., burning building threat elicits fear, pie in face is funny, bad smells such as ammonia elicits disgust

7. Secondary emotions are influenced by culture  Guilt and shame  Culture gives us language for emotions  There are norms in how emotionally expressive people are within a culture  Display rules: Non-verbal signals of emotion  E.g.: What does it mean to extend first and last fingers of hand and wave in the air?  Body language, using hands to talk, what emotions do they indicate?

8. Emotion and gender  Men react more to provocation or interruption, physiological evidence supports this  Men and women may differ in their attributions of emotions or what they think is important  Power interruption during dinner vs. Superbowl  Women can “read” emotional signals better  Same sex expressions easier to read  Familiar people easier to read than strangers  How strong are the signals  Less powerful person becomes better at reading cues to “fit in” with more powerful person

9. More on Gender  Traditional gender roles express less emotion  Families vary in the degree of emotional expression, both positive and negative  Situational dependence, e.g., anger expression towards inferior but not superior individuals  Culture directs gender role behavior as well

10. How do you assess emotional experience?  Self Report/ Subjective  Behavioral observations (face, actions)  Physiological measurement [arousal, hormones, polygraph]