1. Tuesday, November 28 Today’s topic: Expressed Emotions and Stress
What is catharsis?
When I am stressed out, I . . .
What are the causes of your stress?
What are some physical things that happen to people when they are stressed?
Today’s topic: Expressed Emotions and Stress
Upcoming Dates:
Tonight’s HW
Read pages
Test: Thursday, 11/30
STUDY – remember the spacing effect?

2. Expressed Emotion
Expressed behaviors (nonverbal cues) can reveal emotions.
Vary with culture?
Can expressions influence our experienced emotions?

4. Facial-Feedback Hypothesis
Behavior Feedback Hypothesis

5. Nonverbal Communication
Most people can detect nonverbal emotional cues, especially those that indicate a threat.
Recognize many emotions in the eyes
NEED to be aware that some nonverbal cues can be multiple things (ex: crossed arms)
Experiences can sensitize us to recognizing certain emotions…
Abused children will recognize an angry face quicker AND assume more faces portray anger.

6. Gender, Emotion, and Nonverbal Behavior
Women…
Increased emotional literacy
Better at reading nonverbal cues
Greater emotional responsiveness in + or - situations
More empathy (self-reported)
More likely to express emotion physically

7. Culture and Emotional Expression
Gesture meaning varies with culture
“Thumbs up” can be offensive
The raised middle finger can hold no or different meaning
Facial expressions carry basically the same meanings across cultures

8. Culture and Emotional Expression
Evolutionary  universal language for ancestors
Adaptive to enhance survival
Wrinkled nose in disgust  avoids odors
Blind people convey the same expressions even when never having been observed.
Universal infant expressions
HOWEVER… the presentation and intensity of emotions will change across cultures.

9. The Effects of Facial Expressions
Facial feedback hypothesis
Making certain facial expressions can make you feel the conveyed emotion
Behavior feedback hypothesis
Moving your body as if you were experiencing an emotion can cause you to feel the emotion to some degree

10. Emotion Biological Psychological Socio-cultural Physiological arousal
Evolutionary adaptiveness
Response pathways in the brain
Spillover effect
Cognitive labeling
Gender differences
Expressiveness
Presence of others
Cultural expectations

11. Experienced Emotion “An emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.”
- Mark Twain

12. Expressed Emotion What functions do they serve?
What influences our experience of each?
Research any important information for your emotion.

13. Emotional Ups and Downs
Positive emotions – peak mid-day
Negative emotions – after waking, before sleeping
Moods triggered by everyday events (good/bad) tend not the last beyond the day.
Tend to rebound from bad days with better than average days
Significant bad events can cause prolonged sadness, but we adapt and can return to average levels of happiness.

14. Anger
Usually a response to an act by another person OR “blameless annoyances” (traffic, weather, etc)
Can lead to aggression, prejudice, and illness.
Western cultures encourage catharsis – emotional release
Venting (aggressive, verbal) towards the source
Can actually lead to MORE anger

15. Fear Can be contagious and fatal Mobilizes fight/flight
Evolutionary – fear certain things that enhance survival
Learned
Conditioning (Little Albert)
Observed (monkey experiment, Sandy Hook shooting)

16. Fear Possibly biologically prepared to learn certain fears Amygdala
Limbic system – emotions
Associates fear with certain situations
input from areas that process emotion and sends output info to areas that produce bodily symptoms
Phobia – an intense fear of objects or situations that disrupts the ability to cope
Social, agoraphobia, specific

17. Happiness Happier people… Determined by studying subjective well-being
Perceive the world as safer, make decisions easier, are more cooperative, and live healthier and more energized and satisfied lives
Experience the feel-good-do-good phenomenon – tendency to be more helpful when happy
Determined by studying subjective well-being
Self perceived happiness or satisfaction with life
Used along side of objective well-being
Money/wealth ≠ happiness

18. Evaluating Happiness Adaptation-level phenomenon Relative deprivation
The tendency to form judgments relative to a neutral level defined by previous experience
The neutral point fluctuates during life.
Relative deprivation
The perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself.

19. How to be Happier! Realize wealth ≠ happiness
Set goals, manage your time wisely
Act happy
Exercise
Sleep
Seek work/leisure that engages your skills
Form and value close relationships
Do good  feel good
Be grateful
Nurture your spiritual self

20. Spot the Fake Smile! Spot the fake smile – BBC
20 faces with 2-3 second videos
Can only watch video once
Genuine or fake?
Gender differences?
Boys leave room first
Compare results

21. SYSK – Does smiling make you happy?
What did Duchenne discover?
What is distinctive in detecting a genuine smile?
Why did Zajonc study the effects of smiling by using vowel sounds? (Hint: why couldn’t he invoke smiles with funny jokes or simply asking participates to smile?)
What kind of effects did Zajonc find in the participants that produced the “eee” sound?
What suggestion did researchers propose for why the group that smiled AND looked in the mirror felt the more positive?
What is Zajonc’s physiological hypothesis for why physiological expressions can induce emotions?
What effect does Botox have on the experience of emotions? Why?
Does a fake smile invoke positive emotions?