Emotion: contemporary theories

Since 1970s, theorists with an evolutionary perspective have stressed the notion of what?

emotions adaptation

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What did Ekman 1982 suggest the existence of?

proposed a limited number of fundamental universal "basic emotion" each with an evolutionary function

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How are more complex emotions explained by the theory of basic emotions?

as a mixture of these basic emotions

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What did Ekman suggest as the characteristics of these basic emotions?

1. are present in non-humans 2. are triggered rapidly and automatically, and appear spontaneously for a short duration 3. have specific trigger conditions, patterns of autonomic nervous system activity, patterns of neural activities, and expressive patter

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How did Ekman demonstrate the universality of emotional facial expressions?

Showed that western facial expressions were well recognized in a preliterate New-Guinea culture

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What does Ekman highlight as the evolutionary purpose of emotional facial expressions?

1. the pivot in human communication, 2. each expression has a distinct adaptive function, 3. fundamental in child development

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What are some of the issues with basic emotion theories?

1. no consensus about the precise number of basic emotions, 2. evidence of the distinctness of physiological patterns of basic emotions has been inconsistent

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What is an alternative approach to theorizing about emotion?

dimensional approach

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What was Wundt's dimensional theory proposed three basic dimensions to describe emotional feeling. What were they?

pleasure/displeasure, excitement/inhibition, tension/relaxation

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What is the name of Russel's more contemporary dimensional model of describing emotional feeling?

Russel's circumplex model of affect

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Russel's circumplex represents emotion as a subjective experience of which 2 continuous dimensions?

valence and arousal

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Another dimensional approach is to understand affective experience as comprised of what?

positive and negative affect

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What is there evidence that positive and negative affects are linked to?

different neurobiological networks

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In addition, what is it suggested that positive and negative affect correspond to?

extraversion and neuroticism respectively

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what is one criticism of dimensional theories of emotion?

1. their ability to differentiate between some emotions has been questioned 2. there is no consensus on the dimensions, different proposals of a third and even a fourth dimension have been raised.

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What are the two central premises of appraisal theories of emotion?

1. emotion is an information processing system, 2. an evaluative cognitive processing known as appraisal determines the elicitation of an emotion (specifically, when an event occurs you would evaluate it based on a set of standard criteria)

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What are the two features of the appraisals that occur in response to an event?

they are automatic and unconscious

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Who believes that the appraisal process results in identification of a "core relational theme", each distinct theme resulting in a distinct emotion?

Smith and Lazarus 1990

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What is the name of this theory?

Lazarus' theory of emotion

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What two global appraisal issues are identified in Lazarus' theory of emotion?

Primary appraisal (whether and how the encounter is relevant to the person's wellbeing), and secondary appraisal (the person's resources and coping options)

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What is the name of the theory that emotion is multidimensional and comprises five components and who suggested it?

Scherer's appraisal theory, Scherer 2001

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What are the five components of emotion according to Scherer's appraisal theory?

1) a stimulus appraising component enabling elicitation and differentiation of emotions 2) a physiological component 3) a motor expression component in terms of facial and vocal expression as well as posture and gestures 4) a motivational component includ

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What was the name of the model developed by Scherer?

Scherer's Component Process Model

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What is the ethos of the component process model?

cognitive appraisal is a process in which we continuously appraise and reappraise our environment

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What are the four stages that the component process model divides appraisal into?

1) relevance check 2) implications check 3) coping potential check 4) normative significance evaluation

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What does each of the four stages in the CPM contain?

specific appraisal dimensions called stimulus evaluation checks

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What is the primary issue with appraisal theories of emotion?

the claim that appraisal is a cause of emotion is incompatible with the claim that it is a part of emotion. In fact, whether appraisal and emotion are dissociable is questionable

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What is an issue in terms of researching appraisal theories of emotion?

that appraisal is a cause of emotion is difficult to test as it requires manipulation of appraisal independent of other variables such as the event

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What component of appraisal theories of emotion do some theorists reject?

the idea of an automatic and unconscious appraisal, which is difficult to measure empirically

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Which basis for emotion has become increasingly emphasized in recent times?

with an advancement in neuroscience, its the neurobiological basis of emotion

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What is the recently proposed constructivist approach to emotion, which has received considerable attention in recent times?

the experience of emotion is a psychological construction

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What is the new proposition by neuroscientists, opposing the view that the brain interprets inputs after receiving them?

the brain makes ongoing predictions about sensory inputs by constructing an internal model of the world top-down

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How is this process of predicting sensory inputs proposed to work?

inputs are constantly checked against the predictions. Once prediction errors are detected, predictions will be updated, consequently maintaining an ongoing "best guess".

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What theories imply that what we perceive is our internal construction?

predictive processing theories

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Who proposes the idea that emotion arises from internal predictive model that simulates expected bodily states (known as interoceptive predictions)?

Barret 2011, this regulates internal resources and guides actions to deal with impending situations.

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What is the name of Barret's model of emotion?

conceptual act model

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What is the ethos of the conceptual act model by Barret?

emotions are constructed from more basic psychological primitives not specific to emotion. Hence emotions are not natural kinds. Therefore, diversity and variability in emotional experience is expected.

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What are the 2 types of psychological primitives Barret suggests?

core affects and emotion concepts

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what are core affects?

neurobiological states that can be described as pleasant or unpleasant with varying degree of arousal, a neurophysiologic barometer of bodily states.

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what are emotion concepts?

collections of knowledge sculpted by prior experience that people use to categorize core affects

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patterns of brain activity have been found to only partially overlap between distinct emotions supporting what theory?

basic emotions

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but there is consistent commonality in functional network activities across emotions which supports?

constructionist theories

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what did Gundem et al 2022 find recently in a neuroimaging study?

1. no emotion-specific activation for any of the emotion categories 2.multiple events if a single emotion show highly variable activation profiles; within each emotion, between-subject similarities are limited 3. the similarity between neural patterns acr

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