PSYC 153 Final Exam Notes PDF

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Professor Christine Harris...

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PSYC 153 Psychology of Emotion Winter 2019 Zhang 1 Tickling Study #1 ● Is ticklish laughter the same as humorous laughter? ● Laughing has a warm-up effect ● IV: tickle → humor; humor → tickle; nature → tickle (control) ● DV: amount of laughter + smiling ● Results: no warm-up effect Study #2 ● Can make a light itch but can’t make themselves laugh ● IV: machine shouldn’t be able to tickle, human ● DV: amount of laughter, smiling, wiggling, squirming ● Results: people laughed just as much in response to what they thought was a machine tickling them as to what they thought was a human (ie. a machine can tickle) ● Conclusion: complex reflex or fixed action pattern (removed from emotion); shouldn’t matter if it’s a machine or human; people laughed more after the first tickle (people laugh whether they like it or don’t → can’t tell what they’re feeling internally)

Envy Difference b/w jealousy & envy ● Jealousy = threatened by a rival → lose an important relationship (protecting from rival) ● Envy = only one other person involved → that person has something that you want Definition of “envy” ● When a person lacks what another person has & either desires it/wishes that the other lacked it ● Social comparison (wanting what someone else has; eg. quality, achievement, possession) ● Dual appraisals (Self + Other) ○ Self = inferiority ○ Other = hostility ● Distinct from longing, greed, admiration & jealousy (but very related) ○ Admiration is positive; envy is negative ○ Envy can be a component of jealousy, but there are other things involved in jealousy Functions of envy ● When someone is better than you, envy motivates you to fix that ○ Success is relative ● Can level the field by (1) bringing them down and/or (2) bringing yourself up

PSYC 153 Psychology of Emotion Winter 2019 Zhang 2 Henniger & Harris ● Subjects: asked participants about a time when they envied somebody ● Results: ○ Negative Other-focused (most) ○ Positive Other-focused (least) ○ Self-focused (middle) Wenniger et al. ● Subjects: college students in Germany (independent) & Hong Kong (interdependent) rated the following items related to their SNS (eg. Facebook) activities ○ (1) self-enhancement behaviors on SNS ○ (2) gossiping ○ (3) discontinuous intention (discontinue social media) = choosing the situation ● Results: ○ Participants across both countries felt increased SNS envy → increase in all three ○ Positive correlation b/w envy & all three ● Culture: individualism-collectivism ○ Relationship b/w culture & behavior = highly individualistic people experienced more envy → more likely to post something good about themselves (self-enhancement) ○ Independent → emphasis/praise on self-accomplishments ○ Interdependent → more careful about showing something good about yourself Target of envy acts to mitigate the envy ● People who are envied often respond by helping the envier & trying to make them feel better Van de Ven, Zeelenburg & Pieters ● Control group = subject + partner ● Experimental group = subject + partner ● Task 1: identical performance (everyone got the same rewards ● Task 2: subject got bonus whereas the partner got nothing ● Number of requests for advice → participants still giving advice ● Results: people who are better off than others try to be more helpful compared to the control (fear of being envied → people acted more prosocially) Characteristics of envy-producing situations ● (1) self-relevance domain = more relevant to you → more intense envy ○ Salovey & Rodin ■ College students wrote a paragraph about their career interest, then took a (bogus) career aptitude test ■ Showed a graph w/ (false) feedback about their career aptitude compared to the confederate ■ Results: when the rival outperformed the subject on the domain that was self-relevant, the subject: ● Felt more envy ● Disparaged the other’s personality more ● Decreased desire for friendship ■ Have to attribute negative emotions to the other person ● (2) similarity ○ Similar people may be the most RELEVANT comparisons ○ Don’t know where to start w/ someone who is very different from you ○ Better chance to replace a person who is one step ahead of you ○ Schaubroeck & Lam ■ Subjects: bank tellers in Hong Kong up for promotion

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Zhang 3 Results: when the subject rated themselves as more similar to the person who got the promotion: ● Greater envy of the promotee ● Decreased liking of the promotee from pre-decision to post-decision

Disorders of Emotion Depression ● Polymorphic type of disorder → hard to diagnose ● Diagnoses: 5 or more, approximately every day for 2 weeks ● Symptoms: ○ Depressed mood most of the day ○ Diminished interest/pleasure in all/almost all activities most of the day ○ Weight loss/gain or decrease/increase in appetite ○ Slowing down of thought and a reduction of physical movement (observable by others) ○ Fatigue or less of energy (or hypersomnia) ○ Feelings of worthlessness or excessive/inappropriate guilt ○ Recurrent thought of death, a suicide attempt or spacific plan for committing suicide ■ Usually have a buoy (eg. depressed parents still have kids to cling onto) ● Epidemiology: ○ Lifetime risk: ~10% ○ Average onset: ~25 years old ○ Women >> men ■ Eg. women go through more hormone cycles than men (puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause) ■ Women go more often than men to the doctor/socially acceptable to talk about their feelings (social taboos play a role in the difference in diagnosis) ■ Men have higher rates of alcoholism ○ The probability recurrence increased w/ each episode (50% from episode 1 to 2) ○ In majority of of patients, depression follows an episodic course ○ Illness is unpredictable ● Causes (genes & environment): ○ Genetic: ■ Increased risk of depression in first degree relatives ■ Default mood → some people seem more susceptible (already lower) ■ Predisposition that might affect serotonin transporter, dopamine, NE ○ Environment: ■ Most depressive episodes are triggered by major life events ■ Chronic illness, financial difficulties, loss of employment, separation ■ Grief: shorter period than depression & more fluctuations ● Types of depression: ○ Typical: decreased appetite, weight loss, insomnia, agitation ○ Atypical: increased appetite, weight gain, sleeping too much, psychomotor retardation Hypotheses Reward insensitive hypothesis: not extreme sadness but lack of pleasure (reward system) ● Rottenberg et al. ○ Subjects: depressed versus non-depressed subjects ○ Conditions: watched sad, scary & funny movies → reported emotions ○ Results: ■ Both subjects responded similarly for sad & scary movies

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■ Only depressed subjects were much less amused by comedy Another experiment: ○ Conditions: w/ pictures (sad & happy) ○ Results: less reactivity for happy pictures AND sad ones Conclusion: ○ Results provide support for both positive attenuation (reduced positive) ○ Emotion context insensitivity (ECI; reduced positive & negative)

Cognitive aspects ● Pessimistic explanatory style: blaming failure on yourself ○ Non-depressed people associate not getting a job w/ other factors like chance ● Learned helplessness: hopelessness & helplessness lead to depression ○ First experiment: ■ Agency situation: pressed the lever to stop the shock → constantly pressed ■ No control: pressed the lever but didn’t stop the shock → didn’t do anything ○ Second experiment: ■ Put in another situation → jump into the other side to not be shocked ■ Dogs w/ agency were more likely to learn the new strategy Neurotransmitters ● Serotonin & dopamine dysregulation (pleasure & reward) ○ Dysfunction in serotonin reuptake? ○ Neurotransmitter quantity? ○ Inability of serotonin to reach the receptor sites? ● Structural differences: less gray matter in different areas (chicken or the egg scenario): ○ Hippocampus (memory) ○ Amygdala (emotion regulation) ○ Part of the frontal lobe (decision-making) Treatments ● Reduce drugs that can lower mood ● Institute sleep hygiene ● Implement appropriate lifestyle changes (eg. stop smoking, exercise regularly, healthy diet) ● Generic: psychosocial ● Formulation-based: psychological therapy, pharmacotherapy, electroconvulsive (shock) therapy ○ Psychotic and/or suicidal → shock therapy ● Antidepressants: ○ Increase availability of serotonin and dopamine ○ PROZAC: SSRI → more serotonin in the synapse ○ Downsides: ■ Slow response; response → remission → recovery; look for signal ■ Mild to moderate → pharmacotherapy? ■ Severe depression → need pharmacotherapy ● Cognitive therapy: talk therapy; to alter explanatory style (reassess way of thinking)

PSYC 153 Psychology of Emotion Winter 2019 Zhang 5 Emotion Regulation ● Emotion regulation: strategies used to elicit, maintain, or increase/decrease emotions ● Process model of emotion regulation ○ (Antecedent focus) situation selection → situation modification → attention (aspects) → cognitive change → emotion → (response focus) feeling, behavior, physio ■ Eg. not go to an event that someone you dislike will be attending ■ Doesn’t have to be avoidance though ■ Change your attention (not paying attention to that person) ■ Cognitive reappraisal (eg. think about why that person brags so much) ○ All are antecedent responses (before the emotion occurs); better b/c harder to control once the emotion occurs Gross studies ● Watch movies (disgust, sad, neutral) ● IV: ○ Reappraise (adopt a detached & unemotional attitude) ○ Suppress (someone watching you would not know what you were feeling at all) ● DV: ○ Examined facial expressions ○ Took self-reportings for disgust/sadness ○ Physiological changes (eg. heart rate) ● Results: ○ Facial expression: control > suppression + reappraisal groups ○ Self-reporting: suppression = control > reappraisal ○ Just decreasing outwards appearance did not decrease how much emotion people felt ○ Blood pressure: suppression > control > reappraisal ○ Suppression actually caused the greatest blood pressure increased ● Conclusion: ○ Reappraisal = decrease everything at the core ○ Suppression = still have emotion, but cost (eg. raised blood pressure); when you’re actually feeling something, trying to suppress it takes work

Results for positive emotions ● Suppression does seem to decrease how much happiness you experience ● Laughter is the best medicine Humor & stress study (Camm et al.) ● Stressor: watch the movie Alive  , then rate emotion ● IV: watch a second film (humor film, nature film, or not film) ● DV: change in self-reporting (anxiety & positive affect) ● Results (after seeing disturbing film): ○ Positive emotions: humor > nature = no film ■ (Positive affect will go up if experience positive stimulus afterward) ○ Anxiety: no film > humor = nature ● Conclusion: distractions can help get rid of negative emotions; go w/ humorous if you want to increase the positive Humor ● Anticipatory anxiety (eg. shock) ● Change in discomfort threshold (reduces pain); better than distraction ○ Inflate blood pressure cuff to the point of discomfort (baseline) ○ Exposed them to funny stimuli → subjects handled a lot more pressure before feeling discomfort

PSYC 153 Psychology of Emotion Winter 2019 Zhang 6 Changing happiness levels for mildly depressed individuals ● IV: for one week… ○ Control (early memories) ○ Gratitude visit (write letter & give to person) ○ 3 good things in life ○ Write about a time that you were at your best & review the story every day for a week ○ Using signature strengths in a new way (versus just identifying them) ● DV: change in positive affect (pleasant, engaged & meaningful life) ○ Measured it overtime (5 times: right after manipulation, one week, one month, 3 months & 6 months later) ● Results: ○ Gratitude visit increased positive affect for up to a month ○ 3 good things in life increased positive affect for up to 6 months ○ Using signature strengths in a new way increased positive affect for up to 6 months (not just knowing them; need to employ them) ○ Authentichappiness.org Social support ● Problem-solving  efforts: more common in men; constructive attempts ● Emotion-focused  coping: more common in women; regulate emotion ● Matching hypothesis: ○ What is it that you want from your support? Exercise ● May serve as a buffer against stress reactions ● Cortisol (the stress hormone) gets burned up when you exercise, but not usually during emotion/stress Spending money ● $5 v. $20; spend on self or other ● Dunn et al. ○ Results: people were happier when they spent money on other (regardless of the amount) ○ Found in other cultures (eg. in Africa w/ candies) ○ Close to others, know the gift made a difference, feel as if action is freely chosen Places where things can go awry ● Sometimes the cognitive appraisal is off ● Sometimes the cognitive appraisal is on, but behavior is off...