Psychology - Assignment 6 PDF

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Answers to questions from the book readings....

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Psychology PSY Assignment 06 CHAPTER 12 – EMOTIONS, STRESS, AND HEALTH Learning Objective #1 (Page 487) 1) What are some basic emotions, and what two dimensions help differentiate them? According to Carroll Izard, the 10 basic emotions are joy, interest-excitement, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt. The two dimensions that help differentiate them are arousal (low vs high) and valence (pleasant vs. unpleasant feeling). 2) What are the causes and consequences of anger? Anger can be a response to someone’s perceived misdeeds, especially when the person’s acts seems willful, unjustified, and avoidable. In addition, according to Berkowitz, “small hassles and blameless annoyances-foul odors, high temperatures, a traffic jam, aches and pains—also have the power to make us angry” (page 477). Learning Objective #2 (Page 500) 1) What events provoke stress responses, and how do we respond and adapt to stress? Stress responses are provoked by threatening or challenging events called stressors. Some of these stressors can be catastrophes, significant life changes, and daily hassles. The way we respond to stress, is that our sympathetic nervous system gets alerted by a number of brain pathways and arouses our body for the adaptive response called fight or flight. Fight or Flight response “increases heart rate and respiration, diverts blood from digestion to the skeletal muscles, dulls feelings of pain, and releases sugar and fat from the body’s stores.” (Page 491). According to Canadian scientist Hans Selye’s general adaptation syndrome occurs in 3 phases, alarm reaction, resistance, and exhaustion. Other ways we deal with stress are, withdraw, pull back, conserve energy, paralyzed by fear, turn to alcohol, become aggressive, withdraw socially, etc… 2) How does stress make us more vulnerable to disease? Stress can leave our body less able to fight off diseases, as our nervous and endocrine systems influence our immune system. For example, surgical wounds heal more slowly in stressed people. In addition, stressed people are more vulnerable to colds. During fight or flight reaction, our stress responses divert energy from our disease fighting immune system and send it to our muscles and brain, this makes us more vulnerable to illness. On the other hand, low stress may increase the effectiveness of vaccinations. Learning Objective #3 (Page 514) 1) In what two ways do people try to alleviate stress? People try to alleviate stress by problem-focused coping, which is attempting to alleviate stress directly— by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor. Another way people try to alleviate stress is by emotion-focused coping, which is attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction. 2) How does social support promote good health? Social support promotes good health by calming us and reducing blood pressure and stress hormones. In addition, social support fosters stronger immune functioning. Finally, close relationships give us an opportunity for “open heart therapy”, a chance to confide painful feelings.

3) In what ways might relaxation and meditation influence stress and health? Relaxation and meditation can influence our stress and health by strengthening connections among regions in our brain. In addition, it activates brain regions associated with more reflective awareness. Finally, it calms brain activation in emotional situations. CHAPTER 13 – SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Learning Objective #1 (Page 524) 1) What do social psychologists study? How do we tend to explain others’ behavior and our own? Social psychologists study how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. The attribution theory is the theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either situation or the person’s disposition. 2) How do attitudes and actions interact? Attitudes affect actions by peripheral route persuasion and central route persuasion. Peripheral route persuasion occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness. Central route persuasion occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. On the other hand, actions affect attitudes by the foot-in the-door phenomenon, role-playing, and relief from tension. Foot-in-the-door phenomenon the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. Role playing makes us develop attitudes that match the roles we play. Finally, cognitive dissonance theory is the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. Learning Objective #2 (Page 537) 1) What did Milgram’s obedience experiments teach us about the power of social influence? Milgrams’s obedience experiments teach us that strong social influences can make people conform to falsehoods or capitulate to cruelty. “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process” (Page 531). 2) What are group polarization and groupthink, and how much power do we have as individuals? Group polarization is the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group. Groupthink is the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. The power of individuals is enormous just as the powers of social influences. “Social forces matter. But individuals matter, too.” (Page 536) Learning Objective #3 (Page 550) 1) What is prejudice? What are its social and emotional roots? Prejudice is an unjustifiable attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action. A social root of prejudice is social inequality. In addition,  ingroup - people with whom we share a common identity.  outgroup - those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup.  Ingroup - bias the tendency to favor our own group. are also social roots of prejudice.

Emotional Roots of prejudice, the scapegoat theory is the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame. 2) How does psychology’s definition of aggression differ from everyday usage? What biological factors make us more prone to hurt one another? In psychology, aggression is any unwanted behavior intended to harm someone, whether done out of hostility or as calculated mean to an end. On the other hand, aggression in our every day usage means wanted aggression. Some biological factors that make us more prone to hurt one another are genetic influences, neural influences, and biochemical influences. BONUS: How might our environment and upbringing effect the development of prejudices and stereotypes?...