Exploring Psych - Week 5 - Revision
Emotion and Affect
Historical View of Emotions
Emotion - A positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity.
Emotion Appraisal - associated with our experiences in life, associated with the cognitive component of emotions. How we construct information - related to our responses.
Emotion Regulation - reflects the idea that to be able to control our emotions - research shows that the older we get the more capable we are at controlling our emotions especially our negative emotions.
Affect is one of our most basic feelings if something is good or bad.
Affect brings meaning to information and motivates our behaviour.
Emotions are bad for choices, bad for people, change the ways that we make decisions, put ourselves in difficult situations, decades there a bad idea that emotions are making us make mistakes.
More recent research has shown
Emotions play an important role in making decisions and judgements but also we can not interpret information without emotion. Information without affect is ignored.
Emotions are not involved more in making mistakes - they are very important in our decision making.
Two pathways
The highroad
The low road
cerebral cortex where we interpret everything that goes on our logic.
amygdala - important processor of emotion, more fast in responding, before the logic catches up, no logic.
Information without affect will not be used in our decision making (Slovic et al 2002)
Dual Process theory - Process in two ways
Rational and Analytical - we have a judgment to make then we will think of advantages and disadvantages and then decide,
Intuitive/Automatic - a lot of emotions/emotions play an important role.
Economic theory
Assumes that we are rational beings and that we make decisions based on our logic. Ignored the importance of emotions.
Positive Affect
Shown to promote cognitive flexibility, innovation, problem solving, and creativity, including creating problem solving. Isen & Labroo (2003)
Students who received a small gift or watched 5 minutes of a comedy film, performed better on a problem-solving task than a control group. Isen et al (1987)
Risk Taking
People tend to think that positive affect would lead to increased risk taking - throwing caution to the wind.
When the risk is real and meaningful, positive affect leads to reduced risk-taking Isen & Geva (1987)
It does when the risk is small
positive affect - More to loose
Estrade et al (1997) explored the influence of positive affect on decision making in doctors.
Doctors in whom positive affect had been induced more likely to be creative and were quicker to begin thinking about the correct type of disease.
Barbra fredrickson - we see more options when we are happy.
When we are happy the amygdala plays an important role in this we are able to see a lot of options. There is a second, and a third one and we can take some time to decide.
When we are scared we see only one option in front of us and are unable to see the big picture
Emotion vs Reasoning
Dijksterhuis & van Older (2006)
Allowed participants to choose between two posters with 3 conditions and saw who liked their poster most afterward.
How satisfied we are with our decisions is a completely different thing from how logical our decisions are - reasoning does not lead to decisions we are satisfied with.
Respondents who viewed posters and completed unrelated word-finding task before choosing - most satisfied.
We are more satisfied with the emotional based decision making process, most satisfied when we look at the options, take your time, go for a walk, and then go and decide.
(the obvious choice) - just saying....
Wilson et al (1993)
Six weeks later respondents who focused on reason were less satisfied with their choice compared to the respondents who had based their choice on their feelings.
Concluded: it is good to wait before making decisions using that time to unconsciously think about the option leads to a better decision than using this time to logically reason.
Mood
Caruso & Shafir (2006)
Participants chose between watching a drama and comedy - independent variable (manipulated) is mood.
Those who focused on their
mood were more likely to choose a comedy than those who did not.
Mood and thinking about our mood is important. Thinking about our mood influences us more than our mood itself.
People who attend to their feelings are more likely to use them as a source if information in judgement. Gasper & Clore, (2000)
Caruso and Shafir also suggest that when peoples attention is not drawn to their mood, their choices may be suceptile to mood congurence.
Mood Congruence Example - when feeling sad they prefer a heavy drama, but when feeling happy they prefer a comedy.
We are protective of our positive mood.
"People who think about their positive mood will want to protect it by avoiding potentially threatening experiences."
People who focus on a negative mood will appreciate the opportunity to repair it by focusing on seeking out cheerful alternatives.
A century of Genocide
"If I look at the mass, I will never act." Slovic (2006)
One explanation is that the media do not report about these genocides in a very effective way - fail to report in a way that people can understand.
We can not interpret information if the information does not include some sort of affect. Presenting information without affect, defect in making sense of the information.
The psychological numbing of saving lives - people do not look at the numbers, if they look at the numbers no one will do anything, if we look at one case it is very likely that we will do something to save this person.
After a couple of lives the line flat lines we cannot interpret these many deaths or peoples lives.
People prefer interventions that maximise relative life-saving rather than absolute life-saving.
They prefer to save a larger proportion than saving more lives.
Slovic et al (2004)
Students more strongly supported an airport safety measure which would save 98% of 150 lives than one that would save 150 lives.
Fetherstonehaugh et al (1997)
Peoples willingness to send aid that would save 1500 lives in a Rwandan refugee camp decreased as the size of the camps at risk population increased.
Images
Images are crucial to convey affect, statistics fail to get people to act.
Schroder & Schroder-Hildebrand (2004)
Students struggling to get their heads around the holocaust collected 6 million paper clips as a centrepiece for a memorial.
Statistics or Individuals
Meet Phoenix
Small et al (2007)
People are more likely to give aid to individuals than to statistical victims.
Respondents could contribute up to 5 dollars of their earnings to save the children, there were 3 separate conditions
Killings of cattle in the UK due to foot and mouth disease only stopped after a newspaper printed the image of the cute calf Phoenix.
Essential reading/ Relevant Studies
Estrada et al (1997) - positive affect facilitates integration of information and decreases anchoring in reasoning among physicians.
Dijksterhuis & van Older (2006) -On the benefits of thinking unconsciously: Unconscious
thought can increase post-choice satisfaction
Caruso & Shafir (2006) - Some Ways in Which Positive Affect Facilitates Decision Making and Judgment.
Slovic (2007) - Psychic numbing and genocide
