Social Psychology Chapter 6

emotion

brief, specific, subjective responses to challenge or opportunities that are important to our goals
lasts between 1-5 seconds

moods

such as feeling irritable or blue
lasts for hours or even days

why do we have emotion?

- they help us interpret our surrounding circumstances
- prompt us to act

emotions are different from moods in that emotions are

shorter in duration than moods

which of the following statements about emotions is not correct?

emotions last for hours or even days

in contrast to recent scientific findings, philosophers and other thinkers have historically seen emotions as

irrational and destructive

Research by Ekman (1992) on the universality of facial expression showed that people from diverse cultures tend to agree in how they label the emotions of

anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

Which of the following approaches to understanding emotion argues that emotions mobilize adaptive responses to survival threats?

evolutionary approach

Which of the following approaches to understanding emotion argues that emotions are strongly influenced by values, roles, institutions, and socialization practices?

cultural approach

Scientific studies of emotional expression support which perspective(s) on emotions?

both the evolutionary and the cultural approaches

Research by Jessica Tracy and colleagues examined the expression of pride in athletes who were sighted versus blind. Which of the following statements best summarizes the results of this research?

Both sighted and blind athletes displayed nonverbal expressions of pride after winning, consistent with the idea that expressions of pride have an evolutionary basis

Darwin’s principle of serviceable habits suggests that facial expressions of emotion

derived from behaviors that proved useful and adaptive to our ancestors.

Why was it so important for Paul Ekman and his colleagues to conduct research on the universality of facial expressions of emotion with the Fore tribe, an isolated society in the hills of Papua New Guinea?

It helped rule out the alternative explanation that people learned facial expressions of emotion through exposure to Western culture.