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Summary Social Psychology theme 1 - Emotions
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This summary is about theme 1 of social psychology: emotions. You can read about the different theories about emotions that have been formed en more.
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Summary social psychology theme 1Thema 1 – How do you feel today?
Social Psychology [Kassin]
Chapter 3 (62-64)
Social Comparison Theory
Enter Leon Festinger’s (1954) -> the theory that people evaluate their own abilities and opinions by
comparing themselves to others. Social psychologists put this theory to the test.
1) When do people turn to others for comparative information?
2) Of all the people who inhabit the earth, whit whom do we choose to compare ourselves?
3) What is the effect of making these comparisons?
Facebook as a venue for social comparison
Facebook usage doesn’t necessarily mean that it causes depression. Research shows that the more
people passively scroll through other people’s pages- rather than directly interacting with others- the
worse they felt about themselves.
Two-Factor Theory of Emotions (Stanley Schachter (1959))
Two factors are necessary to feel a specific emotion. Physiological arousal (racing heart etc.) and
cognitive interpretation (explains the source of the arousal. People around us, their reactions help us
interpret our own arousal).
Cognition and physiological arousal at the same time.
Schachter & Singer (1962) - Experiment drug-informed, drug-uninformed and placebo.
Conclusion: When people are unclear about their own emotional states, they sometimes
interpret how they feel by watching others. For other people to influence your emotion, your
level of physiological arousal cannot be too intense, or else it will be experienced as
unpleasant regardless of the situation.
Chapter 4 (110-113)
The Silent Language of Nonverbal Behavior
Behavior that reveals a person’s feelings without words through facial expressions, body
language and vocal cues.
Six primary emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust.
People more than recognize the face of disgust; they experience it at a neutral level themselves by
watching others feel disgusted.
Chapter 9 (396-397)
Passionate Love
Is fueled by two ingredients: 1) a heightened state of physiological arousal and 2) the belief
that this arousal was triggered by the beloved person.
Excitation transfer (enthousiasme overdracht): the process whereby arousal caused by one stimulus is
added to arousal from a second stimulus and the combined arousal is attributed to having been caused
by the second stimulus.
- Ex.: you’ve had a bad day, someone breaks in in your car, you get more mad/blame because of
the 2nd stimulus.
- Difference between misattribution and excitation transfer: excitation transfer links reaction to
wrong stimulus and you feel the same emotion for the whole day. Misattribution is also linked
to the wrong stimulus but is misinterpreted on that moment, not the whole day.
- Explanation from the professor: I always explain it as follows: There is excitation transfer
when arousal from a previous situation is transferred to a new, unrelated, situation and in that
, way influences your response. For instance, after a work-out in the gym you will still feel
aroused (higher activation of your system, such as feeling hot) and if you are afterwards
confronted with a situation that makes you angry, you may respond much more intense than
you would in another circumstance in which you were not aroused by previous activities. In
the case of misattribution of arousal, two sources of arousal are present at the same time,
thereby influencing your attributions.
When emotions are heightened, we think a person is more attractive.
Or not? Maybe it’s just a relief to be with someone when we’re in distress. Gregory White and
his colleagues (1981) had to create arousal without distress. This study showed that arousal
even without distress- intensifies emotional reactions, positive or negative.
Could it be because of misattribution? The effect occurs even when people know the actual
source of their arousal (even without misattribution). The response is automatic.
Pamela Regan & Ellen Berscheid (1999): Intense sexual desire and excitement are a vital part of
passionate love.
Social Psychology [Hogg]
Chapter 3 (89-91)
Extensions of attribution theory
Attributing a likely cause to an experimentally induced emotion.
Immediate stimulus: adrenaline injected
Bodily response: arousal (increase in heartrate)
Appraisal of context: other person is irritating/funny
Subjective emotion: anger/euphoria
Attributions for our own behavior
Self-perception theory: Bem’s idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-
attributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behavior.
Task performance attributions
1) Locus - is the performance caused by the actor (internal) or by the situation (external)?
2) Stability – is the internal or external cause a stable or unstable one?
3) Controllability – to what extent is future task performance under the actor’s control?
Chapter 15 (626-629)
Relationships and attachment
Attachment styles: descriptions of the nature of people’s close relationships, thought to be established
in childhood.
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