A summary of the course Emotions: Scientific & Clinical Aspects. The summary consists of the lectures given, knowledge clips and brief summaries of every chapter of the book Understanding Emotions.
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Features of emotions
Reaction to a stimulus
Appraisal
Experience and expression
Limited duration
Motivation to display specific behaviors
Capacity to regulate emotions
Effect on the individual himself and others
Adaptive
Emotions help us to display optimal behavior in a certain situation
Conditions adaptive emotions
Accurate appraisal
Proper degree of importance attached to situation
Prioritizing goals corresponds with importance
Reactions make sense for the situation
High emotional intelligence
Lecture 1
2 main points “on the origin of species”
Evolution is the explanation for the diversity of life on earth
Natural selection is the driving force behind adaptive evolution
3 main characteristics of evolution
Superabundance
Variation
(natural) selection
o = differential reproduction of characteristics which provide better survival by
adaptation to a given environment
o The product of natural selection is the adaptation of populations of organisms to
their environment
Epigenetics = the turning ‘on or off’ of genes depending on the environment
Survival of the fittest = reproductive success
Two different strategies
Statistical strategy
o The male because sperm are expendable
Investment strategy
, o The female because eggs are so precious
Sexual selection
Intrasexual selection = individual of one sex evolve traits that enable them to compete with
other individuals of the same sex and win mating opportunities
Intersexual selection = individuals of one sex evolve traits that are preferred by member of
the opposite sex.
o Referred to as mate choice
Some characteristics may be both
Evolution of the mind
Crucial social motivations
To enhance survival changes of the genes in us social animals, strong social motivations
emerged:
o Attachment – for protection
Evolving into (romantic) bonds later
o Hierarchy – power motivation
Status hierarchies: including taking care of those lower in hierarchy/stopping
conflicts among group members by alpha’s
Competition
o Affiliation
Taking care of each other; cooperation
o In-group preference
Celebrate; antisocial towards outgroups
Sex differences in jealousy
Men over evolutionary history have risked investing in children who were not their own
Men should be more jealous in response to cues to a sexual infidelity
Women become more distressed over a partner’s emotional infidelity
Previous:
o No sex differences in frequency nor the magnitude of jealousy
However, prior studies had not differentiated the source of men and women’s jealousy
Methods to study evolutionary psychology and emotions
Zoology – our near relative, chimpanzees and bonobos
Archeology – human ancestry
Anthropology – contemporary societies in an earlier stage of development
Evolutionary psychology and emotions
Adaptive problems of having many context-specific brain programs
o May deliver conflicting outputs when simultaneously activated
Solution: equip the mind with superordinate programs that override and orchestrate lower
programs emotions
Emotions
Are modes of functioning
That coordinate physiological, cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and subjective responses in
patterns that
Increase the ability to meet the adaptive challenges of the situations that
Have recurred over evolutionary time
So, they are shaped by natural selection
,Emotions programs detect evolutionary reliable clues that certain situation exists when triggered,
they entrain a specific set of subprograms for solving problems that situation posed in ancestral
environment the whole system operate harmoniously
What do you need for this?
To meet an evolutionary recurrent situation or condition: the adaptive problem, you need:
o Cues that signal the presence of the situation
o Situation-detecting algorithms
o Algorithms that assign priorities
o An internal communication system
o Orchestrates response
Emotional research
Usually just proximal
o What is it and how does it work
o How does it develop in an individual
Equally important evolutionary questions
o How did the trait develop over time in the history of species
o What evolutionary factors shaped the trait
Evolutionary genetics perspective
o Our genes are in charge; use us to get reproduced by our characteristics, including
emotions
Influence of language
Development of ToM
Broadening repertoire of emotion expression
Extending focus of behavior from present to the future
Extending possibilities for cooperation
Classification of emotions
Valence is most often used for classification system
o Is the emotion pleasant or unpleasant
But
o There are not strict boundaries between emotions because
o The internal state is a result of specific kinds of situations
Of which there are a lot
Which overlap in their characteristics
o Results in overlapping constructs
o Perhaps even a multidimensional space with potentially an infinite number of
overlapping emotions
o Valence may be driving behavior, but more fundamental for adaptation
Functions
Positive emotions = motivate organism to take advantage of opportunities
Negative emotions = motivate organism to
o Avoid misfortune by escaping
o Attacking
o Preventing internal harm
o Repairing loss or damage
One emotion can have different functions
, One function can be served by different emotions
Alarm principle
Better safe than sorry
A low frequency-large risk of harm situation should be reacted upon at the cost of many false
alarms
o Often emotions are elicited in situations in which they are useless
o Negative interpretation bias very common
o Appraisal important
Emotions and communication
Two things are communicated by emotional expressions
o That the associated emotion program has been activated in the individual
o The identity of the evolutionary recurrent situation being faced
Sometimes beneficial and sometimes injurious
Hence some emotions have a more automatic display, yet a much larger set of emotions exist
with no automatic display
o These are also often the later developed emotions
Depression
Evolutionary perspective
o Low mood has advantages in certain situations
Functions may be
o Cry for help
o Disengaging investing in unfruitful endeavors
o Establishing proximity/attachment to someone
Evolutionary theories
o Attachment theory
Depression as attempt to reestablish attachment
o Social comparison theory
Submissiveness as self-protection facilitated by depressive mood
o Psychic pain hypothesis
Depression as mental signal to protect oneself
Some critical thoughts
o Why would powerlessness be restricted to social context
o In addition, remember that humans have a strong memory and thinking capacity,
which may extend depressive episodes in humans
o Suicidality?
May be functional in severely deprived people (high risk cry for help)
Implications
o If major depressive disorder (MDD) = dysfunctional form of low mood
Examine healthy low mood to understand better
Treat the dysfunctional part
Do not pathologize low mood
o If MDD is itself functional
In case of analytical rumination
Help in the task, what is needed to accomplish your goal
in case of fruitless endeavor
acknowledge the feeling and let go of the endeavor
in these cases: do not pathologize MDD
limitations of evolutionary psychology
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