Notetaker: Heather Lobenstein
Advanced Placement Psychology
Chapter 13: Emotion
(
http://www.ApPsychology.net )
• Emotion- a response of the whole organi sm
• Physiological arousal
• Expressive behaviors
• Conscious experience
Emotional Arousal
• Autonomic nervous system controls physiological arousal
Sympathetic division (arousing)
Parasympathetic division (calming)
Pupils dilate
EYES
Pupils contract
Decreases
SALVATION
Increases
Perspires
SKIN
Dries
Increases
RESPERATION
Decreases
Accelerates
HEART
Slows
Inhibits
DIGESTION
Activates
Secrete stress hormones ADRENAL GLANDS Decreases secretion of stress hormones
• Arousal and Performance- Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for
easy or well-learned tasks.
Emotion-Lie Detectors
• Polygraph- machine that is commonly used in attempt to detect lies; measures several of the physiological responses
accompanying emotion (i.e. perspiration, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing changes0
• Control Question
• Up to age 18, did you ever physically harm anyone?
• Relevant Question
• Did the deceased threaten to harm you in any way?
• RELEVANT > CONTROL ‰
‰‰
‰ LIE
• Is 70% accuracy good?
• Assume 5% of 1000 employees actually guilty…after testing all employees 285 will be wrongly accused
• What about 95% accuracy?
• Assume that 1 in 1000 employees actually guilty…after testing all employees 50 are wrongly declared guilty and
1 of 51 testing positive are guilty (2%)
Experiencing Emotion
• The amygdala is a neural key to fear learning
• Catharsis- emotional release; catharsis hypothesis- "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves
aggressive urges
• Feel-good, do-good phenomenon- people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood.
• Subjective Well-Being- self perceived happiness or satisfaction with life; used along with measures of objective
well-being (physical and economic indicators to evaluate people’s quality of life.
• Adaptation-Level Phenomenon- tendency to from judgements relative to a “neutral” level (i.e. brightness of lights,
volume of sound, level of income); defined by our prior experience
• Relative Deprivation- perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself
