Fear, Anxiety & Disgust Class 20

Important Dates and Times DIARY STUDY: Last day, Today; Assignment starts DIARY STUDY DUE: April 26 (next Thursday) FINAL: Tuesday, May 8; 11:45-2:45 (NOT May 9) Covers everything after mid-term (Emotions and Social Judgment to last lecture).

Emotions Diary Write-up: Due 04/26 1. Complete "Average Scores" table 2. Write in Average Scores 3. Chart daily scores a. Coloray Pencils or colored pens b. Follow color codes (e.g., happy = orange, etc.) c. Mark dot for a color/emotion, then draw lines, then repeat. 4. Write-up: a. Two pages, total * 2.5 FULL pages * 1 inch margins, 12 pt font b. Patterns? c. Health changes before/after mood/stress changes? d. Life events and moods? e. Surprises in mood, stress, or health patterns? f. Draw upon at least 3 class readings, no "Refs" section needed The situation was morally disgusting (as per Rozin & Fallon, 1987).

Are responses to stigma always negative? Compassion: Some chimps adopted the polio victims Fascination: Curious about people, who violate norms. a. “Freak shows” b. Tourists to East Village Admiration: a. Glamour of the rebel, bad boy/girl b. Respect for courage—Helen Keller Ambivalence: Emotions that go strongly in two directions at once—uncomfortable and powerful.

Stigmatized: Hyper-visible and invisible Hyper-visible: Staring at the handicapped (Langer, et al. 1976) Invisibility and being stigmatized? Invisibility: People try to not see the stigmatized I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. … it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. [People see] only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me. Ralph Ellison (1952) Invisible Man

Hearing and Not Hearing Danger Signals: December 7, 1941

Signal Detection: Where to err?   Danger Present Danger Not Present Sound Alarm Hit False Positive Don’t Alarm Negative X

Why Humans “Favor” False Alarms Humans faced signal detection dilemma for millennia Evolved in a highly dangerous world Evolutionary lessons “learned” by psyche are that: 1. Defenses must activate quickly 2. Must activate at hint of threat, not at certainty 3. Threat registered with minimal cues Le Doux's "Fear Loop": Direct link: auditory nuclei to amygdala. Bypasses thalamo-cortical path. Threat doesn’t require high-level analyses

Problem of Attention 1. Where to point the "radar dish", to best detect threat? 2. Timing: How do look at the right place AT THE RIGHT TIME to find threats? 3. How do we do anything else, if we're focusing only on threat?

Automatic vs. Controlled Info. Processing Gross characteristics   Fine characteristics Unconscious, voluntary Conscious, directed Can’t suppress/distract Can suppress/distract Parallel (several modes at once). Sequential (only one mode at a time). Does not require effort Effortful Can’t be observed by self Can be observed by self (introspection). Automatic Controlled

Gavin de Becker "Gift of Fear" Examples Unexpected Apprehension: Woman at drive-up ATM: Flash of fear due to suddenness, speed, closeness. Dark Humor: Package without return address "I'm going back to my office before the bomb goes off." Bomb went off--Unibomer. Joke allows for socially safe way to express fear.

Automatic Processing and Threat Detection Automatic, non-conscious mental activity gives us early warning system for detecting threat. Implication: You can know and not know something at the same time--know it unconsciously, but not consciously Arne Ohman studies: Show how this occurs Basic technique: Backward masking Arne Ohman

Backward Masking 1. Present picture of threatening stimulus very quickly (30 milliseconds)  2. Immediately after threat pix is shown, show a non-threatening picture. The second picture is a mask, blocks first picture from consciousness.  3. Reaction to first picture (e.g., snake) indicates unconscious processing Mask

Automatic Processing of Fearful Stimuli (Ohman & Soares, 1994) 1. Pre-select: Snake phobic, not spider phobic Spider phobic, not snake phobic Have no fear of spiders or snakes   2. Targets: photos of snakes, spiders, flowers, mushrooms 3. Masks: Cut-up/reassembled target photos 4. Show target photo for 30 milliseconds. 5. Show mask for 100 milliseconds 6. Later, show target without mask 7. Outcome measure: GSR—a measure of anxiety. 8. All subjects exposed to photos of snakes, spiders, flowers, mushrooms in masked and, later, un-masked condition.

Automatic Processing of Fearful Stimuli: Results of Masked Stimuli Only Masked Stims Take home Point? Subjects were seeing and not seeing at the same time.

Anxiety Primes Attention to Anxious Stimuli Subjects: Trait anxious vs. normal controls Auditory shadowing task * Attended ear – listens to story * Dis-attended ear -- threat words (kill, hate, disease) -- Neutral words (juice, table, leaf) Visual probes: Press “J” for names, “F” for foods Question: Is Reaction Time (RT) for visual probes affected by: 1. Being anxious vs. not anxious AND 2. Exposure to threat/neutral words?

Idealized Results of Shadowing Study Implication: Trait anxiety  heightened sensitivity to threat.

Disgust vs. Other Basic Emotions Appears cross culturally X Has characteristic facial expression Defined by culture   Strong cognitive component Based on source experience—Ingestion Based on a particular body area—mouth

YUM! and YUCK! Are Culturally Influenced

Classes of Food Rejection 1. Distaste—based on sensory factors; smell, appearance, taste   2. Danger—Harmful, but could taste, smell good. 3. Inappropriate—Not edible substance. Have minimal nutritional value, almost always inorganic. 4. Disgust— a. Based the thoughts and images it creates. b. Also presume they would taste bad. c. Have the capacity to contaminate d. Usually are animals or animal products—feces # 1

Oral Nature of Disgust Which is more disgusting: A. ___ Cockroach in your mouth B. ___ Cockroach in your stomach X Disgust based on idea of oral incorporation into the self   Mouth point of entry to digestive tract Mouth is emotionally highly-charged border between self/non-self Things in mouth more disgusting than things that get past mouth

“Inside” vs. “Outside” and Disgust Things become disgusting when they cross the self/non-self boundary: "Ego alien"--Allport Waste Saliva Chewed food "bolus" Exceptions: tears; loved ones' "products" Meaning of incorporation: You are what you eat.   Transmission of disgusting “essences”

A Tale of Two Tribes Tribe A hunts wild boar Tribe B hunts sea turtles Which tribe is more: Fierce Steady Noisy Introverted Tribe A Tribe B Tribe A Tribe B

Disgust and Omnivore's Dilemma Eats plants and animals   Advantage: Wider range of foods, flexibility in terms of opportunities Disadvantage: More chances of ingesting harmful things Role of Disgust? Helps quickly develop internal, automatic code for “good” vs. “bad” foods.

Classification of Disgusting Things Disgust derives largely from things associated with animals   Body waste Decayed animal matter Carnivorous animals Scavengers Animals that look like humans Pets Almost all animals are considered disgusting food sources Food prepared to disguise animal nature

Why Animal Aversion? Rot easily Produce feces   Produce feces Embody emotionally charged ideas Closer to humans; evokes cannibalism taboo Need to maintain boundary between selves and animals: mortality fears

Psychosocial Aspects of Disgust   Psychological contamination, trace elements Sympathetic magic: Fudge "reshaped" Disgust generalizes, Pavlovian conditioning study

Disgust and Human Development  Disgust not present in infancy   Freud: babies proud of waste Experiments: Kids < 2 years highly disgust tolerant Imitation dog poop 62% Whole dried fish 58% Grasshopper 31% Human hair 08% Task of preschool development--contamination sensitivity Kids < 8 reject, but on basis of taste not contamination Why 8+ to reject based on contamination? Ability for abstract thinking: digestion as process, understand particulate-->infection, understand time

What are these people thinking?

Disgust as the Basis for Morals: I Does ethical/moral sense arise from disgust? What words used to describe immoral or unethical behavior? Disgusting Nauseating Revolting Left bad taste in my mouth Turns my stomach What words used to describe immoral or unethical people?   Skunk Rat Louse Garbage Filth Pig

Disgust as Basis for Morals, II * Common link:   -- Disgust occurs at prospect of bringing something harmful into ones self. -- Disgust serves to expel things that are dangerous and that contaminate. -- Moral revulsion serves to keep self, and social network, “pure”, free of behaviors that corrupt or that contaminate.

Why is Disgust Entertaining?