PSY 394 F Psychology and Physiology of Emotion Introduction Lecture # 1: September 15, 2004 Instructor: Chris Bassel

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Emotion and Social Sharing Research of Bernard Rimé, past president of International Society for Research in Emotion (ISRE) Emotion involves a social sharing process in which the subject communicates about emotional experience. Enhances exposure to social supports Engenders a better emotional-symbolic representation of the event and a more cohesive subjective / experiential world (repairs rupture in symbol system).

Social sharing is predicted by the intensity of the emotional event, and is inversely related to shame, guilt and appraisal of personal responsibility. Non-shared events involve greater search for meaning and efforts to understand what happened (Finkenauer & Rimé, 1998). This emotion sharing process is emotion-inducing (Veronique & Rimé, 2001), and listener later engages in social sharing with other persons the emotional narrative heard (secondary social sharing). A social means of communication of (personally) relevant issues.

Emotions: Temporal Spectrum

Emotional Intelligence In the 90s this concept made the front cover of Time magazine, and was featured on Oprah EI originated in the concept of ‘social intelligence’ described by Thorndike in In contemporary terms, advanced by Mayer and Salovey in two 1990 papers, and later taken up by Daniel Goleman in his 1995 best selling book.

Emotional Intelligence According to Salovey and Mayer (1993) Emotional Intelligence is “a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’ emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions: Encompasses five domains: Self awareness: observing yourself and recognizing a feeling as it happens. Managing emotions: handling feelings so that they are appropriate; realizing what is behind a feeling; finding ways to cope with fears, anger, sadness Motivating oneself: channeling emotions in the service of a goal; emotional self-control; delaying gratification and stifling impulses Empathy: Sensitivity to others’ feelings and taking their perspective Handling Relationships: managing emotions in others; social competence

How do we measure emotion ? Cornelius makes the point that the method chosen to measure emotion reflects the theoretical perspective of the investigator. Thus: Researchers who work within Darwinian / evolutionary perspective may measure facial expression through coding systems, or through surface EMG measurement. While researchers working within the cognitive tradition will be more inclined to measure self-reported cognitions that lead to the elicitation of an emotion episode.

Measurement of emotion Facial Action Coding System (FACS) Electrophysiological reactions Perceptual judgments (e.g. facial expression) Behaviour / Instrumental actions (e.g. retaliation against confederate). Verbal self-report

Problems with self-report Verbal reports may be deliberate attempts to deceive another person. Verbal reports of emotions may be distortions or partial truths for conscious or unconscious reasons. Reports of emotion depend on an individual’s facility with words / language. Retrospective and thus depend on memory and are subject to reconstruction and leading questioning. There may be no way to symbolize certain aspects of emotional experience (esp. qualitative)

How Do We Elicit Emotion in Order to Study it Experimentally Schacter & Singer (behaviour of confederate) Velten procedure Exposure to actual eliciting conditions (e.g. a study by Ax which exposed subject to threat of physical harm. Guided imagery (neuroimaging) Facial Contractions (Schiff et. Al., 1989) Covert means (Strack & Stepper)