Schacherter's TWO Factor Theory
- Covered this yesterday. The cognitive act of labeling an originally undifferentiated pattern of physiological arousal constitutes the core of emotion. The labeling depends on an attribution, which is the process of identifying the cause of some event. A given physiological state is not the same thing as an emotion. It has two factors: physical arousal and a cognitive label. You have to apply a label before you feel the emotion, so you have to interpret first. Label (anger, fear, happiness) applied to bodily arousal is influenced by past experiences.
Stimulus -> Arousal & Cognitive Label and these two things occur at the same time (so this labeling and the arousal processing occurs at the same time) -> Fear.
James-Lange: Stimulus leads to physiological arousal then emotion.
Cannon-Bard: stimulus leads to physiological arousal and EMOTION at the same time. This seems to violate the laws of physics. Thalamus handles the emotion. But it's actually the limbic system -- hippocampus and amygdala.
Two-Factor Theory:
Sandy is sialing in the middle of the lake. Sudden,y she realizes that a dangerous storm is apporaching. Cannon-Bard would say that the stimulus is the storm, and then simultaneously she experiences the arousal and the fear at the same time (perhaps these two are equivalent to each other)? The sub-cortical brain area receives the stimulus of the storm. The brain becomes aware of the fear and the physiologicla changes needed to respond at the same time. Shachter would say that she's cognitively labeling it and then finally comes to the realization of emotion that she has. This might be a byproduct of psychostructuralism.
Cannon-Bard: thalamus is the center of emotion.
Bodily changes
Interpretation is required before we experience an emotion. SS
You start to run, and then you become aware that you are afraid. JL
Awareness of an emotion and bodily changes occur simultaneously CB
Different emotions physically "feel" differently JL.
Opponent-Process Principle of Emotion - you have two supplementary mechanisms such that when one is off, the other is on, they switch each other in an attempt to maintain some type of balance. When we are talking about emotions, it means that your emotions are swinging from one extreme to another in an attempt to maintain homeostasis. Riding a roller coaster, using drugs, falling in love. You're on a roller coaster - you have exhilleration and fear, and what do you usually do? You scream, and then afterwards you laugh. This is what the opponent-process theory is describing: that swing in between. Don't interpret this as a second theory, but rather this is about how much you feel and how you can bounce between the two. If you've ever been in a situation where somebody is grieving, some are able to go from crying to laughing in joy, and they go in circles until they reach their eventual conclusion.
Zimbardo video on the self.
In this program, we are going to turn our attention to our selves, or to the psychological concept of self, the individual consciousness of his or her own identity ( but this is not true ) -- the inner mirror, our own private world that we so often hide from each other. "Know thyself." Centuries later, it was William James (1890) who set the stage for the resurgence of the interest of the self, the mind from within, there was (1) material, (2) spiritual and (3) social.
What is self?
Freud - the conscious self is nothing more than a weak, passive link into the triad of id, ego, and superego. The id is the primitive unconscious part of the mind. The superego restrains the id. It's the combination of the conscious and ideal self.
All of these theories are ridiculous and largely based on the socio-economic statuses of the time and the general way that people were feeling at the time, such as the humanistic view during a certain period of time, etc., there is no way that we can justify these sorts of theories. Instead, we need to directly interface with the brain.
Researchers will study the 'self' study the 'self-concept', the individual's awareness of a "continuity of identity" - an internal regulator of thought, feelings and behaviors, kind of like Minsky's society of mind. It compares performance, standards, expectations, scripts, goals, plans and incentives. It organizes our self into schemas and knowledge clusters. Our self-schema can have a powerful impact on our behavior. If our self-image is good, we try harder. If the self-image is bad, we try to work downward.
Some people translate promise and passion. Self-efficacy is the concern with people's beliefs. Albert Bandura. People's beliefs of their ability to exercise control, and those with high self-efficacy can take on increasingly more impressive situations. Some people feel that they cannot cope with certain situations. The issue is not what you have, but how you use what you have. You can have the same competencies and subskills and use them poorly, adequately or extremely well, and for this reason you can often predict people's accomplishments from their self-beliefs. Up until now, we have been focusing on the self-mirror, but what about the self that works outwards, the one that focuses on the fix of others? The awareness of the social self ... "how am I coming across? What impression am I creating? Do you see me the way that I'd like you to see me?"
Here at Stanfard University, Theatre Department, drama and self-presentation in American culture. Conveying impression. We use a concept called "status" - how we manipulate the "affect" of ourselves to one another. The content in a given circumstance can be the same, but the way in which I speak to you and use nonverbal cues will affect the relationship. Status transactions. There's (1) eye contact, and it's commonly known that eye contact is a useful device in asserting one's self. Another variable is whether or not the body is moving in a sustained way, or in a jerky movement -- moving your head up and down, moving jerky motions, it is harder to talk. The prototype for high status is somebody who is calm, breathing deeply, making eye contact, and is not having any jerky mannerisms. It's possible to lower the status of the person your with -- like by standing up and making an authorative stance. Status transactions are a way of establishing relative social status and power. They demonstrate the social aspects of the self-concept. To manage the impressions of others, we do strategic self-presentation. Other people react due to the context that you create with your behavior. This is self confirmation -- our beliefs and ideas create their own realities. Extroverts create an easy-going social climate, in which others can feel good.
Shy people tend to concentrate on all of the negative possibilities. About 40% of American adults think of themselves as shy. Shyness is really a form of social anxiety and it creates negative social evaluation. The silent prison of shyness. To have low self-esteem is to reject a significant part of one's self, to have high self-esteem is to encompass yourself. Another unfortunate variation of the project of the self is the self-handicapping, it happens when we try to protect our competence and worthiness ... we procrastinate, and then blame the lack of time. Self-handicapping can lead us to forget assignments and so on. We may try to escape into alcohol or drugs, or even develop narotic symptoms, which is why we can't perform at the snub. We can become our own worst enemies. There are other times when the main threat of the self is not from within, but from without -- the society itself. The prejudices of the dominant society can be dangerous. Prejudice is psychological genocide occuring across generations. Drug abuse is endemic in ghettos.
There is a side that can create new realities, this is the "creative self". Teresa Amabali, the psychology of creativity and the self. Teresa Amabile - Brandeis University. Creative individuals are taking new perspectives on problems, they are taking intellectual and perceptual risks, and if you're working for a tangible reward then you're not going to be creative. Childhood competition. In the context of a party. In a community center. We invited half of the girls who lived in the complex, and the other half we invited to come to another. 7-11. The activity both days was to make paper collage. And they watned them to make something silly. For each group, before they started, an award was announced. In one group, it was for three best artworks, and in the other group, the Saturday group, so the prizes were there for both groups, the only difference was what those prizes meant. Rating them on creativity, those in the competition were significantly less creative. So the non-competition group was significantly more creative. People will be most creative when they feel motivated by interest, enjoyment, emotion, the challenge of the work itself, and not external pressures. "Know thyself."