Emotion & Aggression Behaviour – Psychology

This Psychology quiz is about emotion and aggression behaviour.


What are the steps to the emotional process?

antecedent event, appraisal, emotional response, changes in physiology


Define emotional intelligence.

ability to recognize emotions, empathy, regulation of emotions


Define emotional response.

the physiological, behavioural/expressive, and subjective changes that occur when emotions are generated


Describe the nervous system’s involvement in emotional responses including the duties of each branch.

ANS responsible for changes during emotional response; sympathetic branch used for survival and protection; parasympathetic branch used for positive emotions


Explain the Facial Action Coding System (FACS).

widely used method for measuring all observable muscular movements that are possible in the human face


What is the most recognizable facial expression?

smile of happiness


What is the Duchenne smile?

expresses true enjoyment, involving both muscles that pull up lip corners diagonally and those that contract the band of muscles encircling the eye


What are subjective changes in emotion?

the changes in the quality of our conscious experience that occur during emotional responses


Describe the James-Lange theory of emotion.

perception of physiological changes that accompany emotions that produces the subjective emotional responses; without perception of body changes there is not emotional response
ex. people with pencil in lips


What are some limitations of the James-Lange theory of emotion?

People with spinal cord injuries have very little feedback about physiological changes from body yet their subjective experience of emotion is not less intense


Describe the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion.

incoming emotional sensory stimuli travel to the thalamus, where the signal gets divided into a descending pathway to control body arousal and an ascending cortical pathway to control emotional experience (subjective); parallel processes


Describe the two-factor theory of emotion.

subjective experience of emotion is determined by awareness of physiological arousal as well as cognitive process to assess the most plausible emotional state; 2 steps are the appraisal multiplied by whatever is going on the body at the time


Describe a polygraph.

monitors changes in ANS activity (heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, skin conductance/sweating); has a control question test and guilty knowledge test


What are some limitations of using a polygraph?

it detects general anxiety associated with being questioned, it is time consuming


What are the most reliable behavioural changes to detect when someone is lying?

rigid posture, reduction of hand and arm movements, long pauses in speech, lower rates of blinking, more likely to repeat words, etc.


Define culturally relative.

expressions vary across cultures, best understood in their cultural context


What did Ekman find?

literate and preliterate people show a relatively high agreement for 5 of the 6 basic emotions, making them universal


According to your text, the three main types of responses to emotional events are:

physiological changes, behavioural-expressive changes, and subjective changes


Describe Ekman’s neurocultural theory of emotion.

some aspects of emotion, such as facial expressions and physiological changes associated with emotion, are universal and others, such as emotional regulation, are culturally derived


Define display rules.

learned norms or rules, often taught very early, about when it is appropriate to express certain emotions and to whom one should show them


What are the main regions of the emotional brain?

amygdala (appraisal), prefrontal cortex (considering options), anterior cingulate cortex (recalling emotional experience), hypothalamus (reward), insula (perceiving sensations arising within body)


Define life satisfaction.

overall evaluation we make of our lives and an aspect of subjective well-being


Define motivation.

the urge to move toward one’s goals, to accomplish tasks


Define needs.

inherently biological states of deficiency that compel drives


Define drives.

perceived states of tension that occur when our bodies are deficient in some need; subjective; push


Define incentives.

any external object/event that motivates behaviour; pulls us into action


Describe the evolutionary model of motivation.

the purpose of any living organism is to perpetuate itself, “survival of the fittest”, major motives all involve basic survival and reproduction needs and drives: hunger, thirst, body-temperature, oxygen, sex


What is a limitation of the evolutionary model of motivation?

doesn’t tell us about the mechanism (how/what we use to achieve our needs)


Define instinct.

inherited behavioural tendency that has been preserved within a species because it helped ensure survival


Describe the drive reduction model of motivation.

when our physiological systems are out of balance/depleted we are driven to reduce this depleted state, maintain homeostasis around an optimal set point, modeled after thermostat


List some limitations of the drive reduction model of motivation.

doesn’t take into account the powerful effect of incentive, sex drives doesn’t make sense with this theory


Describe the optimal arousal model of motivation.

we function best at an “optimal level of arousal”, humans are motivated to be in situations that are neither too stimulating nor not stimulating enough, needs are motivated by the desire to be optimally aroused


Describe the hierarchical model of motivation.

looks at drives necessary for survival (regulatory) and those that aren’t (non-regulatory, wants), lower/basic levels must be satisfied before we can focus on achieving self-actualization, from lowest to highest: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualization


What is a limitation of the hierarchical model of motivation.

love and belonging are critical to needs therefore some people believe it should be on lower/basic level


What are the 4 biological components to hunger?

stomach, blood, brain, hormones and neurochemicals


What is the lateral hypothalamus’ role in hunger?

stimulates feeding, if you stimulate this area will seek food, if you lesion this area animals will eat just enough


What is the ventromedial hypothalamus’ role in hunger?

promotes feeling full/inhibits feeding, if you stimulate this area animals will stop feeding, if you lesion this area animals will eat to point of obesity


List the hormones/neurochemicals that stimulate feeding.

neuropeptide Y, orexin, ghrelin, melanin, endocannabinoids


List the hormones/neurochemicals that suppress/inhibit feeding.

insulin, leptin, peptide YY, cholecystokinin


Explain the bottomless soup bowl experiment.

portioning food in certain ways causes people to eat less; at slow rate soup in bowl would refill; normal soup bowl people guessed just slightly below the calories they actually consumed, self-refilling soup bowl people consumed almost double the amount of calories they guessed they did


Explain men and women’s views on body image.

women’s self image is usually quite far away from what they and others think are ideal; men’s self image and what they thought women liked were together but farther from what women actually preferred


Define emotion.

brief, acute changes in conscious experience and physiology that occur in response to a personally meaningful situation


Define mood.

affective states that operate in background of consciousness, tend to last longer than most emotions


Define affective traits.

stable predisposition toward certain types of emotional responses such as anger


Define and list basic emotions.

set of emotions common to all humans; anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise


Define self-conscious emotions.

types of emotion that require a sense of self and ability to reflect on actions; occur as function of meeting expectations (or not) and abiding (or not) by society’s rules; directly tied to other people being around


Explain the broaden-and-build model.

Fredrickson’s model for positive emotions, they widen our cognitive perspective and help us acquire useful life skills; negative emotions narrow our perspective (detail oriented), positive emotions help us see many possibilities (bigger picture, holistic tasks)


List and explain the 2 most prevalent eating disorders.

anorexia nervosa: people cannot maintain 85% of their ideal body weight for their height; bulimia nervosa: binge eating, perceived lack of control during eating


What are the risk factors of developing an eating disorder?

high reactivity to stress, genetics, personality, female


How much are genes responsible for an adult’s weight?

~70%


Define sexual behaviour.

actions that produce arousal and increase the likelihood of orgasm


What are the 4 phases of sexual arousal?

excitement, plateau (longer in women than in men), orgasm, resolution


Which hormone controls sex drive in men and women?

testosterone, produced by the adrenal glands


Explain the male sex hormones.

androgens: testosterone from Leydig cells of testes, have their actions in medial preoptic area of hypothalamus


Explain the female sex hormones.

progestogens and estrogens: progesterone and estradiol from female ovaries, have their actions on ventromedial area of hypothalamus


What are the affects of stress during pregnancy on sex hormones?

decreases testosterone and medial preoptic area


Describe the sexual dimorphic nucleus preoptic area in males and females.

males have more cells and the cells are bigger in this region


List and describe the 3 kinds of societies in terms of sexual attitudes towards sex before marriage.

restrictive (restrict sex before and outside of marriage), semi-restrictive (formal prohibitions on pre and extramarital sex that are not strictly enforced), permissive (few restrictions on sex)


Explain parental investment theory.

women’s role as parent is a higher contribution than men’s; single event can have lifelong impact on women


Define sexual orientation.

disposition to be attracted to either the opposite sex, same sex, or both sexes


Explain the Kinsey scale.

scale from 0-6, 0 being exclusively heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual, most people fall between 0 and 2


What is the need for affiliation?

need to belong, lack of belonging and rejection lead to physical and psychological problems


What is the need for achievement?

need to excel, achieve, and be competitive with others,


Define achievement motivation.

desire to do things well and overcome obstacles


What 3 things did Atkinson think the tendency to achieve success was a function of?

motivation to succeed, expectation of success, incentive value of success (level of difficulty makes it more rewarding)


_____ is a regulatory drive while _____ is a non-regulatory drive. (Sex drive; thirst, Thirst; hunger, Hunger; thirst, Thirst; curiosity, Thirst; curiosity)

thirst; curiosity


Which model of motivation is compared to how a thermostat works?

The drive reduction model


Sometimes hunger can be triggered by a stimulus in the environment associated with the occurrence of food. This psychological influence on hunger is known as the appetizer effect, and is learned through:

classical conditioning


Research testing the facial feedback hypothesis has found that when people hold a pen in their teeth, presumably activating the muscles involved in ___________, they later rate themselves as feeling __________ happy than people who have been asked to hold a pen with their lips.

smiling; more


People with spinal injuries who receive no sensory input from bodily areas below an injury tended to report emotions that were ____________ an appropriate comparison group of people. The results from this study provide clear support for the ________ theory of emotion.

as intense as; Cannon-Bard


Leptin is a hormone released from ______ that reduces general appetite.

fat cells


What is NOT evidence that the ventromedial area as important in female sexual behaviour?

the sexual behaviour of many primates is not strictly dependent upon levels of estrogen and progesterone


Lesions of the ______ abolish sexual behaviour in female laboratory rats.

ventromedial hypothalamic area


The male sex hormone testosterone:

enhances sex drive but not capability


Define personality.

the unique and relatively enduring set of behaviours, feelings, thoughts, and motives that characterize an individual; distinguishes us from others and is consistent across situations and over time


Define trait.

disposition to behave consistently in a particular way


Do people who are shy have a higher or lower threshold for changing social situations?

lower threshold


What re the 3 non-genetic sources of personality?

shared environment, unshared environment, error


Define temperament.

biologically based disposition to behave in certain ways, lays foundation for later traits


How does a mother’s stress during pregnancy change an infant’s permanent stress response?

hyper-react to stress, release more stress hormones, more withdrawn


What are the personality traits in the NEO – P inventory?

extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, psychotism


Which cultures tend to be individualistic? Which tend to be collectivistic?

Western/industrialized, Eastern


Which Freudian theory withstood the test of time?

3 layers of consciousness: preconscious, conscious, unconscious


Define preconscious (Freud).

just below surface of awareness, aren’t in conscious mind right now but can be recalled


Define conscious (Freud).

thoughts you are aware of


Define unconscious (Freud).

where most of our mind is, things we don’t have easy access to, has all drives, urges, and instincts outside of our awareness but still motivates most of our speech, thoughts, feelings, actions


Describe Freud’s theory of the 3 regions of the brain.

id (entirely unconscious, have at birth, pleasure), ego (where id expresses unconscious desires in ways that are adaptable), superego (last to develop, monitors and controls behaviour, driven by society and culture); id and ego are in constant conflict with each other


If someone is overly impulsive what would be the sizes of their id, ego, and superego?

small ego and superego therefore large influence of id


If someone is overly controlled what would be the sizes of their id, ego, and superego?

very large superego, small ego


Explain the repression defense mechanism.

underlies all other defense mechanisms, form of blocking (keeps unpleasant thoughts, feelings or impulses out of consciousness)


Explain the reaction formation defense mechanism.

defense mechanism that turns an unpleasant idea, feeling, or impulse into its opposite


Explain the projection defense mechanism.

defence mechanism in which people deny particular ideas, feelings, or impulses and project them onto others


Explain the sublimation defense mechanism.

defence mechanism in which socially unacceptable impulse is expressed in socially acceptable way


Explain Freud’s psychosexual stage theory.

stages of personality development, in different stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) a different region of the body is most erogenous


Define fixation.

inability to break out of particular mind-set in order to think about problem from fresh perspective


What are some limitations of Freudian theory?

research could not be replicated, based entirely upon case studies (recollections of adult patients), focuses on male development, ambiguous concepts (hard to define and measure)


Explain Alfred Adler’s personality theory.

striving for superiority: humans naturally strive to overcome their physical and psychological deficiencies, major drive behind all behaviour
compensation: people try to compensate for their feelings of weakness or inferiority as they grow


Explain Carl Jung’s personality theory.

unconscious has 2 distinct forms: personal (repressed thoughts, feelings, and motives) and collective (shared experiences of our ancestors that have been passed down from generation to generation; made up of archetypes: shadow, anima, animus)


Explain Karen Horney’s work with neurosis and neurotic personality.

neurosis stems from basic hostility and basic anxiety, people defend themselves by developing particular needs/trends, 3 neurotic trends: moving toward others, moving against others, moving away from others


Define the humanistic approach.

optimistic about human nature, humans are naturally interested in realizing their full potential


Explain Maslow’s contribution to the humanistic approach.

hierarchy of needs, set of 15 characteristics more common in self-actualizing individuals


Explain Carl Roger’s contribution to humanistic approach.

People naturally strive toward growth and fulfillment, need unconditional positive regard for that to happen


Define unconditional positive regard.

acceptance of another person regardless of his/her behaviour


Define conditions of worth (Roger).

beliefs that a person’s worth depends on displaying the “right” attitudes, behaviours, and values


What is a limitation of the humanistic approach?

doesn’t have scientific methodology


Explain Bandura’s personality social cognitive learning theory.

3 factors influence one another in shaping our personality: internal personal factors, environment, our behaviour; involves reciprocal determinism and self efficacy


Define reciprocal determinism.

process by which personal factors, behaviour, and environment all interact with one another to shape an individual’s personality


Define self-efficacy.

beliefs about ability to perform the behaviours needed to achieve desired outcomes


What is Bandura’s biggest contribution?

self-efficacy


Explain Walter Mischel’s SCLT of personality.

more theoretical, people are not consistent across all situations (if you’re just looking at snapshots in time you’re not getting the whole picture)


What is a limitation of Mischel’s SCLT of personality?

focuses too much on environment/situation (doesn’t fully appreciate inner traits or unconscious), does not address how personality develops over time


Explain Allport’s contribution to trait personality theories.

started with language, looked through English dictionary to find words used to describe people (initially found 18,000, narrowed down to 4,000), narrowed it down further to 10 traits but had little evidence


What is a limitation of Allport’s trait theory?

no scientific basis in choosing 10 traits


Explain Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors theory.

each of the 16 traits identified is on a continuum


Define source traits.

basic traits that underlie aspects of personality easily seen by others


Explain the Big Five Model of Personality.

includes 5 dimensions; openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism (acronym: OCEAN), is used in workplaces, etc. now


What is a limitation of the Big Five Model of Personality?

describes but does not explain personality


Explain biological theories for personality.

personality difference affected by combination of genes, neurochemistry, and characteristics of the nervous system, connection between cortical arousal and personality traits, 3 fundamental dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism


Describe the behavioural observation measurement of personality.

most direct and objective method, can be used on people/animals that cannot report own personalities, doesn’t depend on people’s views of themselves, disadvantage: not all personality traits can be observed by others


Describe the interviewing measurement of personality.

natural and comfortable, used in case studies, etc., subject to bias, hard to score responses because they are open ended


Describe the projective tests measurement of personality.

participant is presented with vague stimulus or situation and asked to interpret it or tell story about what they see, Rorschach inkblot test and thematic apperception test (asked to tell story), low inter-rater reliablity


Describe the personality questionnaires measurement of personality.

most common method, self-report instruments on which respondents indicate extent to which they agree or disagree with series of statements, uses Likert scale, questions based on rational/face valid (uses reason/theory to make questions) or empirical (data-driven) method


Describe the typical personality changes across the life span?

people become steadily more agreeable and conscientious from adolescence to late adulthood, people become more assertive/dominant and emotionally stable from adolescence to middle adulthood, people become more sociable and open to new experiences from adolescence to early adulthood


Describe the personality changes after changes in life circumstances.

self-concept changes to more collectivist when become parent, people who suffer from brain injuries often lose ability to control impulses, are socially inappropriate, have temper, and are more prone to anger, neuroticism increases and openness and conscientiousness decrease after onset of Alzheimer’s disease


Describe Substance Use Risk Profile Scale.

predictive of people’s use, questions are all about personality (none about drug use), identified 4 personality types: anxiety sensitive, hopeless-introverted, sensation seeking, impulsivity


What is an example of using the quantitative trait loci (QTL) approach for studying personality?

Martin is looking for genetic markers associated with friendliness


Susan has a low behavioural threshold for feeling shy. What does this mean?

It doesn’t take much to make Susan feel shy


According to Hans Eysenck, ________ refers to how active the brain is at a resting state, as well as how sensitive it is to stimulation.

cortical arousal


According to Freud, when confronted by potentially overwhelming urges, the ego may resort to what are called _________ in order to reject or distort reality, thus effectively reducing the anxiety that accompanies these urges.

defence mechanisms


__________ is the point at which one moves from not having a particular response, to having one.

behavioural threshold


Which personality measurement method is usually arranged on a Likert scale?

personality questionnaires


Evidence suggests that temperament and personality differences are observable before birth. Fetuses that have a relatively high heart rate at 36 weeks of pregnancy, have been shown to:

be more fussy at 6 months


Based on twin studies described in your text, the most influential non-genetic determinant of personality differences is/are:

unshared environment


If you wanted to learn about someone’s personality, one simple thing you could do would be to talk to him ot her for a while and ask a few questions. Your method of learning about this person’s personality is most similar to which type of personality assessment?

interview


Define social psychology.

study of the effects of real or imagined presence of others on people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions


Define social cognition.

way in which we think about our social world


Define attribution.

inferences made about the causes of other people’s behaviour


Define dispositional/internal attributions.

ascribe other people’s behaviour to something within them, ex. fail because they’re lazy


Define situational/external attributions.

something outside the person is the cause of his/her behaviour, ex. Fail because task was too hard


Define self-serving bias.

tendency to make situational attributions for our failures but dispositional attributions for our successes


Define fundamental attribution error.

tendency to explain others’ behaviour in dispositional (internal) rather than situational (external) terms


Define blaming the victim.

attribution that places blame on the victim of a crime, accident, or misfortune


Define schema.

ways of knowing that affect how we view our social world


Define stereotypes.

schemas of how people are likely to behave based simply on groups to which they belong


Which part of the brain is activated when you avoid using stereotypes?

prefrontal cortex


Define in-group/out-group bias.

tendency to show positive feelings toward people who belong to the same group as we do, and negative feelings toward those in other groups, groups don’t have to be meaningful for someone to exhibit the positive and negative feelings


Define out-group homogeneity.

tendency to see all members of an out-group as the same


What brain regions are activated by exclusion?

anterior cingulate and right ventral prefrontal area


Define prejudice.

biased, negative attitude based on individual’s group membership


Define discrimination.

negative behaviour towards another based upon group membership


Explain Jane Elliot’s prejudicial attitudes experiment.

told her students that blue eyed people are superior and gave them special privileges, within a few hours blue eyed children looked down on brown eyed, next day she reversed the roles and the same thing happened


Explain the IAT.

pairing races, gender, etc., with negative or positive words, developed by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, faster response times indicate that people more readily associate 2 concepts


Define attitudes.

individual’s favourable or unfavourable beliefs, feelings, or actions toward an object, idea, or person; have affective, cognitive, and behavioural components


What are the 2 major reasons for changes in attitude?

cognitive dissonance, persuasion


Define cognitive dissonance.

feeling of discomfort caused by information that is different from a person’s conception of himself/herself as a reasonable and sensible person


What are the 3 options to decrease discomfort created by cognitive dissonance?

change the behaviour to make it consistent with dissonant cognition, justify behaviour by changing cognitions to make it more consistent with our behaviour, add new cognitions that are consistent with behaviour, therefore support it


Explain the results of the study testing cognitive dissonance.

told students to lie, given money for lying, those given $20 rated task low (similar to control group results), those given $1 rated task high, irrational behaviour due to cognitive dissonance because reward was not adequate compensation for the lie (attitude was altered to fit behaviour)


Define persuasion.

act of attempting to change the opinions, beliefs, or choices of others by explanation or argument


What does a successful persuasion depend on?

source/communicator, method used to convey message, audience


“Ahmed’s bicycle was stolen yesterday,” Jason said, “and that’s why he’s so cranky today.” Jason has just said ___ to explain the cause of Ahmed’s behaviour.

situational/external attribution


Define central persuasion.

using systematic arguments


Define peripheral persuasion.

using superficial, attractive cues


Define group.

collection of 2 or more people who interact with each other and are interdependent, HAVE to be interdependent


Define social facilitation.

phenomenon in which the presence of others influences one’s performance; if task is easy presence of others tends to improve performance, opposite is true for difficult tasks


Define social loafing.

phenomenon in which the presence of others causes one to slack off if individual effort cannot be evaluated


Define social norms.

rules about acceptable behaviour imposed by the cultural context in which one lives


Define conformity.

tendency of people to adjust their behaviour to what others are doing or to adhere to the norms of their culture


Define informational social influence.

conformity to the behaviour of others because one views them as a source of knowledge about what one is supposed to do; would follow crowd in private or in public


Define normative social influence.

conformity to the behaviour of others in order to be accepted by them; public response is different from private response


What type of social influence was Solomon Asch examining in his line study?

normative social influence


Define groupthink.

situation in which the thinking of the group takes over, so much so that group members forgo logic or critical analysis in the service of reaching a decision


What are some limitations of groupthink?

difficult to test experimentally (would need ~50 test groups), most research comes from retrospective analysis


What are the conditions that must be met for groupthink?

close-knit and cohesive, insulated from outside influences, under the direction of a strong leader, under pressure to reach decision


Define obedience.

type of conformity in which a person yields to the will of another person (authority figure)


Describe Milgram’s experiment.

researching obedience, participant and confederate, told study was about mild punishment on memory, learner (confederate) received shocks from teacher each time got answer wrong, with each mistake shock intensity would increase, learner reacted with pain as shocks increased, if teacher (participant) asked if he/she should go on experimenter would say go on, 26 of the 40 went all the way to 450 volts


What are the 2 different motivations that underlie empathetic behaviour?

egoistic and empathic motivation


Explain egoistic motivation.

help someone to use own distress stemming from situation, not true altruism; selfish inwardly but selfless outwardly


Explain empathic motivation.

altruistic desire to reduce the distress of person in need


What did Singer’s study about whether people felt the pain of their loved ones find?

when experiencing pain themselves brain activity in the somatosensory cortex, insula, anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, cerebellum; when partner experiencing pain only parts triggered by emotional aspect of pain showed activation (ACC)


What is one of the strongest factors influencing how much we like people?

reciprocal liking; we like those who like us


What do people find attractive?

average and symmetrical faces


Explain the sexual strategies theory.

idea that men and women face different problems when they seek out mates, often approach relationships in very different ways


Explain Sternberg’s triangular theory of love.

idea that 3 components (intimacy, passion, commitment) in various combinations, can explain all the forms of human love; when all 3 exist in equal proportions consummate love exists


Explain the findings from looking at love as an attachment.

securely attached adults easily get close to others; anxious/ambivalent adults have less satisfying relationships, fear that partner doesn’t want intimacy; avoidant adults are uncomfortable being close to others


Explain Bartholomew’s adult attachment styles.

secure: positive image of self and others
preoccupied: negative self-image and positive view of others
dismissing: positive self-image and negative image of others
fearful: negative self-image and negative view of others


The principle that states that we are most likely to help others with whom we share the most genes is known as

kin selection


What were some ethical issues with Milgram’s study?

some people who went all the way experienced seizures while administering the shocks


What did Milgram’s follow up studies find was the most important factor in obedience?

authority figure


Define aggression.

violent behaviour that is intended to cause psychological or physical harm, or both, to another being


Define hostile aggression.

when aggression stems from emotion, usually feelings of anger


Define instrumental aggression.

means to achieve some goal


What are the brain areas involved in aggression?

hypothalamus, amygdala (emotional memory and processing), prefrontal cortex (inhibit aggression)


What are the 2 chemical messengers related to aggression?

serotonin (low levels = more likely to be aggressive), testosterone (high levels = more likely to be aggressive)


How does the position of someone to their goal affect the likelihood of their aggression?

the closer we are to our goal when we become frustrated, the more aggressive we are likely to be; Harris’ line cutting study


How did Bandura explain aggressive behaviour?

observing aggressive people and the consequences of their actions can make us more aggressive, Bobo doll experiment


Explain Bartholow and Anderson’s results of the aggressive video game experiment.

participants who played violent video game blasted loser with much louder and longer noise


Define prosocial behaviour.

action that is beneficial to others


Explain the bystander effect.

phenomenon in which the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help


Explain the diffusion of responsibility.

when there are many people around, individual’s responsibility to act seems decreased


Define altruism.

selfless attitudes and behaviour toward others


Define kin selection.

individuals’ tendency to help their own relatives as way of ensuring their genes get passed on


Define reciprocal altruism.

the act of helping others in the hope that they will help us in the future


Define social exchange theory.

idea that we help others when we understand that the benefits to ourselves are likely to outweigh the costs


Define empathy.

ability to share the feelings of others and understand their situations


Explain the empathy-altruism hypothesis.

idea that people help others selflessly only when they feel empathy for them


Define appraisal.

evaluation of situation with respect to how relevant it is to one’s own welfare; drive the process by which emotions are elicited; doesn’t have to be conscious


Explain the study that showed how we can manipulate appraisal.

Study showed how different soundtracks given during a documentary can affect appraisal; measured skin conductance; 4 conditions were trauma, denial, intellectualization, silent


Define emotional regulation.

cognitive and behavioural efforts people make to modify their emotions


Define reappraisal.

emotional regulation strategy in which one re-evaluates an antecedent event so that a different emotion results


Define expressive-suppression.

involves the deliberate attempt to inhibit the outward manifestation of an emotion; little white lies


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