Chapter 12 Emotions, Health, and Stress

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Chapter 12Emotions, Health, and Stress
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Emotion

• Emotion
• Though emotions comprise a significant and
  crucial part of our individual and social
  experience, emotion is an elusive concept,
  difficult to define and measure.
• Through scientific research psychologists have
  learned much about nature of emotions, but some
  interesting and important questions remain
  unanswered.

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The Crucial Importance of Emotion

• It is by no means true that we would make better
  decisions if we could keep our emotions in check,
  despite the pop culture lore that promotes this
  idea.
• Brain damaged people with impaired emotions are
  generally inferior decision-makers.
• Emotions are a powerful informer of our
  decisions, closely related to motivation, as
  almost any motivation has an emotion tied to it.

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Module 12.1

• The Nature of Emotions

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Measuring Emotions

• Like many other constructs in psychology,
  measuring emotion poses challenges to
  psychological scientists. Each method has its
  strengths and weaknesses.
• Self-reports are fast and easy but may have
  questionable accuracy.
• Behavioral observations especially of facial
  expressions are useful. Although facial emotions
  can be suppressed, micro-expressions can be very
  revealing.
• Physiological measures use autonomic nervous
  activity. These are harder to control or
  suppress, although their meaning is subject to
  interpretation.

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Excitement and Physiological Arousal

• The role of the autonomic nervous system
• The autonomic nervous system is the division that
  controls the functioning of the internal organs.
• The ANS has two subdivisions, the sympathetic and
  parasympathetic nervous systems.

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The Autonomic Nervous System

• The sympathetic nervous system
• The sympathetic nervous system is comprised of
  two chains of neuron clusters just to the left
  and right of the spinal cord.
• It increases the heart rate, breathing rate,
  production of sweat, and flow of adrenaline.
• It prepares the body for intense activity, fight
  or flight and other stress-related behaviors. It
  is the crisis management center.

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The Autonomic Nervous System

• The parasympathetic nervous system
• The parasympathetic nervous system consists of
  neurons with axons extending out from the medulla
  and the lower spinal cord.
• These axons connect to neuron clusters near the
  internal organs.
• The parasympathetic nervous system is the
  long-term survival center, promoting rest by
  decreasing heart rate, digestion, and other
  functions that keep an organism alive in the
  long-term.

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The Autonomic Nervous System

• The two divisions of the ANS
• Both systems are active, and the shifting between
  the two systems helps to keep the body in a
  balanced condition called homeostasis.
• Emergencies mainly activate the sympathetic
  nervous system, but also may involve some
  parasympathetic activity (i.e., being frightened
  causes an individual to lose bowel or bladder
  control).

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The Autonomic Nervous System

• The two divisions of the ANS
• We generally cannot directly control autonomic
  responses, but we can influence them by voluntary
  cognition and behavior, for example, athletes
  learn to control breathing and focus their
  concentration for improved aim.

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Concept Check

• If you ride on the back of your friends
  brand-new high-powered motorcycle, does your
  heart rate increase or decrease?

During the ride, your heart rate will
increase. What happens when the ride is
over? When you get off the motorcycle, it will
slow down.
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Emotion and Perceived Arousal

• Which comes first, the psychological experience
  of emotion or the physiological arousal?
• Common sense dictates that one feels sad and
  therefore one cries, one feels happy and so one
  laughs.

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Emotion and Perceived Arousal

• The James-Lange theory of emotions
• Two nineteenth century psychologists, working
  independently, came up with a different
  interpretation of how emotion and physiological
  reactions are related.
• The James-Lange theory reverses this process.
• The theory states that a persons interpretation
  of a stimulus evokes the autonomic changes
  directly.
• The psychological experience of emotion is the
  individuals perception of those physiological
  changes.

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Emotion and Perceived Arousal

• The James-Lange theory of emotions
• You decide that you are happy because you are
  smiling, sad because you are frowning and tears
  are forming in your eyes.
• According to the James-Lange theory, the
  reactions are not enough to produce the emotions,
  but you will not have the full experience of the
  emotions without them.

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Concept Check

• You arrive at your psychology class and realize
  that there is a test today and you completely
  forgot about it. You feel nervous and start to
  sweat. According to the James-Lange theory, which
  comes first, the feeling of fear or the sweating?

The sweating
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The Autonomic Nervous System

• Effects of decreased perceived arousal
• Some medical conditions cause people to feel
  little physiological arousal.
• In the condition called pure autonomic failure
  the ANS stops regulating the internal organs.
• People who suffer from pure autonomic failure
  recognize situations that call for strong
  emotions (fear, elation) but they report that
  their emotions are much less intense.
• This is what the James-Lange theory predicts.

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Emotion and Perceived Arousal

• Schachter and Singers theory of emotions
• Another theory proposes that the physiological
  state is not the same thing as the emotion.
• According to the Schachter and Singer theory of
  emotions, the intensity of the physiological
  reaction determines only the intensity of the
  emotion, not the type of emotion.

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Emotion and Perceived Arousal

• Schachter and Singers theory of emotions
• It is a persons cognitive appraisal of the
  situation that determines the emotion that we
  experience.
• Research studies based on the Schachter and
  Singer theory leave some unanswered questions
  about the role of physiological arousal in
  contributing to the intensity of the emotional
  states.

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• Figure 12.4 According to the James-Lange theory,
  physiological arousal determines the nature of
  the emotion. According to Schachter and Singers
  theory, physiological arousal determines the
  intensity of an emotion, but not which emotion is
  experienced.

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Concept Check

• According to the Schachter-Singer theory, which
  comes first, the realization that you forgot
  about the test, or the feeling of fear?

The realization (cognitive appraisal)
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The Range of Emotions

• Psychologists have yet to agree on a single list
  of basic emotions but they have agreed on a list
  of criteria for establishing what a basic emotion
  should be.

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The Range of Emotions

• A basic emotion should emerge early in life
  without requiring a great deal of experience.
• The basic emotions should be found across
  cultures.
• Each basic emotion should have a unique
  biological basis and distinct facial expression.

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The Range of Emotions

• Producing facial expressions
• The function of facial expressions in all
  primates is communication, especially
  communication of emotions.
• Facial expression of emotion is much more likely
  to occur in the presence of other people.
• Facial expressions of emotion are more likely to
  indicate a persons true internal state than
  simple statements and other indicators.

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The Range of Emotions

• Producing facial expression
• For example, a voluntary smile, such as the one
  you put on for a photographer, only utilizes the
  mouth muscles.
• A full, spontaneous smile, or Duchenne smile,
  also involves the eye muscles along with the
  mouth.
• Most people cannot voluntarily produce a Duchenne
  smile.

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The Range of Emotions

• Understanding facial expressions
• Researchers have found a large amount of evidence
  that there is indeed a set of basic emotions.
• Many facial expressions including smiling,
  frowning, laughing, and crying occur throughout
  the world and are even found in children who were
  born deaf and blind.

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The Range of Emotions

• Understanding facial expressions
• Some of our facial expressions develop in the
  absence of opportunities to observe and imitate
  others.
• There is evidence that the basic emotions consist
  of happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger and
  surprise.
• Interpretation of these emotions by facial
  expression is done easily and fairly accurately
  across cultures.

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The Range of Emotions

• Understanding facial expressions
• But people also rely on gestures, changes in
  expression, and social situation to make more
  accurate judgments of others emotions.
• People of different world cultures do not
  necessarily agree about which internal states are
  in fact emotions.
• Also, a state that is associated with a
  recognizable facial expression is not necessarily
  an emotion.

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Concept Check

• What six states are currently believed to
  comprise the six basic emotions?

Happiness Sadness Anger Fear Disgust Surprise
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Concept Check

• What is the evidence that these six may be the
  basic emotions?

Most people in all cultures recognize the facial
expressions associated with these states.
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Emotions and Moral Decisions

• If emotions were not informative in some way, we
  probably would not have evolved them.
• Emotions may influence our moral decisions.
• Research studies using the Trolley Dilemma and
  Footbridge Dilemma, problems that involve making
  decisions about letting a small number of people
  die to save a larger number of people, have
  provided evidence that emotions play a powerful
  role in deciding the most moral course of action.

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Emotion, Decision-Making, and Emotional
Intelligence

• It makes intuitive sense that good
  decision-making would require some great degree
  of emotional control, hence the familiar advice
  to remain calm and rational when contemplating
  big decisions.
• This in fact is not entirely true. Only extreme
  emotions interfere with decision-making.
• Some degree of emotionality appears to be
  necessary for good decision-making.

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Emotions and Decision-Making

• In fact, a number of case studies of patients
  with brain damage suggest that the ability to
  experience and express emotions plays a key role
  in important life and moral decisions.
• The case of Phineas Gage and more recently,
  Antonio Damasios case study of Elliot both
  provide evidence that feeling distinctly good or
  bad is crucial in making decisions of major
  importance in our lives so that the best outcome
  is achieved.

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Concept Check

• A patient experiences a closed head injury, with
  damage to the prefrontal cortex. What behavioral
  and emotional problems might result from this
  injury?

Problems with making decisions, expressing and
modulating emotions, tendency to impulsive
behavior, reduced ability to accurately interpret
the emotions of other people.
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Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability
  to perceive, imagine and understand emotions and
  to use that information in decision-making.
• The idea of emotional intelligence has gained a
  great deal of popularity over the past few
  decades, in psychology and related fields.

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Emotional Intelligence

• The evidence for the existence of a special kind
  of intelligence related to emotions is still not
  too strong though.
• Measuring this construct poses challenges in
  assessment that have yet to be well managed.
• For example, in constructing items for a test of
  emotional intelligence, too often the best answer
  to a question might be it depends.
• Emotional intelligence is an interesting idea,
  but researchers still have a long way to go.

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Emotions and Decision-Making

• The ability to imagine the feeling that we would
  have pursuing each option presented to us is a
  big part of good decision-making capability.
• Emotions are inseparable from the idea of good
  and evil.
• -- Antonio Damasio

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Emotions

• The debates described in this module may not
  strike you as terribly important, but they are
  part of larger issue of great importance to the
  science of psychology.
• Human behavior seems to be in large part
  influenced by emotions.

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Emotions

• Just as the first chemists had to struggle to
  identify the number and nature of basic elements
  in order to understand the way the universe
  works, so we need to keep striving to identify
  the basic emotions and the relationship of these
  to human experience and action.

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Module 12.2

• A Survey of Emotions

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Happiness

• It is challenging to measure happiness
  scientifically, because unlike the negative
  emotions, it doesnt really cause any obvious
  behavioral changes (like running away or
  attacking).
• Most researchers simply ask subjects how happy
  they think that they are.

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Happiness

• Martin Seligman and other psychologists have been
  developing a perspective called positive
  psychology.
• Positive psychology is the study of features that
  enrich life, such as hope, creativity, courage,
  spirituality and responsibility.
• These features vary cross-culturally.

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Happiness

• American researchers have focused on the
  perception of subjective well-being.
• Subjective well-being is the individuals
  assessment of the degree to which his or her life
  is pleasant, interesting and satisfying.

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Happiness

• When surveyed regarding what conditions would
  cause an increase in happiness, most people
  answered
• Money
• A good job
• More leisure time
• A boyfriend or girlfriend (or a new one)

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Happiness

• Other influences on happiness
• Some factors do correlate well with happiness
  including
• Inborn temperament or disposition.
• Marital status (being married seems relate to
  being happy).
• Striving towards goals and working for causes.
• Having a religious faith.
• Being healthy.
• Remember that a correlation does not necessarily
  indicate a causal relationship. There may be more
  than one explanation or direction for the
  relationships listed above.

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Happiness

• How to be a happy person
• Have happy parents.
• Think about the long term when you make
  decisions.
• Have strong connections with other people.
• Be involved in activities that are important to
  you.

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Happiness

• Wealth
• Researchers (and almost everyone else) are
  curious about the degree to which income level
  influences happiness.
• This is challenging because it is difficult to
  measure happiness, and there are cross-cultural
  influences and problems of subjective
  interpretation a number used for a rating by
  one person may signify a different level to
  another person.
• The general conclusion drawn from research so far
  is that wealth does not have a large effect on
  happiness.

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Sadness

• Sadness is almost always reported to be a
  reaction to loss.
• Crying is a typical reaction to severe sadness,
  but as with all other emotions cultures vary in
  their attitudes and norms about crying.
• Crying is usually accompanied by an increase in
  SNS activity and a feeling of relief or
  relaxation afterwards.

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Sadness

• The possible functions of crying
• However, research suggests that crying may not
  actually relieve tension and that those who cry
  are more likely to report feelings of depression
  than those who dont.
• Crying may function mainly to draw attention and
  sympathy.
• The shedding of tears occurs exclusively in
  humans.

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Sadness

• Depressive realism
• Despite the good press given to a cheerful
  outlook, it appears as if those who are sad or
  mildly depressed make better decisions than those
  who are happy and optimistic.
• They assess their performance, popularity and
  success more accurately than happy people.
• They appear to weigh the evidence more carefully
  and are more likely to be persuaded by a factual,
  rational argument than an emotional one.

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Fear and Anxiety

• Some researchers are investigating the
  relationship between emotions and brain activity.
• There is evidence linking the emotions of fear or
  anxiety to the amygdala.
• When the amygdala is damaged, a persons ability
  to experience these feelings may be impaired.

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• Figure 12.19 Certain structures in the pons and
  medulla control unlearned fear reactions, such as
  a startle response to a sudden unexpected loud
  sound. Another structure, the amygdala, sends
  information to the pons and medulla. Damage to
  the amygdala eliminates learned fears but does
  not affect the automatic startle response to a
  loud sound. This drawing is of a human brain,
  although the relevant experiments were conducted
  with rats.

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Fear and Anxiety

• Damage to the amygdala also diminishes the
  ability to recognize the signs of these feelings
  in other people.
• There is also impairment in the ability to
  recognize anger, disgust and surprise.
• The amygdala may be specialized to process
  information relative to several kinds of emotions

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Anxiety, Arousal and Lie Detection

• The sympathetic nervous system and lie detection
• Throughout history, humans have been determined
  to find a reliable test to determine whether a
  person is telling the truth or is lying.
• One of the most frequently used methods involves
  the use of a polygraph or lie detector.
• A polygraph measures SNS arousal such as blood
  pressure, heart rate, respiration and electrical
  conduction of the skin in reaction to a series of
  questions.

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• Figure 12.20 The polygraph, a method for
  detecting nervous arousal, is the basis for the
  so-called lie detector test. The polygraph
  operator (a) asks a series of non-threatening
  questions to establish base-line readings of the
  subjects autonomic responses, (b) then asks
  questions relevant to an investigation. The
  underlying assumption is that an increase in
  arousal indicates nervousness, which in turn
  indicates lying. Unfortunately, a large
  percentage of innocent people become nervous and
  therefore appear to be lying.

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Anxiety, Arousal and Lie Detection

• The sympathetic nervous system and lie detection
• A polygraph is a machine that records several
  indications of sympathetic nervous system
  arousal blood pressure, heart rate, respiration,
  and electrical conduction of the skin.
• Although the some people will confess simply
  because they believe that the polygraph will
  catch them if they do not tell the truth.
• Some people are quite capable of regulating
  reactions well enough to fool the machine.

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Anxiety, Arousal and Lie Detection

• The sympathetic nervous system and lie detection
• Although a typical polygraph test procedure does
  identify a large number of guilty people, it also
  misses a substantial minority and falsely
  identifies some innocent people (37 in one
  study) as guilty.
• The guilty-knowledge test is a variant of the
  standard test that produces more accurate results.

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Anxiety, Arousal and Lie Detection

• The sympathetic nervous system and lie detection
• The interrogator asks about information that
  would only be known to someone who had been
  involved in the crime. The suspect is expected to
  show heightened arousal in response to the
  correct details.
• Although the guilty knowledge test improves the
  accuracy of polygraph use, it is by no means
  flawless and can only be used when law
  enforcement has a great deal of information about
  the crime that would not be known to the general
  public.

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• Figure 12.21 Polygraph examiners correctly
  identified 76 of guilty suspects as lying.
  However, they also identified 37 of innocent
  suspects as lying. (Based on data of Kleinmuntz
  Szucko, 1984)

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Other Methods of Lie Detection

• It has been shown that when people lie, they
  experience increased blood flow to the face.
• A thermal camera can detect this blood flow,
  without making contact with the persons body.
• The method appears to work about as well as a
  polygraph (which unfortunately is not saying much
  to recommend it).

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Other Methods of Lie Detection

• Psychologist Paul Ekman has developed a fairly
  good method based on observation of facial
  expressions.
• His research suggests that people who are trying
  to keep a happy or straight face still make
  very subtle, quick facial expressions of negative
  emotion when trying to lie.
• He calls these movements microexpressions.
• With good training, this method can be more
  effectively used than polygraphs but it still may
  fail when one is dealing with confident or
  experienced liars.

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Concept Check

• List the various methods of lie detection.

Standard polygraph Guilty knowledge Thermal
camera Microexpressions
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Concept check

• List some of the objections to standard methods
  of lie detection.

Not perfectly reliable or valid People can learn
to fake truthfulness or fake good Guilty
knowledge requires police to have much inside
knowledge of crime
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Anger and Violence

• The struggle to understand violence is among the
  most important goals facing humanity in general,
  and psychology in particular.
• -- James W. Kalat

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Situations with Violence

• Frustration and aggression
• The frustration-aggression hypothesis is the idea
  long held by psychologists that a failure to
  obtain a desired or expected goal leads to
  aggressive behavior.
• This hypothesis has some limitations in
  explaining aggressive behavior.

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Situations with Violence

• Frustration and aggression
• The experience of anger and potential for
  aggression depends on an attribution of intention
  on the part of the person causing the
  frustration.
• The fact that frustration leads to anger does not
  necessitate that the anger will lead to
  aggression.
• Frustration appears to play a role only in
  emotional aggression, not in the more calm
  aggressive behaviors that people learn as
  strategies for getting what they want.

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Situations with Violence

• Frustration and aggression
• More recently, researchers have proposed that any
  unpleasant event provokes a fight or flight
  reaction. Whether aggression results from the
  event depends on a variety of factors.
• The likelihood of violence resulting from
  frustration is particularly high in a sexual
  context. One of the most common causes of murder
  is sexual jealousy.

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Situations with Violence

• After violence reconciliation
• Reconciliation after outbursts of anger and
  aggression are vital in species that live in
  social groups.
• After reconciliation, the individuals who fought
  are less likely to fight again.
• Conciliatory behaviors have been observed in
  wolves, monkeys, chimpanzees and humans.

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Characteristics of Violent People

• For a long time, psychologists assumed that
  violence was a result of the perpetrators low
  self-esteem.
• More recent research shows little or no
  relationship between violence and low self-esteem.

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Characteristics of Violent People

• In many professional contexts, psychologists are
  asked to predict who will be violent, and how
  violent they might be.
• So what factors are good predictors of violent
  behavior?

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Characteristics of Violent People

• One challenge in this effort is the fact that
  violent acts, even in a person with a history,
  are sporadic and situation-dependent.
• The best predictor of future violent behavior, in
  general, is past violent behavior.
• A person with a long history of violence, dating
  back to childhood, is more likely to re-offend
  than a person who has committed a single or
  isolated violent act.

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Characteristics of Violent People

• Some other factors that have been linked to
  violent tendencies are
• Having been physically abused as a child
• Having witnessed violence between ones parents
• Use of alcohol or drugs
• History of impulsive acts
• Growing up in a violent neighborhood

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Characteristics of Violent People

• Lack of remorse after hurting someone
• Weaker than average level of physiological
  response to arousal
• Smaller than average prefrontal cortex
• Decreased release of serotonin in the prefrontal
  cortex
• History of suicide attempts
• Preference for violent television programming

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Characteristics of Violent People

• Men are more violent in general than women.
• Young men (in their late teens and early
  twenties) are more likely to commit acts of
  violence.
• Correlational research suggests a link between a
  males tendency to violence and his mothers
  smoking during his prenatal development, but the
  nature of this relationship has yet to be
  determined (again, remember the importance of
  caution in interpreting correlational data).

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Concept Check

• When all the evidence is examined, the best
  predictor of future violent behavior is

Past violent behavior
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Concept Check

• Name some other factors that have been associated
  with tendencies
• towards violent behavior.

Childhood abuse and exposure to domestic
violence/violent neighborhood Drug and alcohol
use History of impulsive behavior History of
suicide attempts Various biological
factors Diagnosis of Antisocial Personality
Disorder
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Sexual Violence

• Violence is most likely to occur between people
  who know each other well.
• Married and dating couples usually know each
  other well.
• When violence is defined very broadly, women can
  be just as violent as men, if not more so,
  according to some studies.

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Sexual Violence

• But when violence is defined narrowly and only
  serious and injurious attacks are included, then
  men commit far more of this type of violence, and
  are far more likely to seriously injure or kill
  their partners.
• Men who commit serious acts of this nature are
  generally those who are prone to criminal and
  violent behavior towards other people as well.

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Sexual Violence

• Rape
• Rape is defined as sexual contact obtained
  through violence, coercion, or threats.
• In practice, rape is defined on a continuum that
  ranges from forcible rape to a refusal to respect
  ambiguous resistance.
• Verbal coaxing can sometimes result in a woman
  having unwanted sex.
• Men are encouraged to disregard womens refusals
  as part of a script for negotiating sexual
  relations.

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Sexual Violence

• Rape
• Preventing date rape is partly a matter of
  persuading men to respect a womans refusal and
  partly a matter of advising women to express
  their refusal emphatically.
• --James W. Kalat

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Sexual Violence

• Rape
• What kind of men commit rape?
• The best available evidence suggests that most
  perpetrators of sexual violence have a history of
  hostility and aggression towards women and men.
• Other factors (history of childhood abuse,
  expression of anger towards women in particular)
  have a weaker relationship with acts of sexual
  violence.

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Controlling Violence

• We like to believe that people are fundamentally
  good, and that violence and cruelty result from
  social problems that can be corrected poverty,
  injustice, ignorance, and low self-esteem.
• But social improvements only remove some of the
  problem. There have been and are violent
  individuals who have experienced none of these
  difficulties.

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Controlling Violence

• Harsh punishments are probably not the answer.
  Children do need guidance and supervision, and
  consequences that are quick, certain, and
  logical.
• People can be taught at any age to handle
  frustration more effectively and to learn
  non-violent ways to negotiate for the things that
  they want. Anger management training is sometimes
  used effectively for this purpose.
• There are a variety of interventions and
  techniques available for reducing the amount of
  violence in our society.

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Other Emotions

• Surprise is usually listed as a basic emotion by
  most psychologists but little research has been
  done related to it.
• Disgust is an emotional reaction that appears to
  derive from the reaction one would have if one
  discovered that contaminated matter was in ones
  mouth.
• Contempt is based upon a reaction to violation of
  community standards.
• Embarrassment, guilt, shame and pride are related
  self-conscious emotions based on our view of
  how people regard us and our actions.

84
Module 12.3

• Stress, Coping and Health

85
Health Psychology

• Health psychology examines how peoples behavior
  can improve health and prevent illness, and how
  human behavior influences the course of recovery
  from illness.

86
Health Psychology

• Stress
• Selyes Concept of Stress
• An enormous variety of experiences can cause
  stress.
• The physician Hans Selye defined stress as the
  nonspecific response of the body to any demand
  made upon it.
• Selyes definition emphasizes the role that
  changes in ones life play in causing stress, and
  so it does not fully consider the effects of more
  chronic problems such as poverty or
  discrimination.

87
Health Psychology

• Selyes concept of stress
• Selye proposed that the body responds to stress
  in three distinct stages
• Alarm a brief period of high arousal of the
  sympathetic nervous system, which readies the
  body for vigorous activity.
• Resistance if the stressor goes on for longer
  than a few minutes, the body enters a phase of
  prolonged but moderate arousal.
• Exhaustion intense and long-lasting stress
  causes a depletion of proteins in the immune
  system. The end result is increased vulnerability
  to illness, fatigue, and weakness.

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Concept Check

• According to Selyes definition of stress, is
  going away to college stressful?

Yes
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Concept Check

• According to Selyes definition of stress, would
  remaining in an
• unhappy marriage of over 30 years duration be
  stressful?

No
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

• A prolonged period of anxiety and depression
  following the experience of an extremely
  stressful event is known as posttraumatic stress
  disorder (PTSD).
• This disorder has been well-documented in war
  veterans and those who have survived violent
  crimes and serious accidents.
• Some people who endure these events do not suffer
  PTSD, so the causes of this disorder are still
  not fully understood.
• People with PTSD suffer from nightmares,
  emotional outbursts, guilt, and flashbacks that
  may cause debilitating panic.

91
Measuring Stress

• Life is inherently stressful. How much stress is
  detrimental to ones health?
• In order to answer this question, psychologists
  need to measure both stress and health.
• Both of these conditions are difficult to
  measure.
• Checklists that have been devised for this
  purpose have been found to have low reliability
  and validity.

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Measuring Stress

• A given event will have different meanings to
  different people, depending on the circumstances.
• A lost job is unlikely to be more than a minor
  annoyance to a 16-year-old fast-food worker who
  still lives at home.
• Because of these difficulties in measuring stress
  according to Selyes definition, psychologist
  Arnold Lazarus devised a different perspective on
  it.

93
Measuring Stress

• According to Lazarus, a stressful situation is
  one that a person regards as threatening and
  possibly exceeding his or her resources.
• Thus, divorce could be a major life stressor for
  an abandoned spouse with several children, but
  perhaps an easier (though probably not
  stress-free) transition for a childless couple in
  their 20s who are more or less in agreement
  about the decision to end the marriage.
• Lazarus view also suggests that people can learn
  to think differently and deal with events
  actively instead of feeling threatened by them.

94

• Figure 12.24 Lazarus stated that evaluation of
  some kind, conscious or unconscious, always
  precedes emotion. Thus, a given event can be
  highly stressful for one person yet only slightly
  stressful or not at all for someone else.

95
Measuring Stress

• To summarize, in Lazarus view the degree of
  stressfulness of any event depends upon
• Our interpretation of the event
• Our reaction to it
• The nature of the other events in our lives

96
Measuring Stress

• The most accurate way to measure stress would be
  through a careful and detailed interview to
  assess all the possible stressors and positive
  aspects in an individuals life.
• Stress research is difficult to do well, but
  researchers are able to identify the types of
  experiences that endanger health.

97
Concept Check

• 16-year-old Brenda has broken up with her
  boyfriend, lost her job as a cashier at Burger
  Tyrant, and been kicked off the varsity girls
  soccer team. Yet she scores in the mild stress
  range on the stress checklist that her guidance
  counselor administered to her yesterday. What are
  some possible interpretations of these facts?

98
Concept Check

• Although it is possible the Brenda is showing
  signs of an emotional problem or drug use (or
  both), it is also possible that her feelings
  towards her boyfriend had changed, that she hated
  her job at restaurant, and that she disliked
  playing soccer but was doing so to please her
  parents (for example).

99
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Psychologists have developed two major categories
  for classifying how people handle their stress.
• Monitoring the style in which people attend
  carefully to the stressful event and try to take
  effective action.
• Blunting the style adopted by those who try to
  avoid the stressful event or avoid thinking about
  it.

100
Coping Styles and Strategies

• People tend to prefer one style to the other, but
  the most effective strategy depends on the nature
  of the stressor.
• If you are experiencing stress due to an upcoming
  psychology test, a monitoring strategy of taking
  effective action is probably warranted. Form a
  study group and hit the books!
• If you are caught in a major traffic tie-up,
  blunting is probably a better tack, as there is
  really nothing you can do about your situation.
  Turn on the radio and chill out.

101
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Monitoring strategies
• The importance of predictability and control
• When we are engaged in an activity voluntarily,
  we usually know what to expect and how to change
  what we are doing or quit if necessary.
• The ability to predict how things will unfold
  makes the activity or event less stressful.

102
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Monitoring strategies
• Nursing home residents and hospital patients who
  told what to expect and given a chance to state
  preferences about their care report feeling
  better while under care and tend to live longer.
• Rehearsing or visualizing a process can be an
  effective way to prepare for a demanding or
  stressful event.

103
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Monitoring strategies
• Inoculation is another word for receiving a
  vaccine.
• Inoculation places a small amount of weakened or
  dead germs into a persons body.
• The amount of disease bearing material is not
  enough to make the person sick, but it does
  produce an immune reaction. In some cases, the
  protection lasts a lifetime.
• To inoculate yourself against stress is to expose
  yourself to small amounts or less serious
  versions of the event prior to encountering the
  actual stressor.

104
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Social support
• Just talking about an experience with someone you
  trust can be a great relief.
• Talking with any sympathetic and supportive
  person can be useful.
• It is particularly helpful to talk with others
  who are having or have had similar problems.
• Giving support can be even more stress-reducing
  than receiving it.
• Many well-known social organizations and
  self-help groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous
  and Compassionate Friends (for parents of
  children who have been murdered) provide these
  services for the public.

105
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Beliefs as coping strategies
• Sometimes it appears that a simple cognitive
  re-framing or a version of the personal fable
  may have a protective effect on stress.
• Seeming rationalizations and distortions such as
  looking at the bright side and playing up ones
  strengths while disregarding flaws and weaknesses
  can be useful in reducing the negative effects of
  stress.
• In one study, men with HIV who seemed to be in
  denial about the seriousness of their problem
  actually survived longer than those who
  acknowledged it.

106
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Blunting strategies
• Blunting strategies are most useful when the
  stressor cannot be avoided.
• Blunting strategies attempt to manage the
  reaction to the stressor rather than take action
  in response to it.
• Relaxation, exercise and distraction are common
  blunting strategies.

107
Coping Styles and Strategies

• Blunting strategies
• Relaxation techniques range from simply finding
  some quiet time to relax physically and mentally
  to various organized mediation practices.
• Although exercise arouses the sympathetic nervous
  system in the short-term, in the long-term seems
  to have an inoculating effect on those who engage
  in it regularly.
• Distraction is similar to hypnosis in that it can
  reduce concentration on the unpleasant stimulus
  by replacing it with a different focus of
  attention.

108
Are Coping Techniques Effective?

• These strategies work well for many people, but
  there is a trade-off.
• It takes energy to find ways to endure and cope
  with stress - energy that might have been
  available for other, more pleasurable or
  rewarding pursuits.

109
Are Coping Techniques Effective?

• These techniques do offer a substantial
  possibility for people who experience stress to
  find strength and positive aspects in negative
  life events, and for other people to be inspired
  and to learn from these experiences.

110
Stress and Psychosomatic Illness

• A psychosomatic illness is not an imagined or
  feigned illness.
• It is an illness that is influenced by someones
  experiences particularly stressful experiences
  or by his or her reactions those experiences.
• Something about the persons lifestyle or
  behavior has influenced the onset or progression
  of the illness.
• It is probably true that most illnesses are
  psychosomatic to some extent.
• Its all in your head!

111
Stress and Psychosomatic Illness

• It is probably not the case that emotions or
  stress lead directly to illness.
• Rather, negative emotion and great stress may
  influence an individual to engage in risky
  behavior or self-neglect.
• Curses and hexes may also work in this way,
  by influencing a persons beliefs and emotional
  state, leading to deterioration of health.

112
Stress and Psychosomatic Illness

• Heart disease
• In the 1970s a physician hypothesized a link
  between an impatient, success-driven personality
  and heart disease.
• Type A personality describes a highly
  competitive, impatient, hurried person who
  typically has an angry and hostile temperament.
• Type B personality designates those who are
  easygoing, less hurried and less hostile.

113
Stress and Psychosomatic Illness

• Heart disease
• There does seem to be a link between a hostile
  disposition and heart disease.
• But genetics, diet, exercise and other factors
  have a stronger influence than personality
  factors or emotional tendencies.
• Culture also dictates pace of life, diet, and
  other lifestyle factors that would relate to
  heart disease.

114
Stress and Psychosomatic Illness

• Cancer
• Behavior influences the onset and spread of
  cancer indirectly.
• Fear or anxiety can prevent people from taking
  preventative steps such as performing
  self-examinations.
• Emotional states and stress may lead to
  impairment of the immune system so that a greater
  risk of certain types of cancer will occur.
• The two states that are most likely to do so are
  depression and stress.

115
Stress and Psychosomatic Illness

• Cancer
• Still research suggests that emotional factors
  are far less important in contributing to cancer
  than exposure to toxins, genetic factors, and
  lifestyle factors.
• Psychological factors play a role in how people
  behave after they learn of their condition.
• The more support cancer patients receive, the
  more positive steps they take on their own
  behalves the better their quality of life and
  chance of recovery will be.

116
Healing The Psychological and The Somatic

• Psychological factors are just one aspect of
  health.
• Healthy diet, regular exercise, avoidance of
  drugs and alcohol, regular doctor examinations
  will all improve ones chances of a long and
  healthy life.
• Controlling negative emotions on reducing stress
  will likely decrease the chance of heart disease.

117
Healing The Psychological and The Somatic

• But we cannot overestimate the impact of
  behavioral and psychological factors, either.
• One should not feel guilty if one eventually
  develops heart disease or cancer anyway, because
  many of the physical causes of these diseases
  (genes, accidental exposure to toxins) are beyond
  ones control.