Psych 202 1st Edition Exam 4 Study Guide Lectures 20 26 Ch 10 Book Notes o Primary emotions are evolutionarily adaptive and are universal across cultures They include anger fear sadness disgust happiness and possibly surprise and contempt o Secondary emotions are blends of the primary emotions Emotions may be described using two dimensions valence and activation Negative affect and positive affect are independent o The James Lange theory of emotion maintains that we perceive patterns of bodily responses and as a result of our perceptions experience emotion o The Cannon Bard theory of emotion maintains that the mind and body experience emotion independently Consistent with both theories studies have demonstrated that emotions are associated with changes in bodily states Research points to important roles of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex in the production and experience of emotion o According to the Schacter Singer two factor theory of emotion emotions involve a physiological component and a cognitive component or interpretation The interpretation determines the emotion that we feel Misattribution of arousal occurs when people misidentify the source of their arousal Excitation transfer occurs when residual arousal caused by one event is transferred to a new stimulus o We use various strategies to regulate or manage our emotional states Humor and distraction are effective strategies for regulating negative affect whereas rumination and thought suppression are not effective strategies for regulating negative affect o Facial expressions of emotion are adaptive because they communicate how we feel Across cultures there are some expressions of emotion that are universally recognized These include happiness sadness anger and pride o Display rules are learned through socialization and dictate how and when people express emotions Females express emotions more readily frequently easily and intensely than males possibly as a consequence of display rules o We use our emotions as a guide when making decisions Indeed emotions often serve as heuristic guides enabling quick decisions to be made Somatic marker theory maintains that we use out bodily reactions to emotional events to regulate our behaviors That is we interpret our body s responses and use that information to help make decisions o Emotions facilitate the maintenance and repair of social bonds Guilt serves several functions For ex it discourages people from engaging in actions that may harm their relationships and encourages people to engage in actions that will strengthen their relationships Embarrassment rectifies interpersonal awkwardness and restores social bonds after a social error or wrongdoing has been committed Ch 9 Book Notes o Many factors in the prenatal environment such as nutrition and hormones can affect development Exposure to teratogens e g drugs alcohol viruses can result in death deformity or mental disorders o Infants have many sensory abilities For ex they can discriminate smells tastes and sounds Infant physical development follows a consistent pattern across cultures but cultural practices can affect the timing of milestones such as walking Dynamic systems theory helps us to see how every new development occurs due to complex interactions between biology environment and personal agency o Brain development involves both maturation and experience The brain s plasticity allows changes in the development of connections and in the synaptic pruning of unused neural connections The timing of experiences necessary for brain development is particularly important in the early years o The emotional bond that develops between a child and a caregiver increases the child s chances of survival Attachment styles are generally categorized as secure or insecure Insecure attachment can be avoidant or ambivalent Secure attachments are related to better adjustment later in life including good emotion regulation skills and social relationships Experiments using habituation and the preferential looking technique have revealed infants considerable perceptual ability Vision and hearing develop rapidly as neural circuitry develops Infantile memory is limited by a lack of both language ability and autobiographical reference Source amnesia is common in children Confabulation common in young children may result from underdevelopment of the frontal lobes Jean Piaget proposed that through interaction with the environment children develop mental schemas and proceed through stages of cognitive development In the sensorimotor stage children experience the world through their senses and develop object permanence In the preoperational stage children s thinking is dominated by the appearance of objects rather than by logic In the concrete operational stage children learn the logic of concrete objects In the formal operational stage children become capable of abstract complex thinking Being able to infer another s mental state is known as the theory of mind Through socialization children move from egocentric thinking to being able to take another s perspective Infants can discriminate phonemes Language proceeds from sounds to words to telegraphic speech to sentences According to Noam Chomsky all human languages are governed by universal grammar an innate set of relations between linguistic elements According to Lev Vygotsky social interaction is the force that develops language For language to develop a child must be exposed to it during the sensitive period of the first few months and years of life The biological changes of puberty affect social and emotional development Those changes can also be influenced by social events The adolescent s brain is undergoing important reorganization which may lead to impulsive or risky behaviors governed by an overactive limbic system and immature frontal cortex Gender identity develops in children and shaped their behaviors i e gender roles Gender schemas develop as cognitive representations of appropriate gender characteristics in the culture each person belongs to Ethnic identity also develops through social forces A bicultural identity allows a teen of color to feel connected to his or her own culture as well as the dominant culture Social comparisons help shape children s identity development Based on feedback from peer groups and the larger community teens develop a sense of belonging Adults may view teens as belonging to homogeneous cliques but teens emphasize their own individuality Research