Jaclyn Spielsinger Psych Chapter 6 Consciousness and Awareness You are aware of thoughts sensations motivations and emotions that are occurring To understand that you exist as a separate entity from the rest of the world Fundamental building block of human society Unique features Essential for survival Associate with those of same interests Ability to realize reflection is reflection and not another a human or animal Explain how basic emotions evolved as survival mechanisms for the individual Conscious Self awareness Self recognition Emotions Help us survive Needed emotions in order to react quickly to dangerous stimuli If you want to create a system that works hard to survive make it consciousness and emotional Two highly developed systems Name the 6 basic universal emotions that Paul Ekman identified and provide a personal example of when you have experienced each emotion Reason Emotional Anger if something is stolen Disgust from a behavior Fear scared of a bear Joy when I get a good grade Sadness bad grade Surprise surprise party Name the four self conscious or moral emotions and explain how these emotions shape our social behavior in a way that ultimately benefits the whole group Similarly be able to provide a personal example for each of when you have experienced that emotion Guilt when you protect someone after screwing them over Shame doing something wrong Embarrassment when something is uncomfortable Pride doing something right and being proud Ekman s research showed that these basic emotions were expressed the same way and understood by people all over the world Makes sense to suggest that the facial expressions are universal communication mechanisms that evolved to help others understand our own emotions rather than something we have learned Two Stage Model of Emotions Schachter and Singer Theorized that emotions come from a two stage process Explain the process of experiencing and emotion in terms of two distinct stages Arousal Interpretation When people didn t have an explanation for the arousal caused by the epinephrine injections they attributed their arousal to the situation the behavior of the confederate and when they did have an explanation they d been told the real side effects they attributed it to the injection Explain how the second stage can lead to experiencing the wrong emotion and describe the bridge study On a footbridge 230 feet above a river is arousing so the two factor theory prediction was that the guys surveyed on the bridge would attribute their arousal to the attractive female and therefore be more likely to call her for more information Almost 40 of the participants surveyed on the bridge called the female experimenter for more information while only 9 of those surveyed on land called her The effect was much smaller for the male experimenter 9 for on the bridge 5 for on the land Misattribution of arousal Mistaking one emotion for another Stress Experience of the response when our sympathetic nervous system responds to potential threats by preparing our body to attack or retreat Effects of adrenaline and cortisol Adrenaline increases your heart rate elevates your blood pressure and boosts energy supplies Cortisol the primary stress hormone increases sugars glucose in the bloodstream enhances your brain s use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues Curbs functions that would be nonessential or detrimental in a fight or flight situation It alters immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system the reproductive system and growth processes This complex natural alarm system also communicates with regions of your brain that control mood motivation and fear Stress Management Understanding how you react to stress Pain Overeating Anger Crying Depression Negativity and Smoking The Sleep Cycle Circadian Rhythms Circadian rhythms are physical mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24 hour cycle responding primarily to light and darkness in an organism s environment Found in most living things including animals plants and many tiny microbes The study of circadian rhythms is called chronobiology Circadian rhythms can influence sleep wake cycles hormone release body temperature and other important bodily functions Master Clock Master clock that controls circadian rhythms consists of a group of nerve cells in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN Bodenhausen 1990 found that we use stereotypes more when we are not in the optimal time of our circadian rhythm Bodenhausen s study asked participants to make judgments about other people People who identified themselves as a morning person used more stereotypes when asked to make these judgments as night Night people used more stereotypes when they were judging people in the morning This fits with what we know about heuristics We use shortcuts in judgment to preserve cognitive resources We have fewer resources when we are not in an optimal time of our circadian rhythm Five Stages of Sleep 1st Stage drowsiness eyes begin to close onset of sleep usually lasts 5 10 minutes 2nd Stage light sleep muscles tense and relax preparing to enter deep sleep beginning of sleep cycle accounts for 45 60 of a good sleeper s night 3rd and 4th Stage deep or delta sleep go hand in hand 4 is more intense version of 3 between 10 30 minutes long these are the deepest stages of sleep REM sleep dreams occur REM rapid eye moments twitching eyes increased heart rate erratic breathing muscles will tense and contract 10 minutes long a form of paralysis over your body Increases in length after each completion of stage 5 100 minutes in length The Meaning of Dreams What happened to rats deprived of ability to dream Prevented from dreaming the rats were unable to rehearse their survival behaviors In other words they were defenseless because they were out of practice What does it mean that dreams were epiphenomena Excrescences of the brain with no function at all the mind s attempt to make sense of random neural firing while the body restores itself during sleep Dreams are the noise the brain makes while it s doing its homework What are threat dreams and what percentage of recalled dreams did they make up in Revonsuo s research A single exposure to a life threatening situation can plunge a person into an inferno of post traumatic nightmares dreams in which the threatening event the attack the rape the war is repeated over and over in every possible variation What is Revonsuo
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