Английский язык. Практикум для магистрантов факультета психологии
.pdfattempt to organize our emotional experiences. It illustrates how you mightthinkabout,talkabout,andidentifyyouremotionalexperiences.
Is emotion in the heart, in the head, or both?
Shaver’s study also describes the most likely scenario for each of the six primary emotions. The scenario includes (1) situations or thoughts that are most likely to result in an emotion, and (2) the most likely subjective, physiological, and behavioral responses that accompany that emotion. Let’s look at a scenario for one emotion: fear. For example, Steve fears that he will do poorly on his exam, which would cause him to experience feelings of failure, loss, and personal rejection. Steve might also feel fearful in environmental settings that he perceives as dangerous, such as walking down a dark alley.Steve’sfeararisesfromhisthoughtsabouttheterriblethingsthat might happen in these situations, such as failing the course or being physically harmed. His most likely behavioral responses are darting eyes, trembling voice, being jumpy and jittery, yelling, running, or crying. His most likely physiological responses are sweating, dry mouth, heart pounding, and quick, rapid breathing. Of course, not all of these responses occur. From Shaver’s study, we know that when Steve feels fear, he experiences three different components. First are his thoughts and personal or subjective experiences, second are his physiological responses, and third are his observed behaviors. We can define an emotion as an affective experience that includes a cognitive, behavioral, and physiological component.
Why Get Emotional?
Have you ever wondered why you become angry, fearful, or happy? Part of the answer lies in our distant pasl. In prehistoric times, when our ancestors hunted for food and struggled to survive, their anger helped to protect themselves from threatening animals or hostile tribes, their fear helped them escape from dangerous situations, and their happiness helped them relax and recuperate after a successful hunt. These examples point to a general adaptive function of emotions (Smith & Ellsworth. 1987). However, in our complex, highly structured environment, the same emotion may be adaptive in one situation and maladaptive in another. For example, being angry
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is clearly adaptive if it helps you defend yourself against an assailant. Being angry is clearly maladaptive if it motivates you to assault a professor over a grade disagreement. Being fearful is clearly adaptive if it helps you escape from a burning building. Feeling fearful is maladaptive if it motivates you to escape from a classroom during an exam. These examples indicate that in many present-day situations, personal, societal, or cultural values dictate that we must not perform the «adaptive» responses that the emotion has prepared us for.
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Anxiety
Are you aware of why you are anxious?
By anxiety, we mean the unpleasant emotion characterized by terms like «worry,» «apprehension,» «dread,» and «fear» that we all experience at times in varying degrees.
Freud – one of the first to focus on the importance of anxiety – differentiated between objective anxiety and neurotic anxiety. Freud viewed objective anxiety as a realistic response to external danger, synonymous with fear. He believed that neurotic anxiety stems from an unconscious conflict within the individual; since the conflict is unconscious, the person is not aware of the reason for his or her anxiety. Just as there are varying degrees of anxiety, ranging from mild apprehension to panic, there are probably varying degrees of awareness of the cause of an individual’s discomfort. People who suffer from internal conflicts often have some idea of why they are anxious, even though they cannot specify all the factors involved clearly.
Theories of anxiety
Anxiety as an unconscious conflict
Freudbelievedthatneuroticanxietywastheresultofanunconscious conflict between the id impulses (mainly sexual and aggressive) and the constraints imposed by the ego and the superego. Many id impulses poseathreattotheindividualbecausetheyarecontradictorytopersonal or social values. A young girl may not consciously acknowledge that she has strong hostile feelings toward her mother because these feelings conflict with her belief that a child should love her parents.
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If she acknowledged her true feelings, she would destroy her selfconcept as a loving daughter and risk the loss of her mother’s love and support. When she begins to feel angry toward her mother, the aroused anxiety serves as a signal of potential danger. The girl then engages in defensive maneuvers to exclude anxiety-producing impulses from her conscious awareness. These maneuvers, or defense mechanisms, form an important part of Freud’s theory of neurotic behavior.
Anxiety as a learned response.
Social learning theory focuses not on internal conflicts but on ways in which anxiety becomes associated with certain situations via learning. A little girl who is punished by her parents whenever she rebels against their wishes and attempts to assert herself eventually learns to associate the pain of punishment with assertive behavior.
Studies have shown how difficult it is to extinguish avoidance responses. The child who has had a bad encounter with a dog and runs whenever he or she sees any other dog will not have the opportunity to discover that most dogs are friendly. Since running away from a dog is reinforcing (because the response reduces fear), the child is apt to continue this behavior. An adult may continue to avoid situations that produced anxiety in childhood because the individual never reappraises the threat or develops a method of coping with it.
Anxiety as lack of control
A third approach suggests that people experience anxiety whenever they encounter a situation that seems beyond their control. It might be a new situation or it might be an ambiguous situation – as many of our experiences are. The feeling of being helpless and not in control of what is happening seems central to most theories of anxiety. According to psychoanalytic theory, for example, anxiety arises when theegoisthreatenedbyimpulsesitcannotcontrol.Accordingtosocial learning theory, people become anxious when they are confronted by painful stimuli that they can control only by avoidance. The degree of anxiety we experience in stressful situations is largely dependent on how much control we feel we have over the situation.
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Coping with anxiety
Because anxiety is a very uncomfortable emotion, it cannot be tolerated for long. We are strongly motivated to do something to alleviate the discomfort. Over the course of a lifetime, each individual develops various methods of handling anxiety-producing situations and feelings of anxiety. There are two main ways of coping with anxiety. One focuses on the problem: the individual does something to change or avoid it. The other focuses on the emotion; the person tries to reduce anxious feelings in various ways rather than attempt to deal directly with the anxiety-producing problem.
Suppose that you receive a warning that you are about to fail a course that is required for graduation. You might devise a work schedule to fulfill the requirements, and then follow it. Or you might decide that you cannot fulfill the requirements and give up. Both of these actions are designed to cope with the problem. On the other hand, you might try to reduce your anxiety about the failure warning by refusing to acknowledge the possibility of failing or by convincing yourself that a colledge degree is meaningless. Or you might deaden your anxiety with alcohol, tranquilizers, marijuana, or other drugs.
Each individual deals with stressful situations in his or her own unique way, often using a combination of emotion-focused and problem-focused strategies.
Tasks
1. Match the following definitions with the words given below.
a) anxiety; |
b) emotion; |
c) coping; |
d) emotion-focused strategy; |
e) problem-focused strategy. |
|
1)reducing anxiety by changing your feelings about the problem.
2)a vague, persistent and unpleasant emotion; in its stronger form may be characterized by a feeling of disorganization, inadequacy, and helplessness.
3)a transitory experience with positive or negative qualities felt as happening to the self.
4)doing somethig about the problem to change or avoid it.
5)methods of handling anxiety-producing situations.
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2. Where do emotions come from? Choose the theory which is closer to your understanding of an emotional experience.
- You feel happy primarily because of sensations arising from the movement of your facial muscles and skin as you smile and laugh. Your brain interprets these sensations and you experience the subjective feeling of happiness.
- You feel happy primarily because you experience specific physiological changes in heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, and secretion of hormones. Your brain interprets these specific physiological changes and the result is your feeling of happiness.
- You feel happy primarily because of the way you have learned to interpret or think about a given situation, in this case, getting a good grade. Your cognitive interpretation results in your subjective feeling of happiness.
3. Match the components of emotions with their characteristics.
a) cognitive |
1) darting eyes, trembling voice |
b) behavioral |
2) fearful thoughts |
c) physiological |
3) rapid breathing, heart pounding |
4.Which approach is it:
a) Freudian theory; b) Social learning theory? 1) anxiety stems from an unconscious conflict.
2) anxiety becomes associated with ceratain situations via learning.
3) anxiety arises when the ego is threatened by impulses it can’t control.
5. Discuss the following. Work in pairs or small groups.
a) Objective aspects of emotions; subjective aspects of emotions; b) Cognitive, behavioral and physiological components of
emotions;
c)Adaptive and maladaptive functions of emotions;
d)Coping strategies.
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CONFLICT AND REACTIONS TO FRUSTRATIONS
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Which motives move us
Can motivational conflicts cause stress?
No matter how resourceful we may be in coping with problems, the circumstances of life inevitably involve stress. Our motives are not always easily satisfied; obstacles must be overcome, choices made, and delays tolerated. Each of us develops characteristic ways of responding when our attempts to reach a goal are blocked. To a large extent, our responses to frustrating situations determine how adequately we adjust to life.
Frustration
Frustration occurs when progress toward a desired goal is blocked or delayed. A wide range of obstacles, both external and internal, can interfere with an individual’s efforts to reach a goal. The physical environment presents such obstacles as traffic jams, crowded lines at the supermarket, droughts that destroy agricultural crops, and noise that prevents concentration. The social environment presents obstacles in the form of restrictions imposed by other people, which may range from parental denials (Jane’s parents insist that she is not old enough to have herownapartment)tobroaderproblemsofracialorsexualdiscrimination.
Sometimesthebarrierstogoalsatisfactionstemfromtheindividual’s ownlimitations.Physicalhandicaps,lackofspecificabilities,orinadequate self-control can prevent an individual from achieving a desired goal. Not everyone can become a skilled musician or pass the examinations necessary to become a physician or a lawyer. If an individual sets goals beyond his or her ability, frustration is apt to result.
Conflict
A major source of frustration is conflict between two opposing motives. When two motives conflict, the satisfaction of one leads to the frustration of the other. For example, a student may not be able to gain recognition as an outstanding athlete and still earn the grades required to enter law school. Even when only one motive is involved, conflict may arise if the goal can be approached in several different
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ways. For example, you can get an education at a number of colleges, but choosing which college to attend presents a conflict situation. Although the goal will eventually be reached, progress toward it is disrupted by the necessity of making a choice.
Sometimesconflictarisesbetweenamotiveandaperson’sinternal standards rather than between two external goals. An individual’s sexual desires may conflict with his or her standards of acceptable social behavior. Achievement motives may conflict with individual standards of helpful and cooperative behavior; to succeed may require competing with – or even undermining – colleagues and associates. Conflicts between motives and internal standards often can be more difficult to resolve than conflicts between external goals.
Most conflicts involve goals that are simultaneously desirable and undesirable – both positive and negative. Candy is delicious but fattening. Going off for a weekend of skiing is fun, but losing study time can produce anxiety. A goal that is at once wanted and not wanted, liked and disliked produces an ambivalent attitude. Ambivalent attitudes are very common.
Adolescents have an ambivalent attitude toward independence: they wish to take charge of their own affairs but still want their parents to help them with difficult problems.
Atadistance,thegoalseemsinviting,leadingtoapproachreactions. But the sense of danger increases as the goal is approached and the individual tends to withdraw as he or she nears the incentive. A shy teen-ager who wants to call to arrange a date is drawn to the telephone by the possibility of success but anxiety about possible rebuff may mount as the phone is approached. The young person may make several falsestartsbeforeeithercarryingthroughtheplanorabandoningit.This type of conflict is called an approach-avoidance conflict.
Approach and avoidance
Studies of approach-avoidance conflicts indicate that the two motives operate somewhat differently. As you might expect, both approach and avoidance motives are strongest near the object. The closer you get to an attractive object, the stronger your tendency is to approach it; the closer you get to something unpleasant or fearful, the stronger your urge is to flee. But avoidance motives appear to drop
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off more rapidly with distance than approach motives do. As you get farther away from a feared object, it seems much less frightening, but an attractive object is still appealing at a distance. This differ ence in the gradients of approach and avoidance helps explain why a person may be repeatedly drawn back into an old conflict situation. At a distance, the positive aspects seem more inviting than the negative aspects. Everyone knows of couples who go steady, break up, and make up, only to break up once more. Away from each other, their mutual attraction takes precedence because negative feelings are reduced; close to each other, the negative feelings drive them apart. In our society, the approach-avoidance conflicts that are most pervasive anddifficulttoresolvegenerallyoccurbetweenthefollowingmotives:
1.Independence versus dependence. In times of stress, we may want to resort to the dependence characteristic of childhood – to have someone take care of us and solve our problems. But we are taught that the ability to stand on our own and assume responsibilities is a mark of maturity.
2.Intimacy versus isolation. The desire to be close to another person and to share our innermost thoughts and emotions may conflict with the fear of being hurt or rejected if we expose too much of ourselves. 3. Cooperation versus competition. In our society much emphasis is placed on competition and success. Competition begins in early childhood among siblings, continues through school, and culminates in business and professional rivalry. At the same time, we are urged to cooperate and help others. The concept of «team spirit» is as American as the success story. Such contradictory ex pectations can produce conflict.
4.Impulse expression versus moral standards. Impulses must be regulated to some degree in all societies. Much of childhood learning involves internalizing the cultural restrictions placed on innate impulses. Sex and aggression are two areas in which our impulses most frequently conflict with moral standards, and violation of these standards may generate strong feelings of guilt.
These four areas present the greatest potential for serious conflicts. Failure to find a workable compromise may lead to serious psychological problems.
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Therearefourbasictypesofmotivationalconflicts(Miller,1959):
1.Approach-approach conflicts. When a person must choose only one of two desirable activities – say, going to a movie or to a concert – an approach-approach conflict exists. As the importance of the choice increases, so does the difficulty of making it.
2.An avoidance-avoidance conflict arises when a person must select one of two undesirable alternatives. Someone forced either to sell the family farm or to declare bankruptcy faces an avoidanceavoidance conflict.
3.Approach-avoidance conflict. If someone you can’t stand has tickets to your favorite group’s concert and invites you to come along, whatwouldyoudo?Whenasingleeventoractivityhasbothattractive and unattractive features, an approach-avoidance conflict is created.
4.Multiple approach-avoidance conflicts. Suppose you must choose between two jobs. One offers a high salary with a well-known company, but it requires long hours and relocation to a miserable climate. The other boasts good advancement opportunities, fringe benefits, and a better climate, but it doesn’t pay much and requires adjustment to an unpredictable work schedule. This is an example of a multiple approach-avoidance conflict, in which two or more alternatives each have both positive and negative features.
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Reactions to frustration
How do we respond to a frustrating situation?
Frustration – whether it is the result of environmental obstacles, personal limitations, or conflict – can produce a number of possible consequences. Experiments illustrate some immediate responses to frustration.
Aggression
Some people in the frustrating situation seem restless and unhappy: they sigh and complain. And many of them express feelings of anger. Sometimes aggression is expressed directly against the individual or object that is the source of frustration. Aggression of this kind is not necessarily hostile; it may be a learned way of solving a
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problem. Adults usually express their aggression verbally rather than physically; they are more likely to exchange insults than blows.
Although the anger engendered by frustration may impel the individual to attack the obstacle, whether it is animate or inanimate, direct aggression is not always possible.
Displaced aggression
In many instances, the frustrated individual cannot express aggression against the source of frustration. Sometimes the source is vague and intangible. The person does not know what to attack but feels angry and seeks something to attack. Sometimes the person responsible for the frustration is so powerful that an attack would be dangerous. Then aggression may be displaced – the aggressive action maybedirectedtowardaninnocentpersonorobjectratherthantoward the actual cause of the frustration. Prejudice against minority groups often contains an element of displaced aggression, or scapegoating. During periods of economic depression, when money and jobs are scarce, people are tempted to blame their troubles on some relatively powerless minority groups.
Apathy
One of the factors complicating the study of human behavior is the tendency of different individuals to respond to similar situations in a variety of wavs. Although a common response to frustration is active aggression,theoppositeresponseofindifferenceorwithdrawal,called apathy,isnotuncommon.Wedonotknowwhyonepersonreactswith aggression and another with apathy to the same situation, but it seems likely that learning is an important factor. Reactions to frustration can be learned in much the same manner as other behaviors.
Learned helplessness
Studieshaveshownthatanimalsandpeoplecanlearntobehelpless when faced with stressful situations. Martin Seligman, a well-known behavioral psychologist, maintains that our perception of power and control are learned from experience. He believes that when a person’s efforts at controlling certain life events fail repeatedly, the person may stop attempting to exercise control altogether. If these failures happen
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