Difficulty: Intermediate | Prerequisites: The Self and Person Perception notes
Emotions are discrete, short-lived responses with specific causes, while moods are diffuse and longer-lasting. Social psychology distinguishes basic (universal) emotions from social (secondary) emotions like guilt, shame, and pride, which are tied to social relationships and norms. Emotion regulation, particularly cognitive reappraisal, is central to healthy social functioning.
Emotion
A discrete, short-lived (2 to 3 seconds) response linked to a specific cause, with identifiable behavioural implications. Its function is to respond to an event or stimulus.
Mood
A diffuse, longer-lasting affective state with no specific cause (though it may have been triggered by one). Behavioural implications are less clear. Important for relationship satisfaction.
Basic (primary) emotions
Joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise. These have distinguishable facial expressions, are generally cross-cultural, and are not social constructs. Even blind individuals show these expressions.
Social (secondary) emotions
Guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride. More complex, involve real or imagined other people, are studied in social settings, and tend to be more subtle in expression. Context is essential for interpreting them.
Guilt
Feeling bad about a specific behaviour that goes against your own standards. Self-disappointment. Does not require a social audience.
Shame
Feeling bad about the self as a whole, publicly. A social transgression against group norms. Self-loathing rather than self-disappointment.
Cognitive appraisal
Your interpretation of an emotion-inducing event. What you think you should be feeling based on the context. We understand emotions partly through what surrounds us.
Cognitive reappraisal
A regulation strategy in which you rethink the meaning of a situation to change your emotional response. The most effective emotion regulation strategy covered in this unit.
Emotional contagion
Emotions can spread from person to person. Seeing someone else's distress can trigger your own.
Emotion has three components: subjective experience (feelings you are aware of), physiological response (changes in the body), and cognitive appraisal (your interpretation of the event based on context).
Functions of emotion: orchestrate adaptive responses (fight or flight), provide information for decision-making, communicate information (through facial expressions), and coordinate interpersonal relationships.
Basic emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise) are universal, cross-cultural, and expressed through recognisable facial expressions. Social emotions (guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride) are more complex, tied to social context, and harder to read from facial expressions alone.
Guilt is about a specific behaviour. It leads to self-reflection about the transgression and can decrease approach motivation initially, but then increases approach motivation through reparatory behaviour (trying to make up for what you did). Guilt has a two-stage process: reflect on what you did, then try to compensate. It is a mechanism for strengthening social relationships.
Shame is about the whole self. It is more social, occurs publicly, and involves a transgression against group norms. The feeling is self-loathing rather than disappointment about a specific action.
Guilt serves as a cue for punishment, inhibits future bad behaviour, and elicits prosocial reparatory actions. Emotions function to orchestrate adaptive behaviours.
Often viewed negatively, but from a functional perspective, pride organises a group's response to challenges. It is associated with efficacy, social stature, and leadership. Prideful people tend to be seen as more dominant, more involved, and more liked (seen as leaders).
High-prejudice individuals showed physiological signs of negative emotion (facial EMG) when viewing out-group faces. Jealousy is not necessarily destructive; it can hold relationships together, and men and women may be jealous about different things.
When subjects viewed male and female faces expressing emotions, facial expressions were sometimes misidentified (e.g., a sad face read as angry) because of gender stereotypes. Stereotypes function as a lens for interpreting emotional expressions, which can lead to miscommunication.
Emotions sometimes require regulation for social relationships to function well. Suppressing emotional responses is difficult and can increase arousal and stress. Cognitive reappraisal (rethinking the meaning of the situation) is a more effective strategy.
Students confuse guilt and shame. Guilt is about a specific behaviour ("I did a bad thing"). Shame is about the whole self ("I am a bad person"). The distinction matters for understanding their different social functions.
Students think emotion regulation means suppressing emotions. Suppression is one strategy, but it tends to backfire. Cognitive reappraisal (reinterpreting the situation) is the more effective approach.
Students assume pride is always negative. Functional research shows pride is associated with leadership, social stature, and group coordination.
⚠️ Know the difference between emotion and mood (discrete vs. diffuse, short vs. long, specific cause vs. no specific cause).
⚠️ Be able to list the six basic emotions and explain why they are considered universal.
⚠️ The guilt vs. shame distinction is a high-probability exam question. Know the two-stage process of guilt (reflect, then compensate).
⚠️ Understand cognitive reappraisal as an emotion regulation strategy.
⚠️ Know how gender stereotypes can lead to misidentification of facial expressions.
Fill in the blank: Emotions are ______ and short-lived, while moods are ______ and long-lasting.
Discrete; diffuse.
True or False: Shame is about a specific behaviour, while guilt is about the whole self.
False. It is the reverse. Guilt is about the behaviour; shame is about the whole self.
Fill in the blank: ______ is an emotion regulation strategy in which you rethink the meaning of a situation.
Cognitive reappraisal.
Q: What are the three components of emotion?
A: Subjective experience (the conscious feeling), physiological response (bodily changes), and cognitive appraisal (your interpretation of the event based on context).
Q: Explain the functional perspective on pride.
A: From a functional perspective, pride organises a group's response to a challenge. It is associated with efficacy, social stature, and leadership. Prideful people are often perceived as more dominant and more liked, and they tend to be seen as leaders.
Q: A student cheats on an exam. Describe how guilt and shame would differ as emotional responses.
A: Guilt: the student feels bad about the specific act of cheating ("I did something wrong") and is motivated to make amends (e.g., confessing, studying harder). Shame: the student feels bad about themselves as a person ("I am a cheater"), which is more global and socially exposing, and may lead to withdrawal rather than reparation.
Q: Why is suppression a poor emotion regulation strategy?
A: Trying to suppress emotional responses is difficult and tends to increase physiological arousal and stress. Cognitive reappraisal, which involves reinterpreting the meaning of the situation, is more effective because it changes the emotional response at its source rather than trying to contain it after the fact.
Emotion connects to the Self (two-factor theory of emotion, affective forecasting), Person Perception (emotion as a cue for judgement, gender stereotypes in reading faces), and Prejudice (intergroup emotion, physiological responses to out-group faces).
Emotion, mood, affect, basic emotions, primary emotions, social emotions, secondary emotions, guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride, cognitive appraisal, subjective experience, physiological response, fight or flight, emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal, suppression, emotional contagion, intergroup emotion, facial EMG, Vanman, gender stereotypes emotion, jealousy, cross-cultural emotion, universal facial expressions, Ekman