Anger+and+Disgust


 * Anger, Disgust & Sadness**

- Unexpected - Unpleasant - Unfair
 * Anger**: suggest that we have someone to blame - lashing out in response
 * in reponse to something:

Anger is not easily tested and studied in a lab because people respond to stimulants related to anger differently.

__Prototypical Anger:__ "demeaning offense against me" anger that arises against someone who has caused harm intentionally or carelessly - violating ones rights - having someone to blame
 * What Elicits Anger?**

__Frustration-Aggression Theory:__ proposal that anything that interferes with ones ability to obtain some expected gratification leads to aggressive behavior. - whatever or whoever gets in the way of a goal or objective on yours makes you very angry--can be a person or an object

__Cognitive-Neoassociationistic (CNA) Model(Berkowitz)__: anger sometimes arises directly from unpleasant, uncomfortable sensation without appraisal of blame. -this proposal contradicts idea that anger requires attribution= things like being uncomfortable BY ITSELF provokes anger even if you don't attribute it to anyone or interpret it at all. blame might be something we invent after the fact

__Impact of Control Appraisal:__ (Berkowitz) frustration, pain and other discomfort often leads to anger and aggression. (the above explanation)

__Hostile Aggression:__ motivated by anger with specific intent to hurt someone

__Instrumental Aggression:__ harmful or threatening behavior used purely as a way to obtain something or achieve some end.

-men and women are equally aggressive but in different ways--women are more passive-aggressive and men are just more aggressive (physical)

__Self-Reports:__ it is either over emphasized or down played emotions of cognitions, feelings, physiological changes and actions -paper-pencil measure of anger is Spielberger -can also be measured through facial expressions/tone of voice/body language--70% of communication is one nonverbally -implicit measures of anger and aggression=finishing a story/themed dot probe/visual search task
 * How Do We Measure Anger?**

__Multidimensional Anger Inventory__ (Siegel): measures several dimensions of anger

__State-Trail Anger Expression Inventory - STAXI__ (Spielberger): questionnaire to measure anger
 * State: temporary condition related to recent events
 * Trait: a long-term aspect of personality

- the amygdala sends messages of anger depending on our reaction - the frontal cortex also controls anger and the level of anger that is felt due to lack of control -appraisal of event matters=the need for the cortex to reason and think before RAGE occurs
 * Biology of Anger:**

__Serotonin:__ low levels >> people engage in violent crime, aggressive behavior and thrill seeking behaviors

__Explosive Anger:__ tends to lead to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

Chapter 8 Notes – **Anger and Disgust**
 * __Anger__ – the emotional state associated with feeling injured or offended, with a desire to threaten or hurt the person who offended you
 * Anger when you feel a violation of autonomy
 * __Disgust:__ when you feel a violation of your sense of purity or divinity
 * __Contempt__ – response to a violation of community standards

What Elicits Anger?
 * Self-anger is usually mixed with sadness and guilt or embarrassment
 * Frustration-aggression hypothesis – interference with one’s ability to obtain some expected gratification leads to aggressive behavior
 * Cognitive-Neoassociationistic Model of Anger Generation – any unpleasant event or sensation facilitates anger and aggression

Measuring Anger and Aggression
 * Self-reports
 * Multidimensional Anger Inventory – measures several dimensions of anger
 * Spielberger State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory – most widely used, idea behind it is that anger is a state and a trait
 * Constructive Anger Behavior-Verbal Style Scale – another scale of anger
 * Anger lets people know your limits and demands
 * Hostile aggression – motivated by anger, with the specific intent to hurt someone
 * Instrumental aggression – harmful or threatening behavior used purely as a way to obtain something or achieve some end
 * Theme dot-probe test – two words (one of which might be aggressive) flash briefly on the screen, one above the other, then a dot appears in the same position as one word, and the person must press a key as quickly as possible to indicate where the dot appeared
 * Visual search task – a target word appears briefly in the center of the screen, surrounded by three other words, then the target word and three new words appear, and the task is to identify the location of the target word

The Biology of Anger and Aggression
 * Aggressive behavior is often impulsive
 * One basis for impulsivity is damage to the prefrontal cortex
 * Low levels of serotonin seem to be linked to aggression
 * The physiological state that accompanies anger closely resembles that for fear

Individual and Situational Differences Application: Violence Prevention
 * The more violent acts someone has committed in the past, the more likely that person is to commit further violence
 * Aggression is common among people who see other people’s actions as hostile
 * Violent behavior is more likely when people have low inhibitions against it
 * Genetic factors account for about 40 percent of the variance in aggressive and criminal behavior, whereas environmental factors account for the rest
 * Males engage in more physically aggressive behavior
 * Children who watch violent TV or play violent video games tend to be more aggressive
 * Reconciliation – an attempt to restore friendship after a fight and prevent further hostility
 * One of the strongest predictors of bullying is simply being larger and stronger than others in early childhood
 * Cognitive restructuring – the person is taught to reinterpret events as less threatening or hostile, to replace anger-evoking thoughts with calmer ones
 * Social skills training – try to get people to communicate their needs more clearly to others, so that the others can meet those needs and therefore provoke less anger
 * Distraction – when someone is starting to get angry, a good strategy is to think about something else, such as something pleasant or amusing
 * Exposure therapy – the person is told to relax and then is gradually exposed to the kinds of events or insults that would usually provoke anger
 * Problem solving – people who can find a way to solve their problems have less cause to be angry

Disgust
 * Disgust is defined as revulsion at the prospect of oral incorporation of offensive objects
 * The insular cortex is related to disgust
 * Core disgust – relates to the idea of putting something into your mouth
 * Moral disgust – relates to violations of right and wrong
 * Expressions of disgust correlate fairly highly with the personality trait neuroticism

Depression and Empathic Accuracy in Couples-Gadassi, Mor, Rafaeli Hammen's stress-generation model--->bidirectional association between interpersonal difficulties and depression -more specifically depressed person's behavior generates interpersonal difficulties which in turn erodes the relationship which in turn increases depression (it's a vicious cycle) -this is more likely to happen in intimate relationships than with friends or strangers because they display the types of emotions associated with behaviors like repetitive need to reassurance in the relationship, be hostile in demanding support from their significant other and decreases in their tendency to smile more to their romantic partner than to strangers. Interpersonal perception=better known as sensitivity is important in appropriate social behavior and successful communication SO...there may be a possible link--depressed individuals' interpersonal perception may mediate the association between depression and interpersonal difficulties -focused on one specific way to study interpersonal perception & depression by using **empathic accuracy** as a measure which is people's ability to correctly assess the feelings and thoughts of their partners using both verbal and nonverbal social information -this study is the first to use a lab-based procedure, considering gender,to study empathic accuracy and depression and first to use a diary procedure PROCEDURE support-provision task=mediated conversation between two partners was videotaped in roles of help-seeker and help-giver (roles were switched after 6 min intervals) thoughts-and-feelings protocol=participants reviewed recordings separately and wrote down both their thoughts and feelings and inferred their partners calculating empathic-accuracy scores=coding was down to find how much similarity there was between perceived thoughts and feelings and actual thoughts and feelings daily diary procedure=electronic, asked to report their mood and relationship feelings and partner's mood and relationship feelings which in turn was as decoding like the above procedure RESULTS -depressive symptoms are linked to lower levels of empathic accuracy among women but not men(both tasks revealed this) -evidence for a link between depression and interpersonal perception is stronger in women than men-->possible that for women depression is connected to emotional and behavioral differences in intimate relationships -finding that women's depressive symptoms are not only related to their own empathy accuracy but also a decrease in their partner's as well. -this suggests: 1. that women's depressive symptoms affect not only themselves but their partner's 2. when a women is depressed her relationship will suffer -another finding--depressive symptoms predicted lower empathic accuracy related to negative moods and feelings than to positive ones -and another finding--depression impairs the type of empathic accuracy that is significant to relationships