PSYCH 350: EXAM 3 UMASS correctly
answered 2022
What is emotion? - correct answer • Transient subjective feelings (fear, elation)
• Physiological correlates (adrenaline, heart rate)
• Thoughts that accompany feelings (how to escape or approach)
• Desire to take action (fight or flight)
*An emotional experience has all of these components all at the same time*
Why do we have emotions? - correct answer • Motivate action
o Without emotions, we wouldn't act
o Need some emotion to motivate us to do anything
• Promote survival
o Negative emotions help you avoid harmful things
o Positive emotions help you approach things that are good for you
• Communicate our feelings
Darwin: origins of emotion - correct answer o Human emotions based on limited sets of
basic emotions that are species-universal
o Links are innate found in young babies (don't have to be learned)
o Direct link between inner emotional states (feelings) and facial expressions
o Facial expressions
o Indicate internal feelings: help others predict our behavior
o Expressed through consistent facial postures
o Easily identified and distinguished form one another
FACS (Facial action coding system) - correct answer • Each emotion corresponds to
distinct muscle combination
• Expressions presumed to be a window to underlying emotion
• Even a baby FACS (successful at coding most emotional expressions, but more
difficult to code than adults)
o Baby fat obscures musculature involved
o Infant's expressions are less differentiated
o Focusing on facial expressions may overestimate infants' emotional lives
Cross-cultural studies (emotion) - correct answer o Early theory: Facial expression
relativism; mimicry explains consistent
o Later: Studies in Papa New Guinea ("point to face that matches emotion expressed in
story" or "show me what your face would look like")
o Since: many arguments for universality
• Special Olympics study: Expression of blind Olympic athletes compared to non-blind.
Showed same facial muscle movement, expression of joy when they won, defeat after a
loss.
