Griffith+(WK6)

Here's your page for Griffith.

Be sure to check out the "Read This" on the moodle. No in-class activities this week. Wiki well.

Terms used in article:
 * Situationism** in psychology refers to an approach to personality that holds that people are more influenced by external, situational factors than by internal traits or motivations.
 * Situated cognition** poses that knowing is inseparable from doing [|[1]] by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts.
 * Appraisal theories** of emotion are theories that state that emotions result from people’s interpretations and explanations of their circumstances even in the absence of physiological arousal.
 * Neo-Jamesian (perceptual theory)** bodily responses are central to emotions, and emotions are meaningful. The novel claim of this theory is that conceptually-based cognition is unnecessary for such meaning. Rather the bodily changes themselves //perceive// the meaningful content of the emotion because of being causally triggered by certain situations. In this respect, emotions are held to be analogous to faculties such as vision or touch, which provide information about the relation between the subject and the world in various ways. (all of these definitions are from wikipedia, hope they are correct and make some sense to everyone!)

This chapter describes a very different perspective on emotion, according to which emotions are: 1. Designed to function in a social context: an emotion is often an act of //relationship reconfiguration// brought about by delivering a social signal. 2. Forms of //skillful engagement with the world// which //need not be mediated by conceptual thought// 3. Scaffolded by the environment, both synchronically in the unfolding of a particular emotional performance and diachronically (as they occur or change over a period of time ), in the acquisition of an emotional repertoire 4. Dynamically coupled to an environment which both influences and is influenced by the unfolding of the emotion

Social Situatedness: "A situated perspective on emotion emphasizes the role of social context in the production and management of an emotion, and the reciprocal influence of emotion on the evolving social context." -We have emotions in order to communicate what’s happening internally for us to other people, and in order to get help or support if we need it, to share joy, or to alert others of danger. Emotions are a way of communicating, and have helped our very social species survive and thrive.]

This article is really interesting to an emotional person like me, although I found the language a bit too technical to understand. I appreciated some of the concepts it presents, such as emotion being tailored to suit a specific social situation, and emotions being a way to communicate and help our species "survive and thrive." One example in particular I found interesting was on page 5, where the author is referencing the behavior of Male Golden Sebright Chickens. The chickens will squawk when they find a valuable morsel of food, but only when there are female chickens in the vicinity. I laughed at this, not only because I have my own chickens and can only imagine what's going on in the mornings when I hear them squawking, but because it seems reflective of the human species (and peacocks) as well. No point in demonstrating superior skills unless there is the possibility of mating nearby!

Behaviors which have traditionally been viewed as involuntary expressions of the organism’s psychological state are instead viewed as signals designed to influence the behavior of other organisms, or as strategic ‘moves’ in an ongoing transaction between organisms 2. -I appreciate this being addressed. People control and manipulate with emotions. Sulking is a behavioral strategy for seeking a better deal in a relationship – an emotional game of ‘chicken’ in which transactions that benefit both parties are rejected until appropriate concessions are obtained. -This article is awesome. I never know what the heck sulkers are looking for. By means of ingenious lesion studies, LeDoux has demonstrated that fear can be elicited in a reflex-like fashion through a neural // low road // that projects along a subcortical pathway directly to the amygdala and bypasses the neo-cortex (LeDoux, 1993).- I have a friend with MS & she has a lot of fears. I was interested to read about the lesion connection. This identification is made possible by thinking of anger as a type of social transaction, rather than as a conceptual thought embodying a core relational theme (see section 3). Fascinating, anger a social transaction, I love the language here. Chapter 4 of Decartes' Baby fits in very nicely with this article. I found "emotional contagion" to be most interesting. Bloom explains that we can literally feel other people's pain and experience their emotions because we have mirror neurons. It's incredible to think that there are parts of the brain that can't distinguish actions that we perform from the actions of others, and that we imitate others and so do most animals. Bloom also writes a little about why we need emotions and what life is like without them and he gives examples of psychopaths. It is also interesting to think what our dominant emotions are and how are behavior is "shaped by love, guilt, shame, empathy and so on" and "since psychopaths lack these moral emotions, they have to live life as though they do possess them" (Pg. 112). Emotions can cloud our thinking and can be tricky to understand, but they are necessary to fit in to society. -What's interesting to me as well, is that emotions aren't always explainable. It's most definitely true that emotions are often developing throughout an interaction and even the emoter doesn't always understand how or why they are feeling and acting that way. The dynamic aspect of emotions is a major factor. And I think that's why things can get out of hand so easily, emotion-wise. The authors state "some levels of appraisal involve non-conceptual content". Sometimes it takes a while to understand because emotions happen so automatically that they can be a mystery.

Hey guys! I don't have much to contribute to the page this week. I was confused about the 'maximal inferential promiscuity' section of the article. Overall I thought it was interesting. I hadn't ever really thought about how emotions are used... though I can definitely think of several examples where they have been used to manipulate the outcome of a situation (mostly with babysitting kids and interactions with my mom haha). -camille ( i wasn't logged on before)

What are you all going to do your wiki edits on? -camille It might sound silly but I'm doing mine on Dance therapy. I wanted to focus on developmental movement but there was no page for that on Wiki so I figure now I can write about it on the dance page : ] Having a hard time with this formating business though... COOL That is awesome, do you want help? I haven't found anything I am terribly excited about... spent the last while looking through different pages. I am VERY interested in dance therapy. Let me know if you want to collaborate =) -camille

I have been thinking of doing my edits on 'the effects meditation can have on brain chemistry'. Very interesting stuff, I'm not sure if anyone else is interested in this or has read about it, but it is fascinating to me! -Jennie W.

SPEAKING OF EMOTIONAL REACTIONS! Watch this =) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQpbzQ6gzs&feature=player_embedded