Deck 7: Appraisal, Knowledge, and Experience

Question 1

Some people have a condition called alexithymia which means that they:

A) neglect emotion terms when they are reading a text.
B) are more likely to recall emotionally valenced nouns (e.g., storm) in a memory recall task than neutral nouns (e.g., weather).
C) have problems putting into words how they feel.
D) tend to over-emphasize emotions and under-emphasize thoughts in their daily lives.

Answer 1

have problems putting into words how they feel.

Question 2

Lazarus (1991) and Oatley and Johnson-Laird (1987, 2011) assume that appraisals give rise to distinct emotions. In so doing they are taking a ____________ approach to emotions.

A) dimensional
B) discrete
C) direct
D) determinate

Answer 2

discrete

Question 3

As described by Lazarus (1991), the core relational theme associated with anxiety is:

A) a demeaning offense against me or mine.
B) facing an uncertain, existential threat.
C) facing an immediate, concrete, and overwhelming physical danger.
D) having failed to live up to an ego-ideal.

Answer 3

facing an uncertain, existential threat.

Question 4

Phoebe Ellsworth and Craig Smith (1985, 1988) developed a theory of appraisal that can account for interesting similarities among emotions. In so doing they are taking a ____________ approach to emotions.

A) direct
B) determinate
C) dimensional
D) discrete

Question 5

Emotions or moods that occur without any relation to external events are said to be:

A) ur-emotions.
B) free-floating.
C) basic emotions.
D) differentiated arousal.

Question 6

Russell (2003) says that the heart of any emotion is:

A) feeling good or bad
B) feeling enervated or excited.
C) core affect.
D) all of the above.

Question 7

A split brain operation severs the:

A) corpus callosum
B) nerve fibers that connect the midbrain and the forebrain.
C) tissues that connect the motor and sensory cortices.
D) temporal lobe from the parietal lobe.

Question 8

According to the decision tree of appraisals associated with Lazarus's approach to emotions, sadness is said to be a product of events that:

A) are irrelevant to our goals.
B) damage self-esteem.
C) threaten the self.
D) lead to a loss of self.

Question 9

Primary appraisal is:

A) a form of evaluation in which events are assigned value in terms of an individual's concerns.
B) automatic.
C) linguistic in that emotions are described in words.
D) both a & b.

Question 10

According to the decision tree of appraisals associated with Lazarus's approach to emotions, negative emotions may occur if an event is:

A) relevant to our goals.
B) incongruent with our goals.
C) likely to lead to a loss of self.
D) all of the above.

Question 11

When participants were presented with photographs of people smiling or displaying facial anger for a suboptimal length of time (i.e., 4 msec) they were:

A) less likely to be biased by subliminal priming when evaluating the facial expression than if the facial expression had been presented for an optimal length of time (i.e., 1 sec).
B) more likely to be biased by subliminal priming when evaluating the facial expression than if the facial expression had been presented for an optimal length of time (i.e., 1 sec).
C) able to remember whether the facial expression was happy or angry but were less accurate when remembering other features of the face (e.g., eyebrow shape and eye color).
D) better at recognizing anger in male faces in than female faces.

Question 12

The prototype perspective about emotion knowledge assumes that:

A) for each emotion there is a prototypical set of causes, feelings, expressions, thoughts and actions.
B) there is little to no overlap in people's representations of emotions (e.g., sadness and anger are entirely different from each other).
C) there is a singular type of emotion within each category (e.g., there is one variety of anger).
D) all of the above.

Question 13

All but which one of the following is a feature of appraisal, as proposed by Smith and Ellsworth (1985)?

A) responsibility
B) anticipated effort
C) attention
D) potency

Question 14

The emotion evoked by a situation can depend on perceived agency. An external attribution where events are seen to arise as a consequence of other people's actions can lead to feelings of _______ when the event is negative and ______ when the event is positive.

A) fear; relief.
B) anger; gratitude.
C) sadness; guilt.
D) resentment; surprise.

Question 15

Secondary appraisal is:

A) a form of evaluation in which events are assigned value in terms of an individual's concerns.
B) automatic.
C) linguistic in that emotions are described in words.
D) both a & c

Question 16

According to the decision tree of appraisals associated with Lazarus's approach to emotions, the second feature that may be appraised is:

A) goal relevance.
B) goal congruence.
C) ego involvement.
D) costs-benefits analysis.

Question 17

The third phase of appraisal is:

A) coping.
B) social sharing.
C) rationalization.
D) adjustment.

Question 18

Research on primary appraisals of good and bad qualities of an event raises an intriguing question: which is stronger, good or bad? Reviews by Cacioppo and Gardner (1999), Baumeister et al. (2001) and Rozin and Royzman (2001) offer the following answer:

A) negative and positive evaluations are equally potent.
B) negative evaluations are more potent than positive evaluations.
C) positive evaluations are more potent than negative evaluations.
D) at this time it is not possible to come to a conclusive answer and more research is necessary.