VI. Analysis of Results - PowerPoint Presentation

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VI. Analysis of Results

6. Why then would the Placebo Ps show both greater self report and behavioral emotional responses than the Epi Inf group.a. Lack of epinephrine does not mean that they will not experience some arousalb. The shot itself could have caused some arousal

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VI. Analysis of Results – summary

B. In regards to Aim 1 where the subjects experienced arousal w/o cognition both the Epi Ign &

Epi

Mis Ps showed the most emotionC. In conditions where the subjects experienced arousal w/ cognition (=Inf) they experienced no emotion in other words, the environment didn’t affect them (AIM 2)D. For those with no arousal (placebo), Aim 3 doesn’t seem to be supported as they did show more emotional responses than the EPI Inf group. However a possible explanation for this was provided by the authors.

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VII. Evaluation – Methodological issues

A. Over-all Ethical1. all participants were psychology students2. health checked in advance

3. consent received

4. no long-term harm

5. However, shots are painful.6. Deception was used3Slide4

VII. Evaluation – Methodological issues

B. Validity of the results1. Not all results were statistically significant unless certain subject’s data points were removed from consideration2. Using an injection is not ideala. Would be better to deliver unbeknownst to the Psb. Could injection have caused Placebo Ps to have heightened arousal.

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VII. Evaluation – Methodological issues

3. Some Ps in the Mis & Ign also linked injection to arousal (design: to exp arousal w/o obvious cause!?!) these self- informers were excluded from the results possibly impacting the findings.

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This is referred to as Experimental artifacts.a. Artifacts refer to variables that should have been systematically varied, either within or across studies, but that were accidentally held constant. b. Artifacts are thus threats to external validity.

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VII. Evaluation – Methodological issues

5. As two different methods were used for measuring behavior between the Anger and Euphoria conditions no direct test of hypothesis 1 is possible. (Hilgard 1979)6. Other problems identified by Hilgard

a. Epinephrine doesn’t effect all the same way

b. No mood check before injection

c. Is synthetic arousal similar to real life arousal?6Slide7

VII. Evaluation – Methodological issues

7. Self-report presented as [happiness or anger] a. all Ps’ self-reports were on happy sideb. Thus the self-report alone shows that S&S failed to produce any anger with the questionnaire. c. However S&S argued that it could be seen behaviorally

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VII. Evaluation – Methodological issues

8. Lab studies as always tend to be “artificial” and thus may lack ecological validity. a. Certainly in the case of this study it can be argued that the experiment lacked mundane realism as stated by S&S themselvesb. Only male subjects so lacks generalizability

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VII. Evaluation – Theoretical issues

A. James-Lange is not supported as there is no evidence that all emotions have a distinctly different pattern of autonomic responsesB. Cannon Bard is not supported as it cannot be said that all emotions have the exact same autonomic response.9Slide10

VIII. Applications

A. Emotions are malleable but not as much as proposed by S&SB. False-feedback can influence your cognitive appraisal1. One study showed men pictures from Playboy magazine while playing their heart rate back for them as they looked at the picture.2. Some pictures were given “false-feedback” where the heart rate played back was artificially high

3. The result was that the

Ss

later rated these pictures as more attractive or arousing than other pictures even though the heart rate increase was a deception.10Slide11

VIII. Applications

C. Usefulness = Clinical application: reattribute anxiety arousal to less threatening sources (e.g. from ‘hostile world’ to ‘just my heart racing’)11