Breslav r m psychology of emotions study guide. Book: Breslav G.M.

Breslav G.M. Psychology of emotions.

M.: Meaning; Academy, 2004. S. 32-36

Lazarus was one of the first to note the mediating role of psychological processes in the occurrence of stress and, above all, the processes of assessing both the stressful stimulus (or stressor) and the situation as a whole, as well as the processes of psychological protection, involving the protective processing of threatening information. (Lazarus, 1970).

Threat according to Lazarus represents a person's anticipation of some future encounter with some dangerous situation for him, that is, it is determined on the basis of an assessment process. Lazarus was not the first to point out the role of evaluation processes in the generation of emotional phenomena, but he was the first to attempt to subject these processes to empirical study.

The Lazarus experiment used as a stressor a documentary film about a series of crude ritual surgical operations on male genital organs during an initiation rite among an Australian Aboriginal tribe. During the scenes depicting the ritual operations themselves, there was a pronounced increase in the activity of the autonomous nervous system, measured on the basis of skin electrical conductivity (GSR), as well as signs of behavioral stress.

Based on the premise that the stress response depends on the assessment of the influencing situation as threatening, Lazarus suggested that by changing the base in assessing the degree of harm, stress reactions can be eliminated or reduced. To test this assumption, three different soundtracks were used for the same documentary, each representing a different way of interpreting the events captured on film.

The first sound accompaniment was of a traumatic nature, as it emphasized the harmful aspects of the events, the second was of a negative nature (where any harm of the depicted event was denied - “denial”), the third was of an impartial narration (“intellectualization”). The level of threat and physiological indicators of stress generated by this film in the silent version and in three different sound accompaniments were then compared. It was found that traumatic sound accompaniment significantly increased the manifestation of stress reactions compared with a silent film demonstration, while the other two accompaniments - "denial" and "intellectualization" - significantly reduced the intensity of stress reactions compared with a silent film demonstration.

A film showing a series of accidents at a sawmill was used as a control: the fingers of one of the operators are maimed by a saw; the fingers of another are cut off with a circular saw; a person standing next to a circular saw is killed by a piece of wood flying off the saw as a result of the negligence of the operator, and a piece of wood passes through the victim's chest. It was a safety film, and the last two accidents were presented to the viewer with a special composite footage.

During the scenes depicting the accidents themselves, most viewers experienced three distinct moments of increased autonomic nervous system activity. Two accompanying texts were created for the film, built on the principles of "denial" and "intellectualization". With negative accompaniment, the unreality of the events shown was emphasized, and in the second version, the viewer was asked to notice, for example, how clearly and convincingly the master sets out the safety rules to the workers. In the control setting, it was briefly reported that the film would show some accidents at the sawmill.

In the same way as in the previous film, defensive interpretation lyrics were found to drastically reduce stress responses to the film, as measured by pulse rate and skin electrical conductivity. All this allows Lazarus to conclude that intellectual evaluation processes underlie stress. (Lazarus, 1970).

In his subsequent work, Lazarus complicates his model by talking about revaluations and two fundamentally different types or stages of valuation. initial assessment, according to Lazarus, refers to the extent to which a stimulus "hurts" (in a positive or negative sense) the well-being of the individual, including the "picture of the world" and the system of relations of the individual. Main criteria or components laneprimary assessment are: 1) target relevance, 2) congrouentence or incongruity of purpose, 3) type of I-inclusion.secondary evaluation, according to Lazarus, refers to the ability of an individual to perform the necessary real or imagined actions in relation to a stimulus, that is, to the extent to which an individual is able to reduce the danger and harm of a threatening stimulus or increase contact with an attractive stimulus. Main criteria or components secondary assessment are: 1) trust or distrust, 2) coping potential, 3) expectations for the future(Lazarus, 1991, 1998).

Goal Relevance refers to the extent to which the perceived stimulus or situation affects the individual's goals and lifestyle. If it is not there, there is no emotion. congruenttheir incongruence of purpose refers to the extent to which the assessed stimulus or situation corresponds or does not correspond to desires, that is, it facilitates or hinders the achievement of the goals of the individual and the maintenance of his lifestyle. If it makes it easier, then we can talk about congruence, and if it interferes, then about incongruence. Type of I-inclusion refers to various aspects of personal and social identity (values, ideals, self-esteem, perceptions of other people and their well-being, etc.). Thus, anger arises when our self-esteem or how others evaluate us is threatened, and a sense of pride - in the opposite case. Guilt arises from a disdainful attitude towards moral values, and a feeling of happiness arises from an all-encompassing sense of security and well-being.

Trust or distrust(can be both internal, that is, directed at oneself, and external) appears when one knows who caused this frustration (or more positive stimulation), that is, whether what happened was an act of arbitrariness this person. Coping potential refers to how much and how an individual is able to regulate their interaction with a stimulus situation (Folkman eta/., 1986). This is not about real regulation and overcoming, but only about the individual's assessment of his prospects in such regulation. The famous fable of Aesop-La Fontaine-Krylov "The Fox and the Grapes" is an excellent illustration of this component. After the fox is convinced that it is impossible to get bunches of grapes, it re-evaluates the grapes as still unripe. Expectations forfuture in relation to a stimulus situation, refer to the extent to which such phenomena can improve or worsen our life. A hunter can track a bear for a long time and be ready for a long effort, because "the game is worth the candle." The same can be said for a person who spares no effort in preparing for a professional interview.

In his later work, Lazarus refers to his model as the cognitive-motivational relationship theory. (Lazarus, 1991; Lazarus Folkman, 19866). In his opinion, the theory of emotions should determine not only the strategy for studying and defining emotional phenomena and their classification, but also integrate biological universals and sociocultural factors, simultaneously explaining many interdependent causal processes and variables. (Lazarus, 1991). At the same time, the theory of emotions should give a specific description of individual emotions, corresponding to general laws.

In the title "cognitive-motivational theory of relations", the last word for Lazarus means that emotions always represent the interactions of the individual and his environment, including the perception and evaluation of harm (for negative emotions) or benefit (for positive emotions), and not just the impact of an external stressor or manifestation of intrapsychic processes. So each emotion represents its own "nuclear" type of relationship. "Motivationonnaya "- means that emotions represent reactions to the possibility of achieving - not achieving life goals and express some trait of an individual or a dispositional variable in the form of a hierarchy of goals, but at the same time they are caused by the requirements and possibilities of the environment surrounding the individual, which makes this side of emotions “interactive”.

At the same time, Lazarus's attempts to find physiological criteria for separating emotional from non-emotional phenomena were not very successful, as well as attempts to separate the reflex-conditioned sensations of pain and pleasure from emotions proper. (Lazarus, 1991).

In connection with the rapid development of scientific and technological progress, especially in recent times, the pace of life has increased dramatically. For a unit of time, a person does not have time to perform the amount of work that modern life imposes on him. Trying to keep up with progress, a person is in constant tension and practically does not relax (does not have time to rest), he develops stress, i.e. neuropsychic stress. Trying to protect yourself from stress, a person follows the path of least resistance. He splashes out his emotions on others (i.e., discharges, relieving stress), thereby spoiling the health of himself and others.
Traditional medicine puts emotions in the first place in terms of their impact on our health. Weak, short in time and diverse emotions provide unconditional positive assistance to the body, conduct a kind of emotional massage of the organs. Well, emotions that are strong in magnitude and short in time, as well as weak and long in time, cause various functional disorders in the organs and systems of the body.
We must know: strong anger affects the liver; constant feeling of fear, sadness - kidneys; prolonged melancholy - lungs; constant anxiety - spleen, pancreas; excess (unbridled) joy, jealousy or envy - the heart. There is also an opposite law - a diseased liver causes a feeling of anger, diseased kidneys - a feeling of fear, etc.
Failure to understand that emotions can and should be controlled is the cause of tension and conflict in relationships between people. The crisis state of society, abrupt economic changes with a decrease in the standard of living of people, a change in values ​​and ideological ideas, interethnic conflicts, as well as natural and environmental disasters that cause population migration, the breaking of life stereotypes significantly affect mental state members of society, give rise to stress, frustration, anxiety, a sense of insecurity, depression.
The study of the emotional state of a person was carried out by such scientists as A.V. Alekseev, P.K. Anokhin, V.M. Bekhterev, V.V. Boyko, L.S. Vygotsky, E. Hanslik, V.M. Igumenov, E.P. Ilyin, K. Izard, R. Nelson-Jones, I.G. Pestalozzi, I.A. Pereverzeva, I.G. Schultz, Coué, Baudouin, P.V. Simonov and other scientists.
Modern life requires from people the utmost mobilization of physical and mental resources, our task is to help understand the complex world of emotions.
The study of the dynamics of manifestations of emotions and feelings in people's behavior is associated with the tasks of optimizing the system of interaction between members of our society, with improving interpersonal relations. Market relations imply that contemporaries have not only knowledge, skills and abilities of all kinds of activities, but also the ability to reasonably resolve psycho-emotional conflicts. The main condition for a healthy emotional life is a change in the value attitude to emotions and the removal of the ban on feelings, understanding their important, effective and positive role in human life. It is very important to learn how to properly handle your emotions. Self-understanding, which is impossible without awareness of one's own emotions, is a necessary condition for self-determination, especially in difficult moments. The task of emotional psychohygiene is to develop the skill of differentiating feelings.
The study of emotional states is the most important key to the realization of personal potential, which is no less important for identifying positive qualities and weaknesses; correction in the desired direction of stereotypes of behavior and response that impede the achievement of goals.
It is not easy to overcome the barriers of mutual understanding that arise in various situations of communication. To do this, you need to be well versed in the nuances of human psychology, including your own. Much easier is not to create these barriers yourself. In order not to be the main obstacle to understanding with others, a person needs to know the psychological rules of communication and, above all, learn to manage their emotions, which most often become a source of interpersonal conflicts.
Thus, in the changing conditions of economic activity modern man it is important to increase the ability to understand, differentiate and verbalize feelings, which will allow them to be controlled.
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Current page: 11 (total book has 30 pages) [available reading excerpt: 20 pages]

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Types of Observer Sensitivity in Recognizing Emotions 8
This work was supported by the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, grant no. 07–06–00250a.
V. V. Ovsyannikova

In situations of everyday interaction, people are constantly faced with a variety of manifestations of the feelings of others. Smiles, sudden pallor, ringing voice, abrupt gestures and other changes in observed behavior are information, the ability to operate which contributes to the adequacy and success of communication.

The scientific study of emotional phenomena requires their limitation in the experiment: in order to be able to study, it is necessary to reduce the variables to a quantity that can be analyzed. One of the key questions in this area is whether emotions are discrete systems, or whether they are interconnected and differ in the degree of their representation in a system of several global dimensions. Adherence to one or another theoretical position determines the main points in the experimental procedure for recognizing emotional states - the set of emotions that is presented for recognition, the format of the subject's answers, and the way the results are interpreted (Russell, Bachorowski, Fernández-Dols, 2003). An alternative in such studies is the approach based on the identification of basic emotions and the multidimensional approach.

Central to the first approach is the notion that there is a limited set of fundamental emotions (Izard, 1980; Ekman, 1999). Their combinations give rise to a variety of emotional phenomena. Basic emotions arose as a result of evolution and are characterized by the presence of specific neural substrates and expression, as well as a distinct subjective experience (Izard, 2006). The idea of ​​basic emotions gives rise to discussions about which emotions should be classified as such, what makes an emotion basic, and how many basic emotions exist (Ortony and Turner, 1990). The strongest arguments in support of this approach come from studies of the cross-cultural universality of emotion recognition and expression (Ekman and Oster, 1979).

According to the multidimensional approach ( dimensional approach), the emotional sphere is considered as a multidimensional space formed by a limited number of coordinate axes. The axes (measurements) are set by the poles of the primary characteristics of emotions. Separate emotions are points whose location in the "emotional" space is determined by the degree of expression of these characteristics. Factor analysis of self-reported emotion data and scaling of emotional words, facial expressions of emotions, as a rule, reveals two general measurements: valence and activation. The measurement of valence reflects how well a person feels at the level of subjective experience in a continuum of states from maximum displeasure to maximum pleasure. The measure of activation is related to the subjective feeling of mobilization or energy and ranges from drowsiness to intense arousal. These measurements are consistently reproduced in different experiments, on the basis of which it is concluded that the whole variety of emotional states is created by combinations of these two independent measurements (Russell, Feldman Barrett, 1999).

Studies aimed at analyzing whether emotions are recognized as separate categories or as continuum measurements have been performed mainly on the material of facial expression and provide evidence in favor of one or the other approach. In particular, in the study that has already become a classic, G. Schlosberg (1941), as a result of the assessment of photographs of facial expressions by the subjects on the scales "pleasure - displeasure" and "acceptance - repulsion", built the first circular model of emotions. Having shown that each of the emotions included in the model can be described using these two measurements, the author gave an explanation for the facts of erroneous answers when recognizing the expression of neighboring emotions in a circular model, as well as the expression of emotions of different intensity (according to: Reikovsky, 1979).

In newer studies, the question is raised about the categorization of the perception of mimic expression of emotions. In one of these works (de Gelder, Teunisse, Benson, 1997), the authors used the morphing technique to create continuums of mimic expressions of basic emotions. The beginning and end of each continuum are facial expressions corresponding to different emotions (for example, anger and sadness). Between extreme points there are "faces" whose physical attributes change equally from one emotion to another. In the study, the subject was presented with three such "faces" - two from the continuum and the third, which is identical to one of the presented ones. The participant's task is to indicate which of the two stimuli is similar to the third.

The researchers proceeded from the following assumptions: if the expression is perceived categorically, then we can expect that the distinction between facial expressions within the same category will be less accurate than between different categories emotions; the same recognition success for all pairs of stimuli in a series will indicate that expression recognition occurs on the basis of emotional measurements. The obtained results testify in favor of the hypothesis about the categorical perception of expression. In addition, it is shown that people with high accuracy can assess whether a good or bad example of the expression of a certain emotion are those expressions that are presented in a continuum. It is important that, despite the progressive nature of the morphing technique, a number of methodological problems associated with its use in experiments are discussed in the literature. These include the problems of theoretical and practical non-uniformity of the stimulus series, the effect of presentation asymmetry (Communication and Cognition, 2007).

To study the fundamental patterns of the process of recognizing emotions, the works on human perception performed in the context of the dimensional approach are of interest. own feelings. In a number of studies, data have been obtained that people differ in the degree of emotional differentiation - a term that reflects the features of a person's description of his internal state. People with low emotional differentiation use discrete emotion names to describe the most general aspects of their state (typically pleasure and displeasure), while people with high emotional differentiation use emotion names to highlight differences between them (Feldman, 1998).

B. L. Feldman and P. Niedenthal studied the role of the “valence focus” in the perception of emotional expression (Feldman, Niedenthal, 2004). According to the authors, the focus of valence is the degree to which subjects place emphasis on the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in their verbal self-reports of experienced emotions. Man with high rate A valence focus person uses emotional terms primarily to express pleasure/displeasure, while a low valence focus person uses emotional terms to communicate other aspects of the experience. For example, the word "tired" in the multivariate model is characterized as an unpleasant state with a low value on the arousal scale. It can be used to report drowsiness (stressing low arousal), irritability and unhappiness (stressing displeasure), or fatigue (stressing both low arousal and displeasure).

The subjects completed several tasks: they assessed the intensity of their experiences during the month using a set of scales (emotional categories); evaluated the similarity of emotional terms; performed the task of perceiving the emotional expression of the face. In the last task, the stimulus material was presented in the form of a “film”, in which the facial expression gradually changed from a neutral expression to a distinct expression of joy, sadness or anger, i.e. with each frame (there were 100 frames in total), the amount of information about the valency of the emotion increased and decreased - about a neutral expression. The instructions told the subjects that they would be shown a film in which the face initially does not express any emotion (neutral state), but the expression will change. They need to stop the film at the frame in which they “see” any emotional state on their face for the first time. In other words, the task was to detect the earliest appearance of signs of emotion. At the time the participant completed this task, his emotional state was measured. The subjects also filled out a battery of personality questionnaires (among others, the Big Five scales).

The results showed that the valency focus increases the efficiency of perceptual processing of affective stimuli. Subjects with a high index of this variable earlier than others detected the appearance of emotional expression of anger and sadness in their facial expressions, i.e., they demonstrated greater sensitivity to negative valence. At the same time, the valence focus turned out to be unrelated to the earlier detection of expressive signs of joy. This effect was not explained by the current emotional state or personality characteristics of the Big Five.

B. L. Feldman and P. Niedenthal explain the data obtained by the fact that greater sensitivity to signs of negative valence leads to greater intensity and frequency of experiencing negative emotions, which, in turn, determine people's choice of certain emotional words to communicate their feelings (t i.e., emphasizing the valency of the state). The authors suggest that a similar differentiation of signs of emotions is also manifested when making a judgment about the emotional state of another person. Those subjects who perceive the appearance of expressive signs earlier in the laboratory may have more diverse affective experiences in the laboratory. Everyday life and perceive other people's facial expressions with greater frequency and variety.

The above brief review shows that emotion recognition based on facial expressions is carried out mainly on the basis of expression categories of basic emotions. There is evidence that for the perception and description of one's own experiences, "sensitivity" to the valence of states is important, which is also beginning to be investigated in connection with the recognition of emotions by facial expressions. In the light of the foregoing, it seems possible to expect the selection of either separate emotional categories, or measurements of valence and activation when evaluating the emotional states of other people and interpret them as sensitivity (sensitivity) to the relevant information gleaned from observing the behavior of another person. The purpose of this work is to identify types of sensitivity and analyze their relationships with the accuracy of recognizing the emotional state of another person.

The main research methodology was developed in order to obtain estimates of the emotional state of another person by an observer who is presented with a video recording of a fragment of the “object’s” behavior in a natural situation. To assess the state of the character, the subject was presented with 17 scales - the names of emotional states (joy, anger, surprise, etc.) with possible options responses from 0 (the category does not characterize the state of the character in this plot) to 5 points (the category most accurately describes the state of the hero of this plot).

The stimulus material of the study consisted of eight videos that were presented to the subjects in random order and were not equalized in terms of the duration of the show, the gender of the character, the amount of information in the plot, and the complexity of the plot to infer the emotions of the hero. The requirements for the plot were as follows: the character must be in a state other than neutral - that is, experience any emotions; the plot should contain information of a different nature (expression, verbal accompaniment, the presence of other people, context, etc.).

To calculate the accuracy of recognition of emotional states, experts were involved in working with plots. Seven Experienced Counseling Psychologists practical work for more than 10 years, subjects were evaluated on the same set of 17 scales as the subjects. The consistency of the experts' assessments of the character's emotional state was calculated using the Cronbach's coefficient α, calculated from their answers for each plot. Mean values ​​(medians) of expert assessments were calculated for each of the 17 assessed scales in each of the eight plots, which are considered as “correct” answers. The accuracy of the observers was defined as the degree of closeness of their assessments to the assessments of experts. Accuracy was operationalized by two metrics:

1 Correlation coefficient between the reference estimates of experts in 17 categories of emotions and the observer's estimates for the same categories in each story (indicator "K"). The more similar the shape of the profiles of the expert's and the observer's assessments, the higher the correlation coefficient and, therefore, the more accurate the assessments of the subject. Since the distribution of sample estimates differs from normal, the nonparametric Spearman coefficient was used to calculate correlations.

2 The sum of the absolute differences between the values ​​of the assessments of experts in 17 categories of emotions and the observer in the same categories in each story (indicator "P"). The lower this indicator, the higher the accuracy of the assessment of the subject: the more similar the assessments of the expert and the observer on separate scales, the smaller their total difference and, consequently, the less value indicator "R". Therefore, in order for this indicator to act in the same direction as the “K” indicator, its values ​​​​were multiplied by (-1).

It should be noted that the indicator "K" is sensitive to the similarity of the assessment profiles of experts and subjects, but is not sensitive to general level profile, i.e. does not reflect the overestimation (underestimation) of the test subject in relation to the expert. So, if the subject in the assessments of the state of the character selects the same scales as the experts, but gives marks on them 2 points lower, then the correlation coefficient will be equally high, as if the assessments of the subject and the expert coincided completely. The “P” indicator, on the contrary, is sensitive to the overestimation (underestimation) of the subjects' assessments in comparison with the assessments of experts on individual scales. So, the sum of the distances between expert assessment and the estimates of two observers can be the same for different profiles of the assessments of the subjects: one will have a greater similarity of assessments on some scales and less on others, and the second will have the opposite. In further calculations, the average values ​​of accuracy indicators (medians) calculated for each subject in eight plots were used.

The study involved 57 people (of which 36 were female) aged 18 to 32 years ( M= 22,5; S= 3.3), students and workers of different specialties.

To test the assumption about the possibility of distinguishing types of sensitivity to certain emotional patterns in the recognition of emotions, we carried out a factorial analysis of medians of observers' ratings for 17 categories of emotions in all subjects. Factor analysis was carried out according to the method of principal components; the varimax method was used to rotate the factors. The measure of adequacy of the Kaiser-Meier-Olkin (KMO) sample was 0.78, which indicates a high adequacy of the factorial model to the correlation matrix of this set of variables (Gusev, Izmailov, Mikhalevskaya, 1987).

The graphical criterion for determining the number of factors showed that the data structure can best be represented by three factors. Together, these factors explain 64% of the variance (the proportion of variance explained by the first factor after rotation is 25%, the second is 23%, and the third is 16%). The eigenvalues ​​of the factors are above 1. The results of the factor analysis are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Factor loadings for variables, 3-factor solution

Note: in the table, the variables included in the factor analysis are marked in bold (their factor loadings are greater than 0.6).

The factor load table shows that the first factor consists of the following categories of emotions:

Contempt,

Disgust,

Discontent,

Suffering,

The second factor included such categories of emotions as:

Anxiety,

Interest,

Excitation,

Voltage.

The third factor formed the following categories of emotions:

Pleasure,

relaxation,

Joy,

Calm.

It can be noted that the first factor was formed by emotions characterized by negative valence and different in terms of activation level. The second factor is more heterogeneous in terms of the valency of the categories included in it, but it seems to be homogeneous in terms of the level of activation of variables - they all belong to highly activation states. The third factor, like the first one, is represented by emotions of the same valency, in this case, positive - in the spectrum from the neutral state with an increase in the level of excitation.

So, as a result of factor analysis, three general patterns of emotional states were obtained, which stood out according to the assessments of the subjects. The fact of identifying these factors can be interpreted as the identification different types the sensitivity of observers to the emotional content of stimuli. In this case, the subjects recognized the emotions of other people, so we are talking about a tendency to attribute certain groups of emotional categories to their states. Based on the variables that formed the factors, the first factor was named "Sensitivity to negative valence", the second - "Sensitivity to high activation", the third - "Sensitivity to positive valence".

It is important that the obtained types of sensitivity are not different poles of the same continuum, but independent measurements. For example, high values ​​for the factor of sensitivity to positive emotions mean that people, making a conclusion about the emotions of others, tend to “see” in their state, first of all, the emotions included in this factor, i.e. joy, pleasure, etc. In fact, observers , who have this type of sensitivity, interpret the states of other people in terms of categories of positive valency. Low values ​​of the factor, on the contrary, indicate a low frequency of involvement of these categories in emotion recognition.

After the variables related to the three factors were determined, the values ​​of the factors for each observer were calculated. To do this, the assessments were summed up by the categories of emotions included in the factor. These indicators were used in further analysis of the relationship between the identified types of observers' sensitivity and the accuracy of their assessment of the characters' emotional states.

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