Emotions and Criminality

- Emotions can differ in intensity

Plutchiks emotion wheel – primary and secondary emotions

Own anger scale:

dismissive angry resentful

Emotional Triggers:

External factors
A comment made by a person, something you observed

Internal Factors
Needs and thoughts (missing someone)

Three Elements of Emotions:

1. Physiological Response
2. Subjective Feelings
3. Expressive Behaviour

The Definition of Emotion: A personal experience that involves a mixture of physiological

responses, subjective feelings, and expressive behaviour

Subjective Feelings: The inner, personal experience of an emotion (something that is personal
to you)

Mental Illness

- In some mental illnesses, the subjective experience of emotions is very intense

- For ex: people with borderline personality disorder can experience emotions that
‘spiral out of control’ so that their experience of an emotion is very intense
- At the other extremity are people who report having no subjective experience of an
emotion – seen in criminals who are psychopaths. Their subjective experience of
emotion can differ because they don’t feel emotions such as remorse, empathy and
compassion as strongly as other people (if at all)
Psychologists use Self Report Methods to collect information about someone’s subjective
feelings – surveys and questionnaires
Interviews vs Questionnaires

Interviews can obtain a lot of information, but very time consuming. Questionnaires can be
administered quickly and to many people at once.

Expressive Behaviour

1. Any observable expression of behaviour

2. Can be unintentional or intentional (conscious or self-conscious)
3. The most common type of expressive behaviour are facial expressions
4. Emotions are also expressed by changes in body posture

Interesting fact: Moving your feet towards someone shows attraction/connection

It may be difficult to accurately interpret emotions because some people hide their emotions
by controlling their expressions.

Expressing Behaviour Through Voice

Emotions can be interpreted through vocal qualities such as speed, pitch, and volume.

Science of Anger - Summaries

What is Anger?

Anger is an innate response that has evolved over millions of years and serves as a
mechanism to deal with threats, compete for resources, and enforce social norms. It is rooted
in the brain's reward circuit and arises when there is a discrepancy between our expectations
and reality. This triggers activity in the amygdala, a small region in the brain. Anger can
activate the fight or flight response, with stress hormones flooding the body. However, how
we express anger depends on the amygdala, responsible for decision-making and reasoning,
which helps regulate our primal instincts and ensures socially acceptable behaviour in most
situations.

How does anger change the way we think?

Feeling anger can affect our perception of risks, leading to increased impulsiveness and
underestimation of negative outcomes. Studies show that when angry, individuals may
perceive lower chances of suffering certain health issues or believe they are more likely to
experience positive events. Depending on the situation, anger can either make us courageous
or reckless. Moreover, anger influences group dynamics by causing negative and prejudiced
thinking towards outsiders, leading to a tendency to blame individuals' nature rather than
their circumstances. This search for someone to blame can intensify anger, potentially
fuelling irrational rage in a cycle.

Does anger have benefits?

Throughout history, anger has been mostly perceived negatively, labelled as worthless or
sinful. However, scientific research suggests that there might be some benefits for individuals
who experience anger, even if not for society as a whole. Anger can act as a potent motivator,
driving people to work harder and desire certain objects more intensely, even when they are
not consciously aware of it. Outward displays of anger can also influence how individuals are
perceived by others. For instance, expressing anger has been found to garner more support for
public figures like President Bill Clinton during certain scandals. Additionally, job candidates
who express anger may be perceived as having higher status and salary potential compared to
those showing sadness. In negotiations, displaying anger can increase the likelihood of
success, as it may be associated with dominance and determination. However, it is essential
to note that these effects tend to be more pronounced for men, as angry women may be
viewed less favourably.

Are men angrier than women?

Men tend to display more outward aggression than women, leading to the assumption that
they might also experience more anger. However, research indicates that women experience
anger just as frequently and intensely as men. Men, when angry, are more likely to show
aggression, while women are equally motivated by rage. One study found that women
expressed anger and acted upon it as frequently as men, but men felt less effective when
trying to contain their anger, whereas women seemed better at controlling immediate
impulsive responses to anger. Brain biology has been proposed as a potential explanation,
with differences in brain regions involved in controlling aggressive impulses. The amygdala,
responsible for emotional processing, is similar in size for both genders, but the orbital frontal
cortex, related to impulse control, appears to be larger in women, possibly contributing to
their better regulation of explosive outbursts. Nevertheless, the role of societal expectations is
significant, with differences in how girls and boys are treated from an early age impacting
their ability to regulate emotional responses. Overall, gender differences in anger and other
behaviours are complex and not solely determined by brain biology.

Why do toddlers get so angry – what can parents do about it?

Toddlers experience exciting but challenging times as they explore the world without a well-
developed understanding of how things work. Their limited language skills can lead to
meltdowns over seemingly trivial issues. Researchers, like Michael Potegal from the
University of Minnesota, treated tantrums as natural phenomena to be analysed. They
recorded over a hundred tantrums and found that they consist of a combination of two
emotions: anger (screaming, yelling, throwing things) and sadness (crying, whining, lying on
the floor). The researchers discovered that sadness was a constant underlying emotion, while
anger built up to a peak and then subsided. They concluded that the best way to end a tantrum
is to let the child pass the anger peak as quickly as possible, suggesting that intervening or
asking what's wrong may prolong the tantrum.

Mental health and anger

Disruptions in communication between brain regions can lead to unexpectedly aggressive

behaviour when responding to anger. Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and
frontotemporal dementia can damage frontal brain regions, inhibiting the instinctive response
to frustration and anger and breaking connections with the amygdala. This can result in
increased aggression and impulsivity. Additionally, the way we process anger affects our
mental well-being, with some experiencing depression due to high inhibition. Life
experiences, especially exposure to violence, can influence how individuals experience and
express anger, potentially leading to more frequent triggers for aggression. Interventions like
cognitive behavioural therapy may help individuals cope with such experiences.

Role of the Brain

THE LIMBIC SYSTEM

 The limbic system includes a structure called the
amygdala.
 The amygdala plays an important role in learning
emotional associations and recognising emotional
experiences in others.

PLUTCHIK’S THEORY OF EMOTION

 There are a set of basic emotions that all people
experience.
 Each emotion is innate.
 Each emotion enhances our survival.
 Plutchik also proposed that emotions have four
characteristics:
 They are positive (joy) or negative (sad)
 They are primary (surprise) or secondary (disappointment
– a blend of sadness and surprise)
 They vary in intensity secondary
 Many are polar opposites.
primary

 We cannot experience opposite emotions simultaneously.

 All other emotions are a blend of the 8 primary emotions
 Joy, anger, sadness, discus, fear, anticipation, trust, surprise

SCHACHTER’S THEORY OF EMOTION

• There are two factors that work together in the
experience of an emotion:
– Physiological Arousal
– Cognitive Processes
 Cognitive Processes are our thoughts about what is
happening when we experience an emotion.

 How we feel at any one time depends on a number

of interacting factors:
– Environmental Stimulus
– Arousal of the autonomic nervous system
– A decision about the emotion being experienced
Why do negative emotions have more of an impact on us?

Used for safety

Modelling – children learn by observation, what they observe is what they copy 1gh 8

Stimulus Arousal Appraisal Feeling Behaviour

You turn the corner Muscles tighten, My body is You feel You
into the locker area heart rate reacting strongly shocked. confront
at school and see increases, rapid to this. I am them and
your breathing ensues feeling ask them
girlfriend/boyfrien angry/confused/ “What are
d hugging your jealous/ you
best friend disappointed doing?!”
You walk into the Muscles tighten, My body is You feel You gasp
darkened lounge heart rate reacting to this. I surprised! and say
room. Suddenly the increases, rapid am feeling thank you to
lights flick on, and breathing ensues happy/shocked/ everybody.
everyone shouts surprised
“surprise?”

Emotional Intelligence

Definition: The ability to understand one’s own emotions and the emotions of others and to
conduct successful relationships using this knowledge.

Top tips to raise children with higher EQ: Lael Stone

1. Repression, aggression, expression

2. Boundaries
3. Empathy, compassion
4. Listening
5. Children cannot be what they don’t see and experience

Research Designs
Data is collected using one or more investigation designs.

Three types:

1. Experimental
2. Observational
 3. Qualitative

Controlled experiment:

Control group - don’t receive treatment (independent variable)

Experimental group - does receive the treatment

Advantages and disadvantages of experimental designs

Advantages:
- Maximises control over extraneous variables affecting the dependent variable due to
highly controlled nature
- Can determine cause and effect relationship between IV and VD (if the IV caused an
effect on the DV)
- Controlled setting allows for easier replication of the experiment

Disadvantages:
- May be unethical to manipulate certain variables or randomly allocate participants
- Controlled setting may make it inapplicable to real world (lacks external validity)
- May not represent entire population

Observational Designs

Used when pre-existing criteria or characteristics are present, such as gender, ethnicity, job
status, etc.
Experimenter may choose observational because:
 Too costly to set up experimental design
 Want to examine pre-existing characteristic anyway
 Too unethical to manipulate independent variable

Unethical groups:

- Lactose intolerant
- Disabled
- Heart issues
- Weight

Ethical Characteristics of Observational Designs

 Independent variable is NOT manipulated > pre-existing or too unethical to change

 Allows for research in a natural setting
 Can determine associations between variables but CAN NOT determine cause and
effect due to lack of control from researchers

Qualitative Designs
Used to gain rich, in depth, qualitative data about a topic

Three main types:

- Focus group
- Delphi technique
- Interviews

Focus groups
- A group interview that obtains data through discussion between research participants
- Participants are encouraged to talk with one another, ask questions, exchange personal
experiences and points of view, etc.
- Usually between 6-10 people but can be bigger
- Moderator asks questions
- Key note: participants are not experts in field of study

Delphi technique
- Self-administered questionnaires and feedback to obtain expert opinions in field

Qualitative – Interviews
- Structured and follow up questions
- Can get lengthy qualitative data

Qualitative designs – advantages and disadvantages

Pros:
- Can be much more convenient
- Can gain significant and rich verbal data – more rich then ticking a box, get an
explanation, more in depth

Cons:
- Cannot generalise results due to subjective nature

Research Designs

Experimental – design we control

Observational – design we

Research Methods

Tools or techniques psychologists use to obtain data. In other words, type of data collected.

Three types:
1. Objective quantitative
 2. Subjective quantitative
3. Qualitative

Objective: Free from bias/opinion/personal interpretation

Subjective: Can be altered by bias/opinion/personal interpretation
Quantitative: Data using numbers
Qualitative: Data using words, language, pictures

Objective Quantitative

Objective Quantitative Measures:

Standardised Tests
- Scores on tests have the same meaning with the same questions
- Used the same way on each occasion

Physiological Measures
- Measures of body functions e.g. heart rates, galvanic skin response, blood pressure,
etc. Sometimes a polygraph machine is used

Behaviour Counts
- Specific behaviour frequency recorded during a given period of time
Subjective Quantitative

Subjective Quantitative Measures:

Rating Scales
- Participants select their response from a fixed statement
- 1 = strongly agree etc.

Self-Reports with Fixed Response Answers

- Allow opportunity to ask the same questions of a large portion of people
- Yes/no answers, multiple choice, rating scales

Observations
- Researchers using a scale/checklist will observe targeted behaviour from their
perspective

Qualitative Research

- Questionnaires
- Interviews
- Pictures
- Descriptions
- Any data using language, pictures, etc.

Ethics in Psychology
Researchers must follow five key ethical principles:
- Informed consent
- Voluntary participation
- Confidentiality
- Right to withdraw
- Debriefing

Informed Consent
- Participants need to be informed about the type of study and reasons for research
- Informed of risks, rights, aim of investigation
- Participants under 18 must have a parent/caregivers consent

Voluntary Participation
- No negative consequences for refusal to partake

Confidentiality
- Participants have the right to privacy so any details of their involvement cannot be
disclosed unless written consent is obtained
Right to Withdraw
- Researcher must inform participants they may withdraw from the study at any time
without explanation
- Sometimes researchers will withdraw participant/s themselves

Debriefing
- Occurs AFTER the investigation or experiment is completed
- Informs participants of deception (if any)

Accurate reporting
- Researchers have a duty to publish results
- Give complete information about research
- Cannot fabricate results or take credit for other psychologists work

Science Inquiry Skills

Biopsychosocial Model

Biological

Contributes genetic factors including neurochemistry and previous head/body trauma or

injury

Example:
- Greatest risk factor for developing schizophrenia is a first degree relative to having
the illness
- D2 dopamine receptors more prevalent in patients with addiction compared to the rest
of the population
Can also include other biological factors, including hormones, disease, age, sex,
medication/drugs, alcohol, immune response, fight or flight, and sleep.

Psychological

Contributes factors of cognition and thinking, particularly cognitive distortions which can
trigger the onset of mental illness and psychological stress such as anxiety and depedression

Example:
- Trauma and neglect in childhood can shape thinking and create negative emotions
leading to heightened emotions

Can also include other psychological factors including learning, emotions, attitudes, memory,
perceptions, and beliefs.

Social

Contributes factors such as cultural values, religion, family, and social expectations. Many
mental illnesses are heavily influenced by cultural values of community and society.

Example:
- Anorexia and bolemia are less common in non-western countries as ‘beauty’ is not
seen as ‘thinness’

Can include other social factors such as social support, family background, socio-economic
status, gender expectations, interpersonal relationships, and social media.

Content Analysis
Content analysis:
- Compressing large amounts of text into fewer categories

Content Analysis – Guidelines for coding data

1. Become familiar with the content of data

 Read and re-read transcripts

2. Identify core themes

 Words phrases, terms, concepts
 Identify the groups of comments that are similar

3. Code themes
 Develop an identifying name that represents the group
 4. Track themes
 Look for commonalities and differences in the way people say
things, contradictions
 Identify common themes of greater generality

Summarise using a frequency table with illustrative quotes.

Adelaide Holidaying Frequency Table

Theme Illustrative Comments Frequency

Proximity “Getting somewhere
amazing and wild like 7
Kangaroo Island isn’t that
far from the city”
Food and Wine “Many great pubs to choose
from for a meal, a drink and 8
to see live entertainment”
Scenery and Attractions
“Beautiful coastal strip of 13
Adelaide”

Transport
“Buses run frequently from 4
my accommodation”

History and Culture “I really enjoyed the

Egyptian room in the 8
museum”

What are the biopsychosocial factors that impact on aggression?

Biological: age, sex, medication/drugs, alcohol, hormones, sleep, fight or flight

Psychological: learning, emotions, attitudes, memory, perceptions, beliefs

Social: social support, family background, socio-economic status, gender expectations,

interpersonal relationships, social media

What are the biopsychosocial Social:

factors that impact on aggression?
• Social skills
• Conformity
• Social support
• Popularity contest
• Personal relationships
• Provoked
 Bio:
Psycho:

• Age • Learning
• Sex • Emotions
• Medication/drugs • Attitude
• Alcohol • Beliefs
• Hormones • Anger management
• Sleep • Psychiatric diseases
• Fight/flight • Past trauma
• Gender • Learned behaviour
• Impaired brain • Anger issues
Cognition
development
• Mental illness
• Frontal lobe • Stress
Memory • Perception
• Feeling overwhelmed
Memory refers to a group of related and interacting processes that enable us to acquire, retain
and retrieve information.

3 basic processes: Encoding, storage, retrieval

Retrieval: recall and recognition

Recall - retrieve information from memory with a few, if any, cues

Recognition – correctly identifying previously learned information from a set of alternatives

Information processing model of memory

Sensory memory:
Stores incoming ‘raw’ sensory information up to several seconds
When information in sensory memory is attended to, can be transferred to STM

Short-term memory (STM):

Stores information for approx. 20 seconds unless a conscious effort is made to hold it there

Long-term memory (LTM):

STM transfers information to LTM for more permanent storage

Iconic Memory - visual

Stores visual images in their original sensory form for about one-third of a second (enough
time to convert to STM)

Echoic Memory - sound

The term commonly used for the memory of auditory sensory information. Stores memory
for 2-4 seconds
Short Term Memory

Chunking involves the clustering of information into larger, more meaningful single units

Two main forms of rehearsal to retain information in memory:

Maintenance rehearsal – repeating information over and over without adding new
meaning

Elaborative rehearsal involves reorganising new and existing information in a

meaningful way to aid storage and retrieval

Long Term Memory

Long-term memory refers to the memory system that stores large amounts of information for
a considerable period.

Different forms:

Procedural memory – how to perform different actions, operations, and skills (like
muscle memory/autopilot), largely unconscious

Declarative memory – memory of facts or events that we can consciously recall

Two types: Episodic and Semantic

Episodic – stores events, (episodes), involving personal experience (birthdays,

holidays, graduations), include details about the context: when and where, and the
state: emotional and physical, you were in at the time

Semantic memory – stores information about the world, includes general knowledge
such as facts

Serial Position Effect - Forgetting

Recall of items in a serial list tends to follow a pattern: items which fall at the beginning are
recalled best, followed by items at the end of the list.

Primacy effect – better recall of items at the beginning of a list

Recency effect – better recall of items at the end of a list
The Forgetting Curve

Within the first hour after learning, approximately 50% of forgetting occurs. After that, the
rate and amount of forgetting over time is more gradual.

Review

1. The brain region called hippocampus which sits under the frontal lobe, is slightly larger in
London taxi drivers
2. Explicit memories are stored in declarative LTM store
3. The serial position effect states individuals have a tendency to remember items at the
beginning and end of a list
4. * forgetting curve states we lose * of information in the first * of learning

Biological Causes of Forgetting

Amnesia is partial or complete loss of memory, either permanently or temporarily

Anterograde amnesia is loss of memory experienced after the amnesia causing event

Retrograde amnesia is loss of memory for experiences occurring before the amnesia causing
event.

Infantile amnesia is inability to retrieve episodic memories before the age of two to four years

Alzheimer’s disease involves progressive degeneration of brain neurons, resulting in severe

deterioration of cognitive abilities.
- Plaques and tangles of brain fibres develop and cause large numbers of brain neurons
to die off at a greater rate than normal.
Symptoms could include forgetfulness such as losing keys or forgetting about the stove,
change in mood (happy to cranky), confusion, impaired decision making.

Over time, forgetfulness develops to a stage when a person with Alzheimer’s experiences loss
of episodic memories.

Alzheimer’s Research

How is technology used to diagnose the disease?

PET scans are used to reveal how well cells in various brain regions are working by showing
how actively the cells use sugar or oxygen.

MRI measures radio waves.

CT is an x-ray for the full body, shows dark spaces showing the degeneration of neurons.

Prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in Australia?

Nearly 7 in 10 people with dementia have Alzheimer’s disease. It affects up to 1 in 10
Australians over 65 years. Increases to 3 in 10 Australians over 85 years
What percentage of that population have been diagnosed with early onset dementia? (before
65)

5-6%

Psychological Causes of Forgetting

Forgetting can occur when we do not use the right retrieval cue, when there is interference
from competing material (e.g. music) or when there is some underlying motivation to forget
(e.g. trauma).

Types of Retrieval Cues

Context-dependent cues – cues that were present in the environment in which a memory
was formed, and which assist in accessing the memories.

State-dependent cues – cues associated with the psychological and psychological state of the
person when the memory was formed.

Interference from other Memories

Retroactive Interference – new information interfered with the ability to recall information
already in memory

Proactive interference – information already in memory interfere with the ability to

remember new information.