Reflection essay – 600 words.

Please read the instruction file and lecture slides.  

Psychology 132: Psychology and Culture

Book: Matsumoto, D., & Juang, L. (2016). Culture and Psychology (Sixth ed.). Nelson Education.

This reflection essay should be 600 words and fully address the questions. Please make sure your paragraphs are complete (4-5 sentences) and grammar/punctuation has been checked.  Essays have paragraphs! 

After reading/hearing the power point presentation “EMOTIONS AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT” (File attached), answer the following questions:

1. What emotions are ‘hard-wired’ in the stem of the brain?  How might these emotions be tied with theories related to Evolutionary Psychology?

2.  Psychologist believe emotions become ‘active’ for all humans around the same time.  What accounts for emotional expression?  From Chp 9 what research may prove that we there is universal perception of emotions?  What are the studies that find facial recognition may be universal?  Might it be tied to genetic encoding? 

3. What have you noticed about the expression of emotions in your family?  Is your expression always aligned with your family’s?  

4. How might emotion antecedents be related to Emotional Intelligence? Of the 4 areas of Emotional Intelligence, which do you think you are strong in and why?  Which area(s) do you believe you need to develop more skill in?

5. What do universal processes allow us to to do in different social, work and life situations?

Diana Creel Elarde

EMOTIONS AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 9

I want to thank you for coming
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Two emotions we come with
Psychologist believe in the top of our brain stem, the emotions of grief and panic exist once we are born
We all start out with the same emotions!

1.You get to work, happy settle in after your first meeting you start to feel anxious, maybe even negative —what happened to change your mood?
2. Changes are you have picked up an emotional state from one of your co-workers which has signaled something is wrong – like the good little warning beckon we are – we too feel and send out that message.
3. Are there people who feel more sad or negative during the day
4. Simply enough are you breathing? If you were to really listen in meeting you will be able to identify those people who are holding their breath or shallow breathing –
Sound like this – a sudden quiet intake of breath – or people who seem almost breathless when they are speaking to you —–
You have to remember this is a universal sign of danger for humans – and if you are not aware you too will minic their breathing and feel anxious
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Development of our emotions

1. Hard wired emotions in the limbic brain – Panic and grief – shared by all mammals.
2. 6 months of age we begin to develop seven other emotions such as joy, disgust, fear, surprise, anger, sadness, worry – true of all humans
3. Amygdala recorder – Calm Family, dramatic, abusive – can be self protective.
4. Development of frontal lobes develop what we call our higher thought. Our reasoning portion of the brain will become to interact with our emotions – Verifying and acknowledging each other.
5. Why play becomes important, especially as we step out of our own family environment – expands our understanding of how we express our emotions.
6. Default emotional expression will be the patterns we establish early – as we get older We can change those patterns by making a conscious decision to change.
We step out of our immediate family environment we begin to adjust our emotional reactions – What’s proper behavior in our house, may not be in school, or at our friend;s house

Expression in learned early

There are the theories

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The frontal lobe (the higher mind), is the most evolved part of the brain – capable of advanced reasoning.

And capable of advanced emotional evaluation
and emotional reflection, diversity, repression
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The primitive limbic brain helped early man survive
Awareness of threats to survival

Our basic emotions are hard-wired into the limbic brain – panic and grief
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Our first response – look for what threatens us!
We often look for the negative because that’s
how we learned to survive
The primitive brain likes patterns

80% of the time our brain is looking for what threatens us.
Like primitive man walking through the forest finding another human – decision friend or foe.
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When we feel challenged……!

Fight or flight response is activated

Our challenges are not like early man, yet our reactions when we feel or perceive to be threatened can be.
Fight/flight – activation – our breathing becomes shallow, muscles tense, heart beat exceralted – we are ready for some type of action.
We are designed to stay in this state for a short period of time.
And the longer we are in this state…..
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Emotions out of control!

The result can be poorly managed emotions…..

…making a smart person appear less smart!

Well let’s just say our emotional responses run amok under extreme stress and sometimes the results get us into trouble.
Nick and running the construction zone. Increasingly was having emotional outbursts in the office, effecting support staff in a very negative way.
Unfortunatly no one intervened on his behavior, one afternoon while driving to a client’s office he refused to follow the directions of a road construction supervisor. And nearly hit the guy with his car.
Let’s just say, you never want to see the mug shot one of your employees on the evening news
This behavior sometimes referred to as an amygalda hijack. Remember our thinking and primitive work our programmed to work together.
Prolonged stress starts to cut off the thinking portion, we become reactive.
Another example mom and child along the river – can’t remember jumping in and after the fact goes wait I can’t swim

Joke about the uber passinger
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People can hijack our emotions

DILBERT – GREAT REFLECTION ON OUR WORKPLACE
Toxic people challenge our system and we need to be aware of who makes us feel bad and who makes us feel good.
And for those who make us feel bad we need to realize on some level that is their goal —–and that doesn’t mean we need to play with them.
If it they are directly working with us —we need to remember we still choose how to react to them
CHALLENGE TO THE SYSTEM, OUR PRIMITIVE BRAIN
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Unaware, we catch each other’s emotional state

Our breath, your breath
Always keep in mind the power of breathing!

Ok I know I am starting to sound like a yoga teacher,
When we are in fear – shallow, rapid breathing starts
Signaling the primitive brain our system is threatened
When we engage in controlled breathing we tell our brain –
its okay, we’re ok
And it tells others around us that they are safe,
Take a moment evaluate what is your breathing pattern?
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Reactive or proactive, am I in control?
How do you want to feel 10 minutes from now?

Avoid an amygdala hijack!
What helps us to balance and will work together=
—–They need to work together to create balanced reactions and responses
Most of the time
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What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and your relationships.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

Recognize, understand – emotions –
Yours, others
Being aware – manage your behavior and relationships
Seems simple enough OK did you get it?
Let’s break it down
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The four Core Skills
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

Seems simple enough, but remember our brain doesn’t necessarily like to change –
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How aware am I?
Self Awareness
What/ who makes me happy, sad or angry?
What emotion am I feeling this moment?

Aware of how I feel and I can describe the emotion

People high in EI allow themselves the luxury and I do mean that word of stepping back, send yourself 10 minutes into the future —how do I want me, this situation the other person to feel 10 minutes from now?
Try the words – I’ll think about it —-that’s tougher and tougher in a world where the expectation is NOW. But the fact is when we respond in haste many times we create more problems, then if we take some time to think about it.
Example Daughter’s idea and I’ll think about it
What do I want to create resolution or conflict? The world is suffering from polarization – my way – those who can take others with them are the ones being recognized as leaders, whether they are in leadership or not.
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What’s my level of self control?
Self Management
Ask yourself “Why am I feeling this way?”
Take a step back from reacting -“I need to think about this”

Reflection
Projection into the future
Choose a positive outcome

People high in EI allow themselves the luxury and I do mean that word of stepping back, send yourself 10 minutes into the future —how do I want me, this situation the other person to feel 10 minutes from now?
Try the words – I’ll think about it —-that’s tougher and tougher in a world where the expectation is NOW. But the fact is when we respond in haste many times we create more problems, then if we take some time to think about it.
Example Daughter’s idea and I’ll think about it
What do I want to create resolution or conflict? The world is suffering from polarization – my way – those who can take others with them are the ones being recognized as leaders, whether they are in leadership or not.
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What are others thinking and feeling?
Social Awareness
Listen with your eyes as well as ears
Widen your perspective – why do others feel differently than you do
Who makes you feel uncomfortable/who makes you feel safe?

In my class when we talk about emotions I’ll take this example for them.
I love you. The intent of the words, the body language may give us hints of inconsistency.
To safe yourself from wear/tear be careful of the toxic person – don’t let them hijack your emotional state

Dilbert is next.
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Build solid relationships
Relationship Management
Speak to the person directly, especially if you think
there is a problem.
Are you taking things personally?

Find the high road and take it!

Sometimes we have to go directly to the source, when we listen to idle gossip we develop misconceptions
Example of Amy Sub. Took offense – didn’t come to me, complained to several people so I heard about it. I have too much respect to you to respond to you negativity and if my behavior was inapproptiat eI apologize.
I’d rather be right, then happy – Humor and Amanda’s raise?
But we can’t find our humor if we have cut ourselves off from our thinking brain and we are in that personal survival mode – when we are there all we can think of is how to save ourselves
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Increasing your EI can help change your future

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Start with the person in the mirror

Our future
If we are to successfully manage the changes we need in our country, our workplace and our lives we need to embrace techniques of EI
Learn the art of compromise!

I believe that EI is the answer
Perhaps it something we need to explore
=US shortage of workers particularly in technology, teaching,
The continued loss of talent within the workplace
Diversity and Dow Corning – conferences how women can come on as board of directors.
Bottom line – we need to remember our emotions should be honored, our reactions should be monitored.
There is nothing wrong with anger, it is the inappropriate display of anger – the yelling, the name calling, or even the silent treatment. All this does is create fear and anxiety.
And we can create the same relaxed and embraced relationship s with our homes, our families in all relationships \\
I’m not just talking to leaders here – I am talking to all of us – We all can be aware of how we feel, we all can choose to
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A thought…..

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1

Psychology and Culture

Student’s Name

Professor’s Name

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Institution Name

Date

Psychology and Culture

According to psychologists, once we are born, emotions, grief, and panic are hardwired in the limbic section of the brain. The emotions are also present in all mammals making them innate and universal (Matsumoto & Juang, 2016). Evolutionary Psychology theorizes that emotions have a fundamental role in behavior which is necessary for environmental adaptation. Therefore, grief and panic are viewed as adaptive responses to changes in environment settings. In other words, it supports awareness of threats in order to improve prospects for survival. For example, people experience panic attack when stuck in tiny gap between rocks while hiking is due to changes in the environment invoking fear which in turn activates our fight or flight response.

Besides, an emotional expression is an action that communicates the current emotional state which could be influenced by various factors such as self-awareness, physical health or environment. In fact, the universal perception of emotions is based on the study of Charles Darwin. Based on his research, he identified that the facial expression of emotion is universal (Matsumoto & Juang, 2016). Furthermore, his research continued to identify that facial expressions do not vary based on culture. Therefore, they cannot be learned. Nevertheless, recognizing facial expressions of emotions have a key role in human cognition which support the notion of universal perception of emotions. Also, facial recognition studies find facial is cognition as universal as it is effortlessly achieved among humans. Thus, social conditioning has a significant impact on how people view faces. It is also tied to genetic encoding as it is influenced and intercorrelated by genes.

From my personal perspective, my family members demonstrate similar emotional expression under ideal conditions. Additionally, it is possible to be affected by the emotions of other family members that associate with the level of attachment and correlation with the distressing issue. Thus, the aligning of expression with family members is frequent but not always. For example, when my parents are happy, the emotion is shared among the other family members inducing the emotion of joy and happiness. However, if my adolescent sister is experiencing mood swings which alter their emotions, the other family members would barely align their emotions with her. Hence, the support for the notion of emotions are being associated most of the time.

While emotion antecedents are defined as events, situational triggers, or solicitation of emotions, emotional intelligence refers to the capability to control, be aware of, and express our emotions. They are related as emotion antecedents are used to determine emotional control. Of the four areas of emotional intelligence, I believe I am strong in social awareness as I always respect everyone’s perspective, as well as recognize others’ concerns and emotions. However, I everyday still practice being empathetic, and socially independent from external criticism. Previous experiences with depression contributed to the current emotional state as the notions and comments of others had a controlling role in my emotions. The skill that requires development is social skills as I am poor in communicating with others, bonds are difficult to develop and I do not like change. Hence, social skills are necessary for effective interaction with others thus the need to improve on it.

Universal emotions in different social, work and life situations have the core role of passing information concerning the individual. The notion of universal emotions was founded on the work of Darwin who viewed such emotions as evolved traits among all humans. Each universal emotion has a dissimilar signal and physiology which is affected by the situation at hand. Although they vary from their onset, duration, and waning, universal emotions do not last long. Moreover, if an emotion continues for an extended period, without intermission it is deemed either a disorder or mood. Nevertheless, they allow us to communicate varying emotional states influenced by the varying situations.

Reference

Matsumoto, D., & Juang, L. (2016). Culture and psychology (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.