donchenko_angliyska_ddlya_psikhologiv_i_sotsiologiv

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Text 2

I. Read and translate the text:

Classification of Emotions

The list of feelings and reactions we include under the term emotion is almost infinite. A few that come to mind readily are: fear, anger, rage, horror, terror, agony, anxiety, jealousy, shame, embarrassment, disgust, grief, boredom and dejection. These tend to be negative emotions, but positive ones can be added: love, joy, amusement, elation, ecstasy, pleasure, and happiness. It is quite clear that the list could be extended indefinitely, depending on one's introspective skill and vocabulary range.

At birth there are just a few basic emotional reactions that develop and combine in different ways, through learning and maturation, to cover the full spectrum of emotional experience as we know it at adults. The behaviourist, John Watson postulated three basic emotions in children - fear, rage, and love.

Robert Plutchik has proposed a theory of emotional mixture. He assumes that there are eight basic emotional reactions - anticipation, anger, joy, acceptance, surprise, fear, sorrow, and disgust. According to him, each primary emotional reaction can vary in intensity producing different shades of emotional experience. For instance, such basic reaction like fear can vary in intensity from timidity, through apprehension, fear and panic, up to terror. So we may have annoyance, anger, and rage as well as calmness, serenity, pleasure, happiness, joy and ecstasy.

Other psychologists took a more descriptive approach to the classification of emotions. This approach involves the isolation of one or more basic dimensions along which emotional reactions can be placed. Three main dimensions

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were described by various authors: intensity, pleasantness-unpleasantness, and approach-avoidance. The intensity dimension is the one most psychologists agree upon. It was also called a level of arousal or activation. And Elizabeth Duffy suggested that the term emotion be replaced by arousal or energy mobilization.

Emotions at the same level of intensity may be pleasant or unpleasant. Among the more aroused emotions appear joy, astonishment, hopefulness, and ecstasy on the pleasant side and disgust, fear, rage and terror on the unpleasant one. Among the less aroused emotions there are the pleasantness of material feeling and the unpleasantness of grief.

II. Answer the following questions:

1.Into what types are emotions differentiated?

2.How do basic emotional reactions develop?

3.What basic emotions did John Watson postulate?

4.What theory did Robert Plutchik propose?

5.How can each primary reaction vary?

6.What does the descriptive approach involve?

7.What are three main dimensions of emotions?

8.How are emotions differentiated at the same level of intensity?

9.What theory do you think to be the most influential? Give your arguments.

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III. Explain:

•what you understand by positive emotions; •what you mean by negative emotions;

•the essence of John Watson's theory;

•the importance of Robert Plutchik's theory.

IV Say, if you please:

• what emotions you experience more often: positive or negative;

•what circumstances give rise to your positive emotions and negative ones accordingly.

V. Describe to your friend the most pleasant situation you have ever found yourself in.

VI. Think of the unpleasant situation you have been a witness of.

VII. Give the general idea of the text «Classification of Emotions».

VIII. Read the text and give its contents in Russian:

Emotions and Heart

«Не was so upset, I thought he'd have a heart attack».

That expression is seldom meant literally, but a group of Boston heart specialists and psychiatrists report in the

JOURNAL of the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION that there does seem to be a connection between emotions and heart. In a study of 117 people who had been hospitalized for life threatening disturbances in heart rhythm, and in most cases had suffered cardiac arrest, the doctors found that 25 had experienced «cute emotional disturbances», during 24 hours.

Situations that seemed to bring on attack included arguments, marital breakups, and the death of someone close. In 17 cases, the precipitating emotion was

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apparently anger; in others, depression, fear, grief, extreme agitation and tension played a role. The researchers think these upsets may interfere with the nervous system's regulation of heart rhythm and, they add, doctors should study not only the physical conditions of patients' hearts, but also their lives and emotions.

Notes:

upset - расстроенный; disturbance — нарушение; marital breakups - разводы.

IX. Read the text once more and answer:

1.What observation did Boston specialists make?

2.What were the reasons of the heart attacks?

3.What is the task of the doctors in this respect?

X. Speak on the research made by Boston specialists.

Text 3

I. Read and translate the text:

Emotional Motives

Emotions are powerful reactions that have motivating effects on behaviour. Emotions are physiological and psychological responses that influence perception, learning, and performance. Unfortunately, there is no basic definition of emotions. For example, some people take the position that emotion is an entirely different process from motivation. Others say that emotions are simply one class of motives. Some define emotion subjectively - in terms of feelings experienced by the individual. Others see emotions as bodily changes. Most of these people have emphasized the reaction as the main

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component in emotion, but others concentrate on the perception of the situation that arouses the emotion or the effects of the emotion on ordinary behaviour.

The first person to seriously challenge the classical position was William James, the famous Harvard psychologist. In 1884, he wrote that conscious experience follows the bodily reactions, which are more or less automatic reactions to stimuli in the environment. The most important part of the bodily reaction is in internal visceral organs - the heart, stomach, blood vessels and so on.

Since a Danish scientist, Carl Lange, put forth a similar theory at about the same time, the basic notion has come to be known as the James-Lange theory of emotions.

Walter Cannon, one of the chief critics of the JamesLange theory proposed an alternative explanation of emotion and bodily change. This is the «thalamic» theory, which was also suggested by P. Bard and has become known as the Cannon-Bard theory. According to this theory, incoming sensory impulses pass through the thalamus, which is at the base of the brain near the hypothalamus. During the transit in the thalamus, the incoming message receives an «emotional quale».

Ordinarily, the cortex inhibits this emotional reaction in the thalamus but, if it does not, then emotion is released. This consists of a simultaneous discharge of the thalamus upwards the cortex — which constitutes the conscious emotional experience - and downwards to the body -which produces the visceral and muscular expression.

The most sensible hypothesis has been put forth by Magda Arnold. First of all, she says that most of the emphasis has been on emotion, expression, action. She suggests the following sequence of an emotional reaction:

1. Perception — the neutral reception of external stimuli.

2.Appraisal — a judgement of the stimuli as good and beneficial or bad and harmful.

3.Emotion - a left tendency towards stimuli.

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4.Expression - physiological changes organized towards approach or withdrawal.

5.Action - approach or withdrawal may occur if another emotion does not interfere.

An important feature of Arnold's theory is that emotion is defined in a motivational sense.

II.Answer the following questions:

1.In what way do psychologists define emotions?

2.What definition do you think is the most significant in the psychological thought?

3.How did William James treat emotions?

4.Why is this theory called the James-Lange theory?

5.What theory did Walter Cannon propose?

6.Why is it called the Cannon-Bard theory?

7.What theory was put forth by Magda Arnold?

8.Where does the importance of her theory lie?

III.Choose the facts to prove that:

1.There is no general agreement on the definition of emotions.

2.William James was the first to seriously challenge the classical position.

3.There was another explanation of emotion and bodily change.

4.Magda Arnold put forth the most sensible hypothesis.

IV. Ask your friend to explain you:

•the core of the W. James' theory;

•the essence of the Cannon-Bard theory; •the significance of M. Arnold's theory.

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V. Speak on the text. Give additional information if you please.

VI. Read the article and comment on it:

Anxiety Gene Turns out a Bit of Worry (by Charles Arthur, Science Editor)

Recently the scientists in the US and Germany have announced they found an «anxiety» gene - which played a part in determining how anxious people were, according to psychological tests measuring a trait called «harm avoidance».

But now another team of scientists, based in Jerusalem, say that direct measurement of 120 people with and without that gene showed no correlation between their anxiety levels and the gene's presence.

So is it worrying that the anxiety gene appears to have disappeared? According to one author of the latest study, it may only mean that the gene affects anxiety in some groups but not in others; and one of the authors of the original study suggested that the latest project would not have detected the effect anyway.

Difference in genetic backgrounds and environment could mean the gene influences the anxiety trait differently in some groups.

The gene itself lies on chromosome 17 and plays a role in a brain communication system that takes the neurotransmitter serotonin - the «pleasure chemical» -back into brain cells. The gene itself comes in two forms, «short» and «long», so it seemed logical the short version would lead to less available serotonin - and so more readily to a state of anxiety.

VII. Do you think these findings seem to be truthful or somehow a bit conroversial? Express your point of view.

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VIII. Read the text and explain why fathers smile less than mothers:

Translating the Smile

Stettner, a psychologist at Wayne State University in Detroit, says smiling is a complicated and important form of self-expression, and he believes that improved knowledge of it could have practical implications.

Besides, it feels good, Stettner said at a symposium on his favourite subject at a meeting of the International Primatological Society.

«It's like discovering a language system», he said. «I’ve become ensnared in working out the vocabulary of smiling». Stettner told the symposium that there are many different kinds of smile — 1,814,400, by his estimate.

«That could be off by several hundred thousand», he added, not with a straight face.

He turned serious when explaining some of the practical applications of his work. «A lot of people are interested in smiles. People who study a foreign language, for example, ought to know what different smiles signify in different cultures. You learn a language but you don't learn the nonverbal language».

Most of what is known about smiling comes from studies of infants and their parents. Sidney Perloe of Haverford College in Pensylvania tried to determine why fathers tend to smile less at the antics of babies than mothers do.

It had been thought that fathers had less reason than mothers to develop rapport with infants because fathers play a smaller role in nurturing the infant. But Perloe found that males are less likely to smile simply because they are more aware that they are being watched by other adults and may fear that smiling at babies might be unbecoming.

Notes:

to ensnare — увлечься; rapport — взаимопонимание.

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IX. Read the text again and choose the information on:

1.Stettner's research.

2.Sidney's studies.

International Primatological Society. What would you like to tell your colleagues about?

Text 4

I. Read and translate the text:

Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication is communication using the body or cultural symbols other than spoken words.

Nonverbal communication is largely based on the use of the body to convey information to others, as suggested by the common phrase body language. Facial expressions are crucial to nonverbal communication. Smiling, for example, is a symbol of pleasure, although we distinguish between the casual, lighthearted smile, a smile of embarrassment, and the full, unrestrained smile we often associate with the «cat who ate the canary». Other facial expressions are used to convey an almost limitless range of human emotions, including anger, confusion, disgust, pain, indifference, sadness, and seriousness of purpose.

Eye contact is another widely used means of nonverbal communication. In general, eye contact is an invitation to

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further social interaction. An individual across the room

«catches our eye», for instance, and a conversation begins.

Avoiding the eyes of another, in contrast, discourages communication. Our hands speak for us too. Hand gestures commonly used within our culture can convey, among other things, an insult, a request for a ride, an invitation to have someone join us, or a demand that others stop in their tracks. Gestures of this kind are commonly used to supplement spoken words. Pointing in a menacing way at someone, for example, gives greater emphasis to a word of warning, as a shrug of the shoulders adds an air of indifference to the phrase «I don't know», and rapidly waving the arms lends urgency to the single word «Hurry!»

Like all symbols, nonverbal communication is largely culture-specific. A smile indicates pleasure the world over, but many gestures that are significant within North

American culture mean nothing — or something very different - to members of other cultures. Indeed, a gesture indicating praise in North America may convey a powerful insult to those who «read» the performance according to a different set of rules.

The examples of nonverbal communication presented so far are elements of a deliberate performance. Nonverbal communication is often difficult to control, however. Sometimes, in fact, verbal communication (information we give) is contradicted by nonverbal cues (information we give off). Listening to her teenage son's explanation for returning home at a late hour, for instance, a mother begins to doubt his words because he is unable to hold eye contact. In this manner, nonverbal communication may provide clues to verbal deception.

II.Answer the following questions:

1.How would you define nonverbal communication?

2.What is the other term for nonverbal communication?

3.What does smiling signify?

4.What emotions do facial expressions convey?

5.What are the means of conveying nonverbal communication?