Nagativity Bias

A key philosophy of Beck’s cognitive theory of emotional disorders (Beck, 1967; 1976) relates to emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression, being maintained through distorted thinking, sometimes known as cognitive distortions (CDs). These CDs can be recognised at surface level as negative automatic thoughts (NATs) that process in an individual’s consciousness. Therefore an individual with an emotional disorder will interpret an event in a negative manner, thus perceiving the situation as a threat or in a detrimental way. These distorted thoughts or NATs are supported by assumptions in the memory known as underlying beliefs (Wells, 1997).

In David Eagleman’s documentary, “Why Do I Need You?” he describes the importance of social interaction in the development of our brain. It is fundamental to interact with others and work holistically because it helps our brain to grow ultimately benefiting both the individual and society. Understanding people’s facial expressions, something so quick it is almost done unconsciously, is a vital aspect in communication. Eagle man demonstrates how individual from a young age, as early as twelve months, can understand the importance of socialization from their “inborn instincts” and through the observation of others to decide who to play and not play with. We thrive from understanding people’s social signal and without it it can become very hard

This is shown in the study primarily as the rat to be visually introduced as the emotionally exciting object, followed by the striking of the steel bar as the non-emotionally exciting object. This was constructed to determine whether the former object, in time can be seen to produce the same emotional reaction as the latter object via stimulus transition.

Being of target of bias can affect socialization due to the negatives attitudes that it entails.

From the study conducted by Ferri et al., there was a slight statistical significance between amygdala activation to neutral and fearful faces in regards to anxiety levels. On the contrary, they did not find a significant difference. This could be due to the girls being unable to predict the

At 6 weeks infants develop a social smile, at 3 month laughter and curiosity develop, at 4 months full responsive smiles emerge, from 4-8 months they develop anger, from 9014 months they develop a fear of social events, at 12 months the are fearful of unexpected sights and sounds, and at 18 months they are self-aware, feel pride, shame, and embarrassment. In the first two years, infants develop from reactive pain and pleasure to complex patterns of social awareness. Emotions in infants are produced from their body as opposed to their thoughts. Therefore fast and uncensored reactions are common in infants. During their toddler years, the strength of their emotions will increase.

The development of social referencing Infants could indicate the emotional reactions of other people in order to evaluate situations or objects as safe or risky (Wagner, 2004, p. 309.)

Mental Filter : Placing all one’s attention o, or seeing only, the negatives of a situation

Some major bias’s I found in myself where mainly just silly ones. These would be things such as me saying to myself, “why is she talking like that, she must be weird.” When in reality she could have been the nicest person I met that day but I automatically made a judgment about her and pushed myself away. Or me saying something to myself like, “ she’s really quite in class, she must be socially award.” These are bias’s that people have in their every day lives. I could go on and on about things that I have automatically judged somebody on when I had no idea if that was even the case. I’m not saying that I judge people all the time but what I am saying is that I am human, and it is what it is, but is that just another bias too? See, what I have learned is that biases will never go away. They are constantly happening. We can remind ourselves to not be so bias but it is in our human nature to do so without even thinking about it.

The first stage, “Reflexes,” occurs from birth to 1 month. During this stage, Piaget asserted, infants are limited to their biological, programmed reflexes. He uses the term reflex in a much more broad sense in that he refers it as “... any built-in behavior pattern instead of automatic responses to particular stimuli” (DeHart, Sroufe, & Cooper, p. 164). These built-in behavior patterns are not only

Amid this study, they were demonstrated an institutionalized list of photographs that dependably trigger feelings in human brains, utilizing video glasses. At the point when the subjects respected the genuine, negative pictures, there was significantly expanded action in their amygdalas. This locale of the cerebrum is emphatically included in handling negative feelings.

In reference to the Automatic Vigilance Hypothesis, surrounding stimuli are involuntarily viewed as negative or positive (Itkes & Mashal, 2015). This rapid reaction occurs due to the allowance for avoidance or approach behaviour. Negative data is prioritised when studies drew attention to factors of behaviour and brain activity. This allows for the cognition system to be prepared for any possible harm, that could disrupt present processing of information (Itkes & Mashal, 2015). Therefore, valence is agreed to be processed early. The question still

The aim of the present study was to investigate which hemisphere is specialised for the perception of emotion. It was hypothesised that participants will judge chimeric faces with smile presented in the left visual field as happier more often than chimeric faces with the smile presented in the right visual field. Twenty-six psychology students were asked to judge chimeric faces with one half being a smiling expression and the other half with a neutral expression. The images were presented in their left and right visual field. Over 28 experimental trials the participants were asked to judge which face they thought looked happier. The percentage of chimeric faces judged as happier for both left and right visual field was recorded. The hypothesis was supported: chimeric faces with smile presented in the left visual field as happier more often than chimeric faces with the smile presented in the right visual field.

Chapter 2 is centered on the early attempts to identify the brain’s components of emotions. Key researchers that are discussed are a Cornell neuroanatomist, James Papez, and aforementioned physician and neuroscientist Paul MacLean, who worked at Yale and the National Institutes of Mental Health. Together, this pair of researchers conducted seminal medial temporal lobe lesion experiments. The resulting idea was that the emotional brain is composed of a set of interconnected structures in the core of the brain. MacLean dubbed these structures as the “limbic system”. The function of the limbic system and it relationship to emotion was widely debated by many researchers.

In everyday life there is a constant evidence of interaction between cognition and emotion. If we see something funny we laugh, if we fear we run or hide, if we are distressed we find it hard to concentrate. However we do not need to present any of the emotions to others, we can regulate them, think about situations and consequences and estimate the outcome. We are able to control our emotions. Ochsner and Gross(2005,p.242) argues that capacity to control emotion is important for human adaptation. The question is to what extent does cognition control emotion?