Chapter 9 Reading Note - Chapter 9 Emotions in Social...

Chapter 9 Emotions in Social Relationships
Social goals and social emotions
Love, compassion, and gratitude are underpinnings of cooperative behavior and they are advantageous in
reproducing the genes of individuals and those to whom they are closely related.
What sets primates apart from other species is the capacity for kindness.
The ethologist Lorenz argues aggression is an innate drive like hunger and puts human nature in peril.
Three kinds of social motivation: attachment, affliation, and assertion
Attachment – functions to protect and care for the immature infant
Affiliation – ‘warmth’ and affection , draws individuals together even when they are not related. It is the
core of kindness, friendship, and romantic love.
Assertion- ‘power’, the motivation to rise in the social hierarchy and resist challenges from opponents
Three social motivations are sufficiently pervasive across contexts and cultures and important in life.
Attachment and its separation from affiliation
Attachment – essentially protective. Trust is really a confidence that one is and can continue to be safe.
Maternal sensitivity to the infant’s needs-> infants develop sense of trust from parents being sensitive and
responsive.
Affiliation – warmth and affection and including sensitivity
Affiliation and warmth are important in human development but they involve different processes than of
protection. Attachment occurs among all primates, but only some species form affectional bonds based
on warmth (affiliation).
The separate systems of attachment and affiliative warmth can be differently prioritized in different
cultures. Affiliation and warmth is built on positive rewards and closely related to touch.
Emotions as social
1. Emotions are evaluations, or appraisals, of events that affect different kinds of social goals.
2. Emotions are not solely determined by appraisals of events.
Emotions are reappraised, so that the emotions become amalgams of what started them and the social
negotiations they have occasioned.
3. Emotions create social relationships.
Emotions are not just states of readiness. They are commitments . We commit ourselves to the
relationship for which the emotion sets the frame.