Question: Emotions

Answer: a response of the whole organism, involving (1) psychological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience.

Question: James-Lange Theory

Answer: the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli

Question: Cannon-Bard Theory

Answer: the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion.

Question: two-factor theory

Answer: Schachter’s theory that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal

Question: catharsis

Answer: emotional release. In psychology, the catharsis hypothesis maintains that “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges.

Question: feel-good, do-good phenomenon

Answer: people’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood

Question: subjective well-being

Answer: self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people’s quality of life.

Question: adaptation-level phenomenon

Answer: our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience

Question: relative deprivation

Answer: the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself

Question: Motivation

Answer: a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 470)