Emotion & perception
- Emotion refers to the affective state a human may find themselves in e.g. happy/sad/angry/fearful/calm/bored/excited
- Both positive and negative emotions can affect perception e.g. ‘I have an exam coming up next week which is making me feel nervous’; ‘I have a trip to a theme park coming up next week which is making me feel excited’
- It is thought that humans are quicker to perceive positive stimuli (e.g. the trip to the theme park); negative stimuli take longer to perceive (e.g. the exam)
- Taking longer to perceive negative/unpleasant stimuli is known as perceptual defence
- McGinnies (1949) conducted a study into the effects of emotion on perception as follows:
- 16 student participants (8 female; 8 male) comprised the sample
- The participants watched a series of words flash briefly onto a screen one by one
- The words were either neutral/pleasant (e.g. dance, plate, apple) or unpleasant/mildly offensive (e.g. b***h, p***s, crotch)
- Each participant was asked to say the word aloud when they recognised it on the screen
- To assess emotional reaction each participant was attached to a Galvanic skin response (GSR) detector
- The participants took longer to recognise/say aloud the ‘taboo’ words (e.g. crotch) than they did the neutral/pleasant words (e.g. plate)
- McGinnies concluded that perceptual defence prevented the participants from perceiving the taboo words quickly as they may have felt anxious at seeing these words presented to them and therefore wished to ‘block’ them
Exam Tip
Remember to look at the year in which studies were published: a lot of social changes have occurred since 1949 and it is possible that if McGinnies’ study were to be replicated today it would find different results: people are far less shocked when confronted with ‘naughty’ words today than they were decades ago!
McGinnies GSR Detector Diagram
A galvanic skin response detector as used in McGinnies (1949).
Exam Tip
McGinnie’’s (1949) study is NOT a named study on the specification but it is a good one to use to demonstrate your understanding of the effect of emotion on perception.
Evaluation of the effect of emotion on perception
Strengths
- GSR uses an objective , biological measure which cannot be faked so this aspect of the procedure is free of demand characteristics
- The study has some useful applications e.g. advertisers could use the findings to present pleasant images/ideas to potential customers; schools could include only positive words/images on classroom walls to encourage a positive attitude towards learning
Weaknesses
- McGinnie’s (1949) results may have been to due factors other than perceptual defence:
- The participants may have been embarrassed at having to speak the taboo words aloud
- They may have perceived them just as quickly as the neutral words but felt awkward about voicing them
- Attempting to measure emotion is notoriously difficult as researchers cannot be 100% sure that the data they have collected in a study is purely the result of a) the emotion they have identified and b) the effect of emotion at all (i.e. the participants’ responses may be based on something else entirely)
Worked example
Here is an example of a question you might be asked on this topic - for AO2.
AO1: You need to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key concepts, ideas, theories and research.
AO2: You need to apply your knowledge and understanding, usually referring to the ‘stem’ in order to do so (the stem is the example given before the question)
AO3: You need to analyse and evaluate key concepts, ideas, theories and research.
After each featured question there is a ‘model’ answer i.e. one which would achieve top marks in the exam.
Elton has written the music for a song he intends to record. His songwriting partner Bernie has written some lyrics for the song: some of the lyrics are upbeat and positive and some of the lyrics are sad and negative. Elton focuses quickly on the positive lyrics as he feels that his music communicates a happy mood; it is only later that he realises that his happy music does not match the negative lyrics that Bernie has written.
AO2:
Question: Explain why Elton took longer to recognise the negative lyrics that Bernie wrote. [3]
Model answer:
- Elton’s perception has been clouded by emotion: he did not initially focus on the negative words as the positive words caught his attention more quickly.
- Elton may have experienced perceptual defence, blocking out the negative lyrics and not even seeing them properly when he initially read what Bernie had written.
- The negative lyrics took longer for his perceptual set to process as they did not fit in with the jolly music he had written for the song.
