Journal article summary and critique - Essay Example

The purpose of the research is to demonstrate the effect of reporting on an emotional condition on the reaction of the body to an emotional situation. The researchers set forth a specific hypothesis arguing on the existence of measurement effects in emotion research. The inspiration on this hypothesis comes from the fact that in sciences, measuring alters the properties of that which is being observed according to Kalat (2013), hence a reason for anticipation of change in physiological responses when people’s emotions are observed.

To prove this hypothesis, the researchers use online classified to recruit 112 participants who are Cambridge, MA residents with a mean age of 23.4 and 67 of who were females. All the participants selected were free of any previous diagnosis of anxiety or depression, pregnancy or heart murmur. These participants had physiological sensors applied on them. Participants in the report condition rated their feelings on an analog scale and also responded to ten statements measuring their emotions. Using the same response scales, the participants in the no report condition responded to a questionnaire that was neither self-reflective nor emotional.

The participants completed arithmetic and digit-span tasks with anger and shame being the variables that were manipulated and observation on the effect of participants’ emotions recorded. Heart rate, HR and pre-injection period, PEP measured the activation of sympathetic nervous system while cardiac output, CO and total peripheral resistance, TPR distinguished between approach and withdrawal states of motivation, particularly linked to shame and anger. The behaviors of the participants were coded by independent coders who watched the videos of their behavior and rated their emotions.

In this research study, the researchers observed qualitative difference in the physiological responses of participants when they were required to report on their emotions. In the anger condition, participants exhibited greater increase in CO when not reporting than when reporting, but no significant difference in CO was reported in the shame and control conditions. When not reporting, participants in the anger condition exhibited decreased TPR as contrasted to when reporting where TPR increased.

There was minimal difference in the shame and control conditions (Kassam & Mendes, 2013). In summary, therefore, it was found out that asking about people’s emotions could significantly impact on the physiological responses of such people with the impact being dependent on the kind of emotion being experienced. These findings are thus in support of the hypothesis because the physiological responses of the participants were found to be affected by them reporting on their emotions. Critique This article presents findings that are in line with the lessons learnt from the psychology class.

Just as documented in the class text, it would be appreciated from this article that perception of the actions of the body stimulate emotional feelings in humans with emotions serving the critical role of guiding on the decision to undertake in response to changes in the environment. To explain why the participants reacted