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Self-Conscious Emotions

11.  Self-Conscious Emotions. When did your character display a self-conscious emotion (pride, embarrassment, guilt, or shame/humiliation)? What concomitants (i.e., co-occurrences) of cognitions, motivations, and /or behaviors (choose at least aspects) did your character have——that is, why did he/she experience the self-conscious emotion; how did if affect his/her motivations or behaviors?       Shep was the best friend of Vivi's first love, who died in the war; Shep and Vivi began dating longer down the road, eventually marrying and having children.  As an older woman, Vivi has a revelation about her marriage.  She realizes that she has put her husband, Shep, through hell time and time again; yet, he is always there to pick up the pieces (her alcoholism; her nervous breakdown; her post-traumatic stress, etc.).  There is one night when she sits down with him at the table and asks, "Have I ruined your life?"  Her thoughts (r...
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Basic Emotions

Basic Emotions. Looking at the categories of basic emotions, describe a time when your character felt one of the basic emotions. Why did your character experience this emotion and what purpose could be served by feeling this emotion?               The basic emotion I want to explore in relation to my character is shame.  Shame is one of the most prominent emotions that Vivi experiences as an older woman.  After Vivi's nervous collapse during which she brutally attacks her own children and is thus involuntary Baker acted, she has little memory of the experience itself.  While she is institutionalized, her life long friends come to visit her nearly every day.  Vivi does not talk about the incident except once, during which she asks her dear friend, Caro, to describe every mark that Vivi put on her children.  Years later, Caro explains to Vivi's daughter, Sidda, that Vivi was so wrought with s...
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Emotional Intelligence

        Admittedly, I have a bit of difficulty trying to find examples of emotional intelligence.  I speculate that Vivi is able to perform the lowest level:  perceiving the emotions in herself and others accurately.  Her thoughts, in the novel, reveal that she is aware of the sadness she suffers from years after the death of her first love; she is aware of the regret and guilt she feels over harming her children during her nervous collapse.  She is also aware of how others feel:  in one instance during a flashback, it is revealed that she perceived the sadness her nanny felt while they were traveling far from home.        This prompts her quite often to engage in seeking out the answers why.  In the same example as the previous, she begins to talk with her nanny to discover why she is upset and crying.  Vivi's empathy towards her caretaker leads her to stay a bit and comfort her....
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Primary and Seconday Control

          Using a previous example, there is a flashback to when Vivi was in her 20s.  Vivi and her friends complain about the sweltering summer heat one night.  The weather, of course, is something that is out of their control.  So, the young women resolve to deal with their predicament by going out for a car ride with the top down.  This would be an example of secondary control: coping with something outside of one's control.   As they are driving, Vivi then begins contemplating doing something wild (taking her shirt and bra off).  As she ponders this notion, she is engaging in the per-decisional stage of the Rubicon model.  She weighs pros and cons.  It is dark and there are not many cars on the road.  She waits for one going in the opposite direction (pre-actional volition, waiting for the right time) and proceeds to take off her shirt (actional volition).  Not long after, headli...
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Achievement Goals

     As a young woman, Vivienne was imbued with a strong growth mindset.  She approached life with an "I can do anything that I really want to if I work for it" attitude.  She was often described by her friends, family, and even herself as a carefree spirit who always tried to pursue what she desired out of life.  In her younger years, her actions were driven by the pursuit to achieve an ideal self that she had envisioned based on hopes and aspirations (the marks of someone with a promotion approach attitude).   Her ideal self was to become "a big successful journalist," and wife of the first love of her life.  Unfortunately, she was never able to make many of these bigger aspirations come to light do to external circumstances (i.e. the death of her first love in WWII).       However, in her later years her achievement goals seemed to change, as did her ideal self and attitude towards reaching this self....
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CET and Self-Efficacy

     Vivienne shows a large degree of relatedness, particularly as a youth.  She and her best friends have always been close.  They would often sneak out of the house at night and meet deep in the woods where they would build fires and have mock ceremonies, bringing them all closer together (giving themselves the titular name: the Ya-Ya Sisterhood).  Their bond is one that persists well into old age.  Their friendship drives many of their actions as they seek support, approval, and companionship throughout their lives, such as supporting one another as they go through divorces, AA, and marital issues.       One particularly comical instance of intrinsic motivation that (potentially) arises from relatedness comes from a hot summer night when Vivi and her friends were young women in their 20s.  As they sat and pooled in sweat from the excruciating heat, they decided to go for a car ride late at night (a convertible with the to...
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Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

       Vivienne's Intrinsic Motivations           Vivienne's childhood is told parallel to her own daughter's throughout the narrative, and so we are given flashbacks to the 1930s of Vivi as a child.  Vivi had an African-American caretaker, Willetta, when she was a child.  There is one night, whilst traveling to Atlanta for the premier of "Gone with the Wind" that Vivi hears Willetta crying in her bedroom.  So, Vivi goes to Willetta and comforts her.  This may be an example of intrinsic motivation because there is no external force or obligation that drives Vivi to do this except for the personal satisfaction of comforting a woman who has long cared for her.            Another example comes from when Vivi was a young woman with her daughter.  There is an example of when Vivi's daughter, Sidda, is too afraid to ride in a small, open a...
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