Theories of Emotion

What is emotion?• Emotions are a mix of:

– Physiological activation of sympathetic nervous system (heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, pupil dilation) and various parts of the brain (amygdala; frontal cortex)

– Expressive behaviors (quickened pace clenched fists, smile, frown)

– Conscious experience, including thoughts /cognitive interpretation (“are they going to attack me?”) and subjective feelings (a sense of fear).

What is emotion?• Emotions are ADAPTIVE

– Emotions have evolved to help us respond to important situations (fight or flee) and to convey our intentions to others (threats, greetings, submission with facial expressions) to others.

• Emotions are different from moods.– Emotions last a brief amount of time, whereas moods generally last

longer.– Emotions usually alter a person’s thought process.

• Feel good, do good phenomenon = when we feel happy we are more willing to help others. EX: Finding money, succeeding on a challenging task, recalling a happy event made people more likely to give money, pick up someone’s dropped papers, volunteer time, etc

• People who are happy perceive the world as being safer, are able to make decisions easily, are more cooperative, rate job applicants more favorably, and live healthier, energized, and more satisfied lives.

What is emotion?• Over the long ride, our emotional ups and downs tend to balance

– Adaptation-Level Phenomenon = our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, lights, income, emotions) relative to a neutral/base level defined by our prior experiences.

– EX: Those who become blind or paralyzed usually recover near-normal levels of day to day happiness. We overestimate the long term emotional impact of very bad news and underestimate our capacity to adapt.

– EX: The effect of dramatically positive events is similarly temporary. State lottery winners typically find their overall happiness unchanged. We adapt to this new level of achievement, come to consider it as normal, and require something even better to give another surge of happiness.

• Relationship to motivation:– People are more motivated to perform activities that produce

positive emotions (happiness) rather than negative emotions (anger or fear).

How many Emotions?• Robert Plutchik emotion

wheel with 8 primary emotions in the inner wheel and variations of those 8 emotions form the outer circle

• Paul Ekman 7 basic emotions

• Carroll Izard 10 emotions Primary and mixed emotions. In Robert Plutchik’s model there are eight primary emotions, as listed in the inner areas. Adjacent emotions may combine to give the emotions listed around the perimeter. Mixtures involving more widely separated emotions are also possible. For example, fear plus anticipation produces anxiety. (Adapted from Plutchik, 2001.)

Emotional Expression• Most emotions are present in infancy through facial expressions,

except for contempt, shame, and guilt, Deaf and blind individuals are still able to express themselves facially.

• Facial expressions for basic emotions, such as happiness, seem to be similar across cultures; however, people differ in their intensity of displaying emotions (based on random genetic variations and learning from culture)

Two Dimensions of Emotions• Emotions seem to place along two dimensions – 1) pleasant

vs. unpleasant (the emotion’s valence) and 2) low versus high arousal (the emotion’s strength/activation.)

EX: If your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you, you experience some type of emotion, like sadness (valence). If you loved this person, you may experience sadness that is very unpleasant or intense (strength)

James-Lange TheoryResearchers William James and Carl Lange

Definition Emotion is the result of the interpretation of bodily fluctuations

Event /Stimulus Physiological Arousal Emotion

(Criticism: -Body’s physical responses are not distinct enough to evoke the different emotions. EX: Experience racing heart when fearful, angry, or in love.-Physiological changes are often too slow to be source of emotion, which erupt very quickly.)

Example You’re walking down a dark alley late at night and hear footsteps. You begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. You notice these physiological changes and then experience fear.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis; Polygraph Detectors; People with spinal cord injuries at the neck typically experience less emotion.

James-Lange Theory

"I feel afraid because my heart is racing"

Ben was almost in a car accident. Ben’s heart started racing and THEN he experienced fear as a result of his heart beating faster.

The Effects of Facial Expression

Facial Feedback Hypothesis: If facial expressions are manipulated, like furrowing brows,

people feel sad while looking at sad pictures.

Attaching two golf tees to the face and making their tips touch causes the brow to furrow.

Cannon-Bard TheoryResearchers Walter Cannon and Phillip Bard

Definition Emotions are the result of the thalamus receiving sensory info about event/stimulus and relaying the info simultaneously to the autonomic nervous system and the cerebral cortex

Event/ ThalamusStimulus

Arousal and emotion occur simultaneously

Example You’re walking down a dark alley late at night and hear footsteps. You begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. At the same time as these physiological changes occur, you also experience the emotion of fear.

Physiological Arousal (Autonomic Nervous System)

Emotion (Cerebral Cortex )

Cannon-Bard Theory

Ben was almost in a car accident. Ben experienced fear (cerebral cortex) at the SAME TIME that his heart started to race (autonomic nervous system.)

Two-Factor Theory(aka Cognitive Arousal Theory or Schachter-Singer Theory)

Researchers Stanley Schachter and Jerome SingerDefinition Emotion is the result of the interaction of two separate factors:

1.Physiological arousal2.Cognitive label that explains why there is physiological arousal

Event/Stimulus

Label our emotions by considering situational cues.Example You’re walking down a dark alley late at night and hear footsteps. You

begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. Upon noticing this physiological arousal you realize that it comes from the fact that you are walking down a dark alley by yourself. This behavior is dangerous and therefore you feel the emotion of fear.

Transferred Excitation: Spill-Over Effect

Physiological Arousal (ANS)

Reasoning (Cognitive Label)Emotion

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Two-Factor Theory

Ben was almost in a car accident. Ben’s heart starts to race. Upon noticing this arousal, he realizes that it comes from the fact that he was about to crash into a car. This is scary and therefore he feels the emotion of fear.

Transferred Excitation / Spill-Over Effect• Physiological arousal can intensify just about any emotion; an

arousal response to one event spills over into our response to the next event

– Schachter and Singer gave college men injections of epinephrine, which made their hearts race, bodies flush, and increased breathing rate. The experimental group was told the drug did nothing, while the control group were told the drug would raise their arousal

• Men were left sitting in waiting groom with another person who either acted really happy or irritated

• Control group felt little emotion because they attributed their arousal to the drug. Experimental group the subjects would react by “catching” the apparent emotion of the person they were with.

• A stirred-up state can be experienced as one emotion or very different one depending on how we interpret it and label it. Arousal can intensify any emotion.

• Go to the local amusement park for a first date. Your increased arousal from the roller coaster ride intensifies your emotion. You are not just smitten, you are in LOVE! or You are not just put off, you are DISGUSTED!

• Misattribute arousal

Arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger,

which may lead to rioting.

Cognitive Appraisal TheoryResearchers Richard Lazarus

Definition In the absence of physiological arousal, we decide what to feel after interpreting or explaining what has just happened. Two things are important in this: whether we interpret the event as good or bad for us, and what we believe is the cause of the event.

In primary appraisal, we consider how the situation affects our personal well-being. In secondary appraisal, we consider how we might cope with the situation.

Event/Stimulus Thought (Cognitive Label)

You must first think about your situation before you can experience emotion. Decide on appropriate emotion after the event occurs.

Example You’re walking down a dark alley late at night and hear footsteps. If you do not recognize the person, you might start to feel scared at the same time as your heart rate starts to increase.

Physiological Arousal (Autonomic Nervous System)

Emotion

Two Routes to Emotion• Zajonc and LeDoux emphasize that

some emotions are immediate, without conscious appraisal. Linked to implicit memory.– Fast response system = the

pathway runs from the eye or ear via the thalamus to the amygdala

– People can develop an emotional preference for visual stimuli to which they have been unknowingly exposed

• Lazarus, Schachter, and Singer emphasize that conscious appraisal also determines emotions. Linked to explicit memory.– Slow response system = cerebral

cortex interprets events and associates them with memories.

EX: In the forest, we jump at the sound of rustling leaves nearby, leaving the cortex to decide later whether the sound was made by a predator or just the wind.

Two Routes to Emotion

Emotions are felt directly through the amygdala (a) or through the cortex (b) for analysis.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode4/video.html

Opponent Process TheoryResearchers Richard Solomon and John Corbit

Definition The experiencing of emotions disrupts the body's state of homeostasis. Emotions occur in basically opposite pairs—pleasure-pain, depression-elation, fear-relief, and so forth—and oppose one another so that homeostasis can once again be achieved. The theory suggests that the experiencing of one emotion of a pair prompts the onset of the other emotion (the opponent process) as well, which eventually reduces the intensity of the first emotion and finally cancels it out.

Example You’re walking down a dark alley late at night and hear footsteps. Your primary emotion is fear; which triggers an opposing emotion of elation, once you realize you are safe.

For example, although a rock climber may be terrified (an unpleasant emotion) in several climbs of a steep cliff, eventually, the thrill of safely reaching the top (a pleasant emotion) will cancel out that early fear. Some psychologists use this theory to explain drug addiction. The pleasure associated with taking an addictive drug is said to decrease over time because an opponent process is operating to reduce the pleasure. Consequently, more and more of the drug must be taken to achieve the original euphoric state and to avoid the pain of withdrawal

Opponent Process TheoryResearchers Richard Solomon and John Corbit

Definition Emotions work in pairs and act in opposition, such as happiness-sadness, fear-relief, pleasure-pain. When one is activated, the opponent emotion is temporarily suppressed. However, as the primary emotion subsides, the opposing emotion lingers awhile. With repetition, the primary emotion becomes less intense but the secondary emotion becomes stronger.

Sometimes these two conflicting emotions may be felt at the same time as the second emotion intrudes before the first emotion wanes. The result is a confusing combined experience of two emotions being felt at the same time that normally are mutually exclusive. Thus we can feel happy-sad, scared-relieved, love-hate, etc. This can be unpleasant but as an experiential thrill it can also have a strangely enjoyable element (and seems to be a basis of excitement).

Example You’re walking down a dark alley late at night and hear footsteps. Your primary emotion is fear; which triggers an opposing emotion of elation, once you realize you are safe.

Thrill Seeking; Drug Use

Emotion and Performance• Task performance is best

when physiological arousal is moderate.

• As level of arousal increases, quality of performance decreases with task difficulty.– Social Facilitation = with

easy or well learned tasks, peak performance comes with relatively high arousal, which enhances the dominant, usually correct, response.

– Social Interference = with more difficult or unrehearsed tasks, the optimal arousal is somewhat lower.

EX: Basketball players shooting free throws – a less automatic skill – may not perform quite as well if a packed field-house makes them hyperaroused

EX: Students who feel great anxiety during exams perform more poorly than those equally able but more confident

Physiological Differences• Many emotions involve similar bodily

responses but have different underlying brain circuits and stimulate different facial expressions. EX: fear and joy will increase heart rate, but stimulate different facial expressions.– Activity of the amygdala associated with

the emotion of fear. EX: rabbits with damage to the amygdala will fail to react with fear to a signal of impeding shock.

– Activity of the left prefrontal cortex, which is rich in receptors for dopamine, is associated with positive emotions (happiness); while activity of the right prefrontal cortex is associated with negative emotions (disgust)

– Activity of the nucleus accumbens, a small cluster of neurons in the limbic system, is associated with the experience of pleasure.

Detecting and Computing Emotion• Most people, even trained professionals like police officers, psychiatrists, and

judges, find it difficult to detect deceiving emotions.• Polygraph measures physiological indexes of arousal.

– Inaccurate approximately 1/3 of the time.– Feelings of anxiety, irritation and guilt all prompt similar physiological activity

• The most unambiguous nonverbal clue to our specific emotional state is provided by our facial muscles.

Which of Paul Ekman’s smiles is genuine?Hard-to-control facial muscles reveal signs of emotions you may be trying to conceal. A feigned smile may continue for more than 4-5

seconds while a genuine smile will have faded by then

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Gender, Emotion, and Nonverbal Behavior

Women are much better at discerning nonverbal emotions than men. When shown

sad, happy, and scary film clips women expressed more emotions than men.

Happiness• People who are happy perceive the world as being safer. They are able to make decisions

easily, are more cooperative, rate job applicants more favorably, and live healthier, energized, and more satisfied lives.

• Subjective well-being = the self-perceived feeling of happiness or satisfaction with life. Research on new positive psychology is on the rise.

• Our positive moods rise to a maximum within 6-7 hours after waking up. Negative moods stay more or less the same throughout the day.

• Relative Deprivation = the perception that we are relatively worse off than those we compare ourselves with. Happiness is not only relative to our past, but also to our comparisons with others

• Many people in the West believe that if they were wealthier, they would be happier. However, data suggests that they would only be happy temporarily. Wealth is like health: Its utter absence can breed misery, yet having it is no guarantee of happiness. – In affluent societies, people with more money are happier than people who struggle for

their basic needs.– People in rich countries are happier than people in poor countries.– A sudden rise in financial conditions makes people happy.– However, people who live in poverty or in slums are also satisfied with their life.– Students who value love more than money report higher life satisfaction.

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Predictors of HappinessWhy are some people generally more happy than others?

Money does NOT buy Happiness

Time Special on Happiness

• Pathways to Pleasure• http://www.time.com/time/2005/happiness/

graphics/• Feeling Good in the US• http://www.time.com/time/2005/happiness/

graphics/poll.html• Measure Your Happiness• http://www.time.com/time/2005/happiness/

graphics/quiz.html

http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/teaching-resources/

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StressStress is not merely a stimulus or a

response. It is a process by which we appraise and cope with environmental

threats and challenges.

Stress can be adaptive. In a fearful or stress- causing situation, we can run away and save our lives. Stress can be maladaptive. If it is

prolonged (chronic stress), it increases our risk of illness and health problems.

Stressor, Strain, Stress

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The Stress Response System

Canon proposed that the stress response (fast) was a fight-or-

flight response marked by the outpouring of epinephrine and

norepinephrine from the inner adrenal glands, increasing

heart and respiration rates, mobilizing sugar

and fat, and dulling pain.

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The Stress Response System

The hypothalamus and the pituitary gland also

respond to stress (slow) by triggering the outer adrenal glands to secrete glucocorticoids

(cortisol).

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General Adaptation Syndrome

According to Selye, a stress response to any kind of

stimulation is similar. The stressed individual goes

through three phases: Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion.

Cognitive Appraisal

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Coping with StressReducing stress by changing events that

cause stress or by changing how we react to stress is called problem-focused coping.

Emotion-focused coping is when we cannot change a stressful situation, and we respond

by attending to our own emotional needs.

Having a sense of control, an optimistic explanatory style, and social support can

reduce stress and improve health.

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Perceived Control

Research with rats and humans indicates that the absence of control over stressors

is a predictor of health problems.

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Explanatory Style

People with an optimistic (instead of pessimistic) explanatory style tend to have more control over stressors, cope better with stressful events, have better moods,

and have a stronger immune system.

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Social SupportSupportive family members, marriage partners, and close friends help people cope with stress.

Their immune functioning calms the cardiovascular system and lowers blood pressure.

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Biofeedback, Relaxation, and Meditation

Biofeedback systems use electronic devices to inform people about their physiological

responses and gives them the chance to bring

their response to a healthier range. Relaxation and

meditation have similar effects in reducing tension and anxiety.

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Health-Related ConsequencesStress can have a variety of health-related consequences.

Type A personality type is a term used for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people. Type B personality type refers to easygoing, relaxed

people. Type A personalities are more likely to develop coronary heart disease.

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Intervening Factors

Investigators suggest there are three factors that connect religious involvement

and better health.