Emotion 1 - Intro Flashcards
What changes are emotions characterised by?
- Physiological
- Behavioural responses
- Changes in cognition
- Subjective feelings
Name some physiological changes that may occur due to emotion
- pupil size
- blood pressure
- heart rate
- skin conductance
- respiratory rate
- EEG patterns
- hormone secretion
Name some behavioural responses that might occur due to fear.
- freezing
- avoidance behaviour
- facial expressions
Why do emotions exist? What purpose do they serve?
- To find food/water, makes it pleasurable to do so (survival)
- To avoid danger
- To signal intent
What is vicarious learning?
The learning of behaviour (e.g. fears) from other people
What are the three theories of emotion?
James-Lange Theory
Canon-Bard Theory
Schacter-Singer
What does James-Lange theory postulate?
That responses occur first and subjective feelings follow.
What does Canon-Bard theory postulate?
That the subjective emotion and physical response occurs at the same time, but are independent of each other.
The subjective feeling further increases an already-occurring physical response.
What is the evidence for James-Lange theory?
Animals. How can non-human organisms such as rabbits, cats, flies and frogs run away because they feel scared? They cannot feel scared and so surely their responses must be due to their physiology.
What is the evidence for Canon-Bard theory?
- Argue not enough time to perceive the stimulus, perceive peripheral responses of this stimulus and then generate a subjective feeling in accordance.
- Pattern of peripheral responses can never be varied enough to warrant all the different emotions we can feel.
- pattern of peripheral responses cannot code for all the different amount of each emotion that we feel.
- Quadriplegics, who cannot register their physical responses, still feel subjective emotions.
- PPS whose feedback of peripheral responses is blocked, still feel subjective emotions.
This suggests the subjective emotions do not rely on the physical responses.
What does the Schacter-Singer/Two Factor/Cognitive Labelling theory postulate?
The running away and peripheral responses informs the man of the emotionality of the situation. The context of the situation determines how the peripheral responses are interpreted (by cognitive systems)
What is the evidence which supports Schacter-Singer’s theory?
Schacter and Singer (1962) found that participants who were given adrenalin and were not told it’s effects had varying responses of anger or euphoria, depending on the emotions of an accompanying actor.
Anger is linked to the release of what?
Noradrenalin
What is the somatic marker hypothesis?
Suggests that the body has somatic markers - feelings in the body associated with particular emotions - such as te association between a rapid heartbeat with anger.
