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Human Diversity > Emotion > Flashcards

Emotion Flashcards

1
Q

Heritability and emotions

A
  • The trait emotionality is moderately heritable - 40-60%
  • Most findings that imply heritability are probably the result of gene-environment interactions
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2
Q

The limbic system

A

Brain structure underlying emotion

Collection of subcortical structures: Amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, basal ganaglia, Orbitofrontal cortex

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3
Q

The amygdala

A

Lots of evidence that the amygdala is related to emotions
- Injury of the amygdala is associated with diminshed emotional response - reduced fear

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4
Q

Amygdala and fear

A

The amygdala plays a key role in fear conditioning;
- It detects the threat on an unconscious level
- regulates behavioural and physiological responses
- sends signals to the cognitive systems which in turn give rise to the conscious feeling of fear

If the amygdala is damaged you lose the ability to fear and learn new fears

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5
Q

LeDoux (1996): High and low roads to fear

A

Fear conditioning - Rats: Brain lesions (cut connection between the thalamus and sensory cortex - could still fear)
Stimulus → thalamus → sensory cortex → amygdala → response

2 pathways to the amygdala:
1. ‘quick and dirty’ Low road: No cortical processing, unconscious processing of threats, very quick (12ms)
2. ‘Slow but accurate’ high road

The dual process allows us to react and prepare the body before we are consciously aware of the threat

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6
Q

HPA axis

A

The amygdala stimulates the HPA axis in response to a threat (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal)

Hypothalamus (Corticotropin-releasing factor, CRF) → Anterior pituitary (Adrenocortico-trophic hormone, ACTH) → Adrenal cortex (Cortisol)

Cortisol is the primary stress hormone

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7
Q

Survival circuits: LeDoux (2012)

A

Fear implies subjective experience which is not necessary
- Amygdala is important in triggering the physiological responses to threat but it is less important to subjective feelings

(Inman et al., 2020): Direct electrical stimulation of the amygdala reliably elicits physiological responses, but subjects do not report feelings
(Anderson & Phelps, 2002): patients with amygdala lesions can consciously report emotional experiences, including fear

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8
Q

Amygdala and fear: evaluation

A

The amygdala is not necessary to generate fear - you can still feel fear with a damaged or lesioned amygdala
The amygdala is not sufficient to generate fear - You can still generate a fear response without subjectively feeling fear

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9
Q

Amygdala and mental disorders

A

Amygdala is linked to anxiety and depressive disorders
- Patients with theses disorders are associated with amygdala hyper-reactivity or enlarged amygdalas
- Increased amygdala activity leads to HPA-axis activation and increase in stress hormones

Increased amygdala activity requires greater prefrontal cortex activity to suppress the unpleasant emotions
- However, reduced PFC activity is obersved in people with depressive disorders

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10
Q

Components of the reward system

A
  1. Liking - affective
  2. Wanting - motivation
  3. Learning - classical conditioning

The mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic system is the most important rewrad circuit in the brain

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11
Q

Amygdala and reward processing

A

Reward detected - signals sent from amygdala to the motivational pathway

Amygdala lesions also impair reward-based behaviour

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12
Q

The orbitofrontal cortex

A

Important brain area for emotions - is linked to the amygdala
- Integrates information and make judgements in the complicated social world (amygdala processes simple emotions - fear)
- Integrator for the inner and other worlds - gut reactions to people and events

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13
Q

Emotion and brain localisation

A
  • No link between specific brain regions and emotions
  • All brain regions are engaged in multiple functions
  • Emotions are processed in multiple regions
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14
Q

Brain network perspective of emotion

A

neuroscientific evidence supports the perspective of a brain network, instead of distinct brain regions
- The whole brain is involved
- Distributed and parallel processes (not sequential and hierarchial)

Pessoa (2014): Brain regions participate in many functions (pluripotency), and many functions are carried out by many regions (degeneracy)

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15
Q

Functional connectivity

A

Masive connectvity and correlation between all the different brain regions

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16
Q

Features of brain networks

A
  • ## Brain networks contain overlapping brain regions - brain areas belong to several intersecting networks
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17
Q

Three main brain networks

A
  1. Salience network: Important for directing attention to conspicuous stimuli (e.g. potential threats)
  2. Executive control network: Control of executive functions - deliberate attention, working memory, goal-oriented processing
  3. Default network: Observed during rest states, absecnce of effortful tasks - associated with memory retrieval
18
Q

emotions and changes in the brain network

A
  • Neuroimaging - neural systems associated with emotions span across cortical and subcortical regions
  • Emotional stimuli causes increased functional connectivity between the cortical and subcortical regions
  • Functional connectivity increases with reward and decreases with threat (thinking mind less active)
  • Stronger signals across the salience network is correlated with stronger negative affect
19
Q

McMenamin et al. (2014)

Brain network changes over time: Threat

A

Neuroimaging study: Anticipation of threat (electric shock) or safety (no shock) for 60 seconds
- Initially, threat increased communication in the salience network and decreased in the executive network
- However, with sustained threat, the salience network decreased and the amygdala became engaged in communicating between the networks - Amygdala determines whether we continue to dear or change our response (supress or increase connectivity in slaience network)

Distribution of brain resources - salience network was initial response, but changes over time to other areas and networks

20
Q

Boiger (2013): Anger expression and cluture

A

Cross-cultural study: Indicate action tendencies and appraisals for a selection of anger invoking situations

Japan: Dominant characteristic (55% of respondants) responded by nodding and smiling, and rumination
- Hurts relationships least, express emotions in a way that maintains harmony (collectivist ideals)
America: (43%) Blaming and direct expression
- Indivudalistic cultures are more comfortable expressing their emotions

21
Q

Uchida et al. (2009): Athlete emotion and culture

A

Analysis of TV interviews of Olympic athletes:
Japanese athletes - More emotion words and more emotions innferred when viewing pictures with teammates
America - less emotion words, more emotion for athletes pictured alone

In Japanese (collectivist) culture, emotion is interpersonal → occurs between people
e.g. someone smiling = something has happened within the social group
America → emotion occurs within people

22
Q

Culture and neurobiological substrates: Immordino-Yang et al., 2014

A

fMRI study - Chinese, Asian-American, and European-Americans: Record neurobiological changes during emotional film clips
Dominant Activation:
- Chinese - Ventral anterior insula
- European-american - Dorsal anterior insula
- Asian-american - brain activity equally divided between dorsal and ventral anterior insula

23
Q

What is emotion?

A
  • Reaction to an event
  • bodily responses
  • Subjective experience (sometimes)
24
Q

Charles Darwin

A

Emotions are a class of mental states that are caused by emotion-specific appraisals of events and cause emotion-specific bodily changes
e.g. Fear has a specific set pf appraisals and bodily states

Facial expressions and recognition of emotions are inherited

25
Q

James-Lange Theory of emotion

A

Subjective emotional experience is caused by changes in the body

Stimulus → Bodily responses → Emotion

  • Physiological responses are specific to specific emotions
  • Emotion occurs due to interpretation of physiological responses
26
Q

Cannon-Bard Theory of emotion (1928)

A

Stimulus activates the cerebral cortex (specifically the thalamus) and causes a simultaneous experience of body responses and subjective feeling of emotion
- ANS is stimulated for physiological arousal and cerebral cortex to percieve emotion
- CNS (thalamus) is important in triggering emotion

27
Q

Two factor theory: Schacter and Singer (1962)

A

Emotion is an interaction between physiological arousal (body response) and cognitive interpretation of the arousal
- Physical arousal is non-specific, so interpretation of the situation determines the emotion felt
- Use information from context and situation e.g. fear, excitement and nervousness can all feel similar

28
Q

Schacter and Singer (1962)

A
  • Participants injected with a solution that caused arousal - heart palpitations, tremors, red face
  • Filled out a questionnaire in a room where a confederate pretended to behave either angry of cheerful after injection
  • Participants that did not know what to expect from the injection either felt euphoria or anger to match the confederates behaviour
29
Q

Basic Emotions Theories

A
  • Evolutionary perspective - emotions serve an evolutionary function
  • Fixed number of set, discrete, fundamental emotions
  • Complex emotions are a combination of basic emotions
30
Q

Ekman (1992): Basic emotions chracteristics

A
  • Not limited to humans - animals have same basic emotions
  • Can be triggered automatically and rapidly for a short duration
  • Specific trigger conditions for each emotion - respond to survival tasks
  • Basic emotions each have specific body responses, facial expressions and pattern of neural activity
31
Q

Facial expressions of basic emotions

A
  • Universal
  • (Ekman & Friesan, 1971): Facial expressions recognised in preliterate New-Guinea culture
  • Pivot in communication between humans
  • Fundamental for child development
32
Q

What are the basic emotions?

A

Happiness, Suprise, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust

33
Q

Problems with basic emotions theories

A
  • No consensus about precise number of basic emotions and what they are
  • Distinction between the basic emotions is inconsistent - fear and anger have a lot of overlap, so differences is better explained by appraisal
34
Q

Russell (1980): Circumplex model of affect

A

Emotion is a subjective experience on two continuous dimensions
- Arousal (activated vs deactivated) - how alert and awake, activated mental state
- Valence (pleasant vs unpleasant) - positive or negative emotion

35
Q

Dimensional approach: Affect

A

affect - emotion and mood
- Rotate the circumplex model
- Positive and negative affect are seperate dimensions

  • High negative effect - fearful
  • Low negative affect - relaxed
  • High positive affect - active
  • Low positive affect - drowsy
36
Q

Dimensional approach theories: Criticisms

A
  • Ability to differentiate between emotions - fear and anger are both in same place (negative and intense), but very different emotions
  • Lacks clear definition of concepts - e.g. emotional intensity
  • Models are based on verbal reports - reflect the structure of language instead
  • Proposals of third or fourth dimensions have been raised
  • Centers on subjective feeling - ignores biological mechanisms (e.g. personality disorders)
37
Q

Appraisal theories of emotion

A
  1. Emotion is an information processing system
  2. appraisal (evaluative cognitive processing), determines the production of emotion
38
Q

Appraisal evaluation

A

Organisms constantly explore, evaluate and react to their environment
- Evaluation is automatic and unconscious
- Emotions can be described by different appraisal patterns
- Evaluation criteria: novelty, predictability, pleasntness, compatibility with norms, managemnet of consequences, goal-relevence

39
Q

Lazarus’s Theory of emotion

Smith & Lazarus (1990)

A
  1. Primary appraisal: Significance to the individuals well-being - Percieved demands of situation
  2. Secondary appraisal: analyse resources and ability to cope with situation
  3. Re-appriasal: Modifications to primary and secondary appraisals while interaction occurs

emotions: variability of individuals environment interpretation

40
Q

Scherer’s appraisal theory

Scherer (2001)

A

Emotion is multi-dimensional - 5 components
1. stimulus or situation appraisal
2. Physiological - body changes
3. Motor expression - face and vocal
4. Motivational - action tendencies (avoid, approach)
5. subjective feeling

41
Q

The component process model

Scherere (2001)

A

Individuals continuously appraise and reappraise their environment
CPM divides appraisal into 4 stages
1. Relevence check - novelty, goals and needs relevence
2. Implications check
3. Coping potential check
4. Normative significance evaluation - compatibility with internal and external norms

42
Q

Appraisal theories: Criticisms

A
  • Claim that appraisal is a cause of emotion as well as part of emotion - incompatible
  • Difficult to test and measure empirically
  • Ability to differentiate between appraisal and emotion is questionable
  • Phobias: People with arachnophobia know that spider’s are harmless, but does not stop them being afraid

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