Emotion and Mood

Question 1

What are 3 characteristics of basic universal emotions?

Answer 1

Innate, rapid onset, consistent across cultures.

Question 2

What are Ekman’s 6 basic emotions?

Answer 2

Anger, joy, surprise, sadness, disgust and fear.

Question 3

What is the principle of Plutchik’s wheel of emotions?

Answer 3

8 categories, expressions - opposites, blends and intensity.

Question 4

What 5 things does an emotional response involve?

Answer 4

Cognitive appraisal, expressive behaviour, physiological arousal, subjective experience and goal directed activity.

Question 5

What are the 3 theories of emotion?

Answer 5

James-Lange theory - we feel sorry because we cry. Emotions are cognitive responses to info from periphery.

Cannon-Bard theory - physiological changes and subjective feeling of an emotion in response to a stimulus are separate and independent.

Schater-Singer 2 factor theory - when emotion felt, physiological arousal occurs and person uses immediate environment to search for emotional clues to label the physiological arousal.

Question 6

What are the stages in development of emotion?

Answer 6

Birth - distress and contentment.
3 months - happiness and sadness.
4-6 months - anger and surprise.
7-8 months - fear.
9 months - all basic emotions present.
18-24 months - self consciousness/awareness –> embarrassment, empathy and envy.
2-3 years - evaluative emotions - pride, guilt, regret and shame.

Question 7

What is the emotional state mediated by?

Answer 7

Peripheral autonomic, endocrine and motor responses.

Question 8

What are the 5 main brain structures involved in the emotional response?

Answer 8

Amygdala, frontal/cingulate/ parahippocampal cortices, hypothalamus.

Question 9

What is processed in the amygdala?

Answer 9

Learned emotional responses.

Question 10

What is the amygdala largely associated with?

Answer 10

Fear and also involved in pleasurable responses.

Question 11

What does the amygdala mediate?

Answer 11

Autonomic expression and the cognitive experience of emotion.

Question 12

What is affect?

Answer 12

Experience of feeling/emotion.

Question 13

What is affect-display?

Answer 13

Used synonymously with affect - a facial/vocal gestural behaviour that serves as an indicator of affect

Question 14

What are the core symptoms of depression?

Answer 14

Low mood, anhedonia, fatigue. No positive motivation to make choices or engage in behaviours.

Question 15

What is mania?

Answer 15

Elevated mood/euphoria. Rapid/ interruptible speech, easily distracted, racing thoughts, agitated, impulsive.

Question 16

What is psychosis?

Answer 16

Loss of touch with reality.

Question 17

What is autism?

Answer 17

Pervasive abnormalities in social interaction. Repetitive behaviours and restricted interests. Reduced ability to understand how others feel.

Question 18

What are the anatomical defects in autism?

Answer 18

Abnormalities in anatomy and connectivity if limbic-striatal ‘social’ brain structures.

Question 19

What are the characteristics of psychopathy?

Answer 19

Abnormal/deficient emotional response. Diminished ability to learn from punishment - selfish, dominant, superficial, cold. Inability to experience deeper feeling eg: love. Indifference to feelings of others, lack of empathy and remorse.