Emotions Flashcards
Emotions
Feeling (or affect) states of short duration, that involve a pattern of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral reactions to events
Mood
Stable states of long duration
Categorical
Indicates that emotions are discrete (on/off) states
E.g. one is either angry or not
Dimensional
Indicates that emotions vary along a continuum (or multiple)
E.g. we have multiple words describinf anger: irritated, upset, cross, angery, livid, fuming, enraged
Basic emotions Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin hypothesized the existence of six basic emotions, so-named because they are conserved across species
Basic emotions Paul Ekman
Proposed 6 (later modified to 7) basic emotions for humans, because they appear to be conserved across cultures
Circumplex model
Proposes that emotion varies along 2 continua:
1. Valence –> pleasant <–>
unpleaseant
2. Arousal –> activation <–>
deactivation
4 main features of emotion
- Eliciting stimuli
- Appraisals (meaning and significance) of these stimuli
- Physiological response
- Behavioral response
- Expressive behavior
- Instrumental behavior
Eliciting stimuli
Stimuli that trigger cognitive appraisals and emotional responses
Primed to respons to stimuli can learn (through experience).
emotional responses to previously innocuous stimuli
Cognitive appraisals
- Can be conscious or unconscious
- Appraisals influence how we express our emotions and act on them
- Explains why different people can have different reactions to the same object, situation, or person
Cultural and appraisal
- Strong cross-cultural similarities in some types of appraisal
- Cultural differences in other types of appraisals
Interaction sever brain areas –> emotion
- Brainstem (pons)
- Limbic system (amygdala, insula)
- Cerebral cortex (prefrontal)
- Hypothalamus and pituitary gland
Brain areas emotions
- Cognitive appraisal processes involve the cortex
- Ability to regulate emotion depends on the prefrontal cortex
- Subjective feelings such as anger, fear, love involves the amygdala and pons
Dual-pathways model
Thalamus can send messages along two independent pathways:
- “High road” to the cortex
- “Low road” to the amygdala
Low road –> amygdala
enables the amygdala to receive direct input from senses
able to generate emotional reactions before the cerbral cortex has had time to interpret the stimuli
Enables organisms to respond very quickly
HPA axis
Hypothalamus activation via ‘low road’ pathway can trigger the release of stress hormones via the pituitary gland
These hormones trigger the release of adrenaline from the adrenal glands leading to a ‘adrenaline rush’
This pathway is called the hypotalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis
This typically triggers a ‘fight-or-flight’ response
Expressive behaviors
Facial expressions of emotion can be measured with electromyography (EMG) using FACS
Bodily expressions can be measured with EMG using BACS
FACS + BACS
FACS –> Facial Action Coding System
BACS –> Body Action Coding System
Behavioral expressions
People are better at judging emotions from facial expressions when they have information about situational cues
Facial expressions of emotion can be influenced by cultural norms
These norms can manifest as display rules
James-Lange theory
Our bodily reactions determine the subjective emotion we experience
Evidence James-Lange theory
- Perceiving one’s own bodily reaction enhances the intensity of emotion
- Spinal cord lesions: impaired perception of bodily reactions. Report lower intensity of fear and anger
- Facial feedback: facial movement can influence emotional experience
Cannon-Bard theory
Problem with James-Lange theory: arousal response may take seconds to emerge, yet emotions are experienced immediatly
The subjective experience of emotion and physiological arousal do not cause one another. Independent responses to an emotion-arousing situation
2 interdependent factors that produce emotion
(Two-factore theory of emotion)
- The intensity of physiological arousal tells us how strongly we are feeling something
- Situational cues give us the information we need to label the arousal and tell ourselves what we are feeling
