Nature of emotion Flashcards
What are emotions?
Results of a stimulus or eliciting event provoking a change in equilibrium
- external stimulus: real and objective
or
- internal stimulus: subjective
What are the 2 perspectives on the components of emotions?
- Neuroscience perspective
2. Social constructivist perspective
What are emotions according to the neuroscience perspective?
Expressive behaviours, physiological responses, subjective states
- resulting from a cascade of events, coordinated by the nervous system
- they have evolved to ensure our survival
What is the neuroscience perspective on the emergence of neural events?
Neural events emerge in response to Punishments and Rewards
What are the 3 ways the neuroscientists Prof. Edmund T. Rolls presents emotions in ‘The Brain and Emotion’ (2000)?
- Emotions = occurence of reward or punishment
- happiness or fear are a set of behavioural, bodily, neural and cognitive responses to presence of reward or punishment - Emotions = termination of reward or punishment
- reward not received -> anger
- punishment avoided -> relief - Emotions = same nature, but vary in intensity
- reflect inter-individual differences in habitual responses to same triggers
What are the roles of happiness and fear according to Edmund T. Rolls?
> Happiness: to facilitate an approach to rewards as they’re beneficial
> Fear: to facilitate avoidance or escape
What are emotions according to the social constructivist perspective?
Learned rules in response to sociocultural norms
- cultural differences, varying effects on display rules, the way emotions are managed and controlled in particular social settings
- e.g. Japanese vs. American participants watching stressful films -> differences in the intensity of rating emotional facial expressions
What are the 3 points of criticism against the social constructivist perspective on emotions?
- Behaviours associated with many basic emotions are shown by other species
- There’s a conserved specific brain circuitry for expression of basic emotions
- Emotional expressions are universal (cf. Paul Ekman)
- > something biologically inherent about emotions
What did Paul Ekman show regarding the universality of emotional expressions?
Different cultures, similar facial expressions for basic emotions
What is William James’s thesis on emotions?
Emotions as result of perception of bodily changes
- Perception of stimulus -> physiological bodily response -> emotion (feeling of the bodily changes)
What is the cognitive appraisal theory on emotions?
Emotions as result of cognitive appraisals
- Subjective appraisals of situations
- e.g. situation resembles threat - Emotions
- e.g. fear initially - Reappraisal
- > reduces fear responses
What is the negative view on the function of emotions?
“emotions are useless and bad for our peace of mind and our blood pressure”
Skinner (1948)
What is the positive view on the function of emotions, which most scientists take?
“Emotions, positive and negative, as solutions to problems or opportunities related to physical or social survival”
Keltner and Gross (1999)
What are the 4 functions of emotions?
- Motivation to act appropriately
- approach or avoid things (pleasure vs. fear) - Consolidating social bonds
- Communication
- motivating behaviour of others - Provide basic functions
- autonomic and endocrine responses
What type of basic functions emotions are though to provide?
- Generating autonomic responses
- e.g. relief -> decrease in heart rate - Generating endocrine responses
- e.g. apprehension -> secretion of cortisol
=> Preparing the body for action
What is the paradigm of a test with conditioning exercise?
> Object (e.g. red triangle) conditioned to induce fear
- e.g. electric shock
> Object (e.g. green square) conditioned to induce pleasure
- e.g. financial reward
> Apparatus so participants can act
- e.g. joystick to move mannequin on computer screen
What do studies using test with conditioning exercise show?
> Degree of participants’ fear in presence of red triangle (associated with electric shock) is likely correlated to greater distance set by participants between red triangle and mannequin on computer (using joystick)
> Degree of participants pleasure in presence of green square (associated with financial reward) is likely correlated to shorter distance set by participants between green square and mannequin on computer
How do emotions impact cognitive processes?
They influence the utilisation and efficiency of cognitive processes:
- Selection of relevant information for memory storing
- Improve retrieval (e.g. emotion associated to events, feeling same emotion at later date)
- Action selection, on the basis of previous responses to similar emotions and the associated consequences
How could emotions be detrimental to survival?
For some people, there are situations in which the intensity with which they feel particular emotions may not be beneficial for survival and may even be detrimental
What did Radke-Yarrow and colleagues (1985) show regarding the exposure to inappropriate emotions?
Excessively negative emotions in particular, at young age can have detrimental effects on the formation of social bonds
How do we generate emotions in experimental conditions (in a lab)?
Provide emotion-provoking stimuli
- to measure neural/physiological aspects of emotions
What is the advantage of using facial expressions as emotion-provoking stimuli in the lab?
> Facial expression are universal -> applicable across individuals
> They have an emotional significance:
- even when presented briefly and masked by neutral face, they’re capable of activating emotional brain circuits
What is the criticism against using faces to generate negative emotions?
Faces are too mild to elicit subjective response
Which improvement was brought to the generation of emotions in laboratory?
Using eyes conveying the emotions rather than faces
-> eye test for emotion recognition
