Theories of emotion

Question 1

Characteristics of emotion

Answer 1

• organised psychological and physiological reactions
• reactions are inner or subjective, objective, patterns of behaviour and physiological arousal
• temporary and ar
  e pos/neg or both
• emotional experiences alter thought processes.
  -emotional experiences direct behaviour and action.

Question 2

Taxonomies of emotion: negative and positive affect; basic and complex emotions

Answer 2

• Basic emotions - common to all cultures; consistent physiology, expression, and subjective experience (happy, sad, angry)
• Complex/Blended emotions = social or cognitive component such as shame/embarrassment, excitement and jealousy.

Question 3

Emotions in the brain

Answer 3

• Limbic system - amygdala, thalamus
• Pyramidal motor system - voluntary movements
• Extrapyramidal motor system - involuntary movements

Question 4

James-lange theory - Perception of peripheral response

Answer 4

Activating event, physiological reaction, emotional response

e.g dog barks, increased heart rate and sweating and fear.

Question 5

Polygraph testing

Answer 5

Measures brain activity and brief facial micro expressions.

Power posing - open postures such as standing straight with arms at hips, low power = crouch

Question 6

Cannon-bard and cognitive

Answer 6

• Schachter- Singer: interpretation of events and our physiological responses
• stimulus - physiological response - interpretation - emotion
• Lazarus: Cognitive appraisal theory - interpretation of event is primary, interpretation of physiological response in the context of the even. Stimulus - physiological response - emotion

Question 7

Interoception

Answer 7

• peripheral signals interacting centrally to influence how we think and feel, generating our sense of the internal condition of the body.
• Sensing, interpreting, and integrating signals originating from inside the body, providing a moment by moment mapping of the body’s internal landscape across conscious and unconscious levels.
• Individual differences in: Interoceptive attention, attribution, insight and accuracy.

Question 8

Interoception and mental health

Answer 8

• Interception “transdiagnostic mechanism” - for anxiety ( bias of attention towards internal cues), panic disorder ( catastrophic interpretations of cardiovascular signals), alexithymia ( impaired interoceptive accuracy), schizophrenia (impaired interoceptive accuracy
• Bodily inflammatory response to infection leading to neuroinflammation, causing fatigue and neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression.
• Treatments = propranolo, mindfulness, CBT, anti-inflammatory medication, statins (cholesterol), metformin (blood-glucose)

Question 9

Emotions that are innate, learned and are universally recognised

Answer 9

• Communicating emotion - non verbal cues - body movement and posture
• Innate expressions of emotions (across cultures)- disgust, anger, fear, happiness, sadness, suprise

Question 10

Emotion regulation strategies

Answer 10

• Situation - event/stimulus (antecedent-focused)
• Attention - attentional-deployment
• Appraisal - cognitive reappraisal
• Response - response focused (suppression)

Question 11

Components of emotions

Answer 11

• Experiential - certain conscious feel
• Phsyiological - accompanied by bodily disturbance
• Behavioural - observable patterns (Expressions)
• Cognitive - driven by evaluations (appraisals)
• Contextual -determined by social (cultural factors)