Topic 6C Flashcards
seven universal emotions
happiness, surprise, sadness, fright, disgust, contempt, and anger.
Yerkes–Dodson law
an empirical relationship between arousal and performance. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases. The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal.
James–Lange theory of emotion
motions arise from physiological arousal. In essence, the selfperception of changes in the body produce emotional experiences. According to this theory, we laugh (a physiological response to a stimulus), and consequently we feel happy (an emotion); we cry, and consequently we feel sad. For example, if you were to encounter a venomous snake in your backyard, your sympathetic nervous system (responsible for activating your fight-or-flight response) would initiate physiological arousal, making your heart race and increasing your breathing rate. According to the James–Lange theory of emotion, you would experience a feeling of fear only after this physiological arousal had taken place. Different arousal patterns would be associated with different feelings.
One limitation of this theory is that it is not known exactly what causes the changes in the body, so it is unclear whether those changes should be considered part of the emotion itself. Critics of the James–Lange theory also doubt that there is sufficient variation in physiological arousal to lead to the wide variety of emotions that we experience. To address these limitations, other theories—such as the Cannon–Bard theory—have been developed.
Cannon–Bard theory of emotion
argues that physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously but independently.
- This theory posits that when you see a venomous snake in your backyard, you feel fear at exactly the same time that your body initiates its physiological fight-or-flight response. Even though they occur at the same time, your emotional reaction and your physiological reaction would be separate and independent.
- According to the Cannon–Bard theory, emotional expression results from activation of the subcortical centers of the brain. The optic thalamus, in particular, is a region that contains the neural organizations for different emotional expressions. An individual’s sensory organs take in an emotional stimulus, and then information about that stimulus is relayed to the cerebral cortex. It is in the cortex where such information is associated with conditioned processes, which in turn determine the direction of the response and stimulate the thalamic processes.
Schachter–Singer theory
views emotion as the result of the interaction between two factors: physiological arousal and cognition. More specifically, this theory claims that physiological arousal is cognitively interpreted within the context of each situation, which ultimately produces the emotional experience. These cognitive interpretations, how a person labels and understands what they are experiencing, are formed based on the person’s past experiences.
autonomic nervous system
(ANS) is part of the peripheral nervous system in humans. It is regulated by the hypothalamus and controls our internal organs and glands, including such processes as pulse, blood pressure, breathing, and arousal in response to emotional circumstances. The ANS is generally thought to be outside of voluntary control.
• The ANS can be further subdivided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. When activated, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) controls the endocrine glands to prepare the body for emergency action. SNS activation causes the adrenal glands to produce epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), which results in the “fight-or-flight” response. The fight-or-flight response involves increased blood flow to the muscles, increased heart rate, and other physiological responses that enable the body to move more quickly and feel less pain in situations perceived to be dangerous.
Dependent stressors
events that are due, at least in part, to an individual’s characteristics or behaviors, and they have been shown to be more predictive of depression
independent stressors
something that happens regardless of your personal behavior, feelings, thoughts, attitudes, etc. e.g. get hit by drunk driver
appraisal view of stress,
people make two appraisals which determine their overall emotional reaction to the event:
Primary appraisal:
Evaluating a situation for the presence of any potential threat. If a threat Is present, a secondary appraisal is generated.
Secondary appraisal:
Assessing the personal ability to cope with the threat. An individual who does not believe that he or she can handle the threat well experiences a higher level of stress than someone who appraises his or her ability more highly.
Hans Selye
General Adaptation Syndrome, which consists of three stages: the alarm stage, the resistance stage, and the exhaustion stage. The alarm stage is similar to the fight-to-flight response, and the body mobilizes resources to react to the incoming noxious agent. The resistance forces will be built up when the noxious challenge is detected as continuing. The exhaustion stage will cause death if the body is unable to overcome the threat.
