Topic 9 part 3 Flashcards
Emotions
Mental states or feelings associated with our evaluation of our experiences
State or arousal involving facial & body changes, brain activation, cognitive appraisals, subjective feelings, and tendencies toward action
All sare haped by cultural rules
Amygdala
Links sensory input (Odors & facial expressions) to emotional and behavioral responses
Function of emotions
Prepare us for action
- act as a link between events in our environment and our responses
Shape our future behavior
- Act as reinforcement or punishment
Help us to interact more effectively with others
Labeling emotions
Most researchers agree that basic emotions would minimize, happiness, anger, fear sadness & disgust
Cultural differences in the description of emotions
Hagaii:
- Vulnerable heartedly colored by frustration
Musu
- Reluctance to yield to unreasonable demands made by one’s parents
Emotional expression is innate
Dawing believed human emotional expression was shaped through evolution
Major emotional expressions appear to be universal “primary” emotion
Child development
- social smiles emerge near the same age for seeing & blind infants
- Mono twins more similar than dizgotic in fear of strangers
- Cross-cultural similarities re: age-realted distress at being separated from mom
Primary emotions
Paul Ekman
Pioneering work on facial expression of emotion
Six basic emotions recognized worldwide
Biologically hardwired, not learned
Also did work on microexpressions
Microexpressions
Occur in a fraction of a second
Can they reveal a lie? debated in literature
What they want to show vs what they want to conceal
Occur in 1/2 a second or less
often misinterpreted
False expressions (Ekman)
Emotional expressions can be falsified and/or used to conceal other emotions
Research shows faked emotional expressions are asymmetrical
Culture & emotions
Culture influences when people feel angry, sad, lonely, happy, ashamed, or disgusted, about and how they express them
Theories of emotion
Relationships between physical responses & subjective feelings
What is the connection between butterflies in your stomach & fear
Bottom-up (from physical sensation to appraisal) vs. top-down (from appraisal to physical sensation)
- Jame-Lang theory
- Cannon-Bard theory
- Schacter-singer two-factory theory
Jame - Lang Theory
Body 1st, Emotion 2nd
Your body reacts to something, then you feel the emotion based on that reaction
Bodily events are interpreted by the brain as emotional experiences
We can influence our subjective feelings via physical sensation
Cannon-Bard theory
Body & emotion together
We experience emotional & physiological reactions simultaneously
- Physical reactions are not dependent on emotions or vice versa
- The event leads to the thalamus transmitting signals to the amygdala & autonomic nervous system, resulting in physical reactions
- A person’s cognitive assessment of an emotional situation works independently of any physical sensation that might occur
Schechter-Singer Two Factory Theory
Body + brain = emotion
Emotions arise from two factors
- Physical arousal
- Cognitive interpretation (labeling)
- General arousal leads to assessment, which in turn leads to subjective feelings
- Bring study - male ps assessed their circumstances & attributed them to sexual attraction
Facial feedback hypothesis
Facial mucles send messages to the brain about emotions being expressed
Theory of constructed emotion
Lisa Feldman BarretCanadian
Emotions are concepts constructed by our brains
- Our brains interpret our patterns of bodily sensations as a particular emotion based on previous experiences of emotion and the culture we live in
