Week 8 - emotion Flashcards
What is linked with emotion?
Reason and emotion are linked. Without emotion we have reduced capacity to make rational decisions.
Phiness Gage in emotion
Explosion sent iron rod through skull
General function ok
Personality and emotional changes
Elliott and emotion
Brain surgery to remove a frontal lobe tumour
Elliott was “different” after the operation
Elliott seemed to be devious of emotion and made foolish decisions
Define emotion
Evaluative response positive/negative) usually includes
- physiological arousal
- subjective experience
- behavioural/emotional expression
Emotion:Define affect
A pattern of behaviours that express emotions
Emotion: Define mood
A more general emotional state that may or may not be externally expressed
Emotion: Define expression
Overt signs of emotion
Emotional valence
Emotions can be classified according to their valence
Positive: pleasant emotions
Negative: unpleasant emotions
But what about anger? Positive/negative aspects?
Emotional valence can impact on behaviour
Positive affect associated with pleasure seeking approach oriented behaviour (left frontal lobe)
Negative affect related to avoidance behaviours (right frontal lobe)
Discrete emotions theory
Humans experience a small number of distinct emotions
These emotions
- serve distinct evolutionary purposes
- have distinct physiological responses
- are universal across cultures
- occur before thought
Discrete emotions theory (evolutionary perspective)
Darwin: emotions serve adaptive purpose -> increase chances of survival
- innate motor programs (postural, facial)
- similar across cultures (and even species)
- how do they help survival (social communication, internal motivator eg fear, fight or flight)
Examples of the adaptive value of emotional responses (evolutionary discrete emotions theory)
Disgust: less likely to consume toxic substance
Fear: eyes widen to recognise danger
Anger: fists clenched and teeth bared ready to fight
Jealousy: need to secure resources
Discrete emotion theorists propose there are seven primary emotions
What are the seven proposed primary emotions (discrete emotions theory)
Anger Fear Disgust Surprise Happy Sad contempt
Discrete emotions theory (secondary emotions)
Combining two or more primary emotions results in secondary emotions
Discrete emotions theory (culture and emotion)
Cross cultural studies have found the seven primary emotions are universally recognised and expressed
Pride, awe, shame, embarrassment and interest may also have universal facial expressions?
But different cultures give different weight to emotions
Tahitian - 46 words for anger, but none for sadness
Some African cultures - same work for anger and sadness
Some words can have complex emotional meaning (eg the German word “Schadenfreude”)
When someone’s being obnoxious and something bad happens to them and you feel good
Display rules in the discrete emotions theory (culture and emotion)
Cultures have different rules about how and when to express emotions
- greeting people in Australia vs Europe
- Japanese less likely to display disgust, anger than US Americans or Canadians
- collectivist cultures less likely to display emotion than individualistic cultures
Discrete physiological responses (discrete emotions theory)
Some emotions have different physiological responses
-anger/fear: both increase heart rate, but digestive system speeds up/slows down
Some emotions can be distinguished by brain activity
- fear -> amygdala
- disgust -> insula
But, not always the case, and many brain regions involved
Cognitive theories of emotion (James Lange theory)
Emotion inducing stimulus -> behavioural and bodily responses-> subjective interpretation of arousal as emotion
Evidence for this theory:
-Hopman (1966) higher spinal damage associated with reduced subjective emotion
Evidence against:
- emotional responses can be faster than physiological
- we are not always aware of bodily reactions
Cognitive theories of emotion (somatic market theory)
Somatic marker theory (damasio)
-‘gut reactions’ and physiological response unconsciously directs our decision making and emotional reactions
- May be helpful, BUT probably not necessary
- people with pure autonomic failure (PAF) can make decisions without any bodily feedback
Cognitive theories of emotion (cannon bard theory)
- Emotion inducing stimulus
- Behavioural and bodily responses and experienced emotion and the exact same time
Emotional and behavioural responses elicited simultaneously and independently
Evidence against:
-somatic and autonomic responses can influence emotional experience in some cases
Cognitive theories of emotion (appraisal theory - Lazarus)
Emotions arises from appraisal of stimulus (cognitive element)
Perception> cognitive appraisal > emotion > response
Emotions will vary depending on the significance of a stimulus (ie personal and environmental variables)
Cognitive theories of emotion (two factor theory of emotion by Singer - Shacter)
Perception >General arousal > cognition> emotion
- Unspecified physiological/autonomic arousal
- Cognitive interpretation based on internal/external event
People rate opposite sex as more attractive if they have just been on a roller coaster
BUT emotion can occur in absence of arousal, and different patterns of activation for some emotions
Emotion and cognition (perceiving emotions)
Cognition and appraisal:
Cognitive appraisal can also influence how we perceive other’s emotions
Carroll and Russell (1996) picture of fearful expression was interpreted as anger when a back story suggested a frustrating experience
What is emotional regulation (in emotion and cognition)?
Emotion regulation can occur before or after the emotional response occurs:
REFRAMING the meaning of an event before emotional response occurs - reduces negative effect
SUPPRESSING emotions after the emotional response -leads to increased autonomic arousal
Note: emotion regulation is learnt, so we can change the way we react
How can the effects of emotion of cognition
Mood (including anxiety, depression) can
- influence memory capacity, problem solving, decision making, judgements, inferences, predictions
- bias our attention and recall of particular information
- influence our expectations for the future
Unconscious influences on emotion
Facial feedback hypothesis: you are more likely to feel emotions that correspond to your facial features
Supporting research:
- participants constructed face muscles (created certain expressions), autonomic response measured
- participants “felt” the emotions they displayed
BUT this could be due to classical conditioning
Biology of emotion (Limbic system)
Produces and regulates emotional responses, and helps us to interpret emotions of others
Important in learning, which is guided by emotional reaction to stimuli
Key structures:
- amygdala
- hypothalamus
- hippocampus
- Cingulate cortex
Key limbic structures
Amygdala: learning, recognising and responding to emotion (in particular fear)
Hypothalamus: regulates autonomic nervous system and endocrine system (via pituitary gland)
*fight or flight response
Hippocampus: encoding new long term memories including emotional information (through interaction with amygdala)
Cingulate cortex: emotional expressions and interpreting/engaging in social behaviour
Amygdala in biology of emotion
Kluver- Bucy syndrome
- bilateral removal/damage to the amygdala
- major symptoms - lack of fear, urge to put objects in mouth, memory loss, hyper sexuality, visual distractibility, placidity, emotional blunting.
Hypothalamus in the biology of emotion
Autonomic nervous system and HPA axis
Hypothalamus-> releasing factor-> anterior pituitary-> ACTH (through blood) -> adrenal cortex -> cortisol
Prefrontal cortex (biology of emotion)
- Cognitive appraisal of emotional information
- conscious decisions based on emotional information
- interpreting meaning of peripheral responses
- regulation of emotional responses / expressions
Insula cortex (biology of emotion)
Involved in recognition and experience of disgust
Bus insula also plays broad role in intereception integrating affective and cognitive processes
The high and low road (Le Doux)
-biology of emotion
Low road (be fast) -fast subcortical pathway via thalamus *rapid threat detection
High road (be sure) - slower cortical pathway *more complex analysis
Biology of emotion, a caveat
Emotion activated widespread areas of the brain (not just amygdala and prefrontal cortex)
Brian areas activated by emotion are also activated in other psychological processes
No brain structures are linked to just one emotion
The same emotional stimuli night affect different people in different areas
Non verbal expression of emotion
Facial expressions
Posture can communicate emotions, largely in unconscious ways
Gestures can also convey emotion, such as through illustrators or manipulators
Emblems are more culture specific gestures
-OK sign, waving, thumbs up
Non verbal expression of emotion
Nonverbal leakage: often a powerful cue that we are trying to hide an emotion
Micro expressions: brief (1/15-1/25 sec) expressions which occur when trying to conceal an emotion.
Personal space …. emotional distance?
Proxemics is the study of personal space
Personal space correlates with emotional distance
Four levels of distance:
- Public (12 feet or more)
- Social (4-12 feet)
- Personal (1.5-4 feet)
- Intimate (0-1.5 feet)
Moderate cultural, sex and age differences
What happiness is good for
May produce enduring physical and psychological benefits
Broaden and build theory: happiness predisposes ya to think more openly, allowing us to see the “big picture”
Optimists tend to be happier than pessimists, tend to cope better with bad life events, and may even live longer
What happiness is good for
Happiness is similar in men/women, old/young, but differs across cultures
People tend to be happier:
- In individualistic rather than collectivist cultures
- In democracies than other political systems
- with a reasonable income
- with many close friends, and with faith
What doesn’t necessarily make you happy
What happens to us
Money
Youth
Never being worried
What are factors which make you happy
Marriage Friendship Education Religion Exercise Gratitude Giving Flow
Self esteem
A persons evaluation of their worth
Many pop psych sources cite low self esteem as the cause of all unhappiness and misery
No scientific evidence for this
- single variable explanation
- low relationships ship to success
Realities of self esteem
High self esteem is association with greater initiative and persistence
Related to positive illusions, the tendency to perceive ourselves more positively than others do
Can be adaptive, but can be maladaptive in extreme
Positive psychology
“The odd thing about psychiatry is that it’s based upon the study of people who aren’t doing very well… you wouldn’t expect heavy sales of a book called ‘play championship golf by learning the secrets of the worst 20 players in the world’ “ (John Cleese 1996, life and how to survive it)
Positive psychology emphasises human stengths - resilience, coping, life satisfaction, love and happiness
Interventions can help people incorporate “character strengths and virtues” into daily life
•curiosity, love, gratitude
