St.

Joseph College of Bulacan

San Jose Patag, Sta. Maria Bulacan
Psychology Department

PHYSIOLOGICAL/BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

FINAL PERIOD

December 3, 2020

EMOTIONAL BEHAVIORS

Attack Behaviors

Attack behavior may be passionate or calm and detached. For example, a soldier in battle may feel no anger
toward the enemy, and people sometimes make “cold-blooded” attacks for financial gain. We can hardly expect
to find a single explanation for all aggressive behaviors.
Attack behavior depends on the individual as well as the situation. After someone has insulted you, you become
more aggressive, and that mood can last. Even though one person has irritated you, you might yell at someone
else.

Heredity and Environment in Violence

One likely environmental factor is exposure to lead, which is harmful to developing brains. Another
possible contributor is the mother’s smoking habits during pregnancy. The amount that a woman smokes during
pregnancy correlates positively with the probability of adolescent and adult criminal activity by her child.

Several studies have found that violence is particularly enhanced in people with both a genetic
predisposition and a troubled early environment (Cadoret, Yates, Troughton, Woodworth, & Stewart, 1995;
Caspi et al., 2002; Widom & Brzustowicz, 2006).

Hormones

Evidently, testosterone affects different brain areas differently, increasing the responses of emotion-
related areas, while decreasing the ability of the cerebral cortex to identify the emotion consciously. We can
speculate that the result could be increased emotional arousal and decreased ability to regulate that emotion
deliberately.

Serotonin Synapses and Aggressive Behavior

Several lines of evidence link aggressive behavior to low serotonin release. Many studies have found
low serotonin turnover in people with a history of violent behavior, including people convicted of arson and
other violent crimes (Virkkunen, Nuutila, Goodwin, & Linnoila, 1987) and people who attempt suicide by
violent means.
Escape, Fear, and Anxiety

Anxiety also varies among individuals for genetic reasons (Chen et al., 2006; Weisstaub et al., 2006).
The amygdala is one of the main areas for integrating both environmental and genetic influences and then
regulating the current level of anxiety.

Fear, Anxiety, and the Amygdala

Investigators have determined that the amygdala is most important for enhancing the startle reflex. Many
cells in the amygdala, especially in the basolateral and central nuclei, get input from pain fibers as well as vision
or hearing, so the circuitry is well suited to establishing conditioned fears.. Some cells in the amygdala respond
strongly to rewards, others to punishments, and still others to surprises in either direction.

Activation of the Human Amygdala

In humans as in other species, the amygdala is activated during fear conditioning, where people learn
that a signal predicts shock. It is also activated when people look at photos of frightening stimuli or people who
are expressing fear.

Ordinarily, people experience strong emotions when they see other people expressing emotions,
especially anger and fear, and the amygdala responds strongly as well. Your experienced emotion depends on
where the other person appears to be gazing. An angry face directed at you is threatening, whereas a fearful face
directed toward you is usually puzzling.

The response of the amygdala to angry and fearful expressions also depends on gaze direction but not in
the simple way we might guess. The amygdala responds even to emotional stimuli that people do not identify
consciously.

Damage to the Human Amygdala

People with the rare genetic disorder Urbach-Wiethe disease suffer skin lesions; many of them also
accumulate calcium in the amygdala until it wastes away. Other people incur damage to the amygdala because of
strokes or brain surgery. People with amygdala damage do not lose their emotions; they report that they continue
to feel fear, anger, happiness, and other emotions more or less normally as a result of life events (A. K. Anderson
& Phelps, 2002). However, they are impaired at processing emotional information when the signals are subtle or
in any way ambiguous (Baxter & Murray, 2002; Whalen, 1998). People with amygdala damage also fail to focus
their attention on emotional stimuli the way other people do. Such people also often fail to recognize the
emotions that people in photographs express, especially when they express fear or disgust. They also have some
trouble recognizing anger, surprise, arrogance, guilt, admiration, and flirtation.