Module 16

Emotion
 INTRODUCTION

• Emotional experience
• Four components of emotion
– First, interpret or appraise some stimulus in terms of
your well-being
– Second, experience a subjective feeling, such as fear
or happiness
– Third, experience physiological responses, such as
changes in heart rate or breathing
– Fourth, show observable behaviors, such as smiling
or crying
 PERIPHERAL THEORIES

• Studying emotions
– Peripheral theory
• emphasizes how physiological changes in the
body give rise to emotional feelings
– Cognitive appraisal theory
• emphasizes how interpretations or appraisals of
situations result in emotional feelings
– Affective neuroscience approach
• studies the underlying neural bases of mood and
emotion by focusing on the brain’s neural circuits
that evaluate stimuli and produce or contribute to
experiencing/expressing different emotional states
 PERIPHERAL THEORIES (CONT’D)

• James-Lange theory
– Says that our brain interprets specific physiological
changes as feelings or emotions and that a different
physiological pattern underlies each emotion

• Facial-feedback theory
– Says that the sensations or feedback from the
movement of your facial muscles and skin are
interpreted by your brain as different emotions
PERIPHERAL THEORIES (CONT’D)
 COGNITIVE APPRAISAL THEORY

• Cognitive appraisal theory

– Says that your interpretation, appraisal, thought, or
memory of a situation, object, or event can contribute
to, or result in, your experiencing different emotional
states
COGNITIVE APPRAISAL THEORY (CONT’D)
 AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE APPROACH

• Four qualities of emotions

– First expressed in stereotypical facial expressions,
such as showing a fearful expression (open mouth,
raised eyebrows), and accompanied by distinctive
physiological responses
– Second less controllable than we might like and may
not respond to reason
– Third influences many cognitive processes, such as
making decisions, developing personal relationships,
and selecting goals
– Fourth hard-wired in the brain
 AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE APPROACH
(CONT’D)

• Affective neuroscience approach

– Studies the underlying neural bases of mood and
emotion
– Focuses on the brain’s neural circuits that evaluate
stimuli and produce or contribute to experiencing and
expressing different emotional states
 AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE APPROACH
(CONT’D)

• Emotional director and memorizer

– Physical survival depends on a brain structure about
the size and shape of an almond called the amygdala
• Amygdala
– Located in the tip of the brain’s temporal lobe and
receives input from all the senses
– Monitors and evaluates whether stimuli have positive
or negative emotional significance for our well-being
and survival
– Involved in storing memories with emotional content
AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE APPROACH
(CONT’D)
 AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE APPROACH
(CONT’D)

• Brain circuits for emotion

– Thalamus
• functions as a major relay station for all the senses
(except smell)
– Amygdala
• recognizes threats almost immediately
– Prefrontal cortex
• involved in complex cognitive functions, such as
making decisions, planning, and reasoning
AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE APPROACH
(CONT’D)
 UNIVERSAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

• Universal emotional expressions

– Number of specific inherited facial patterns or
expressions that signal inherited facial patterns or
expressions that show specific feelings or emotional
states, such as a smile signaling a happy state
• Number of expressions (seven)
• Cross culture
– Anger, sadness
– Happiness, fear
– Surprise, disgust
– Contempt
 FUNCTIONS OF EMOTIONS

• Social signals
– Facial expressions
• accompany emotions
• may send social signals about how we feel as well
as provide social signals about what we’re gong to
do
• Survival, attention, and memory
– Evolutionary theory of emotions
• says that one function of emotions is to help us
evaluate objects, people, and situations in terms of
how good or bad they are for our well-being and
survival
 FUNCTIONS OF EMOTIONS (CONT’D)

• Arousal and motivation

– Yerkes-Dodson law
• says performance on a task is an interaction between
the level of physiological arousal and the difficulty of
the task
• difficult tasks
– low arousal results in better performance
• most tasks
– moderate arousal helps performance
• easy tasks
– high arousal may facilitate performance
 HAPPINESS

• Positive emotions
– Happiness
• indicated by smiling and laughing
• can result from
– momentary pleasures, such as funny
commercials
– short-term joys, such as, a great date
– long-term satisfaction, such as an enjoyable
relationship
 HAPPINESS (CONT’D)

• Positive emotions
– Reward/pleasure center
• includes several areas
– nucleus accumbens
– ventral tegmental area
– several neurotransmitters, especially dopamine
HAPPINESS (CONT’D)
 HAPPINESS (CONT’D)

• Long-term happiness
– Adaptation level theory
• says that we quickly become accustomed to
receiving some good fortune (money, job, car,
degree)
• we take the good fortune for granted within a short
period of time
• impact of good fortune fades and contributes less
to our long-term level of happiness
 HAPPINESS (CONT’D)

• Long-term happiness
• Happiness set point
– each person has a set point for experiencing a certain
level of happiness
– some more and some less
– personal level for being happy is half genetic and half
environmental
 CULTURAL DIVERSITY

• Display rules
– specific cultural norms or rules regulate how, when, and where
a person expresses emotions and how much emotional
expression is appropriate
• Perceiving emotions
– depends on culture
– five emotions
• surprise
• anger
• happiness
• disgust
• sadness
CULTURAL DIVERSITY (CONT’D)
 RESEARCH FOCUS

• What is emotional intelligence?

– Ability to perceive emotions accurately

– Take feelings into account when reasoning

– Understand emotions

– Regulate or manage emotions in oneself and others

 APPLICATION

– Lie detector (polygraph) tests

• based on theory that, if a person tells a lie, he or she will feel
some emotion, such as guilt or fear
• guilt or fear will be accompanied by involuntary physiological
responses
• difficult to suppress or control; can be measured
– Galvanic skin response
• changes in sweating of the fingers (or palms)
• accompany emotional experiences and are independent of
perspiration under normal temperature
APPLICATION
 APPLICATION

• Control question technique

– Lie detection procedure in which the examiner
asks two kinds of questions designed to elicit
large emotional responses
– Person answers only “yes” or “no”
– If guilty, expected to show a greater emotional
response to critical questions than neutral
questions
APPLICATION