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Motivation and Emotion
Emotion
physiological activationexpressive behaviorsconscious experience
Theories of Emotion
Does your heart pound because you are afraid...
or are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding?
Controversy
Does physiological arousal precede or follow your emotional experience?
Does cognition (thinking) precede emotion (feeling)?
When you become happy, your heart starts beating faster. First comes conscious awareness, then comes physiological activity.
Bob
Sach
a
Common Sense View
The Elements of Emotional Experience Cognitive component
Subjective conscious experience Physiological component
Bodily (autonomic) arousal Behavioral component
Characteristic overt expressions
The Elements of Emotional Experience
• Cognitive component involves subjective feelings that have an evaluative aspect–a cognitive appraisal of an event is an
important element in emotional experience
– “new” Positive psychology -- increasing research on contentment, well-being, human strength, and positive emotion.
The Elements of Emotional Experience
• Physiological component - arousal associated with emotion occurs through the autonomic nervous system.
• fight-or-flight response• The galvanic skin response (GSR) measures
autonomic activation • a polygraph or lie detector measures
autonomic fluctuations • Polygraph tests are sometimes inaccurate and
not reliable enough to be submitted as evidence in most types of courtrooms.
The Elements of Emotional Experience
• Physiological component – • In the brain, the limbic system is the emotional
circuit (the – hypothalamus, the – amygdala, and – adjacent structures);
• Joseph LeDoux (1996) - amygdala plays a particularly central role in modulating emotions.
The Elements of Emotional Experience
• Behavioral component - Characteristic overt expressions
• body language and facial expressions• Research indicates considerable cross-
cultural similarities in the ability to differentiate facial expressions of emotion
• The facial-feedback hypothesis holds that facial muscles send signals to the brain that help it recognize the emotion being experienced…smile and feel better.
The Elements of Emotional Experience
• Behavioral component - Characteristic overt expressions
• Cross-cultural similarities have also been found in the cognitive and behavioral components, although display rules, or norms for regulating appropriate expression of emotion, vary from culture to culture.
Theories of Emotion
• James-Lange (body, then emotion)– Feel afraid because pulse is racing
• Cannon-Bard (simultaneous)– Thalamus sends signals to both the cortex
and the autonomic nervous system• Schacter’s Two-Factor Theory
– Look to external cues to decide what to feel
• Evolutionary Theories– Innate reactions with little cognitive
interpretation
James-Lange Theory of Emotion
Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli
• We feel emotion because of biological changes in our body caused by stress.
• our mind recognizes the feelingyou see a snake, your pulse races, and you feel
afraid because your pulse is racing.
James-Lange Theory
Fear(emotion)
Poundingheart(arousal)
Sight of oncomingcar(perception ofstimulus)
Cannon-Bard Theory
• Similar physiological changes correspond with drastically different emotional states.
• The physiological change and cognitive awareness must occur simultaneously in the thalamus
you see a snake, the information is sent to the thalamus, relayed to the cortex and autonomic nervous system at the same time
Cannon-BardTheory of Emotion
Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: physiological
responses subjective experience
of emotion
Sight of oncomingcar(perception ofstimulus)
Poundingheart(arousal)
Fear(emotion)
Schachter–Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
• Physiological responses and cognitive awareness happen at the same time but…
• when two groups are exposed to the same stimuli, those who are already physiologically aroused experience more intense emotions than those not aroused
• Biology and Cognition interact with each other to increase the experience.
you feel autonomic arousal and look around to see why…if there’s a snake you feel fear.
Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
To experience emotion one must: be physically
aroused cognitively
label the arousal
Cognitivelabel
“I’m afraid”
Fear(emotion)
Sight of oncomingcar(perception ofstimulus)
Poundingheart(arousal)
Misattribution of arousal
• Evolutionary theories of emotion assume that emotions are innate reactions that require little cognitive interpretation
• Misattribution can occur when people misinterpret their autonomic arousal
Dutton and Aron (1974) Men divided into two groups were assigned to
cross one of two bridges -- one bridge was 10 feet above a stream, the other was a swaying, 230 foot suspension bridge;
as each crossed, he was met by an attractive female with a questionnaire in hand…. The suspension bridge men called the woman for a date significantly more often than the low bridge men,
This suggests misattribution of arousal as attraction rather than fear.
Embodied Emotion
Emotions involve bodily responses.
• Some of these responses are very noticeable (butterflies in our stomach when fear arises)
• others are more difficult to discern (neurons activated in the brain)
Robert Plutchik (1984, 1993) devised a model of how primary emotions blend together to form secondary emotions.
Figure 10.24 Primary emotions
Emotion and Physiology
Autonomic nervous system controlsphysiological arousal
Sympatheticdivision (arousing)
Pupils dilate
Decreases
Perspires
Increases
Accelerates
Inhibits
Secrete stresshormones
Parasympatheticdivision (calming)
Pupils contract
Increases
Dries
Decreases
Slows
Activates
Decreasessecretion ofstress hormones
EYES
SALIVATION
SKIN
RESPIRATION
HEART
DIGESTION
ADRENALGLANDS
Arousal and Performance
Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks
Compare to motivation
Physiological Similarities
Physiological responses related to the emotions of fear, anger, love, are very similar.
Excitement and fear involve a similar physiological arousal.
Physiological Differences
The amygdala shows differences in activation during the emotions of anger and rage.
Activity of the left hemisphere (happy) is different from the right hemisphere (depressed) for emotions More dopamine receptors:
nucleus accumbens
• Physical responses, like finger temperature and movement of facial muscles change during fear, rage, and joy.
Cognition and Emotion
• What is the connection between how we think (cognition) and how we feel (emotion)?
• Can we change our emotions by changing our thinking?
• Can arousal response to one event spill over into our response to the next event.
Arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger, which could lead to rioting
Sensory input may be routed from the thalamus directly to the amygdala for an instant emotional reaction or to the cortex for analysis
The brain’s shortcut for emotions
Emotion: Lie Detectors
Polygraph machine commonly used to detect lies
measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion
perspiration cardiovascular breathing changes
Emotion—Lie Detectors
Control Question Aim to make anyone nervous
(baseline) Up to age 18, did you ever physically
harm anyone?
Relevant Question Did [the deceased] threaten to harm
you in any way?
Relevant response greater than control response Lie
If 1 in 1000 employees is actually guilty and all employees are tested, 50 will be wrongly declared guilty
But even at 95% accuracy . . .
Expressed Emotion
How do we decipher people’s emotions? body language tone of voice facial expressions
Are these behaviors cultural? gender bound?
How good are we in detecting true or false emotions?
Nonverbal Communication People more speedily detect an angry face
than a happy one
We read fear and anger mostly from the eyes, happiness from the mouth
Experience influences how we perceive emotions physically abused children are quicker to
pick out the angry face than non-abused children
At what point does the person morph into fear?
Gender Differences
Women generally surpass men at reading people’s emotional cues Spotting lies Greater emotional literacy Greater emotional responsiveness to
positive and negative situations More empathic…more likely to express
empathy
Gender and expressiveness
Men Women
Sad Happy Scary
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Numberof
expressions
Film Type
Universal Facial Expressions
The number of specific inherited facial patterns or expressions that signal specific feelings or emotional states [such as a smile signaling a happy state]
Cross cultural
Anger sadness Happiness
fear Surprise disgust Contempt
Culturally universal expressions
Figure 10.22 Cross-cultural comparisons of people’s ability to recognize emotions from facial expressions
Infants’ naturally occurring emotions
a. Joy
b. Anger
c. Interest
d. Disgust
e. Surprise
f. Sadness
g. Fear
Detecting Emotions
Facial muscles reveal signs of emotion.• Difficult to detect
expression of deceit
• Absence of verbal or emotional cues makes detection difficult
Which smile is feigned, which is natural?How can you tell?
Detecting Emotions
Facial muscles reveal signs of emotion.• Difficult to detect
expression of deceit
• Absence of verbal or emotional cues makes detection difficult
Which smile is feigned, which is natural?How can you tell?
Emotions are Adaptive
Darwin speculated that our ancestors communicated with facial expressions in the absence of language. Nonverbal facial expressions led to our ancestors’ survival. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Analyzing Emotion
Feedback Hypotheses
Facial feedback hypothesis Expressions amplify our emotions by activating
muscles associated with specific states [If we smile, we’ll feel happier]
Behavior feedback hypothesis If we move our body as we would when expressing
some emotion we are likely to feel that emotion to some degree
[If we shuffle our feet with downcast eyes, we’ll feel sad]
Dimensions of Emotion
People generally divide emotions intotwo dimensions.
Fear
We learn specific fears through conditioning and observational learning
We are biologically prepared to learn certain fears but not others• Fear of snakes, spiders, heights shared with
prehistoric ancestors Self preservation • Fast driving, bombs, electricity not
conditioned in “genetic” makeup
The Amygdala
a neural key to fear learning
Figure 10.20 The amygdala and fear
Anger
Frustrations, insults… evoke anger Catharsis … emotional release Catharsis hypothesis
“releasing” or venting aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges
Temporary relief may actually amplify anger Reconciliation better than retaliation in
reducing anger and its symptoms
Happiness
Feel-good, do-good phenomenon people’s tendency to be helpful when
already in a good mood More helpful to strangers, give money and
time
Happiness
Research on happiness indicates that common sense notions about what makes people happy are largely incorrect.
Research indicates that subjective rather than objective reality is what is important in deciding happiness.
Happiness
• Income, age, parenthood, intelligence, and attractiveness largely uncorrelated to happiness
• Physical health, good social relationships, religious faith, and culture modestly are correlated to happiness
• Love, marriage, work satisfaction, and personality strongly correlated to happiness
Subjective Well-Being
self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life
used along with measures of objective well-beingphysical and economic indicators to
evaluate people’s quality of life
Be able to:
Compare James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories of emotion
Explain how Schachter-Singer reconciled these conflicting views
What is the evolutionary perspective on emotion?
Describe the cognitive, physiological, and neural components of emotion
Explain the facial feedback hypothesis
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