PSYC 1000Lecture 44

Emotion

• Emotion– Response of whole organism to

pleasant and aversive events of different types• Happiness, Sadness, Fear, Anger, …

– Three elements• Physiological arousal• Expressive behaviors• Conscious experience

– Fit together in complex ways to determine experience of emotion

Theories of Emotion• What is relationship between mental

and physical aspects of emotion?– e.g., Does your heart pound because you

are afraid ... or are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding?

• Competing Theories– James-Lange theory– Cannon-Bard theory– Schachter’s two-factor theory– Robert Zajonc’s theory– Richard Lazarus’s theory

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

• Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli– Stimulus Arousal

Emotion

Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

• Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: Physiological responses AND Subjective experience of emotion Arousal– Stimulus

Emotion

Schachter’s Two Factor Theory

•Cognition and Emotion–Experience of emotion involves: Physical arousal + Cognitive label–Schacter-Singer study (later)

Arousal •Stimulus Emotion

Cognition

Physiological Similarities• Gross features of arousal similar in

many different, strong emotions, but there are subtle differences in physiological response (and marked differences in psychological experience)– Similar physiological reactions to Fear,

Anger, Sexual Arousal– Fear and Joy: Both increase heart-rate

Physiological Differences• Physical responses, like finger

temperature and movement of facial muscles, change during Fear, Rage, and Joy.– Facial muscles: fear brow, joy cheek /

eye

• Amygdala shows differences in activation during emotions of Anger and Rage.

• Brain and Positive vs. Negative emotions– Frontal lobe: Left (positive) vs. Right

(negative)

Cognition and Emotion• Two routes to emotional reaction

– Slower, thinking response (right, Schacter & Singer)– Speedy (shortcut) non-cognitive route (left)

• Cognition can define emotion: Classic Schacter & Singer Study (6 conditions shown below)

Adrenaline/ Informed Cue /

Epinephrine of Effects? Model

No - Euphoria 1.

No - Rage 2.

Yes Yes Euphoria 3.

Yes Yes Rage 4.

Yes No Euphoria* 5.

Yes No Rage* 6.

Only last 2 groups (*) reported higher levels of the cued emotions: Epin/Adren produced arousal, and being uninformed, arousal was attributed to situation

Two Routes to Emotion

Culture and Emotion

• Are various aspects of emotions universal or culture-specific?– Darwin found similarities across cultures and

thought emotional expression innate: expressed in infants (above from his book “Emotions in Man and Animals”) and even across species

Culture and Emotion

• Overall, many similarities across cultures in experience, labelling, interpreting, and expressing emotions– e.g., Expression of certain basic emotions

claimed to be universal by Ekman and others

– Expression of disgust by people from different cultures, of different ages and genders

– Expression of various emotions

Expression / Perception of Disgust

Expressing Emotion

• Culturally universal expressions

Culture and Emotion• But there are also some differences across

cultures in certain facets of emotion– Descendents of Irish more expressive than

descendents of Scandinavians– Display rules

• Implicit rules about contexts in which appropriate to display different emotions

• Individualist Cultures (e.g., Canada, UK, …)– EXPRESS negative emotions to in-group members– SUPPRESS to out-group members

• Collectivist Cultures (e.g., Greece, India, …)– SUPPRESS negative emotions to in-group members– EXPRESS to out-group members

• Why these differences?

Effects of Facial Expressions: Facial Feedback Hypothesis

•Facial expressions not only reflect our emotions; they also contribute to emotional experience

–Manipulate people’s expressions (e.g., hold pen in mouth to create “smile”) intensifies emotion (e.g., how funny cartoons are)–Expressions play causal role, along with Physiology and Cognition

Functions of Emotion1) Motivation and attention

– Emotions arouse you to take action and sustain behaviours towards goals

– Emotion focuses attention which can improve memory• Focus on pertinent aspects of the situation (e.g. when afraid focus

on danger)

2) Social functions

– Regulate social interactions (glue v. repellent), and engage in prosocial behaviour

• Sad people most polite – makes sense if there is a common circumstance to a social group that is upsetting.

3) Emotional effects on cognitive functioning

– Gordon Bower – emotion is linked to contexts of events– Mood-congruent processing & mood-dependent memory

• Happy people recollect happy memories and sad people recollect sad memories

• Same principle as state-dependent learning that was discussed.

Arousal and Performance

• Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks

Easy tasks

Next Class• Stress