Affect and Emotion 3

incidental affect/emotion

e.g., current level of fear or anger

integral affect

e.g., estimating risk/reward

choice attributes that have a more precise affective association (more evaluable) are

given more weight

probabilities are generally more

evaluable because they have clear reference points (proportion dominance)

individuation/accessibility makes choices more

evaluable

identifiable life is more evaluable than

statistical life, and identifiable with statistics

participants more likely to give to person identified with a photo (vs. name only), increased giving explained by

increased ventral striatum activity to photo vs. name

“emotional areas”: limbic system

striatum

amygdala

medial PFC

orbitofrontal cortex

insular cortex

“cognitive” areas

DLPFC

anterior PFC
posterior parietal cortex

choice under stress, impulsive decisions

decreased influence of lateral PFC/vmPFC, increased influence of amygdala

affective contribution to choice

inputs from amygdala to striatum and vmPFC contribute to valuation for learning, choice

Passions

bottom-up

automatic

dumb

can hijack reason

reason

top-down

controlled

smart

effortful

what needs controlling?

affective reactions/states that conflict with our goals

the “fronts of this battle” (horse)

we control affective reactions/states that conflict with our goals because they

are contextually inappropriate (laughing at funeral)

impair our cognitive performance

are detrimental to our longer-term health/relationships

componenets of the emotion generation process

situation: stimuli

attention: to a stimuli or attribute

appraisal: e.g., good or bad

response: experience behavior physiology

situation selection

taking actions that make it more or less likely that one will end up in a situation one expects will give rise to a desirable or undesirable emotions

situation modification

control the immediate, external environment surronding a situation to influence its emotional impact

attentional deployment: distraction

focuses attention on different aspects of the situation, or moves attention away from the situation altogether

attentional deployment: concentration

draws attention to emotional features of a situation; rumination

cognitive change - reappraisal

changing how one appraises the situation one is in so as to alter its emotional significance, either by changing how one thinks about the situation or about one’s capacity to manage the demands it poses

response modulation

occurs later in the emotion generative process

generally most effortful form of regulation

can take the form of active inhibition/regulation of behavior/ and or masking of emotional expressions

lateral PFC regulates negative affect by

decreasing amygdala activity and increasing ventral striatal activity

increased frontoparietal activity associated with

emotion regulation

decreased amygdala activity associated with

reduced emotion reactivity

when do we fail to regulate affect?

affective associations too strong

control resources/motivations too weak

affective associations (impulses) too strong

learning

cue salience

attentional state

motivational state

control resources/motivations too weak

dual-task interference

“ego depletion”

mood

inebriation

PFC damage, development

ability to delay gratification as a child predicts future

academic, health, and social outcomes

and lateral PFC vs. striatal responses in affective cognitive conrol task

other regulation approaches

pharmacology

mindfulness

precommitment (locking phone)

learning better habits

re-learning outcomes

changing expectations

effects of expectations on aversive reactions

Placebo effect associated with

increased activity in LPFC and vmPFC, decreased activity in pain circuit (e.g., insula, dACC)

effects of expectations on appetitive reactions

people report liking (an equivalent) higher-priced wine more

and they show increased mOFC activity while consuming that wine