Emotion and Affective Processes

Russell’s Core Affect Theory !!!

In contrast to basic emotion theories, Russell’s Core Affect Theory says that the foundation of all affective experience lies in a neurophysiological state that is consciously accessible as a simple, nonreflective feeling—what Russell terms core affect. It is structured along two bipolar dimensions, visualized as a circumplex: valence (pleasure–displeasure), which ranges from extremes like ecstasy to agony, and arousal (activation–deactivation), which ranges from deep sleep to alertness. At any given moment, the conscious experience (the raw feeling) is a single blend of these two dimensions. It can occur in both free-floating form or be attributed to an Object. Another primitive is affective quality, which refers to the ability to cause a change in core affect. When someone appraisals an external event it can influence or be influenced by the core affect. For example, If someone is already in a positive core affective state, they may appraise an ambiguous object as more pleasant (mood-congruent priming). However, people can also misattribute a change in core affect to the wrong source. (e.g., bridge study, where participants misattributed physiological arousal from the swaying bridge to romantic attraction toward a female experimenter) Attributed affect is another primitive that arises when an individual identifies a cause for a change in core affect. Once affect is attributed to an Object, it guides attention, appraisal, and behavioral responses toward that Object.

Russell’s point on degree of correlation between emotion components

The traditional view on the degree of correlation between emotion components states that an event triggers an emotion, which then leads to a subjective feeling (e.g., fear), a nonverbal signal (e.g., a facial expression), physiological responses, and instrumental actions (e.g., flight/fleeing). These emotional outcomes should be highly correlated because they all stem from the same event. However, Russell’s proposed alternative model argues against tying emotion components to any one antecedent event or emotion. Instead, each component can arise independently and be influenced by various factors such as an antecedent, core affect, perception, and nonemotional processes. These components then become what we think of as a specific emotion. Because these components are distinct and operate more independently, the correlation among them tends to be weaker/lower than the traditional view. For example, if someone sees a bear, According to the traditional view, seeing the bear triggers the emotion of fear, which then you simultaneously feel scared, increased in heart rate fearful facial expression, and running away all at once. In contrast, Russell’s model suggests these components may not occur all at once. For instance, you might see the bear and immediately run without consciously feeling fear yet. Or you might notice your heart racing before recognizing you’re scared.

Display Rules !!!

Ekman (2004), who is known for his work on Basic Universal Emotions, introduced the concept of display rules to explain why people sometimes suppress, amplify, or mask their emotional expressions. Ekman describes display rules as socially and culturally determined norms of expressing facial and behavioral emotions. In other words, display rules establish the appropriateness (how, when, and to whom), within settings and groups, of displaying certain emotions. Sometimes these rules are established from younger ages, where adults may dictate what emotions are appropriate per the situation (e.g., being told not to cry in public or to smile politely even when anxious). Ekman conducted research across Japanese and American and showed that, when alone, Japanese and Americans displayed the same facial expressions in response to seeing films of surgery and accidents (e.g., disgust, sadness), but when a researcher sat with them as they watched the films, the Japanese masked negative expressions with a smile, moreso than Americans did.

Facial Expression of Emotion

The classic or common view of emotion proposes a limited set of 6 discrete emotions (sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, and happiness) and they are each identified by distinct facial expressions that are understood and expressed worldwide. However, this perspective was criticized by Cowen, who proposed that emotional experiences are a high-dimensional space of at least 15 distinct emotional states and blends. He also proposed that emotions can be expressed by multiple modalities such as voice, touch, posture, head movement, and gaze. For example, some emotions—like awe—are more effectively communicated through vocal expressions than facial cues. Research reveals that individuals from different cultures use diverse words to label the same facial expressions and that emotional expression is far richer than just six prototypical facial-muscle patterns. The reliance on only six emotion categories constrains understanding of how emotional experiences actually manifest in expressive behavior perceived by others. For example, if a wrestler won a match, he may be feeling the emotion of pride. This pride may be communicated through various expressions beyond a smile, such as arm raises, fist clenching, or chest expansions, illustrating that facial movements are only one part of emotional expression. Overall, these findings challenge the classical notion of fixed, universal facial expressions for a small set of emotions and highlight the complexity and cultural variability of emotional expression.

Component Process Model (CPM) / "The Emotion Process: Event Appraisal and Component Differentiation" (NEW ARTICLE!!)

Scherer and Moors (2019) argue against the traditional view, like Ekman’s, of using labels to express emotions and instead promote a state that we should focus on understanding the process of appraisals to form emotions. They promote a Component Process Model (CPM), which focuses on how appraisals of stimuli/events/situations elicit emotional experiences.

Appraisal refers to the continuous cognitive evaluation of stimuli in terms of their significance for one's needs, goals, and values. This initial appraisal occurs during the elicitation phase and determines whether an emotion will be triggered, setting the stage for the emotional episode. There are five core appraisal criteria that guide this process” Novelty/Expectedness – Is this situation new or familiar, Valence (Goal Congruence) – Is the event beneficial or harmful to my goals, Agency – Who caused the event? Was it intentional?, Control/Power – Can I influence the outcome, Norm Compatibility (Fairness) – Does this event violate moral or social standards? The appraisal can lead to differentiated changes such as shifts in action tendencies (flight or fight), physiological responses (heart rate), and motor expressions (face, voice, posture).

These responses then produce a felt experience - which occurs in the representation phase. The felt experience leads to an optional final step of categorization and labeling, where the individual identifies the feeling using emotion words such as "sadness" or "fear." For example, if a presenter is speaking and they begin to have technical difficulties that they cannot fix, they may appraise the situation has having little control/power, and this may be expressed by their voice becoming lower in pitch, energy, and or have a slower rate.

High vs. low road

LeDoux described two parallel processes involved in emotional responses: the low road and the high road. The low road is the subcortical pathway from the thalamus to the amygdala for an instant emotional reaction or behavioral response to threats. It is quick, automatic, reactive, and unconscious. It is a defense system to an emotional stimulus before we have the conscious opportunity to respond and before a visual or audial representation of the threat is fully made. The high road is from the thalamus to the sensory cortex to the amygdala, and is a slower, more cognitively demanding, and conscious process. It is meant to determine whether our immediate response to an emotional stimulus was appropriate, or not. An example of this could be an adult woman walking alone feeling something brush up against her arm. Her ‘low road’ processing might lead her to feel immediate fear and turning to protect her handbag. This is because from an evolutionary standpoint, being overly cautious is more likely to keep us alive. Once she determines she walked by a large bush, her ‘high road’ processing overrides her ‘low road’ processing to determine it was not a thief stealing her belongings.

High road: visual stimulus → thalamus → sensory cortex → amygdala vs. Low road: visual stimulus → thalamus → amygdala

Confirmatory Bias in Basic Emotions

Confirmation bias is the tendency to gather info that confirms preexisting expectations, typically by seeking out supporting evidence rather than contrary evidence. The effect is strongest when the topic is tied to a desired outcome (e.g., hoping for a diagnosis), is emotionally charged (e.g., politics, religion), and/or an entrenched belief. Studies have also shown that people tend to utilize interviewing questions that would affirm the outcome they are expecting. For instance, if a clinician is seeking out whether a client has depression, they might have the tendency to only ask questions related to depression and seek affirmative responses while overlooking other diagnosesI. Ekman proposed that confirmation bias can shape how people interpret and sustain their feelings and often try to confirm what they feel, especially when emotions are unclear or uncomfortable. For example, if an individual with depression is experiencing feelings of sadness they may selectively focus on negative events—while overlooking positive ones—or interpret neutral situations in a more negative light, which is reinforcing and maintaining their depressed emotional state.

Sadness and Loss

Sadness is one of the longer-lasting emotions. Ekman describes loss as a universal experience that may still significantly differ between individuals and cultures based on the event and importance of what was lost (e.g., loss of a religious artifact or loss of a family dog). Sadness and despair responses after loss signal to others that help or comfort might be needed, or lead others to experience anger towards those responsible for the sadness. Sadness emotions might help one process the meaning of loss and heal. While feelings of agony might result from particularly intense losses (e.g., death of a child), Ekman (2004) describes sadness as a more passive, resigned, and hopeless emotion. People may also experience fear of anticipating loss and subsequent relief when loss does not occur. “Facial expression of sadness includes inner eyebrows angled upwards, lower lip pushed up and trembling, cheeks pulled upwards, chin pulled upwards, upper eyelids drooped and eyes looking down.”

Auto-appraisers !!!

Ekman suggests that cognitive evaluations occur quickly enough that one is unaware of an evaluation actually occurring. This suggests the existence of neurobiological automatic-appraising mechanisms within most bodily senses that continuously scan and send information so that an emotion can quickly follow. These mechanisms are sensitive and can be triggered by both universal events, which may be culturally determined, and individual-specific events. The universal events may involve possible evolutionary-based schemas or themes of fear (e.g., survival) and the individual-specific events involves learned events resulting from experiences with strong emotions like anger or sadness (e.g., loved one’s death). Auto-apprasiers explains how we immediately emotionally react to external stimuli in anxiety-provoking situations. For example, the sound of a gun being shot, is a sound that culturally determines the presence of a deadly weapon and a universal desire to seek safety. Ultimately, auto-appraisers quickly evaluate through the senses of the presence of danger, leading one to become quickly afraid or upset without conscious appraisal. 

Anger

Anger is an emotional state that motivates goal directed behavior or self-defense. Anger can quickly cycle and escalate. It often can be elicited in situations where there is interference or obstacles. Anger can vary in strength (annoyance to rage) and kind (sulking, revenge). People are motivated to control anger to continue relationships with others. Anger and fear can be used in the same situations, which can be helpful in reducing fear and providing energy to mobilize actions to deal with the threat at hand. Sensations of anger include feelings of pressure, tension, heat, increased HR/respirations, BP, face reddening, biting down, lips become thinner, impulse to move towards target of anger. 

Refractory period

The refractory period is when an individual provides slower responses when a second stimulus is quickly presented after the first stimulus. Researchers suggest that the refractory period occurs due to a central task bottle neck in which only one primary task can be perceived, decided upon, and executed at a time. The refractory period lessens when there is a greater amount of time between the presentation of the stimuli. In research, the refractory period likely occurs because participants have not been given enough time or practice to accommodate for it or do not utilize parallel processing when responding to stimuli. 

Ekman extended the concept of the refractory period to emotional processing. He proposed that individuals have difficulty processing new information that is incongruent with their current emotions in order to focus attention on the immediate issue at hand. This can be useful in high emotional situations where a response is quickly needed. For example, if a car suddenly swerves into your lane, your immediate emotional response (fear and shock) triggers a refractory period. During this time, your brain prioritizes the immediate threat (e.g., braking or swerving) and filters out less relevant details (like music or nearby road signs). This focused response is adaptive because it helps you react quickly and avoid an accident. However, if the refractory period lasts too long and the individual continues to close themselves off from new outside information (person stops driving all together), it can become maladaptive.

Refractory period —> Bottlenecked brain —> one lane!!!!

Adaptive Functions of emotions !!!!!

Emotions are adaptive because they came through natural selection, and, therefore promoted the survival of our species in some way. Fredrickson (2000) describes how models of emotion imply emotions are couched within actions that result from adaptive functions. More specifically, the urges to freeze, escape, or attack paired with physiological changes during fear emotions implies emotions were evolutionarily adapted for survival. However, Fredrickson emphasizes that the same theoretical background has been weaker for positive emotions and their adaptive qualities. She describes that positive emotions may have their own respective urges and adaptive qualities that are both indirect and long-term. Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory explains that positive emotions broaden our momentary mindset and help build lasting personal resources that we can use later in life. For example, joyful emotions might urge one’s creativity, sense of play, and expand one’s mind, while prideful emotions might encourage interpersonal communication and build social communication skills that the child can use in adulthood.

EXTRA

For example, a child who feels joyful while playing at school might invite classmates to join in. Her joyful behaviors (e.g., smiling, laughing, and sharing toys) signal to others that she wants to connect, which encourages them to participate. This shared joy promotes social engagement, allowing children to form friendships, practice cooperation, and build trust with peers. Over time, these repeated positive interactions create a foundation for stable, supportive relationships, which later benefit social and emotional development in adulthood, such as working well with coworkers.

Reflective appraisal !!!

Reflective appraisal refers to the process by which individuals form an understanding of themselves based on how they believe others perceive and evaluate them. This concept suggests that people internalize others' reactions—real or imagined—as part of their self-concept. For example, when a child cries and a caregiver responds with warmth, the child may internalize, “It’s okay to feel sad.” But if the caregiver looks annoyed, the child may learn, “My sadness is a problem.”

Beyond identity development, reflective appraisal also plays a role in emotional processing. According to Ekman (2004), reflective appraisal involved a person’s conscious awareness and evaluation of their own internal reactions, particularly in uncertain or ambiguous. Unlike automatic appraisals, which occur rapidly and unconsciously, reflective appraisals take more time but can be used to one’s advantage and help rationalize out of automatic emotional appraisal. This dual role highlights reflective appraisal as both a social-cognitive process shaping self-concept and a tool for emotional self-awareness and regulation.

James Lange theory of vs basic emotion theory vs cannon bard !!!!

James-Lange Theory is the theory that we experience emotion when we become aware of our physiological responses to an emotion-arousing stimulus. For example, this theory might explain that when an individual sees a bear and experiences physiological responses involved in protecting oneself and running away (e.g., changes in muscle tension, heart racing). The emotional fear results from these bodily changes.

The Cannon-Bard Theory was proposed in disagreement with the James-Lange theory. Cannon believed that the body’s responses (heart rate, perspiration, and body temperature) are too similar, and they change too slowly, to cause the different emotions. The cannon-bard theory states that an emotion-triggering stimulus travels to the sympathetic nervous system to cause the body’s arousal. At the same time, it also travels to the brain’s cortex to cause awareness of emotion. Thus, an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of emotion separately, but simultaneously. For example, heart racing from seeing the bear does not cause the feeling of fear, nor does the feeling of fear cause a pounding heart, the heart begins pounding as the individual experienced fear. Some later criticism to the Cannon-Bard theory are that many emotions do tend to have distinct physiological responses and that spinal cord injuries have sometimes shown some attenuated emotional expression in humans.

Basic Emotion Theory: Basic Emotion theorist, such as Ekman and Darwin, posit that there are specific, biological, and universal emotions present within all cultures, specifically anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. They all elicit distinct facial expressions that can be understood universally. This was originally Darwin’s idea such that emotions must have come about through natural selection because of their adaptive value. Their ultimate goal is to help you survive, adapt, and reproduce. However, more resent research, such as Cowen, argues current views advocate for broader models of emotion recognition, which have demonstrated greater accuracy across cultures and encompass a wider range of affective states and blends than the traditional six-emotion model.

What changes in fear extinction !!!

Fear extinction plays a role in classical conditioning where learned fear responses to a conditioned stimulus (CS) are reduced or eliminated through repeated exposure to the CS without the presence of the unconditioned stimulus (US). Behavioral evidence suggests that extinction is best understood as a form of inhibitory learning. Rather than erasing the original fear memory, extinction involves learning a new association that suppresses or inhibits the expression of fear. This is evident in phenomena such as spontaneous recovery, where extinguished fear responses can resurface over time. The original learning remains intact; what changes is the addition of new learning that signals safety. Thus, extinction reflects not the loss of old learning, but the formation of a competing memory that can override, but not eliminate, the initial fear response.

Gray and Bjorklund (2014) describe this process as a part of exposure treatment, typically used with specific phobias. This treatment is utilized for fears that are conditioned (e.g., learned experience that led to the fear) or unconditioned (e.g., no experience with the stimulus).

Imagine a child gets bitten by a dog and develops a strong fear of dogs. Every time they see a dog, their heart races and they feel anxious. This is classical conditioning. Later, the child begins exposure therapy, where they are gradually exposed to friendly dogs in safe, controlled situations—without being bitten. Over time, their fear decreases. This is extinction. But weeks or months later, the child sees a dog in a different context (like at a park), and the fear returns. This is spontaneous recovery, showing that the original fear memory still exists. The therapy didn’t erase the fear—it taught the brain something new. This new learning inhibits the fear response but doesn’t remove the original memory. In this way, fear extinction is a form of inhibitory learning: the brain forms a new “safe” memory that competes with the old “danger” memory, helping to regulate fear responses over time.

Positivity effect in emotional aging

The positivity effect refers to a relative preference in older adults for positive stimuli/information over negative in cognitive processing, attention, and memory. The positivity effect is typically explained by drawing upon Carstensen’s socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), which is a lifespan theory of motivation. According to SST, goals are always set in time-based contexts. Because chronological age tends to correlate with perceptions of time, this results in age-differences in life goals. Young adults are theorized to perceive time as expansive; thus, they prioritize future-oriented goals, such as exploration and learning new information. In contrast, Older adults are theorized to perceive time as limited; they should therefore strive to maximize their emotional well-being and avoid wasting time on unpleasant or unfulfilling pursuits. This theory was shown in cartensen’s expierment where the positivity effect among American older adults was shown by using a dot-probe paradigm and found that older adults responded faster to the dot probe if it was presented on the same side as a neutral face than on the same side as a negative face. Younger adults did not show this bias.

Incidental versus integral emotions

Loewenstein and Lerner (2002) defined Integral affect as affective influences (emotions) that are directly related to the object or situation being considered. The feelings that arise from the decision or judgment itself. (E.g., Feeling anxious when considering asking for a promotion). Incidental affect is affect unrelated to a judgment or decision, such as mood.

For example, a newspaper study showed incidental affects. Participants read emotionally charged newspaper articles. Some were about tragic events like fatal car accidents, while others were about neutral or mundane topics. They found that those who read the negative stories had induced a sad or anxious mood and judged unrelated future risks (not about dying from a car accident) as more likely than those in a neutral mood.

Their emotions were not related to the specific judgments they were making, yet still, they influenced how participants evaluated risk. This study showed how mood or affect unrelated to the decision at hand (i.e., incidental emotion) can still bias people's judgments. It supports the spillover effect, which is the idea that emotions can “spill over” and affect thinking in unintended ways.

Serotonin Deficiency Hypothesis

The serotonin deficiency hypothesis in relation to aggression, specifically described by Bear and colleagues (2016), explains how reduced turnover rates in the synthesis, release, and resynthesis of serotonin might be responsible for more aggressive behaviors. This has been shown in male rodents in which regardless of the level of serotonin they have, physical isolation results in poor serotonin turnover and thus leads to aggression. This has additionally been shown in mice who, when serotonin synthesis is blocked, become aggressive and attack other mice more frequently as well as primates who, when serotonin activity was blocked, became more aggressive. However, Bear and colleagues (2016) emphasize that while evidence supports this correlated process, that actual neurobiological process are likely much more complicated.

Allostasis and Interoception 

The brain did not evolve for rationality, happiness, or accurate perception. Instead, its primary function is to efficiently manage the body’s internal resources in service of survival, growth, and reproduction. This core task is achieved through a process known as allostasis—the brain’s ability to anticipate the body's physiological needs and regulate bodily systems accordingly. Unlike homeostasis, allostasis is predictive and cost-sensitive. It prioritizes efficient regulation by preparing the body in advance for demands, weighing the costs and benefits before needs arise.  

Interoception is the brain’s representation and interpretation of internal bodily sensations. Interoception arises from the brain’s predictive regulation of the body via allostasis and provides the subjective foundation for feelings. Interoceptive signals are typically experienced as broad, low-dimensional affective states characterized by valence (pleasant–unpleasant) and arousal (activation–calm). Through the continuous integration of interoceptive signals and allostatic predictions, the brain constructs a dynamic internal model that supports bodily regulation, perception, action, and conscious awareness.  For example, as the skeletomotor prediction signals prepare the body for movement, the interoceptive prediction signals initiate a change in affect (i.e. the expected sensory consequences of allostatic changes within the body’s internal milieu). 

Degeneracy

Degeneracy is the capacity for biologically different systems or processes to produce the same function. (e.g., different sets of neurons can both give rise to anger). Unlike redundancy, which involves duplicate systems and is considered inefficient. Degeneracy supports flexibility and adaptability, which is favorable for natural selection.

Amygdala

The amygdala is an almond-shaped nucleic structure in the medial temporal lobe of the brain. Sensory information gets sent to the amygdala, as it is part of the limbic system, a neural network that mediates aspects of emotion (especially fear and aggression) and memory. In animals, damage to the amygdala can result in flattened fear and aggression, while in humans usually results in one being unable to visually recognize fear, and sometimes anger. For example, a patient named S.M. had an amygdala lesion and was often referred to as “the women with no fear” because she had difficulty experiencing fear in situations such as being threatened with a gun. Researchers have also proposed that a lack of amygdala response leads to one’s visual cortex failing to examine some emotional facial expressions in certain regions. This is why S.M was unable to read fear emotions that are typically shown in one’s eyes, unless directed to observe them. However, the direct stimulation of the amygdala can result in greater fear, anxiety, and vigilance.

According to Bear and colleagues (2016) the amygdala is also responsible for the crystallization of emotional memories, which is the continued and conditioned fear and anxiety that maintain after a distressing event. The amygdala might also be responsible for the intensity of emotional processing and memory, as individuals tend to show greater amygdala activity when remembering emotional pictures as opposed to neutral ones.