Emotion and Affective Processes

Russell’s Core Affect Theory !!!

The traditional “common view” of emotion has been most prominently theorized by Ekman (1972, 1997), who proposed that emotions are universal, automatic responses rooted in a limited set of “six basic emotions”—happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and surprise—each associated with a distinct configuration of facial Action Units (AUs), as coded by the Facial Action Coding System (FACS).

In contrast to basic emotion theories, which posit a limited set of biologically hardwired, discrete emotions (e.g., fear, anger, joy), Russell’s Core Affect Theory presents a psychological constructionist framework. According to this theory, 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. This state 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 frenetic excitement. At any given moment, the conscious experience (the raw feeling) is a single blend of these two dimensions.

A. Core affect, the first primitive in Russell’s framework, refers to a neurophysiological state that is consciously accessible as a simple, nonreflective feeling. It can occur in both free-floating form (as in mood) or be attributed to a particular object or cause (as in emotion). Individuals are always experiencing core affect, although its intensity and salience can vary. When it is intense or rapidly changing, core affect may dominate conscious awareness; when mild or stable, it often fades into the background of one’s experience. Core affect plays a functional role in guiding cognition, perception, and behavior—it facilitates attention, influences judgment (via mood-congruent processing), and contributes to decision-making. Importantly, changes in core affect are multiply determined, influenced by genetic predispositions, internal biological processes (e.g., hormone levels and immune activity), and external events in the physical and social environment.

B. Affective quality, the second primitive in the theory, refers to the perceived capacity of a stimulus (object, event, or situation) to alter core affect. As people encounter elements in their environment—whether real, imagined, remembered, or anticipated—they appraise them affectively (e.g., soothing, threatening, exciting). This appraisal is typically automatic and rapid, and it can influence—or be influenced by—core affect. Russell emphasizes a dyadic interaction between core affect and affective quality. For instance, when one is already in a positive core affective state, they may appraise an ambiguous object as more pleasant (mood-congruent priming). Conversely, people may misattribute a change in core affect to the wrong source (incongruent attribution), as in the Dutton & Aron (1974) bridge study, where participants misattributed physiological arousal from the swaying bridge to romantic attraction toward a female experimenter.

C. Attributed affect arises when an individual identifies a cause for a change in core affect. This process involves three key components: 1) a change in core affect, 2) the presence of an Object (a person, place, event, or state of affairs), and 3) the attribution of the core affect to that Object. This attribution usually happens quickly and automatically but may also involve reflective reasoning. Once affect is attributed to an Object, it guides attention, appraisal, and behavioral responses toward that Object. However, not all attributed affects qualify as prototypical emotional episodes (what Russell refers to as “blue-ribbon emotions” such as fear or anger). Many are nonprototypical, yet still emotionally meaningful—such as feeling uneasy, bored, or affectionate.

Russell’s point on degree of correlation between emotion components

The traditional view (e.g., Ekman’s 6 universal emotions) on the degree of correlation between emotion components posits that an event triggers an emotion, which then leads to a subjective feeling (e.g., fear), a nonverbal signal (e.g., a facial expression), autonomic responses, and instrumental actions (e.g., flight/fleeing). According to this model, these emotional outcomes should be highly correlated because they all stem from the same event. However, Russell’s (2003) proposed alternative model argues against tying emotion components and manifestations to any one antecedent event or emotion. Instead, each component—subjective feeling, expression, physiological response, and action—can arise independently and be influenced by various factors such as the core affect, perception of affective quality, attribution to Object, Appraisal, action, emotional meta-experience, and emotional regulation processes. These components collectively give rise to what we identify as a specific emotion. Because these components are distinct and operate somewhat independently, the correlation among them tends to be weaker/lower than the traditional view.

For example, While the traditional understanding of fear might lead us to expect that specific appraisals, behaviors, and physiological activity are related to fear (e.g., rushing heartbeat, sweating, fight-or-flight all happen together b/c of fear). However, Russell (2003) describes that this would not be the case. If Alice is driving a car, which can be dangerous, according to the traditional view, she should experience all those fear components at once—racing heart, sweating, urge to escape—but often she doesn’t. She might feel alert or cautious while driving, but without the full package of fear reactions happening simultaneously.

High correlations might be observed in two instances: either when a person self-perceives these components as making up their emotion or when the component is observed twice by two valid measurements. Thus, while the structure of emotional episodes may remain constant, their interaction can produce many patterns that fit various emotional prototypes to a certain degree (e.g., surprise and fear can generate similar patterns that somewhat conform to both prototypes simultaneously).

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 (2004) 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 (2004) 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. So overall: in private = innate expressions; in public = managed expressions.

Facial Expression of Emotion (FROM NEW ARTICLES!!)

The traditional “common view” of emotion has been most prominently theorized by Ekman (1972, 1997), who proposed that emotions are universal, automatic responses rooted in a limited set of “six basic emotions”—happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and surprise—each associated with a distinct configuration of facial Action Units (AUs), as coded by the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). 

However, recent work by Cowen et al. (2019) demonstrates that Ekman’s view is incomplete and overly reductive. The basic six represent 30%, at best, of the explainable variance in emotional experience and expression, leaving the remaining 70% of the variation in expression unaccounted for. Emotional experience does not reduce to six core emotions or map neatly onto discrete facial muscle patterns. Instead, it is a high-dimensional space of at least 25–28 distinct emotional states and blends, shaped by appraisal processes and expressed across multiple modalities (voice, touch, posture, head movement, and gaze).

In Cowen et al.’s large-scale study, over 800 U.S. participants rated about 2,000 short video clips, producing a rich dataset that revealed 28 distinct emotion categories. These included not only traditional emotions (e.g., anger, fear) but also nuanced states like awe, nostalgia, sympathy, and embarrassment. Emotions were frequently experienced in blends—for example, amusement often co-occurred with awe or affection—refuting the idea that a single stimulus elicits one emotion.

Emotional expression extended far beyond the face. Cowen et al. emphasized that multimodal cues—including voice, touch, posture, head movement, and gaze—communicate emotional states, and that within each modality, people use varieties of expression, not just one “prototypical” pattern. For example, if facial expressions had one diagnostic value, winning a judo match would consistently elicit a smile every single time. However, body gestures such as arm raises, fist clenches, and chest expansions are also signs of triumph (or pride), meaning that a smile is not always needed to signal the triumph emotion.

Scherer & Moors (2019) add further support by framing facial expression as the output of cognitive appraisals such as novelty, goal congruence, and control, not emotion categories. Because emotions are constructed through meaning-making processes, its facial expressions are a dynamic, context-sensitive process involving multiple channels of communication, social inference, and high-level cognitive interpretation.

Rather than labeling expressions with fixed emotion words, observers often draw on inferred causes, intentions, and relational context to understand what someone is feeling. This richer, more ecological model of facial expression challenges traditional universality theories and emphasizes the complexity of how emotions are experienced, expressed, and interpreted.

How we Process Emotions / "The Emotion Process: Event Appraisal and Component Differentiation" (NEW ARTICLE!!)

The Scherer and Moors (2019) article challenges traditional emotion theories (such as Ekman’s 6 universal emotions) that focus on categorizing emotions by fixed labels (e.g., “this is anger” or “this is fear”). Instead, they promote a Component Process Model (CPM), a process-oriented view and describe emotion episodes to be dynamic, multi-component processes that unfold and interact over time in response to how an individual appraises an event.  

Appraisal refers to the continuous cognitive evaluation of stimuli (events, behaviors, situations, objects, or memories) in terms of their significance for one's needs, goals, and values. This initial appraisal, which occurs during the elicitation phase, determines whether an emotion will be triggered and sets the stage for the emotional episode. The authors identify five core appraisal criteria that guide this process:

1.        Novelty/Expectedness – Is this situation new or familiar?

2.        Valence (Goal Congruence) – Is the event beneficial or harmful to my goals?

3.        Agency – Who caused the event? Was it intentional?

4.        Control/Power – Can I influence the outcome?

5.        Norm Compatibility (Fairness) – Does this event violate moral or social standards?

Once the appraisal process begins, it leads to differentiated changes across several systems, referred to as the differentiation phase. These changes include shifts in action tendencies ( such as approach or withdrawal), physiological responses (e.g., changes in heart rate or sweating), and motor expressions (including facial, vocal, and gestural signals). These components work together to help organize adaptive responses to the environment. 

For example, appraising an event as caused by another person with harmful intent (described as agency + blame) can elicit an action tendency toward confrontation or aggression. When individuals perceive a negative outcome as intentionally caused by someone else, they are significantly more likely to experience anger and engage in aggressive behaviors. Another example can be seen in vocal expression. When an individual appraises a situation as having little control or high difficulty, their vocal expression is characterized by reduced energy, slower speech rate, and lower pitch. For example, if a problem occurs during a public presentation and the speaker cannot fix the problem, their voice may begin to be lower in pitch and intensity—reflecting appraisals of helplessness or disengagement.

These responses are then integrated in central neural systems to 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."

Throughout the process, components influence one another in recursive ways—meaning later reactions can loop back to alter earlier appraisals or action readiness. Scherer and Moors argue that emotion research should move beyond static labels and instead focus on understanding the process by which appraisals unfold and drive component synchronization.

High vs. low road

Dual processing is the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux (1996) 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. In the context of basic emotions, confirmation bias can shape how people interpret and sustain feelings such as fear, anger, sadness, or happiness. Neuroscience research has shown that during confirmation bias, the brain regions responsible for logical reasoning become less active, while emotion-related areas become more active. For example, a 2006 fMRI study asked participants to evaluate the 2004 U.S. presidential candidates. The researchers found that when participants processed information that challenged their beliefs, the reasoning centers in the brain quieted down, while emotion centers activated. This created a dopamine release, or a “feel-good” response, when their beliefs were confirmed. This suggests that confirmation bias is emotionally rewarding, reinforcing both their belief and feeling. Ekman (2004) also argued that people often try to confirm what they feel, especially when emotions are unclear or uncomfortable. Clinically, this may be observed in depression, where individuals experiencing sadness or hopelessness may selectively focus on negative events—while overlooking positive ones—or interpret neutral situations in a more negative light, thereby reinforcing and maintaining their depressed emotional state. Similarly, a clinician with a confirmation bias toward diagnosing depression might have the tendency to only ask questions related to depression and seek affirmative responses while overlooking other diagnoses.

Sadness and Loss

How Ekman (2004) would describe it: According to Ekman (2004), loss is a universal common, experience however, the emotional response to it, referred to as sadness, can vary significantly 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 is typically expressed through distinct facial expressions, including inner eyebrows drawn upward, trembling lower lip, cheeks and chin pulled upward, drooping eyelids, and downward gaze. These expressions serve as an important social and communication function by signaling to others their emotional state and that help, comfort, or support may be needed. Sadness can also serve an internal function by helping individuals process the meaning of a loss and begin to heal.

Scherer and Moors (2019) would conceptualize sadness in the context of appraisal theory, where emotions arise from a person’s subjective evaluation of an event in relation to their goals, needs, and values. Their Component Process Model (CPM) emphasizes that emotions like sadness are not unitary states, but rather involve multiple synchronized systems: cognitive appraisal, action tendencies, physiological responses, and motor expression. For example, loss may trigger sadness if the event is appraised as not alining with their goals, or with low power/control over the event, especially for goals related to attachment, security, or identity.

Cowen and colleagues propose a high-dimensional, data-driven model of emotion that challenges the idea that emotions fall into a small set of “6 basic categories.” Instead, they identify 25 - 28 distinct emotion dimensions, including nuanced varieties of sadness such as grief, disappointment, loneliness, and despair. They would likely argue that “sadness” is not a singular experience, but a family of related emotional states (e.g., grief, hopelessness, loneliness) that vary by context and intensity.

Auto-appraisers (or, automatic-appraising mechanisms) !!!

According to Ekman, automatic appraisers, are our automatic and unconscious mechanisms that are continually scanning the world around us, detecting when something important to our welfare or to our survival, is happening. These systems are evolutionarily embedded and designed to respond rapidly—within microseconds—to emotionally salient stimuli. LeDoux’s (1996) neuroscience affective research demonstrated that the amygdala receives quick sensory input through a subcortical "low road" pathway, enabling immediate emotional responses before the cortex has fully processed the information. Thus, our automatic appraisal is what enables us to respond emotionally to complex situations without conscious awareness or deliberate cognitive processing.

Ekman proposes that the automatic appraisal system evolved to detect universal antecedent events—stimuli or themes that were consistently important to the survival of our species. For instance, stimuli such as snakes, angry facial expressions, or sudden loud noises often trigger emotional responses (like fear or startle) without prior experience. These universal responses reflect biologically prepared emotional systems that are shared across all humans.

However, Ekman also acknowledges that individual experiences and cultural context play a role in shaping what stimuli trigger emotional reactions. Over time, we encounter specific events that we learn to interpret as emotionally significant—such as a particular song that evokes sadness due to personal loss. These individual-specific appraisals become layered onto the universal system, effectively expanding the range of what automatic appraisers are alert to. In this sense, while the underlying mechanism is universal and automatic, the content of what is appraised as emotionally significant can vary based on personal schemas and life history.

Example: This concept can be related to how we immediately emotionally react to external stimuli in anxiety-provoking situations, like the sound of a gun being shot, 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

When we face a threat or challenge, fear triggers flight, but anger triggers fight. Anger may be in response to someone’s perceived misdeeds, especially when the person’s act seems willful, unjustified, and avoidable. But small hassles and blameless annoyances (foul odors, high temperatures, a traffic jam, aches and pains) also have the power to make us angry.

Anger can harm us, especially when it is chronic. Anger boosts our heart rate, increases inflammation, weakening our defenses against disease, and raises our testosterone level. The Western view of anger enables catharsis, which is the idea that “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges. Expressing anger can be temporarily calming if it does not leave us feeling guilty or anxious, however, behavior feedback research has found that acting angry can make us feel angrier. Angry outbursts that temporarily calm us may also become reinforcing and therefore habit forming. For example, f stressed managers find they can temporarily drain off some of their tension by berating an employee, then the next time they feel irritated and tense they may be more likely to explode again. In Bushman (2002) study, people were asked to use a punching bag while ruminating about a person who had recently angered them. Later, when given a chance for revenge, those who vented their anger became even more aggressive. This showed that to better manage your anger you should wait, as emotional arousal will simmer down if you just wait long enough, find a healthy distraction or support, and distance yourself. Anger is not always wrong/bad. If used wisely, it communicates strength and can motivate people to act courageously and achieve goals.

Predatory vs affective aggression

Predatory and affective aggression are autonomic nervous system (ANS) manifestations, likely driven by the amygdala and hypothalamus, that differ in resulting behaviors. Predatory aggression is planned, calculated, and purposeful form of aggression, often lacking strong emotional involvement. It is motivated by a desire to achieve a goal, such as acquiring resources, asserting dominance, or eliminating a perceived obstacle. Among animals, the predatory aggression occurs when a species member attacks the head or neck of another species for resources in cases of lower ANS activity. Affective aggression is impulsive, emotional, and often a reaction to perceived threats. Affective aggression occurs for theatrics including posturing, loud vocalizations, and emotional reactions in cases of higher ANS activity. In cats, researchers at Yale discovered that stimulating their medial hypothalamus resulted in greater affective aggression while stimulating the lateral hypothalamus resulted in greater predatory aggression, indicating different neural mechanisms. 

Refractory period

The refractory period refers to the period of time between the trigger of emotions and the conscious realization of the stimulus. Eysenck and Keane (2020) explain that an individual provides slower responses when a second stimulus is quickly presented after the first stimulus because the first stimulus is still being processed.

Researchers emphasize 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. This phenomenon occurs even when participants are incentivized to be quicker and in real-world experiments (e.g., braking to slow down in a car). The refractory period lessens when there is a greater amount of time between stimuli presentation. 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 (the brain's ability to handle and process multiple streams of information at the same time, rather than sequentially) when responding to stimuli.

This refractory period concept is extended by Ekman (2004) who describes it as a process in which it is too difficult for an individual to take in information that is incongruent with their current emotions and feelings in order to focus attention on the immediate issue. The refractory period leads to a slower input of outside, contradictory information, a useful system in high emotional state situations where a response is quickly needed (e.g., swerving from a car). However, a longer refractory period might become maladaptive when the fear extends and one continues to close themselves off from outside information (e.g., consistently being afraid getting in a wreck).

For example, imagine you’re driving and suddenly another car swerves into your lane unexpectedly. Your immediate emotional response is fear and shock, triggering a refractory period. During this brief time, your brain focuses intensely on the immediate danger—braking hard or steering away—and filters out other less relevant information, like traffic signs or radio sounds. This focused response is adaptive because it helps you react quickly and avoid an accident. However, if this fear lingers longer than necessary—say, you become excessively anxious every time you drive near that lane or hesitate to drive at all—then the refractory period has become maladaptive. You may close yourself off to calm reassurances or new information that the road is safe, leading to ongoing anxiety and impaired driving.

Adaptive Functions of emotions !!!!!

Fredrickson (2000) posits that traditional models of emotion primarily focus on the adaptive functions of emotions as they relate to survival-oriented actions. Specifically, emotions such as fear are associated with behavioral urges like freezing, fleeing, or fighting, accompanied by physiological changes that prepare the individual for immediate threat response. This underscores the evolutionary basis of negative emotions as mechanisms promoting survival.

However, Fredrickson highlights that the adaptive functions of positive emotions have historically been less clearly articulated within this framework. He proposes that positive emotions serve distinct adaptive purposes that are more indirect and long-term in nature. For instance, experiences of joy may facilitate creativity, playfulness, and cognitive flexibility, while feelings of pride might promote communication with others and build hopeful expectations for the future, which are important for cooperation and goal pursuit.

Building upon this, Kaplan et al. (2016) emphasize that positive emotions broaden an individual’s attentional scope, allowing us to open up and focus on broader interests rather than just immediate threats or goals. This notion forms the foundation of Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, which asserts that positive emotions broaden our momentary mindset (like expanding our thoughts and actions) and help build lasting personal resources—such as knowledge, relationships, and resilience—that we can use later when challenges arise.

Emotions: Fear, Disgust, Sadness, Anger, Joy, Shame, Guilt (FDSAJS)

Example: in a preschool setting, joy often leads to an active approach behavior, where children eagerly seek out playmates, initiate games, and explore new activities together. For instance, a child who feels joyful during group play may invite others to join in building a block tower or pretend cooking in the play kitchen. These joyful behaviors—smiling, laughing, and sharing—naturally draw other children in and signal a willingness to connect. As a result, joy fosters social engagement, helping children form friendships, practice cooperation, and build trust with peers. Over time, these repeated positive interactions help establish a foundation for stable and supportive relationships, which are essential for social and emotional development.

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. Rooted in social psychology, 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 can involve a person’s conscious awareness and evaluation of their own internal reactions, particularly in uncertain or ambiguous situations. Unlike automatic appraisals, which occur rapidly and unconsciously, reflective appraisals take more time but can help individuals regulate their emotional responses. 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 !!!!

Emotions are a response of the whole organism and are made up of 3 components:  (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) cognition, or conscious experience resulting from one’s interpretations.

James-Lange Theory is the theory that our experience of emotion occurs when we become aware of our physiological responses to an emotion-arousing stimulus (arousal comes before emotion).  For example, suppose you are walking in the woods, and you see a grizzly bear. You begin to tremble, and your heart begins to race. The James-Lange theory proposes that you will interpret your physical reactions and conclude that you are frightened ("I am trembling. Therefore I am afraid") Event→ Physiological Change → Emotional Response. Criticisms: not based on controlled experiments—largely the result of introspection and correlation.

Cannon-Bard Theory: Physiologist Walter Cannon disagreed with the James-Lange theory. He 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. Thus, the theory states that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion. The emotion-triggering stimulus travels to the sympathetic nervous system, causing the body’s arousal. At the same time, it traveled to my brain’s cortex, causing my awareness of emotion. A pounding heart does not cause the feeling of fear, nor did the feeling of fear cause my pounding heart, the heart began pounding as the individual experienced fear. Criticisms of the Cannon-Bard theory are studies of people with severed spinal cords, including a survey of 25 World War II soldiers. Those with lower-spine injuries, who had lost sensation only in their legs, reported little change in their emotions’ intensity. Those with high spinal cord injury, who could feel nothing below the neck, did report changes in emotions.

The Schachter-Singer theory states that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal. They explored spillover effects in which arousal from one appraisal of an event can fuel anger, which can descend into rioting or other violent confrontations. Thus, arousal fuels emotions and cognition channels it.

Zajonc, LeDoux, and Lazarus showed that cognition does not always precede emotion. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux (1996) 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 without any deliberate thinking. 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. 

Basic Emotion Theory: Basic emotion theory states that there is a small set of elemental built-in emotions that are revealed by distinctive patterns of physiological reaction and facial expression. The specific and innate emotions present within all cultures are claimed to be anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Each basic emotion has a distinct and recognizable facial expression, regardless of culture. For example, someone will experience the built-in emotion (anxiety) that is then expressed by the heart racing and sweaty palms. This was originally Darwin’s idea such that emotions must have come about through natural selection because of their adaptive value. He claimed emotions evolved for survival and come as a natural, automatic package (feeling, expression, physiology). Their ultimate goal is to help you survive, adapt, and reproduce.

What changes in fear extinction? !!!

Fear extinction is defined as the decline in a conditioned fear responses (CR) following non-reinforced exposure to a feared conditioned stimulus (CS). 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).

Example:

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:
Dog → Bite → Fear

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:
Dog → No bite → Safety

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 (on Meg’s from last year)

The positivity effect refers to a relative preference in older adults (compared to younger adults) for positive over negative stimuli/information in cognitive processing, attention, and memory. Mather and Carstensen (2003), for example, found the positivity effect among American older adults using a dot-probe paradigm. In two experiments, they presented younger and older adults with a pair of faces, one positive (happy) or negative (sad or angry) and one neutral, and then a dot probe that appeared behind one of the faces. They 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.

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 goal hierarchies. Young adults are theorized to perceive time as expansive; they should therefore 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 current emotional well-being and avoid wasting time on unpleasant or unfulfilling pursuits.

Incidental versus integral emotions (On Meg’s from last year)

Research has demonstrated that two types of affect have an influence on judgment and decision making: incidental affect and integral affect. Loewenstein and Lerner (2002) defined integral affect as affective influences that result from consideration of the decision or judgmental target itself, while incidental affect is affect unrelated to a judgment or decision, such as mood. For example, Johnson & Tversky (1983) showed incidental affect in their newspaper study. Participants read emotionally charged newspaper articles—some about tragic events (e.g., fatal accidents) and others about neutral or mundane topics. They found that those who read the negative stories (which induced a sad or anxious mood) judged unrelated future risks—like the chance of dying from cancer or a car accident—as more likely than those in a neutral mood. The emotion (sadness, fear) was not related to the specific judgments they were making, yet still, those emotions 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 idea that emotions can “spill over” and affect thinking in unintended ways.

Amygdala

The amygdala is an almond-shaped nucleic structure in the anterior temporal lobe of the brain responsible for emotion regulation and memory as sensory information is sent to this region. 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. However, a patient named S.M. with a damaged amygdala showed through multiple experiments that she had difficulty recognizing most emotions that are typically shown in one’s eyes unless directed to observe them. Researchers posited that a lack of amygdala response leads to one’s visual cortex failing to examine some emotional facial expressions in certain regions. Too, the direct stimulation of the amygdala can also result in greater fear, anxiety, and vigilance. Bear and colleagues (2016) posit that the synaptic changes in one’s amygdala might be responsible for continued fear and anxiety that maintain after a distressing event, possible evidence for conditioned fear within the amygdala (the crystallization of emotional memories). Additionally, the amygdala might hold some responsibility 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. A slightly differing opinion is held by Barrett (2016) who describes the amygdala’s role in learning, regulation, and allostasis rather than simply fear as shown by lesion studies. Thus, the amygdala’s role in emotion and memory functions is extremely complex.

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.

Ekman’s Concept of Many Enjoyable Emotions

While Ekman initially focused on six basic universal emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise), he later acknowledged that “enjoyable emotions” are far more varied and less studied than negative ones. He proposed that there are many types of positive emotions, each with different triggers, expressions, and functions. Ekman’s Concept of Many Enjoyable Emotions refers to his recognition that “happiness” is not a single, unified emotional experience, but rather an umbrella term that encompasses a range of distinct, pleasurable emotional states. For example, Amusement, Contentment, Excitement, Gratitude, Pride etc. Each enjoyable emotion arises from different types of situations, and may involve different facial expressions, bodily sensations, and action tendencies (e.g., wanting to share, approach, relax, or celebrate). These emotions are not all expressed with the same “happy” facial expression - they may involve subtle facial and bodily sensations. They also serve different social and psychological purposes (e.g., pride reinforces self-worth, gratitude strengthens social bonds). They may also influence different behaviors and action tendencies (e.g., wanting to share, approach, relax, or celebrate). This view challenges overly simplified emotion models that only recognize a few basic categories. It highlights the richness of human emotional life, especially in the domain of well-being and social connection.