EMOTIONS CHAPTER 13

• Emotions are the display of feelings and are relatively brief responses to events with motivational relevance or mental re-creation of such events.

• Frustration, tiredness, and optimism are examples of emotions.

• Emotions are a slippery concept and can be debated whether certain states like frustration or tiredness are considered emotions.

IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONS

• Emotions play a significant role in human experience and behavior.

SIX BASIC EMOTIONS

• The six basic emotions are disgust, fear, joy, surprise, sadness, and anger.

EMOTIONS & EVOLUTION

• Darwin proposed that human expressions of emotions evolved and are universally expressed and recognized.

• There is a debate between evolved emotions and psychological constructs.

• Some emotions, like boredom, guilt, and shame, do not have clear facial expressions.

'FAMILIES' OF EMOTION

• Basic emotions are evolved, universally expressed, and understood, including sadness, joy, surprise, fear, anger, and disgust.

• Self-conscious emotions, such as shame and pride, and moral emotions, like contempt and empathy, are also recognized.

• Facial expressions of emotions are recognizable across cultures.

ZELENSKI & LARSON (2000)

• Zelenski and Larson conducted a study to determine which emotions are more common.

• They used 82 university students and had them complete three short emotion-questionnaires a day for one month.

• The study found that students were almost five times more often happy compared to sad.

BIOLOGY OF EMOTIONS

• Emotions involve various brain regions, including the limbic system, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and thalamus.

• The amygdala plays a crucial role in the expression of emotional responses.

• The orbitofrontal cortex receives information from sensory systems and controls behavior.

DAMAGE TO AMYGDALA

• Damage to the amygdala can result in a lack of fear responses when confronted with fear-evoking stimuli.

• There are two routes by which fear conditioning can occur: a quick and dirty route from the thalamus to the amygdala and a slower route from the thalamus to the visual/auditory cortex and then to the amygdala.

DAMAGE TO ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX

• Damage to the orbitofrontal cortex can impair inhibitions and self-concern.

• People with orbitofrontal cortex impairment have difficulties applying knowledge about social behaviors in real life.

• They also have problems recognizing facial and vocal emotional expressions.

FACIAL FEEDBACK HYPOTHESIS

• The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that our facial expressions can influence our feelings.

STRACK ET AL. (1988)

• Participants were instructed to hold a pen in their mouth either in a 'sucking position' or between their teeth.

• The study found that holding the pen with teeth (forming a smile) led to cartoons being rated as funnier compared to holding the pen between the lips (preventing a smile).

EFFECTS OF BOTOX

• Botox, which paralyzes the frown muscle, can affect the expression of anger.

• Reading of sentences slowed when the expression of evoked emotion would have required the paralyzed muscle.

THEORIES OF EMOTION

• The James-Lange theory suggests that physiological responses precede the experience of emotions.

• The Cannon-Bard theory proposes that emotional and physiological responses occur simultaneously in response to a stimulus.

Page 22: Schachter & Singer: Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

• Emotions are determined by the perception of physiology and cognitive assessment of the situation.

• Experiment:

  • Participants received an adrenaline shot, causing increased arousal.

  • Three groups were told different effects of the injection:

    • Group 1: No effect.

    • Group 2: Trembling and increased heart rate (accurate).

    • Group 3: Symptoms not associated with adrenaline (numbness, itchiness, headache).

  • Participants were placed in a room with a confederate who was either playing with paper airplanes or angry and ripping up a questionnaire.

Page 23: Schachter & Singer: Two-Factor Theory of Emotion (continued)

• Results:

  • Groups 1 and 3:

    • Felt happy around a happy participant or angry around an angry confederate.

    • Misattributed arousal symptoms to emotion.

  • Group 2:

    • Told to expect the correct symptoms.

    • Emotion unaffected by the confederate.

    • Correctly attributed arousal symptoms to the injection.

Page 24: Misattribution of Arousal Paradigm

• Related to Schachter & Singer.

• Dutton & Aron (1974) experiment:

  • Participants crossed either a wobbly bridge or a stable/solid bridge.

  • Afterwards, they rated their physical attraction towards a target person.

• Results:

  • Those crossing the wobbly bridge were more physiologically aroused.

  • Misattributed that arousal to physical attraction.

  • Rated the target