Study Notes for Unit 8: Emotions, Stress, and Health

Unit 8: Emotions, Stress, and Health

Chapter Overview

  • Relations between emotions and cognition

    • Emotions are often related to cognition yet sometimes bypass it.

  • Relation between emotions and the body

  • Communicating emotions

    • The process involves detecting emotions,

    • Verbal and non-verbal expressions

    • Cultural and gender influences on expression

  • Experiencing emotions

    • Examples:

    • Anger

    • Happiness

  • Stress and Health

    • Definition of stress and mechanisms involved.

    • Connection between stress and illness.

    • Coping mechanisms for stress.

    • Health promotion through pets, alternative medicine, and stress reduction techniques.

Emotions

  • Components of Emotion:

    • Bodily arousal: For example, sweating or a pounding heart.

    • Arousal, Behavior, and Cognition:

    • Expressive behavior: Actions such as yelling or accelerating a vehicle.

    • Conscious experience: Involves thoughts including the labeling of the emotion, e.g., "What a bad driver! I am angry, even scared; better calm down."

    • Interaction of components:

    • Questions: Do thoughts trigger emotions or are they products of emotions? How are bodily signs triggered? How do we label emotions? Emotions represent a comprehensive body/mind/behavior response to a situation.

Theories of Emotion

James-Lange Theory

  • States that bodily responses occur before thoughts.

  • Claim: We feel fear because we tremble or sadness because we cry.

  • Implication: An individual's conscious awareness of physiological responses to stimuli constitutes their emotion.

Cannon-Bard Theory

  • Proposes simultaneous body response and cognitive experience.

  • Claims cognitive experiences of emotions happen alongside physical arousal.

  • Adjustment: Cognitive influences affect emotional intensity, as emotions feel less intense when bodily responses are blocked.

Schachter-Singer (Two-factor) Theory

  • Suggests emotions arise from a combination of physiological arousal and a cognitive label for those sensations.

  • Study by Schachter and Singer (1962)

    • Subject reactions varied with the emotional context presented; labeling influenced perceived emotion (spillover effect).

Zajonc, LeDoux, and Lazarus: Cognition and Emotion

  • propose that some emotional reactions occur without conscious thought, particularly reactive emotions like fear.

  • Example: An amygdala response without conscious awareness to stimuli.

    • Appraisals can still influence emotional interpretations or reactions (cognitive appraisal).

Summary: Theories of Emotion

Theory (Author)

Explanation

Example

James-Lange

Awareness of bodily response to stimuli

Heart races after threat, then feel afraid.

Cannon-Bard

Bodily response + simultaneous subjective experience

Heart races when feeling fear.

Schachter-Singer

General arousal + a cognitive label

Contextually labeled arousal as fear or excitement.

Zajonc; LeDoux

Automatic response before cognitive appraisal

Reacting to a sound before assessing it.

Lazarus

Appraisal, even unconscious, defines the emotion

The sound is only "just the wind."

Embodied Emotion

  • Autonomic Nervous System's Role

    • Physiological arousal is orchestrated by the sympathetic nervous system.

    • Parasympathetic division calms the body after arousal.

Differentiation in Emotional Responses

  • Difficulty in distinguishing emotions via physiological signs (heart rate, breathing).

  • Small overlaps in brain activity across emotions.

    • Pattern observation:

    • Positive emotions (joy, love): Associated with increased activity in the left frontal lobe.

    • Negative emotions (fear, disgust): Linked to right hemisphere activity.

Communication of Emotions

Expressive Behavior and Contextual Cues

  • Importance of reading emotional cues:

    • Significant role of eyes and facial expressions in emotional detection.

    • Introverts generally better at detecting emotions.

    • Responses to negative emotions are primed quicker than positive ones.

Gender Differences in Emotional Expression

  • Women's emotional expression is typically more nuanced; skilled at detecting emotions.

  • Overgeneralization: Attributing emotionality to women while attributing men's emotions to circumstances.

Cultural Influences on Emotional Expression

  • Universally recognized facial expressions across cultures indicate some shared understanding.

  • Accuracy in emotional judgment improves when interpreted within one's cultural context.

Evolutionary Perspectives on Emotional Expressions

  • Blind individuals display similar facial expressions as those with sight, suggesting genetic origins.

    • Possible evolutionary function: Facial expressions serve social bonding and survivability, e.g., depicting aggression or surprise.