Emotions, Aggression and Stress - 11.1

Ranging from the heights of happiness and joy to the depths of fear and loathing, our emotions are evolved programs that guide our responses to daily threats and opportunities. The topic of emotions is complicated by the fact that we apply the word emotion to several different things. Emotion is a private, subjective feeling that we may have without anyone else being aware of it. But the word emotional is also used to describe many behaviors that people show, such as fearful facial expressions, frantic arm movements, or angry shouting. Emotion may influence, and be influenced by, cognitive processes like memory and attention. Furthermore, during strong emotion we often experience physiological changes, such as a rapidly beating heart, shortness of breath, or excessive sweating. So, to encompass all four aspects of emotion, we will define emotion as a subjective mental state that is usually accompanied by distinctive feelings, cognition, behaviors, and physiological changes. Emotion is closely linked with motivation—the psychological process that drives the expression of a particular behavior. For example, we may act more friendly when we feel happy, whereas hostile behaviors may be motivated by feelings of anger or anxiety.

Fear and Loathing Can Save YouStrong emotions, like fear in unfamiliar and threatening circumstances, are evolved adaptations that swiftly activate behavioral and physiological responses appropriate to the situation. View larger image

In many emotional states the heart races, the hands and face become warm, the palms sweat, and the stomach feels queasy. Common expressions capture this association between emotion and physiological arousal: “my hair stood on end,” “a sinking feeling in my stomach.” These sensations are the result of activation of the autonomic nervous system—either the sympathetic nervous system (the “fight-or-flight” system that generally activates the body for action) or the parasympathetic nervous system (which generally prepares the body to relax and recuperate) (see Figure 1.9).

Several theories have addressed the close ties between the subjective feelings of emotions and the activity of the autonomic nervous system. Common sense suggests that the autonomic reactions are caused by the emotion—“I was so angry, my hands were shaking”—as though the anger produces the shaking (FIGURE 11.1A). Yet research indicates that the relationship between emotion and physiological arousal is more subtle.

FIGURE 11.1 Different Views of the Chain of Events in Emotional Responses View larger image

Do emotions cause bodily changes, or vice versa?

William James (1842–1910) and Carl Lange (1834–1900) turned the commonsense notion on its head, suggesting that the emotions we experience are caused by the bodily changes. From this perspective, we experience fear because we perceive the activity that dangerous conditions trigger in our body (FIGURE 11.1B). Different emotions thus feel different because they are generated by different constellations of physiological responses.

The James-Lange theory inspired many attempts to link specific emotions to specific bodily responses. These attempts mostly failed because it turns out that there is no distinctive autonomic pattern for each emotion. Fear, surprise, and anger, for example, tend to be accompanied by sympathetic activation, while parasympathetic activation tends to accompany both joy and sadness.

Physiologists Walter Cannon (1871–1945) and Philip Bard (1898–1977) pointed out that the physiological reactions accompanying emotion are also relatively slow (W. B. Cannon, 1929). According to the Cannon-Bard theory, it is the brain’s job to decide which particular emotion is an appropriate response to the stimuli. According to this