Cognitions and Emotions Lecture Review

Understanding Emotion

  • Emotions Defined:

    • Central to psychology, arousing questions like:

    • What are emotions?

    • Do animals experience emotions?

    • Can we fully understand others' emotions?

  • Emotion vs. Feeling:

    • Common language often conflates emotion with internal feelings and observable behaviors.

    • Scientifically, feelings are subjective and lack comparability, complicating measurement.

    • Emotions themselves cannot be directly observed; they can only be inferred.

Prototype Approach to Emotion

  • Definition Challenge:

    • Scholar LeDoux (1996) suggests that everyone knows what emotion is until asked to define it.

    • Other psychological states (disgust, surprise) may not fully fit the prototype of emotions.

    • Researchers propose categorizing emotions as prototypes, suggesting fear and anger are prime examples.

Aspects of Emotion

  • Major Aspects Defined:

    • Cognitive Appraisals

    • Feelings

    • Physiological Responses/Changes

    • Behaviors

  • Key Question: How do these aspects interact with environmental events?

  • Theories Addressing Relationships:

    • Classic theories provide insight into the interplay of these components of emotion.

Classic Theories of Emotion

James-Lange Theory

  • Core Principle:

    • Emotional feelings arise from bodily reactions to situations.

    • Labels for emotions (e.g., anger) are derived from physiological changes perceived.

  • James’ Stance (1884):

    • "The bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and… our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion."

  • Contradiction to Common Sense:

    • Generally, one might assume feeling anger leads to attack; per James-Lange: physical action leads to feelings.

    • Sequence: Event → Physiological Change → Feeling.

    • Sensations from muscles/internal organs are critical for experiencing emotion.

    • Reduced sensation diminishes emotional experience.

  • Supportive Arguments:

    • Different emotional states reflect distinct physiological responses (e.g., fear vs. sadness).

    • Example: Ingesting alcohol may lower anxiety by diminishing the physiological response to stressors.

Cannon-Bard Theory

  • Physiologist W. Cannon’s Contribution:

    • Discovered the role of the sympathetic nervous system in fight-or-flight responses.

    • Proposed emotions, physiological reactions, and cognitive appraisals occur simultaneously, not sequentially.

    • Emotional responses arise independently to eliciting events.

    • Sequence: Event → Feeling + Physiological/Behavioral Response.

Schachter-Singer Theory

  • Key Concept:

    • Physiological arousal is crucial for determining emotional intensity but does not differentiate types of emotions.

    • Common physiological responses across emotions (e.g., increased heart rate) make it ambiguous to determine feelings based solely on body responses.

    • Discriminating emotions relies on cognitive appraisal, influenced by context and expectations.

Schachter-Singer (1962) Study

  • Experiment Overview:

    • Induced physiological arousal via epinephrine injection under four conditions:

    1. Epinephrine informed

    2. Epinephrine ignorant

    3. Epinephrine misinformed

    4. Control group (placebo).

  • Situations:

    • Euphoria condition (happy confederate)

    • Anger condition (rude questionnaire).

  • Hypothesis:

    • If physiological arousal determines emotions, same arousal should lead to same emotional reporting; if context matters, responses will differ.

  • Results:

    • Informed group attributed feelings to injection, exhibiting restrained emotional responses.

    • Misinformed and ignorant groups interpreted their feelings based on context, showing variability in emotional responses.

  • Conclusion:

    • Physiological arousal is necessary but insufficient for emotion; cognitive interpretation is crucial for emotional experience.

Modern Theories of Emotion

Discrete/Basic Emotions

  • Darwin's Insight (1872):

    • Suggested the universality of certain facial expressions linked to distinct emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, etc.) indicates basic emotional categories.

    • Basic emotions seen as distinct entities evolved to address prototypical threats.

    • Ekman’s Basic Emotions: Following extensive research, identified the following as primary emotions:

    • Happiness

    • Sadness

    • Anger

    • Fear

    • Disgust

    • Surprise

Four Criteria for Basic Emotions

  1. Universality: Emotions should be common across humanity, possibly in some other species.

  2. Expressive Outlet: There must be built-in ways of expressing emotions (facial expressions, voice tones, etc.).

  3. Early Manifestation: Basic emotions should appear early in life; e.g., nostalgia cannot be considered basic as it typically emerges later.

  4. Physiological Distinctions: Each basic emotion should be physically distinct in manifesting emotions (profiling effects in the body or unique brain networks).

Core Affect and the Circumplex Model

  • Continuous Dimensions Approach:

    • Some researchers focus purely on emotional feelings, describing them along continuous dimensions.

    • Russell proposes circumplex model:

    • Dimensions: Pleasantness and arousal characterize emotional feelings.

    • Core Affect: The term for describing feelings in terms of pleasantness and arousal.

Key Points in Dimensional Models

  1. Continuous Definition: Emotional feelings best captured by continuous dimensions rather than discrete categories (i.e., excitement vs. contentment).

  2. Valence and Arousal: Feelings defined mainly by positive/negative dimensions and arousal levels.

  3. Emphasis on Feelings: Distinctions between emotions rely predominantly on the feeling aspect rather than the cognitive, physiological, or behavioral dimensions.

Psychological Construction Theory

  • Proposed by Russell & Barrett:

    • Emotional categories are not innate but constructed psychologically to organize experiences.

    • Example of 'pet': Defined by the human-animal relationship rather than specific species.

    • Analogously, fear, anger result from societal constructions rather than natural categories.

How Can We Study Emotion?

  • Research Methodology:

    • To assess emotions, manipulate cause variables while controlling others.

    • Observing whether outcomes change predictably allows for insights.

Methods for Studying Emotion

  1. Inducing Emotions Experimentally:

    • Vivid recollection of experiences, written narratives, or emotional storytelling.

    • Utilizing photographs that evoke emotional responses.

  2. Measuring Emotions:

    • Self-Reports: Participant descriptions of emotional experiences can lack precision.

    • Physiological Measurements: Vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate), neural activity (EEG, fMRI), and hormonal levels are tracked.

    • Behavior Measurement: Monitoring expressions, speech, and actions (e.g., fleeing, aggression).

Bibliography and Reading Material

  • Primary Text:

    • Shiota M., Kalat J.W. (2018). Emotion (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

    • Specific Chapters: Chapter 1