Andrew Gregg

Chapter 13- Emotion

I. Theories of Emotion
i. Emotions are defined as a response of the whole organism including
physiological arousal, expressive behaviors and conscious experience.
ii. Does your physiological arousal precede or follow your emotional
experience?
iii. Does cognition always precede emotion?
A. The James-Lange theory states that our experience of emotion is our awareness of
our physiological responses to emotional arousing stimuli.
B. Walter Canon and Philip Bard concluded that physiological arousal and our
emotional experience occur together.
C. The Cannon-Bard theory explains that an emotional-arousing stimulus
simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of
emotion.
D. The two factor theory is Schachter-Singer’s theory that reveals that to experience
emotion, one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal.

II. Emotions and the autonomic nervous system

i. The autonomic nervous system controls arousal.
ii. The sympathetic division mobilized us for action by directing adrenals to release
stress hormones, which then increase the heart rate, blood pressure and blood
sugar levels and trigger other defensive physical reactions.
iii. The parasympathetic division calms us after a crisis has taken place.

A. Arousal and Performance

i. Arousal is adaptive.
ii. The level of arousal for optimal performance varies for different tasks.
iii. With easily learned tasks, peak performance comes with relatively high arousal.

B. Physiological Similarities among specific emotions

i. When he experience fear, anger and sexual arousal, we show the same
physiological arousal signs.
ii. Our facial expressions do however, range for each expression.

C. Physiological Differences among specific emotions

i. Individuals watching fearful faces show more activity in the amygalda area
compared to those with angry faces.
ii. The right prefrontal cortex seems to express negative emotions
iii. The left frontal lobe is responsible for positive moods
iv. The left frontal lobe has a supply of dopamine receptors.
v. The nucleus accumbens is a neural pathway that increases dopamine levels.
vi. Experienced emotions also require cognition.
 vii. Autonomic nervous system controls physiological arousal
viii. Sympathetic division (arousing) Parasympathetic division (calming)
ix. Pupils dilate EYES Pupils contract
x. Decreases SALIVATION Increases
xi. Perspires SKIN Dries
xii. Increases RESPIRATION Decreases
xiii. Accelerates HEART Slows
xiv. Inhibits DIGESTION Activates
xv. Secrete stress hormones ADRENAL GLANDS Decrease secretion of stress
hormones
III. B. The physiology of specific emotions
i. fear and joy both increase heart rate but prompt different facial muscles to move
ii. people with positive emotions show more activity in the left frontal lobe than in
the right
iii. left frontal lobe has more dopamine in it
IV. Lie Detection
A. polygraph- lie detector
i. measures changes in:
i. breathing
ii. cardiovascular activity
iii. perspiration
iv. 25% of guilty people are judged innocent by lie detectors
v. 35% of innocent people are judged guilty by lie detectors

V. Cognition and Emotion

i. The spillover effect takes place when our arousal from one event influences our
response to other events.
ii. Emotional arousal is sometimes general enough to require us to define the
emotion we are experiencing.
iii. Arousal can also fuel emotion.

A. Cognition does not always precede emotion

i. Emotional responses are immediate when sensory input goes directly to the
amygdale through the thalamus, passing the cortex.
ii. It then triggers a rapid reaction that is outside of our conscious awareness
iii. Responses to simple emotions need interpretation and are slower
iv. The amygalda sends more neural projections up to the cortex then it receives.
v. Zajonc and LeDoux revealed that some emotional responses do not require
conscious thinking. Such responses are difficult to alter by changing our thinking.
vi. Moods and depression and other complex feelings are greatly affected by our
interpretation, memories and expectations.
vii. Learning to more positively about ourselves and the world around us helps us feel
better.

B. Nonverbal communication
i. Most people can detect nonverbal cues
 ii. We are very sensitive to nonverbal threats.
iii. Experience allows our sensitivity to these cues, this is shown by studies of abused
children.

C. Gender, Emotion, and Nonverbal behavior

i. Men are known to express less complex emotions than women.
ii. Women are also better at decoding other’s emotional states.
iii. Women were more open to their feeling than men.
iv. Women were also more likely to be described as empathetic than men.
v. Women are more likely to convey happiness while men are more likely to express
anger.

D. Detecting and Computing Emotion

i. Facial muscles reveal signs of emotion.
ii. Most of us have difficulty detecting expressions of deceit

VI. Culture and Emotional Expression

i. Different cultures shows differences in expression of the same emotions
ii. Children’s facial expressions are universal.
iii. It is adaptive for us to interpret faces in particular contexts.
iv. Cultures differ in how much emotions they express.
v. This could have helped us to survive by enabling us to communicate threats,
greetings and submission.
vi. Some emotional expressions help us to take in more sensory information or to
avoid taking in toxic substances.

VII. The effects of facial expressions

i. The facial feedback hypothesis states that expressions amplify our emotions by
activating muscles associated with specific states, and the muscles that signal the
body or respond as though we were experiencing those states.
ii. When we stimulate the facial expressions normally associated with happiness.
iii. The behavior feedback hypothesis states that if we move our body, as we would
when experiencing some emotion, we are likely to feel that emotion to some
degree.

A. Experienced Emotion
i. Carroll Izard’s research showed that there were ten basic emotions of joy,
interest-excitement, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust contempt, fear, shame and
guilt.
ii. Some psychologists believe that pride and love may also be basic emotions.
iii. Emotions can be placed along two basic dimensions:
iv. Arousal (high versus low)
v. Valence( pleasant, positive, vs. unpleasant or negative)

B. Learning Fear
i. The variety of human fears are learned to experience
 ii. We can learn this through observational learning and through conditioning

C. The Biology of Fear

i. We are biologically predisposed to learn some fears over others.
ii. The amygdale is the center were fear learning takes place, associating fear with
specific situations.
iii. The amygdale receives information from cortical areas that process emotion and it
sends information to other areas that produce the bodily symptoms of fear.
iv. People differ in the extent to which they are fearful of fearless and part of the
difference is genetic.
v. Among identical twins, one twin’s level of fearfulness or fearlessness are similar
to the others.

D. Anger
i. Insulting or frustrating actions we interpret as willful, unjustified and avoidable
may evoke anger.
ii. Research does not support the catharsis hypothesis.
iii. The catharsis hypothesis is the idea that releasing negative energy will calm
aggressive tendencies.
iv. Venting rage may calm us temporarily buy in the long run, it does not reduce
anger and may actually amplify it.
v. Anger is better handled by waiting until the level of physical arousal diminishes,
calming oneself, and expressing grievances in ways that promote reconciliation
rather than retaliation.
vi. When reconciliation fails, forgiveness can reduce one’s anger and its physical
symptoms.
vii. Anger does show strength and competence.
viii. Forgiveness releases anger and can calm the body.

E. Happiness
i. The feel-good, do-good phenomenon is our increased willingness to help others
when we are in a good mood.
ii. Research in positive psychology is currently exploring the causes and
consequences of subjective well-being, supplementing psychology’s traditional
focus on negative emotions.
iii. Subjective well-being assessed either as feelings of happiness or as a sense of
satisfaction with life.

F. The Short Life of Emotional Ups and Downs

i. Negative emotion is highest just after we wake up and before we go to sleep.
ii. Positive emotion rises gradually, peaking about seven hours after we rise, then
falls gradually.
iii. The moods triggered by the day’s good or bad events seldom last beyond that day.
iv. Even significant bad events, such as a serious illness, seldom destroy happiness
for long, although we tend to underestimate our capacity to adapt.
 G. Wealth and Well-Being
i. At a simple level, money helps us to avoid pain by allowing better nutrition,
health care, education, and science and these in turn increase happiness.
ii. Increases in wealth can also increase happiness in the short term.
iii. In the longer run, research does not show an increase in happiness accompanying
affluence at either the individual or national level.

H. Two Psychological Phenomena: Adaptation and Comparison

i. The adaptation-level phenomenon is our tendency to assess stimuli by contrasting
them with a neutral level that changes with our experience.
ii. The relative-deprivation principle is our perception that we are less well off than
others with whom we compare ourselves.
iii. Happiness is relative to both our past experience and our comparison with others.

VIII. Predictors of happiness

i. Happiness is genetically influenced and sort of in our control
ii. There are ten ways which researchers have advised one to be more happier.
iii. Realizing that enduring happiness doesn’t come from financial success
iv. Taking control of one’s time
v. Acting happy
vi. Seeking work and leisure that engages one’s skills
vii. Exercising regularly
viii. Getting adequate sleep
ix. Giving priority to close relationships
x. Focusing beyond oneself
xi. Being grateful for what we have
xii. Nurturing our spiritual selves