BF. Skinner: “We all know that emotions are useless and bad for our peace of mind and our blood pressure”. A common belief that emotions are bad for us and undermine us. The heart is emotional, irrational. While the brain is rational and logical. THIS IS NOT TRUE! Emotions save us. They are adaptive and aid our survival. 1. They activate survival mechanisms (Fear protects us from dying, puts you in a defensive state.) 2. Motivate adaptive behaviour (Day to day life, some things feel good and that good feeling makes us motivated. Negative and Positive reinforcers motivate us.) 3. Optimise use of cognitive resources (memory, attention, language, decision making abilities in the best way in certain situations.) 4. Communicate needs and intentions. (Communicating to others. E.g Infants crying tells someone to care for them and comfort them. Anger also tells us that we need to repair relationships) What is an emotion? 3 things together: 1. Subjective experiences - personal feelings. (How are you feeling right now?) 2. Physiology - heart rate, sweating, blushing, blood pressure, goosebumps and nausea. (Physical feelings of emotions) 3. Behaviours - facial experiences, vocal characteristics, posture/gait, muscle tension, action tendencies. (Behaviours convey emotion) Classifying emotions: DISCREET MODELS Basic Categories: Happiness, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Surprise, Disgust. Blended Categories: Jealousy (blend of fear and anger), awe, contempt, pity, delight. Social Emotions: Embarrassment, shame, empathy and love. (You cannot have these without other people around.) Intellectual Emotions: Curiosity, boredom, insight, confusion. Homeostatic Emotions: Hunger, Pain, Thirst, Itch. (Is this an emotion, really? Well, these have physical feelings and emotions usually have physical feelings too.) Cowan & Keltner (2017) links in emotions and different types of emotions (they came up with 27) and how certain emotions are blended from the basic category in certain percentages. DIMENSIONAL MODELS Valence: is this emotion good or bad? Does it feel good or bad? - Positive/Negative, Pleasant/Unpleasant Arousal - High/low. Combinations of arousal and valence. High/Positive: Happiness. Low/Unpleasant: contempt. Negative/high: Fear Three kinds of Emotion Theories: 1. Basic emotion theories (Darwin, Ekman) 2. Psychological Constructionist theories (James, Schacter & Singer, Feldman Barett) 3. Appraisal theories (Cannon-bard, Arnold.) Darwin: if someone looks at facial expressions and characteristics that are critical for survival. Adaptive. Survival value. Same basic emotions appear early in life. (Inside out is an example of basic emotions). Paul Ekman: idea that we have distinct states. What makes an emotion basic: they are discrete neural/physiological/behaviour states triggered by defined evolutionary relevant situations. (Protect ourselves etc). - Distinctive universal signals. Distinctive physiology (every emotional state has a different physical one.) Distinctive subject experience. - Automatic appraisal Distinctive universal triggers. Presence in other primates. Presence in infants. Combine these in different ways etc. James-Lange Theory: argued that emotions are survival states. Our bodies react in particular ways and our brain interprets that as an emotion. You see a bear → you run away (body is saving you, result: heart is pounding etc and the brain interprets it as fear.) We feel sorry because we cry etc. Could you even feel emotion without the body to feel it in? Schacter & Singer: Attribution of Arousal. May have a situation (either running from a bear or in a race) that makes your heart pound, what you’re feeling is your pounding heart, we feel fear but we add some cognition into this. We are going to interpret the certain feeling due to the context around us./Attribution. Situation triggers physiological response. According to their theory, people are feeling the pounding of their heart and then ask how are they going to attribute this? Physiology needs to be there to feel emotions. Emotions emerge from the combined actions of core physiological processes: - Core effect (the feeling in the body.) - Conceptualisation (what is it?) - Executive attention (paying attention to certain physiological feelings. What is important about it?) - Language (What do I call it?) Our minds create emotion out of the physiological experiences. Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion: James can’t be right, because you can have a beating of heart and interpret that into a positive or negative situation. Seeing bear activates certain areas of the brain, this then branches into two different directions: arousal of autonomic system or appraisal (conscious emotion, fear for example) Megda Arnold: she concentrates on the interpretative system. Situation → Appraise the situation → Emotion → Action (Approach or withdraw) Appraisal theory keys: - Appraisal comes first. Evaluate the stimulus: - Is it good or bad? - Does it further or hinder my goal? Is it novel or familiar? - Is it controllable? - Will I succeed or fail to manage? Emotion is measured over multiple types of data. (Physiology, behaviour, subjective experience - What are you feeling?) How does the physical world invoke emotion within us? Thalamus → to the cortex specialises in sensory → prefrontal cortex (the thinking) → sends signal to the amygdala (takes huge amount of information, sends signals down to the CNS then to other parts of the nervous system (PNS, autonomic)) The thinking high road: goes to the prefrontal cortex first rather than the amygdala The speed low road: goes directly to the amygdala. Used for adrenaline and also for survival instincts. Emotion is measured over multiple types of data. (Physiology, behaviour, subjective experience - What are you feeling?) How does the physical world invoke emotion within us? Thalamus → to the cortex specialises in sensory → prefrontal cortex (the thinking) → sends signal to the amygdala (takes huge amount of information, sends signals down to the CNS then to other parts of the nervous system (PNS, autonomic)) The thinking high road: goes to the prefrontal cortex first rather than the amygdala The speed low road: goes directly to the amygdala. Used for adrenaline and also for survival instincts. Different pathways for different emotional responses. NETWORK DIAGRAM Amygdala sends out information/signals to the autonomic system to help it Pre-frontal cortex: 1. Appraisal/Evaluation 2. Decision Making 3. Goal Setting/action 4. Emotion Regulation Amygdala: 1. Emotional arousal 2. Emotional Response 3. Classical Conditioning Hippocampus: 1. Emotional memory Emotion and Cognition Psychological response to threat/stress - Glucose (needed for movement) - Adrenaline/Norepinephrine (stimulating the sympathetic nervous system) - Cortisol (increases glucose and distributes it) - Activation of Amygdala-hippocampus interaction Experiments that show how emotions can change attention Weapon Focus: in a stressful situation we focus attention on key details Kensinger et al (2007) tested weapon focus in labs. (Monkeys and Snakes) Negative details were more remembered than positive details. Cahill & McGaugh (1995) showing images to emotional groups and neutral groups. Images have a story, different stories create different responses.
