Chapter 13
Emotion
Emotion
Emotion
*a response of the whole organism
--physiological arousal
--expressive behaviors
--conscious experience
Does your heart pound because you are
afraid... or are you afraid because
you feel your heart pounding? (level 4)
Neuroscience of
Emotions
Neuroscience of Emotion
Biological Mechanisms at work behind our emotions:
1) Role of Limbic System
2) Role of Reticular Formation
3) Role of Cerebral Cortex
4) Role of Autonomic Nervous System
5) Role of Hormones
Neuroscience of Emotion
1) Role of Limbic System
The Amygdala
is a neural
key to fear
learning
Like a guard
dog, it is
continuously
alert for
threats.
Neuroscience of Emotion
2) Role of Reticular Formation
Located in the
brain stem,
works with the
thalamus &
amygdala to
monitor
incoming info.
If threat is detected, the
RF sets off automatic
responses:
*arouse brain
*heart accelerate
*respiration increase
*mouth dry
*muscles tense.
Neuroscience of Emotion
3) Role of Cerebral Cortex
Location:･The cerebral cortex is
the outer portion (1.5mm to 5mm)
of the cerebrum. It is divided into
4 lobes: frontal, parietal, temporal
and occipital.
Function:
･･Determines
Intelligence
･･Determines
Personality
･･Interpretation of
Sensory Impulses
･･Motor Function
･･Planning and
Organization
･･Touch/Sensation
In general:
**right hemisphere specializes in negative
emotions
**left hemisphere specializes in positive emotions
Neuroscience of Emotion
4) Role of Autonomic Nervous System
Autonomic nervous system controls
physiological arousal
Sympathetic
division (arousing)
Parasympathetic
division (calming)
Pupils dilate
EYES
Pupils contract
Decreases
SALIVATION
Increases
Perspires
SKIN
Dries
Increases
RESPIRATION
Decreases
Accelerates
HEART
Slows
Inhibits
DIGESTION
Activates
Secrete stress
hormones
ADRENAL
GLANDS
Decreases
secretion of
stress
hormones
Neuroscience of Emotion
5) Role of Hormones
Important Hormones in Emotion:
**Serotonin
Depression
**Epinephrine
Fear
**Norepinephrine Anger
**Steroids
(cortisol)
Act on nerve cells causing rage or
depression (also mood changes
associated with pregnancy and
PMS may be related to steroids.)
Theories of
Emotions
James-Lange Theory of Emotion
Experience of emotion is awareness of
physiological responses to emotion-arousing
stimuli
Sight of
oncoming
car
(perception of
stimulus)
Pounding
heart
(arousal)
Fear
(emotion)
Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion
Sight of
oncoming
car
(perception of
stimulus)
Pounding
heart
(arousal)
Fear
(emotion)
Emotion-arousing
stimuli
simultaneously
trigger:
--physiological
responses
--subjective
experience of
emotion
Schachter’s Two Factor
Theory of Emotion
Pounding
heart
(arousal)
Sight of
oncoming
car
(perception of
stimulus)
Cognitive
label
“I’m afraid”
To experience
emotion
one
Fear
(emotion)
must:
--be physically
aroused
--cognitively
label the
arousal
The Two-Factor Theory would predict that a
decaffeinated-coffee drinker who accidentally drank
coffee with caffeine could mistake the resulting
physical arousal for emotion.
“Fight or Flight” Response is our
body's primitive, automatic, inborn
response that prepares the body to
"fight" or "flee" from perceived attack,
harm or threat to our survival.
Discovered by the great Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon,
this response is hard-wired into our brains and represents a
genetic wisdom designed to protect us from bodily harm. This
response actually corresponds to an area of our brain called the
hypothalamus, which—when stimulated—initiates a sequence
of nerve cell firing and chemical release that prepares our body
for running or fighting.
Mirror Neurons and Football
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/video/3204/q01-036.html
Eight Basic Emotions
Plutchik believes that
emotions have four
dimensions:
a) Positive or negative
b) Primary or mixed
c) Polar opposites
d) Varying intensity
Eight Basic Emotions
Plutchik believes
emotions are like
colors. Every color
of the spectrum can
be produced by
mixing the primary
colors. The eight
primary emotions
are:
fear, surprise,
sadness,
disgust, anger,
joy, anticipation,
and acceptance.
Eight Basic Emotions
By contrast,
secondary
emotions are
produced by
combinations of
primary emotions
that are adjacent
on the emotional
wheel.
Plutchik believes that
emotions that are
opposites cannot
be experienced at
the same time.
Opponent-Process Theory of Emotion
Strong
Strong
Neutral
Neutral
Strong
Strong
First experience
(a)
After repeated experiences
(b)
Two Routes to Emotion
Appraisal
Lazarus/
Schachte
r
Emotional
response
Event
Zajonc/
LeDoux
Physiological
activation
Expressive
behavior
Subjective
experience
Two Dimensions of Emotion
Positive
valence
Low
arousal
pleasant
relaxation
joy
sadness
fear
anger
High
arousal
Negative
valence
Arousal and Performance
Performance
level
Difficult tasks
Low
Performance
peaks at lower
levels of arousal
for difficult
tasks, and at
higher levels for
easy or welllearned tasks
Easy tasks
Arousal
High
Lie Detectors and
Emotions
Emotion-Lie Detectors
Polygraph
*machine commonly used in
attempts to detect lies
*measures several of the
physiological responses
accompanying emotion
--perspiration
--heart rate
--blood pressure
--breathing changes
Emotion- Lie Detectors
Control Question
*Up to age 18, did you ever physically
harm anyone?
Relevant Question
*Did the deceased threaten to harm
you in any way?
Relevant > Control --> Lie
QUESTIONING USED WITH LIE DETECTORS
CONTROL QUESTION (CQT) compares the physiological
response to relevant questions about the crime with the
response to questions relating to possible prior misdeeds.
DIRECTED LIE TEST (DLT) tries to detect lying by
comparing physiological responses when the subject is
told to deliberately lie to responses when they tell the
truth.
GUILTY KNOWLEDGE TEST (GKT) compares
physiological responses to multiple-choice type
questions about the crime, one choice of which
contains information only the crime investigators and
the criminal would know about
Emotion-Lie Detectors
Respiration
Perspiration
Heart rate
Control Relevant
question question
(a)
Control
question
Relevant
question
(b)
Emotion-Lie Detectors
Percentage
50 Innocents
50 Thieves
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Innocent
people
Guilty
people
Judged innocent by polygraph
Judged guilty by polygraph
--1/3 of innocent
declared guilty
--1/4 of guilty
declared innocent
(from Kleinmuntz &
Szucko, 1984)
Emotion-Lie Detectors
Is 70% accuracy good?
*Assume 5% of 1000 employees actually guilty
--test all employees
--285 will be wrongly accused
What about 95% accuracy?
*Assume 1 in 1000 employees actually guilty
--test all employees (including 999 innocents)
--50 wrongly declared guilty
--1 of 51 testing positive are guilty (2%)
Emotion-Lie Detectors
*Do you agree with the idea that law
enforcement agencies place so much validity
with lie-detector machines? (level 5)
*Under what conditions might lie-detectors be
accurate? (level 5)
*What is your opinion as to lie-detectors being
admissible in a court of law? (level 5)
Expressing
Emotions
Expressed Emotion
People more speedily detect an angry face
than a happy one (Ohman, 2001a)
Expressing Emotion
Gender and expressiveness
16
Number
of
expressions
14
Women
Men
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Sad
Happy
Film Type
Scary
Expressed Emotion
 Culturally universal expressions
Experienced Emotion
 The
ingredients
of emotion
Experienced Emotion
 Infants’ naturally occurring emotions
Experienced Emotion
 The Amygdala-a neural key
to fear learning
Experiencing Emotion
Catharsis Hypothesis
*emotional release
*catharsis hypothesis
--“releasing” aggressive energy (through action or
fantasy) relieves aggressive urges
--can actually create MORE hostility and MORE
aggressiveness (stewing = revenge)
--can become “conditioned” as a way to
handle anger
Better to calmly confront the situation—by telling the
person how you feel or finding a way to release energy
(exercise, music, or confiding in another person)
Experiencing Emotion
Feel-good, do-good phenomenon
*people’s tendency to be helpful when already
in a good mood
Experiencing Emotion
Subjective Well-Being
*self-perceived happiness or
satisfaction with life
*used along with measures of
objective well-being
--physical and economic indicators to
evaluate people’s quality of life
Experienced Emotion
Moods across the day
Experienced Emotion
Does money buy happiness? (level 5)
Average
per-person
after-tax income
in 1995 dollars
$20,000
$19,000
$18,000
$17,000
$16,000
$15,000
$14,000
$13,000
$12,000
$11,000
$10,000
$9,000
$8,000
$7,000
$6,000
$5,000
$4,000
100% Percentage
90% describing
80% themselves as
70% very happy
Personal income
60%
50%
Percentage very happy
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
Year
1980 1990 2000
Experienced Emotion
Values and life satisfaction
0.6
Importance
scores
0.4
Money
Love
0.2
0.0
-0.2
-0.4
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
Life satisfaction
6.00
7.00
Experiencing Emotion
Are today’s collegians materialistic? (level 5)
Percentage
rating goal
as very
important
or
essential
90
Being very well-off financially
80
70
60
50
40
30
Developing a meaningful life philosophy
20
10
0
1966 ‘68
‘70
‘72
‘74
‘76
‘78
‘80
‘82
Year
‘84
‘86
‘88
‘90
‘92
‘94 ‘96
“I cried because I
had no shoes . . . .
until I met a man
who had no feet.”
Experiencing Emotion
Adaptation-Level Phenomenon
*tendency to form judgements relative to a “neutral”
level
--brightness of lights
--volume of sound
--level of income
*defined by our prior experience
Relative Deprivation
*perception that one is worse off relative to those with
whom one compares oneself
“I cried because I had no shoes . . . .
until I met a man who had no feet.”
Evaluate the quote above, using the adaptation-level
phenomenon.
Evaluate the quote above, using the relative-deprivation
principle.
Happiness is...
Researchers Have Found That
Happy People Tend to
However, Happiness Seems Not Much
Related to Other Factors, Such as
Have high self-esteem
(in individualistic countries)
Age
Be optimistic, outgoing, and agreeable
Gender (women are more often
depressed, but also more often joyful)
Have close friendships or a satisfying
marriage
Education levels
Have work and leisure that engage
their skills
Parenthood (having children or not)
Have a meaningful religious faith
Physical attractiveness
Sleep well and exercise
What about Emotional Intelligence?
EI is a type of social intelligence that
involves the ability to:
EI has its roots
in the concept of
*monitor one's own and others' emotions,
"social
intelligence," first
*discriminate among them, and to
identified by E.L.
*use the information to guide one's
Thorndike in
thinking and actions. (Mayer & Salovey, 1993: 433)
1920.
Dr. Goleman’s 1995 book, Emotional
Intelligence, argues that human
competencies like self-awareness, selfdiscipline, persistence and empathy are of
greater consequence than IQ in much of life,
that we ignore the decline in these
competencies at our peril, and that children
can and should be taught these abilities.
Emotional Intelligence has 5 domains:
Self-awareness:Observing yourself and recognizing a
feeling as it happens.
Managing emotions:Handling feelings so that they are
appropriate; realizing what is behind a feeling; finding
ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger, and sadness.
Motivating oneself:Channeling emotions in the service of
a goal; emotional self control; delaying gratification and
stifling impulses.
Empathy:Sensitivity to others' feelings and concerns and
taking their perspective; appreciating the differences in
how people feel about things.
Handling relationships:Managing emotions in others;
social competence and social skills.
*How would you prioritize the importance
of EQ versus IQ? (level 5)
*What data are you using to make this
conclusion? (level 5)
QUESTIONS
FOR REVIEW
1) Which of the following is NOT one of the
emotions which Paul Ekman believed are
universally recognized?
a) Sadness
b) Fear
c) Contempt
d) Jealousy
e) Disgust
2) Robert Plutchik’s “emotion wheel” proposes
that
a) four pairs of opposite emotions are the basis for all
other emotions.
b) Ten emotions are the basis of all other emotions.
c) Humans have an infinite number of emotions which
cannot be separated from each other.
d) Infants can feel only three different kinds of emotions
e) Humans cannot experience two or more emotions
simultaneously
3) The fact that widely different cultures use the
same facial expressions to express an
emotion would lead researchers to believe
that expressions are
a) situational
b) cognitive
c) unreliable
d) innate
e) physical
4) The role of the limbic system in emotion is to
a) Trigger the internal and external behaviors involved in
emotions
b) Arouse the whole brain simultaneously when we are
aroused
c) Makes a person’s heart race when aroused.
d) Dampen emotional arousal.
e) Integrates the hormonal and neural emotional
aspects.
5) The right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex is
most likely to be involved when a person is
a) Scared by the appearance of a spider above their
head
b) Elated at their wedding reception
c) Surprised after winning $10,000 lottery
d) Under pressure to complete a term paper by
tomorrow.
e) Depressed after the loss of the favorite pet.
6) The left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex is
likely to
a) Brood after failing an important exam.
b) Focus on someone smiling at you.
c) Be angry at someone cutting you off while you ride
your bike.
d) Activate the sympathetic nervous system.
e) None of the above.
7) ______ proposed that emotions are the result
of a physical state.
a) James and Lange
b) Lazarus and Schachter
c) Masters and Johnson
d) Plutchik and Rotter
e) Maslow and Kinsey
8) Which of the following hormones is often
associated with depression.
a) steroids
b) serotonin
c) acetylcholine
d) norepinephrine
e) Epinephrine
9) This theory is based on the idea that emotions
have pairs that play off on one another, when
one is triggered, the other is suppressed.
a) James-Lange Theory
b) Trichromatic Theory
c) Opponent-Process
d) Cannon-Bard Theory
e) Two-Factor Theory
10) The ability to understand and control
emotional responses is known as:
a) Anger management
b) Emotional intelligence
c) empathy
d) Savant syndrome
e) Motivation
11) According to Daniel Goleman, the ability of a
four-year-old child to delay _____ predicts
their level of success in life:
a) intelligence
b) cognition
c) gratification
d) toilet training
e) embarrassment
12) RECALL
During emotional arousal, the ____ nervous
system sends messages to the internal
organs.
a) somatic
b) sensory
c) autonomic
d) cerebellar
e) afferent
13) UNDERSTANDING THE CORE CONCEPT
Emotions result from an interaction of biological
arousal, subjective feelings, cognitive
interpretation, and behavioral expression.
Which two of these are emphasized in the
two-factor theory of emotion?
a) Subjective feelings and behavioral expression
b) Cognitive interpretation and behavioral expression
c) Biological arousal and cognitive interpretation
d) Biological arousal and subjective feelings
e) Subjective feelings and cognitive interpretation
14) RECALL
People with emotional intelligence
a) Feel no emotions
b) Are extremely emotionally responsive
c) Know how to control their emotional responses.
d) Can always deceive a polygrapher
e) Sense of others’ feelings
15) APPLICATION
Psychological research suggests that it might be
best to handle your feelings of anger toward a
friend by
a) Hitting a punching bag.
b) Venting your anger by yelling at your friend.
c) Calmly telling your friend that you feel angry.
d) Doing nothing except “stewing” in your angry feelings
e) Engaging in other, unrelated activities
16) RECALL
While emotion emphasizes _____, motivation
emphasizes _____.
a) Behavior/cognition.
b) Arousal/action.
c) Neural activity/hormones.
d) Needs/drives
e) Drives/needs
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DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY
#12 Motivation and Emotion