Emotional Behaviors, Stress, and Health Reviewer
1. The role of the autonomic nervous system
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It controls the functioning of the internal organs.
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It has two subdivisions, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
The sympathetic nervous system
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Made up of two chains of neuron clusters to the left and right of the spinal cord.
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It increases the heart rate, breathing rate, production of sweat, and flow of adrenaline.
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It prepares the body for intense activity, “fight or flight” and other high energy behaviors. It is the “crisis management” center.
The parasympathetic nervous system
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Consists of neurons with axons extending out from the medulla and the lower spinal cord.
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The axons connect to neuron clusters near the internal organs.
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It’s the long-term survival center, promoting rest by decreasing heart rate, digestion, and other functions that keep an organism
healthy and alive.
The Opponent-Process Principle of Emotions
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After sympathetic nervous system activity slows parasympathetic activity increases.
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Removal of a stimulus that excites one emotion causes a swing to an opposite emotion. The initial emotion is the “A” state, and the
rebound emotion is the “B” state.
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With repetition of the cycle, the A state becomes weaker, and the B state is prolonged and strengthened.
The James-Lange theory of emotions
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Two early psychologists, working independently, came up with an alternative explanation of how emotion and physiological
reactions are related.
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The theory proposes that a person’s interpretation of a stimulus directly evokes autonomic changes.
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The psychological experience of emotion is the individual’s perception of those changes.
Schachter and Singer’s theory of emotions
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Proposes that the physiological state is not the same as the emotion.
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The intensity of the physiological reaction determines only the intensity of the emotion, not the type of emotion.
A person’s cognitive appraisal of the situation that determines the emotion experienced.
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The broaden-and-build hypothesis of positive emotions states that happy moods increase readiness to explore new ideas and opportunities.
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Mildly sad moods increase the accuracy of judgment and decision-making.
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Using the Trolley Dilemma and Footbridge Dilemma, problems involving decisions about letting a small number of people die to save a
larger number, provide evidence that emotions play a powerful role in deciding the most moral course of action.
Emotional Intelligence
• The ability to perceive, imagine and understand emotions and to use them in decision-making.
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The concept has gained a great deal of popularity over the past decades, in psychology and related fields.
10. Fear is a response to an immediate danger.
11. Anxiety is an increase in the startle reflex, usually accompanied by a sense of dread.
12. Fear and anxiety are linked to the amygdala.
a. When the amygdala is damaged, a person’s experience of these feelings may be impaired.
Damage to the amygdala also diminishes the recognition signs of these feelings in others.
13. The frustration-aggression hypothesis -failure to obtain a desired or expected goal leads to aggressive behavior.
a. This idea does not fully explain aggressive behavior.
14. The best predictor of future violent behavior, in general, is past violent behavior.
A person with a long history of violence is more likely to re-offend than a person who has committed a single or isolated violent act.
15. Stress
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Selye’s Concept of Stress
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The physician Hans Selye defined stress as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it.”
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He emphasized the role of change in creating stress.
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He did not consider effects of chronic problems such as poverty or discrimination.
Selye proposed three distinct stages of stress:
Alarm – a brief period of high arousal of the SNS, readying the body for vigorous activity.
Resistance – if a stressor lasts more than a few minutes, a phase of prolonged, moderate arousal.
Exhaustion – long-lasting stress depletes proteins in the immune system. Fatigue, weakness and vulnerability to illness Measuring Stress
Type A personality: highly competitive, impatient, and hurried often with an angry and hostile temperament.
Type B personality: easygoing, less hurried and less hostile.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
A prolonged period of anxiety and depression following the experience of an extremely stressful event.
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Well-documented in war veterans and those who have survived violent crimes and serious accidents.
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Survivors of these events frequently do not suffer PTSD; the causes of this disorder are not fully understood.
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PTSD sufferers report nightmares, emotional outbursts, guilt, and flashbacks that may cause debilitating panic.
22. Problem-focused – Attending carefully to the stressful event and trying to take effective action.
23. Emotion-focused – The strategy involving distraction from a stressful situation.
NLEE/NLEE
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