Emotion:
 Emotion and motivation are closely related aspects of
behaviour:
 Emotions usually originate from external stimuli
 Motivation often originates from something internal
– e.g a cognition
 Emotion often a source of motivation
Types of Emotions:
 Early concepts of emotional dimensions and intensity
 James & Lange (1884)
 Different patterns of autonomic activity underlie
different emotions
 Emotions follow physiological arousal
 Cannon & Bard (1927)
 All emotions have the same physiology
 Emotion and arousal happen simultaneously
 Cognitive interpretation produces specific emotional
state
 Today seven primary emotions have been found to manifest in
facial expression (Ekman):
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Anger
Happiness
Fear
Surprise
Disgust
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 Sadness
 Contempt
Purpose of Emotions:
 Primary emotions are related to motivational states designed to
enhance the likelihood of survival
 Often we are motivated towards or away from a situation
because of positive or negative emotions
 Emotions communicate inner states both through facial
expression and body language (80% of communication non
verbal – E. T. Hall)
Characteristics of Emotions:
 Subjective experience (affective state or feeling)
 Bodily reaction: positioning, verbal influences (raised voice,
crying) trembling, facial expression
 Associated thoughts and beliefs (cognitions):
 joy = accomplishment, acceptance
 despair = failure, non acceptance
 Global effect: negative or positive emotion can colour your
outlook on the world
 Associated actions and tendencies: anger = aggression
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Principle components of emotion: biological & psychological
(cognitive)
Biological component:
 Physiological changes associated with autonomic nervous
system activation through sympathetic division - arousal
(except despair)
 Release of epinephrine and norepinephrine increase levels of
arousal
 Debate over unitary physiological or multidimensional
physiological effects
 General sympathetic NS arousal but some physiological
differences with some emotions (anger – body surface becomes
warmer; fear – body surface becomes cold)
 More physiological differences being observed as research
advances in this field
 Intensity of emotion is directly related to level of physiological
arousal
 Right hemisphere involved in interpretation of sadness (OH)
 Amygdala involved in evaluation potentially threatening
sensory stimuli and in regulating emotion
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Psychological or cognitive component:
 Emotion ambiguous without situational and in turn cognitive
interpretive context (injection of norepinephrine or epinephrine
alone do not create well defined emotion)
 Two Factor Theory (Schachter) – physiological arousal and
cognitive interpretation necessary for well defined emotions
 Cognitive influence (bronze medallist happier than silver)
 Cognitive interpretation influenced by perceptions of:
internality, stability, control
 Changing thinking can change emotions – basis for cognitive
therapy
 Emotions without cognition (Amygdala stimulation)
Mind/body connection
 Previously believed that rational thought (mind) and emotion
(body) were separate process – not the case
 Thought processes and emotion interact – thinking influences
emotion and emotion influences thinking
 Emotions and cognitions become increasingly complex with
development / experience and (age)
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Culture and emotion:
 Culture overlays basic emotional response
 Rules of display: studies with Japanese students
Male / Female determinates
 Both sexes experience similar emotions except that males tend
to be more emotional in situations involving conflict
 Rules of display different for males and females
Emotion and performance:
 Emotional control critical to performance of elite athletes
(sports psychology)
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