Chapter 13: Emotion
Theories of Emotion
Emotion is made up of three components; physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious
experience. One of the oldest theoretical controversies regarding emotion focuses on the timing of our feelings
in relation to the physiological responses that accompany emotion. William James and Carl Lange proposed that
we feel emotion after we notice our physiological responses. Walter Cannon and Philip Bard believed that we
feel emotion at the same time that our bodies respond. A third, more recent, theory, the Schachter-Singer twofactor theory, focuses on the interplay of the emotions rather than the timing of the emotions. It states that
there are only two components of emotion, physical arousal and a cognitive label.
Embodied Emotion
Emotions and the Autonomic Nervous System
Emotions are both psychological and physiological. Much of the physiological activity is controlled by the
autonomic nervous system’s sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (calming) divisions. Our performance
on a task is usually best when arousal is moderate, though this varies with the difficulty of the task.
Physiological Similarities Among Specific Emotions
Three emotions—fear, anger, and sexual arousal—produce similar physiological responses that are nearly
indistinguishable to an untrained observer. However, the emotions are felt differently by those experiencing
them.
Physiological Differences Among Specific Emotions
Emotions stimulate different facial muscles. Additionally, scientists have discovered subtle differences in activity
in the brain’s cortical areas, in use of brain pathways, and in secretion of hormones associated with different
emotions.
Cognition and Emotion
A spillover effect occurs when our arousal response to one event spills over into our response to the following
event. Arousal fuels emotion; cognition channels it. Emotional responses are immediate when sensory input
goes directly to the amygdala via the thalamus, bypassing the cortex, triggering a rapid reaction that is outside
our conscious awareness.
Expressed Emotion
Nonverbal Communication
Much of our communication is through the body’s silent language. Psychologists have studied people’s abilities
to detect emotion, even from thin slices of behavior. Research has found that women are typically more
sensitive to nonverbal clues than men.
Detecting and Computing Emotion
Discerning lies from truth is difficult for the untrained eye. There are certain professionals who are more skilled
at detecting emotion. Researchers are studying the role of nonverbal communication during job interviews. In
E-mail communications, nonverbal cues are missing which can lead to misinterpretation.
Culture and Emotional Expression
Although some gestures are culturally determined, facial expressions, such as those of happiness and fear, are
common the world over. In communal cultures that value interdependence, intense displays of potentially
disruptive emotions are infrequent.
The Effects of Facial Expressions
Expressions do more than communicate emotion. They also amplify the felt emotion and signal the body to
respond accordingly. Emotions, then, arise from the interplay of cognition, physiology, and expressive
behaviors.
Experienced Emotion
Among various human emotions, we looked closely at how we experience three: fear, anger, and happiness.
Fear
Fear is an adaptive emotion, but it can be traumatic. Although we seem biologically predisposed to acquire
some fears, what we learn through experience and observation best explains the variety of human fears.
Anger
Anger is most often evoked by events that not only are frustrating or insulting but also are interpreted as willful,
unjustified, and avoidable. Blowing off steam may be temporarily calming, but in the long run it does not reduce
anger. Expressing anger can actually make us angrier.
Happiness
A good mood boosts people’s perceptions of the world and their willingness to help others. The moods triggered
by the day’s good or bad events seldom last beyond that day. Even significant good events, such as a
substantial rise in income, seldom increase happiness for long. We can explain the relativity of happiness with
the adaptation-level phenomenon and the relative deprivation principle. Nevertheless, some people are usually
happier than others, and researchers have identified factors that predict such happiness.