Emotion

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Emotion
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Theories of Emotions

• Emotion are a mix of
• Physiological activation - Physical response
• Expressive behaviors - Behavior
• Conscious experience Thinking and Feelings

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James-Lange Theory of Emotion.
The Stimulus

• William James and Carl Lange completely opposed
  to common-sense view.
• Proposes that physiological activity precedes the
  emotional experience.
• The body changes ultimately cause to feel
  emotions

Physical Reaction
Emotion
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Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

• How can that theory be true if similar
  physiological changes correspond with drastically
  different emotional states.
• The physiological change (bodys arousal) and
  cognitive awareness (emotions) must occur
  separately (but simultaneously).
• Routed to the cortex and the Sympathetic NS at
  the same time by the Thalamus.

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Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

• Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer explains
  emotions more completely that the other two
  theories.
• They happen at the same time but
• To experience the emotion the person must be
  physically aroused AND cognitively label the
  arousal.
• Biology and Cognition interact with each other to
  increase the experience.

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Two Routes to Emotion
Lazarus/Schachter
Zajonc/LeDoux
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Lie Detectors

• Called a polygraph.
• Measures several of the physiological responses
  accompanying emotion
• Perspiration
• Heart rate
• Blood pressure
• Breathing changes

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Lie Detectors

• 50 Innocents
• 50 Thieves
• --1/3 of innocent declared guilty
• --1/4 of guilty declared innocent (from
  Kleinmuntz Szucko, 1984)

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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)

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Expressing Emotion
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Neuroscience of Emotions
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Know how emotions affect the ANS
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Arousal and Performance

• Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for
  difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or
  well-learned tasks.
• For MOST tasks though, you want moderate levels
  of arousal.

Performance level
Difficult tasks
Easy tasks
Low
Arousal
High
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Role of Neurotransmitters Hormones

• Important Roles in Emotion
• Low serotonin ? Depression.
• High levels of Epinephrine and Norepinephrine ?
  Anger and Fear.

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The Limbic System and Emotions

• The Amygdala is a neural key to fear learning.
• Also involved in rage and aggression.
• Integrates the hormonal and neural emotional
  aspects.

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Role of the Cortex and Emotions

• In general
• the right hemisphere specializes in negative
  emotions and
• the left hemisphere specializes in positive
  emotions.

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Expressed Emotion
People more speedily detect an angry face than a
happy one.
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Expressing Emotion

• Gender and expressiveness

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Expressing Emotion

• Non-verbal communication - gestures, body
  language, facial expressions.
• Introverts better at reading others emotions.
• Extroverts easier to read.

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Culture and Emotional Expression

• Gestures and their meaning vary from culture to
  culture.
• Individualist cultures show more intense and
  prolonged emotions.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vdwJ-wwF9XVs

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Detecting and Computing Emotion

• Most people find it difficult to detect deceiving
  emotions. Even trained professionals like police
  officers, psychiatrists, judges, and
  polygraphists detected deceiving emotions only
  54 of the time.

Which of Paul Ekmans smiles is genuine?
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Culture and Emotional Expression

• When culturally diverse people were shown basic
  facial expressions, they did fairly well at
  recognizing them.

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v-PFqzYoKkCc
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Experienced Emotion

• Infants naturally occurring emotions

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Two Dimensions of Emotion
Blue Psychological Pink Physiological
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Anger

• Anger carries the mind away, (Virgil, 70-19
  B.C.), but makes any coward brave, (Cato
  234-149 B.C.).

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Anger

• People generally become angry with friends and
  loved ones who commit wrongdoings, especially if
  they are willful, unjustified, and avoidable.
• People are also angered by foul odors, high
  temperatures, traffic jams, and aches and pains.
• If youre angry at someone about something tell
  them directly.

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Anger - Cultural Gender Differences

• Boys tend to respond to anger by moving away from
  that situation or exercising, while girls talk to
  their friends or listen to music.
• Anger also breeds prejudice (Like the 9/11
  attacks did).
• Individualized cultures encourage venting not
  collectivist cultures.

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Fear

• Fear can be learned through conditioning
• as well as through observation.

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Dont forget the Amygdala!

• The neural key to fear learning.
• Like a guard dog, it is continuously alert for
  threats.

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Happiness

• People who are happy
• perceive the world as being safer.
• make decisions easily.
• are more cooperative.
• live healthier, energized, and more satisfied
  lives.

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Predictors of Happiness
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Experiencing Emotion

• Catharsis
• Emotional release.
• Catharsis hypothesis
• Releasing aggressive energy (through action or
  fantasy) relieves aggressive urges.

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Experiencing Emotion

• Feel-good, do-good phenomenon
• Peoples tendency to be helpful when already in a
  good mood.

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Experiencing Emotion

• Subjective Well-Being
• Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with
  life.

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Experienced Emotion
Moods across the day
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Experienced Emotion
Does money buy happiness?
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Values Life Satisfaction
Students who value love more than money report
higher life satisfaction.
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Adaptation-Level Phenomenon

• Tendency to form judgments relative to a
  neutral level.
• If you get a raise in salary, you feel good. But
  once you adjust to that new salary level, you
  need another raise to get that same feeling
  again.
• Success and failure are always relative to our
  recent experiences.

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Experiencing Emotion

• Relative Deprivation
• Perception that one is worse off relative to
  those with whom one compares oneself.