Understanding%20Emotions

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Understanding Emotions

• Davitz 1970 found 556 words and phrases that are
  emotion related.
• Universal emotional expressions are-
• Happiness, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, Fear and
  Surprise

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What is Emotion?

• Emotion is a transitory, valenced experience
  that is felt with some intensity as happening to
  the self , generated in part by a cognitive
  appraisal of situations and accompanied by both
  learned and innate physical responses.

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Components

• 1. Subjective experience of the emotion
• 2. Internal bodily reaction
• 3. cognitions about the emotion and situations 
• 4. facial expression
• 5. a global reaction
• 6. action tendency)

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4 Theoretical Research Traditions on Emotions

• Darwinian - (Darwin, 1972) Emotions have
  adaptive functions - are universal
• Jamesian - (James, 1884) Emotions bodily
  responses
• Cognitive- (Arnold, 1960) Emotions are based
  on appraisals
• Social Constructivist - (Averill, 1980)
  Emotions are social constructions and serve
  social purposes

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The brain and emotion

• The amygdala
• The orbitofrontal cortex 
• Animal studies

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The Darwinian Tradition
EMOTION IS INNATE

• Emotional expression is ADAPTIVE
• readiness to face challenges
• communicates intentions to others
• Evidence
• Universal facial expressions
• Infants
• Basic emotions (e.g. Ekmans Big Seven)

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The Jamesian Tradition
BODILY CHANGES EMOTION We are afraid because
we run

• Experience of emotion due to peripheral
  responses. Conscious aspect arises later when
  brain observes the response
• Distinguishable patterns of arousal for each
  emotion

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Evidence supporting James

• Pattern of autonomic changes DOES vary with
  different emotional states
• People reliving emotional experiences show
  different patterns of autonomic activity
• Hohmann (1966) spinal cord injuries reduce
  peripheral responses - less intense emotion

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The Facial Feedback Hypothesis

• Emotional experience is determined in part by
  feedback from facial expressions
• It should be possible to manipulate how a person
  feels by manipulating their face
• Movements of face provide sufficient peripheral
  information to fuel experience of emotion

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The Cannon Bard Theory

• Two criticisms to James-Lange theory
• Physiological mechanisms are too slow
• Not specific enough
• Instead - direct CNS experience of emotion,with
  or without feedback thalamus indicated
• More recent
• Various parts of CNS involved
• Strong emotions CAN bypass cortex (thalamus to
  amygdala)

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Physiology of Emotions

• Autonomic Nervous System
• Either branch can be activated during an emotion
• Sympathetic branch excites organs under its
  control - increase heart rate when angry/in fear
• Parasympathetic branch inhibits organs - causes
  tears to flow when grieving

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Emotions - Brain Mechanisms

• Studies with animals and brain damage patients
  tell us there are
• 3 basic feature of brains control of emotion
• Cerebral hemisphere
• Limbic system (amygdala)
• Papez Loop (anatomical circuit beginning and
  ending in the hippocampal formation that he
  proposed subserved emotional experience (Papez,
  1937).

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The Schacter-Singer Theory

• AROUSAL COGNITION EMOTION
• The Misattribution Paradigm
• Excitation Transfer Studies
• Conclusion Cognitive factors
• important in generation of emotion

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The Cognitive Perspective

• EMOTIONS ARE BASED ON APPRAISALS
• Emotions are responses to the meaning of events
  - associated with goals motivations
• Different emotions are associated with different
  patterns of appraisal
• Change the way an event is appraised change the
  emotion e.g. Lazarus

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Conclusions

• Peripheral autonomic responses (including facial
  responses) and the cognitive interpretation of
  those responses play a role in the experience of
  emotion. In addition there is some direct
  experience of emotion by CNS, independent of
  physiological responses.

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Social Constructivism
EMOTIONS ARE CULTURAL PRODUCTS

• Cultural variation in emotion recognition/emotion
  words/tone of voice
• Emotion Culture (e.g. Ifaluk tribe/medical
  students)
• Categorisation of emotion
• differs across cultures
• Social Referencing

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Personality may affect mood or internal emotional
state

• Mild head injury can produce emotional changes
• Heller (1990) -
• gt60 of people with left frontal-lobe lesions met
  DSM III criteria for depression.
• Damage to the left frontal region associated with
  major or minor depression as found in 60 stroke
  victims.
• The probability of depression is much higher in
  the left than the right - belittles argument

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Euphoria

• Right hemisphere damage may result in euphoria
  and lack of concern about physical and
  psychological consequences of damage. may also
  show inappropriate affect, bursting into tears
  for no reason as so happy when told of a sad
  event eg a death.
•  
• Rehabilitation of emotional functioning is
  especially important - a long-term study suggests
  that individuals who sustain head injury are most
  disabled by emotional and personality
  disturbances (Lezak, 1987).

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Disease

• Huntington's disease typically is manifested by
  changes in emotional functioning (Lieberman 1979)
  50 have major depressive episodes.
• Behaviour is reminiscent of the inappropriate
  behaviour of individuals with frontal lobe damage
  (Cummings Benson, 1988).
•  Inappropriate sexual behaviour
•  
• Laughter Therapy

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EMOTIONS HEALTH

• LOOKING AT APPLIED VALUE

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Emotion, Stress HealthHans Selye

• Psychological factors influence physical health
  through stress response
• In short term stress response is adaptive -
  helps us cope
• Long term - changes can be maladaptive and lead
  to ill health

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Stress Infections

• Emotional events can cause stress
• Neural hormonal activity linked to stress may
  influence immune function

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Stress Infections - Evidence

• Lab animals kept in stressful circumstances
  (e.g. overcrowding, loud noise etc) show
  depressed immune function
• Stress has similar effects on humans
• Glaser et al (1987) Students have more
  respiratory infections during finals
• Parkes Brown (1972) Bereavement

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Stress Positive Emotions

• Positive affective states appear to facilitate
  the bodys natural regenerative processes.
• Possible to teach techniques to self-generate
  positive emotional states in order to have
  beneficial effects on health
• Improvements have been seen in several patient
  groups