jimtrue.com : school : PSY1012 : Chapter Thirteen: Emotion
Posted by Jim True on April 5, 2006 6:05 PM. Last Updated October 22, 2006 9:23 PM
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Chapter Thirteen: Emotion
Emotion
- Emotion
- a response of the whole organism
- physiological arousal - internal cues of how the body reacts to the emotion [heart rate, butterflies in your stomach, sweaty palms]
- expressive behaviors - laughing, yelling, screaming, crying, body language
- conscious experience - aware that you're upset, thinking something is funny, memories
- Purpose of emotions is to 'motivate' you
- Theories
- James-Lange Theory of Emotion
- Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological respones to emotion-arousing stimuli
- sight of incoming car (perception of stimulus) -pounding heart (arousal) - fear (emotion)
- what you're feeling in your gut, tells you what emotion you're felling
- Cannon-Bard theory of Emotion
- emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: physiological responses and subjective experience of emotion
- Only difference: arousal and emotion happen simultaneously
- Schachter's Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
- To experience emotion one must:
- be physically aroused
- cognitively label the arousal
- the pounding heart and thinking 'I'm afraid', defines the emotion
- Table Comparison of Three Theories of Emotions(all in response to perception of stimulus (sight of oncoming car))
James-Lange| Arousal creates Emotion | ie Pounding heart creates fear |
Cannon-Bard Theory| Arousal & Emotion occur simultaneously | Pounding heart and fear occur at same time |
Shachter's Two-Factor| Arousal and Cognitive Label of that Arousal create the Emotion | Pounding heart and cognitively labeling the pounding heart as 'I'm afraid' creates the emotion of fear. |
Two Routes to Emotion
- Event -> Appraisal -> Emotional Response
- Zajonc/Le Doux: Event -> Emotional Response
Cognition and Emotion
- The brain's shortcut for emotions
- Thalamus -> Amygdala (instant fear response); bypasses the frontal complex (no cognition)
- Two Dimensions of Emotion
- Positive or Negative Valence
- Low Arousal or High Arousal
- Low arousal, positive valence - pleasant relaxation
- Low arousal, negative valence - sadness
- High arousal, positive valence - joy
- High arousal, negative valence - fear, anger
Emotion and Physiology
- Sympathetic and Parasympathetic branches [arousing and claming]
- Emotion - Lie Detectors
- Polygraph
- machine commonly used in attempts to detect lies
- measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion
- perspiration
- cardiovascular
- breathing changes
- Control Question
- Relevant question
- Relevant > Control --> Lie
Expressed Emotion
- Gender and Expressiveness
- Shows that emotions expressed are pretty similar between males and females when the movies are sad; scary movies a large difference (perhaps because men are under more pressure to not display fear); happiness also is expressed more by women than men. Cultural norms allow women to express their emotions. Doesn't mean that men don't feel as intensely as women; just means that men don't outwardly express them.
- Women are very good at reading emotions
- Cultural differences also create differences in expressing emotions. Americans tend to be loud. Asians tend to keep it inside.
- Culturally universal expressions: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger and disgust.
Experienced Emotion
- Ingredients of Emotion: Physiological arousal, Expression (overt display), Cognition (appraisal)
- Catharsis
- emotional release
- catharsis hypothesis - "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges
- Can be counter-productive; by always responding in anger you increase your levels of cortisol; you can also reinforce acting angry the next time around.
- Feel-good, do-good phenomenon
- people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood
- People who personalize and generalize are more prone to anger
- Adaptation-Level Phenomenon
- tendency to form judgements relative to a "neutral" level
- brightness of lights
- volume of sound
- level of income
- defined by our prior experience
- Relative Deprivation
- perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself
Happiness Is...
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