Emotion

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What is emotion?

Emotion is characterized by:

1) physiological activation

2) expressive behaviors

3) subjective experience

Dimensions of Emotional Experience

Emotion & Physiological Activation

During an emotional experience, our autonomic nervous system mobilizes energy in the body and arouses us.

Arousal response to one event can potentially “spill over” into our response to

the next event.

Arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger, which can descend into rioting.

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Historical Theories of Emotion

James-Lange Theory: physiological activity precedes the emotional experience. Cannon-Bard Theory: emotion and the body's arousal take place simultaneously. Schachter-Singer Theory: physiology and cognition create emotions. Emotions have two factors– physical arousal and cognitive label.

Physiological Similarities

Physiological responses may be similar across various emotions.

Excitement and fear involve similar physiological arousal.

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While these experiences would feel different, it is difficult to identify a viewer’s emotion purely by physiological observation.

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Physical responses like finger temperature and movement of

facial muscles change during fear, rage, and joy.

Amygdala shows differences in activation during emotions

of anger and rage.

Physiological Differences

Activity in the left hemisphere associated with positive emotion; right with negative emotion.

Sadness & Effects of Facial Expression

If facial expressions are manipulated, like furrowing brows, people feel sad while looking at sad pictures.

Attaching two golf tees to the face and making their tips touch makes furrow on the forehead.

Courtesy of Louis Schake/ Michael Kausman/ The New York Times Pictures

Cognition Doesn’t Always Precede Emotion

When fearful eyes were subliminally presented to subjects, fMRI scans revealed higher levels of activity in the amygdala (Whalen et al. 2004).

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Expressed Emotion

emotion as nonverbal social communication

Emotions as Adaptive

Darwin speculated that, in the absence of language, our ancestors communicated with facial expression.

Nonverbal facial expression led to their survival.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Reading Faces

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Emotion and Communication

Emotion and Communication When culturally diverse people were shown basic

facial expressions, they did pretty well at recognizing them (Ekman & Matsumoto, 1989).

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How many of these emotions can you recognize?

How Well do People Identify Emotions?

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Izard (1977) isolated 10 emotions: most are present in infancy, excluding contempt, shame and guilt.

Culture and Emotion

Cultural Display Rules

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Specific Universal Emotions

Fear

Fear can be adaptive.

Some fears are easier to learn than others.

The amygdala in the brain associates emotions like fear with certain situations.

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Causes of Anger

• People are angered by foul odors, high temperatures, traffic jams, and aches and pains…

• People generally become angry with friends and loved ones who commit wrongdoings, especially if they are willful, unjustified, and avoidable.

Anger

Catharsis Hypothesis

Venting anger through action or fantasy achieves emotional release or “catharsis.”

Expressing anger breeds more anger, and through reinforcement, is habit forming.

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Cultural Differences

Expression of anger is encouraged in individualized cultures compared to

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Disgust

Happiness

People who are happy:

– perceive the world as safer

– make decisions more easily

– are more cooperative

– live healthier, energized, and more satisfied lives

Happiness

Relationship between emotion and behavior:

Feel-Good, Do-Good phenomenon

Predictors of Happiness

Emotional Ups and Downs

Over the long run our emotional ups and downs tend to balance. Although grave diseases can bring

down individuals emotionally, in the long-run, people adapt.

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Happiness & Others’ Attainments

Happiness is also relative to our comparisons with others.

Relative Deprivation is the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself with.

Does Money Buy Happiness?

Its utter absence can breed misery, yet

having it is no guarantee of happiness.

Over a 40-year period, Americans became over twice as wealthy, but no happier.

Bhutan & Gross National Happiness

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Index of Happiness? Bhutan’s New Leader Prefers More Concrete Goals

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world/asia/index-of-happiness-bhutans-new-leader-prefers-more-concrete-goals.html?_r=0

Deceiving emotion

Detecting and Computing Emotion

Most people find it difficult to detect deceiving emotion. Even trained professionals detected deceiving emotions only 54% of the time.

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Duchenne smile

A real smile of enjoyment, the Duchenne smile, involves activation of muscles that are not activated during faked smiles.