Emotion
description
Transcript of Emotion
Emotion
Outline
1. Emotions and decision making
2. Emotional expression
3. Health benefits of emotional expression
Characterizing Emotion
Definitional issues
Emotions - multi-component, brief, specific responses to challenges or opportunities that are important to the individual’s goals
Emotions are nature’s way to trigger in us a useful behavioural response accompanied with an internal embodied experience to a given situation
Construal/appraisal
Ex: bear fear escape
Circumplex Model of Emotion
POSITIVENEGATIVE
LOW AROUSAL
HIGH AROUSAL
Serene
Excited
Sad
Furious
Happy
Elated
Irritated
Embarrassment
Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns
Emotions can malfunction when: What was functional response in ancestral
environment is no longer functional
Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns
Emotions can malfunction when: Hair-triggering of emotions. Negative
emotions sometimes loose their specificity
Mental Disorders: The Big Picture
According to the World Health Org (UN): 15% of the world’s burden of illness is mental illness If we include the mental illness component of
physical illness, % is even higher—up to 50% More than half of world’s mentally ill are not treated Stigma attached to mental illness Most mental illnesses are treatable
Mental Disorders: The Big Picture
According to the World Health Org (UN), the breakdown of mental illnesses are: Unipolar major depression 45% Suicide 15% Schizophrenia 13% Bipolar disorder 11% Obsessive compulsive dis. 10% Panic disorder 5% Other mental disorders 1% Total 100%
Are emotions rational?
o Gut feelings--The “somatic marker” hypothesis
o Bechara et al Iowa card game studyo People have feelings that precede their
conscious awareness or reasoningo Damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex
impairs ability to produce this gut feelingo Descartes’ error (Damasio)—that thinking
(mind) is independent of feeling (body)
Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns
Amygdala:
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex:
Embodied Cognition
Studies show that our bodily experiences affect our thinking (Barsalou)
Nodding vs. shaking head while listening to a persuasive message
Arm flexion (approach) vs arm extension (avoidance) – liking of unrelated novel stimuli
Emotions and Moral Judgments
Emotions affect our moral judgments
Inconsistent with rationalist theories: deontology or consequentialism
Emotions and Moral Judgments
Schnall, Haidt, & Jordan, 2008 Disgust as a moral emotion
Moral Judgment: Sex between cousins, releasing morally controversial film, etc.
Emotions and Moral Judgments
Schnall, Haidt, & Jordan, 2008 Disgust as a moral emotion
Clean, neat desk
OR
Expression and Recognition of Emotions
Basic emotions:
Cross cultural research:
Exist in all languages Recognized across cultures Facial expressions of blind and normally
sighted children
Expression and Recognition of Emotions
Important cultural variation in:The cultural importance of an emotion
(frequency, intensity, number of words)Construal of emotional situations (meaning)
• Ex: funny vs. insultingDisplay rules of when/how to express emotions
• Ex: Matsumoto & Ekman (1989) study
Expression and Recognition of Emotions
Important cultural variation in (cont’d)Attentiveness to emotional cues
• Ishii and colleagues emotional stroop task
Complex emotions culturally created• Ex: Humiliation (shame + anger)• Culture-specific emotions: mamihlapinatapei,
amae, honor
Health Benefits of Emotional Expression
Is expressing emotions good for you? Studies by Jamie Pennebaker and others:
randomly assign ppts to two conditions: 1) “In the next 5 days, write about your deepest
thoughts and feelings about an extremely emotional issue that has affected you and your life...”People write about lost loves, deaths of loved
ones, tragic failures, sexual and physical abuse
Health Benefits of Emotional Expression
2) Writing about superficial topics (their plans for the day) (Control condition)
Studies with college students, the unemployed, new mothers, prisoners, spouses of victims
Health Benefits of Emotional Expression
Immediately after: more distress Long term benefits:
Writing over longer periods, stronger results Comparable effect across gender, age group,
educational level, writing vs. talking
Health Benefits of Emotional Expression
Possible explanations:Expression removes the need for suppressionConfiding is cathartic, no need to hideMeaning making: most health benefits when
Health Benefits of Emotional Expression
Explains some of the positive benefits of
Summary
Def. and classification of emotions Emotions as adaptive responses When emotions become dysfunctional Universality and cultural variability of emotions Health benefits of emotional expression