Emotions,Stress,

and Health

FOR THIS CHAPTER, ONLY HAVE TO KNOW CLASS INFORMATION FOR MIDTERM

Emotions

• State characterized by physiological arousal, cognitions, feeling-states, and actions

• Adaptive Behaviors: Aid our attempts to survive and adjust to changing conditions

• Physiological Changes: Include heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration, and other involuntary bodily responses

• Emotional Expression: Outward signs of what a person is feeling

How many emotions?

Evolutionary theories of emotion attempt to identify primary emotions. Three leading theorists—Silvan Tomkins, Carroll Izard, and Robert Plutchik—have compiled different lists of primary emotions, but this chart shows great overlap among the basic emotions identified by these theorists.

Primary and mixed emotions.

In Robert Plutchik’s model, there are eight primary emotions, as listed in the inner areas.

Adjacent emotions may combine to give the emotions listed around the perimeter.

Mixtures involving more widely separated emotions are also possible. For example, fear plus anticipation produces anxiety.

Do your emotions vary by days of the week?

How do we measure emotions?

• Like many other constructs in psychology, measuring emotion poses challenges to psychological scientists. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses.– Self-reports are fast and easy but may have

questionable accuracy.– Behavioral observations; especially of facial

expressions are useful. Although facial emotions can be suppressed, micro-expressions can be very revealing.

– Physiological measures use autonomic nervous activity. These are harder to control or suppress, although their meaning is subject to interpretation.

Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange Theory.– Emotions follow rather than cause

behavioral response to events.– We may be able to change our

feelings by changing our behavior.

• Cannon-Bard Theory.– Events might simultaneously trigger

bodily responses and the experience of emotion.

– Emotions accompany bodily responses.

• Theory of Cognitive Appraisal (Schachter and Singer)– The label we give to an emotion

depends on cognitive appraisal of the situation.

A contemporary model of emotion.

The Range of Emotions

– The function of facial expressions in all primates is communication, especially communication of emotions.

• Facial expression of emotion is much more likely to occur in the presence of other people.

• Facial expressions of emotion are more likely to indicate a person’s true internal state than simple statements and other indicators.

• Many facial expressions including smiling, frowning, laughing, and crying occur throughout the world and are even found in children who were born deaf and blind.

Three Types of Facial Expressions

• Pleasantness-Unpleasantness: Degree to which a person is experiencing pleasure or displeasure

• Attention-Rejection: Degree of attention given to a person or object

• Activation: Degree of arousal a person is experiencing

When shown groups of simplified faces (without labels), the angry and scheming faces “jumped out” at people faster than sad, happy, or neutral faces. An ability to rapidly detect threatening expressions probably helped our ancestors survive.

Happiness

• What makes you happy?

• When surveyed regarding what conditions would cause an increase in happiness, most people answered:– Money– A good job– More leisure time– A boyfriend or girlfriend (or a new one)

Happiness• Subjective Well-Being: When people are satisfied

with their lives, have frequent positive emotions, and have relatively few negative emotions

• Are these factors related to happiness?– Wealth: No relation– Education: minimally– Marriage: yes, if social support– Religion: minimally– Healthy: yes– Heredity: yes, runs in families– Aging: Happiness does not decline with age. – Sex: Men and women do not differ in happiness.– Work: No.– Personality: If you have a “sunny disposition,” you are

more likely to be happy.

Positive Psychology

• Suggestions to be happy include:– Take advantage of your education to

develop skills so that you can be free from want.

– Do not let the fact that others have more impair your ability to appreciate what you have.

– Value friendships and other social relationships.

– Think about the meaning of life and make your life more meaningful.

– Consider whether you blame yourself too much when things go wrong.

– Consider if you are generally optimistic or pessimistic about your future.

Other Emotions

• Surprise is sometimes listed as a basic emotion by most psychologists but little research has been done related to it.

• Disgust is an emotional reaction that appears to derive from the reaction one would have if one discovered that contaminated matter was in one’s mouth.

• Contempt is based upon a reaction to violation of community standards.

• Embarrassment, guilt, shame and pride are related “self-conscious” emotions based on our view of how people regard us and our actions.

Health Psychology

• Health psychology examines how people’s behavior can improve health and prevent illness, and how human behavior influences the course of recovery from illness.

Health Psychology

• Selye’s concept of stress– Selye proposed that the body responds to

stress in three distinct stages:• Alarm – a brief period of high arousal of the

sympathetic nervous system, which readies the body for vigorous activity.

• Resistance – if the stressor goes on for longer than a few minutes, the body enters a phase of prolonged but moderate arousal.

• Exhaustion – intense and long-lasting stress causes a depletion of proteins in the immune system. The end result is increased vulnerability to illness, fatigue, and weakness.

Coping Styles and Strategies

• Psychologists have developed two major categories for classifying how people handle their stress.– Monitoring – the style in which people

attend carefully to the stressful event and try to take effective action. (e.g., upcoming test)

– Blunting – the style adopted by those who try to avoid the stressful event or avoid thinking about it. (e.g., caught in traffic)

Coping Styles and Strategies

• Monitoring strategies– The importance of predictability and

control• When we are engaged in an activity

voluntarily, we usually know what to expect and how to change what we are doing or quit if necessary.

• The ability to predict how things will unfold makes the activity or event less stressful.

Coping Styles and Strategies

• Monitoring strategies– Inoculation is another word for receiving

a vaccine.– To inoculate yourself against stress is to

expose yourself to small amounts or less serious versions of the event prior to encountering the actual stressor.

Coping Styles and Strategies

• Social support– Just talking about an experience with

someone you trust can be a great relief.• Talking with any sympathetic and supportive

person can be useful.• It is particularly helpful to talk with others who

are having or have had similar problems. • Giving support can be even more stress-

reducing than receiving it.

Coping Styles and Strategies

• Beliefs as coping strategies– Sometimes it appears that a simple

cognitive re-framing may have a protective effect on stress.

• Seeming rationalizations and distortions such as “looking at the bright side” and playing up one’s strengths while disregarding flaws and weaknesses can be useful in reducing the negative effects of stress.

• In one study, men with HIV who seemed to be in denial about the seriousness of their problem actually survived longer than those who acknowledged it.

Coping Styles and Strategies

• Blunting strategies– Relaxation techniques range from simply finding

some quiet time to relax physically and mentally to various organized mediation practices.

– Although exercise arouses the sympathetic nervous system in the short-term, in the long-term seems to have an inoculating effect on those who engage in it regularly.

– Distraction is similar to hypnosis in that it can reduce concentration on the unpleasant stimulus by replacing it with a different focus of attention.