Motivation and Emotion

Emotion

physiological activationexpressive behaviorsconscious experience

Theories of Emotion

Does your heart pound because you are afraid...

or are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding?

Controversy

Does physiological arousal precede or follow your emotional experience?

Does cognition (thinking) precede emotion (feeling)?

When you become happy, your heart starts beating faster. First comes conscious awareness, then comes physiological activity.

Bob

Sach

a

Common Sense View

The Elements of Emotional Experience Cognitive component

Subjective conscious experience Physiological component

Bodily (autonomic) arousal Behavioral component

Characteristic overt expressions

The Elements of Emotional Experience

• Cognitive component involves subjective feelings that have an evaluative aspect–a cognitive appraisal of an event is an

important element in emotional experience

– “new” Positive psychology -- increasing research on contentment, well-being, human strength, and positive emotion.


• Physiological component - arousal associated with emotion occurs through the autonomic nervous system.

• fight-or-flight response• The galvanic skin response (GSR) measures

autonomic activation • a polygraph or lie detector measures

autonomic fluctuations • Polygraph tests are sometimes inaccurate and

not reliable enough to be submitted as evidence in most types of courtrooms.


• Physiological component – • In the brain, the limbic system is the emotional

circuit (the – hypothalamus, the – amygdala, and – adjacent structures);

• Joseph LeDoux (1996) - amygdala plays a particularly central role in modulating emotions.


• Behavioral component - Characteristic overt expressions

• body language and facial expressions• Research indicates considerable cross-

cultural similarities in the ability to differentiate facial expressions of emotion

• The facial-feedback hypothesis holds that facial muscles send signals to the brain that help it recognize the emotion being experienced…smile and feel better.


• Behavioral component - Characteristic overt expressions

• Cross-cultural similarities have also been found in the cognitive and behavioral components, although display rules, or norms for regulating appropriate expression of emotion, vary from culture to culture.

Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange (body, then emotion)– Feel afraid because pulse is racing

• Cannon-Bard (simultaneous)– Thalamus sends signals to both the cortex

and the autonomic nervous system• Schacter’s Two-Factor Theory

– Look to external cues to decide what to feel

• Evolutionary Theories– Innate reactions with little cognitive

interpretation

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli

• We feel emotion because of biological changes in our body caused by stress.

• our mind recognizes the feelingyou see a snake, your pulse races, and you feel

afraid because your pulse is racing.

James-Lange Theory

Fear(emotion)

Poundingheart(arousal)

Sight of oncomingcar(perception ofstimulus)

Cannon-Bard Theory

• Similar physiological changes correspond with drastically different emotional states.

• The physiological change and cognitive awareness must occur simultaneously in the thalamus

you see a snake, the information is sent to the thalamus, relayed to the cortex and autonomic nervous system at the same time

Cannon-BardTheory of Emotion

Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: physiological

responses subjective experience

of emotion



Fear(emotion)

Schachter–Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

• Physiological responses and cognitive awareness happen at the same time but…

• when two groups are exposed to the same stimuli, those who are already physiologically aroused experience more intense emotions than those not aroused

• Biology and Cognition interact with each other to increase the experience.

you feel autonomic arousal and look around to see why…if there’s a snake you feel fear.

Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

To experience emotion one must: be physically

aroused cognitively

label the arousal

Cognitivelabel

“I’m afraid”

Fear(emotion)



Misattribution of arousal

• Evolutionary theories of emotion assume that emotions are innate reactions that require little cognitive interpretation

• Misattribution can occur when people misinterpret their autonomic arousal

Dutton and Aron (1974) Men divided into two groups were assigned to

cross one of two bridges -- one bridge was 10 feet above a stream, the other was a swaying, 230 foot suspension bridge;

as each crossed, he was met by an attractive female with a questionnaire in hand…. The suspension bridge men called the woman for a date significantly more often than the low bridge men,

This suggests misattribution of arousal as attraction rather than fear.

Embodied Emotion

Emotions involve bodily responses.

• Some of these responses are very noticeable (butterflies in our stomach when fear arises)

• others are more difficult to discern (neurons activated in the brain)

Robert Plutchik (1984, 1993) devised a model of how primary emotions blend together to form secondary emotions.

Figure 10.24 Primary emotions

Emotion and Physiology

Autonomic nervous system controlsphysiological arousal

Sympatheticdivision (arousing)

Pupils dilate

Decreases

Perspires

Increases

Accelerates

Inhibits

Secrete stresshormones

Parasympatheticdivision (calming)

Pupils contract

Increases

Dries

Decreases

Slows

Activates

Decreasessecretion ofstress hormones

EYES

SALIVATION

SKIN

RESPIRATION

HEART

DIGESTION

ADRENALGLANDS

Arousal and Performance

Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks

Compare to motivation

Physiological Similarities

Physiological responses related to the emotions of fear, anger, love, are very similar.

Excitement and fear involve a similar physiological arousal.

Physiological Differences

The amygdala shows differences in activation during the emotions of anger and rage.

Activity of the left hemisphere (happy) is different from the right hemisphere (depressed) for emotions More dopamine receptors:

nucleus accumbens

• Physical responses, like finger temperature and movement of facial muscles change during fear, rage, and joy.

Cognition and Emotion

• What is the connection between how we think (cognition) and how we feel (emotion)?

• Can we change our emotions by changing our thinking?

• Can arousal response to one event spill over into our response to the next event.

Arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger, which could lead to rioting

Sensory input may be routed from the thalamus directly to the amygdala for an instant emotional reaction or to the cortex for analysis

The brain’s shortcut for emotions

Emotion: Lie Detectors

Polygraph machine commonly used to detect lies

measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion

perspiration cardiovascular breathing changes

Emotion—Lie Detectors

Control Question Aim to make anyone nervous

(baseline) Up to age 18, did you ever physically

harm anyone?

Relevant Question Did [the deceased] threaten to harm

you in any way?

Relevant response greater than control response Lie

If 1 in 1000 employees is actually guilty and all employees are tested, 50 will be wrongly declared guilty

But even at 95% accuracy . . .

Expressed Emotion

How do we decipher people’s emotions? body language tone of voice facial expressions

Are these behaviors cultural? gender bound?

How good are we in detecting true or false emotions?

Nonverbal Communication People more speedily detect an angry face

than a happy one

We read fear and anger mostly from the eyes, happiness from the mouth

Experience influences how we perceive emotions physically abused children are quicker to

pick out the angry face than non-abused children

At what point does the person morph into fear?

Gender Differences

Women generally surpass men at reading people’s emotional cues Spotting lies Greater emotional literacy Greater emotional responsiveness to

positive and negative situations More empathic…more likely to express

empathy

Gender and expressiveness

Men Women

Sad Happy Scary

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Numberof

expressions

Film Type

Universal Facial Expressions

The number of specific inherited facial patterns or expressions that signal specific feelings or emotional states [such as a smile signaling a happy state]

Cross cultural

Anger sadness Happiness

fear Surprise disgust Contempt

Culturally universal expressions

Figure 10.22 Cross-cultural comparisons of people’s ability to recognize emotions from facial expressions

Infants’ naturally occurring emotions

a. Joy

b. Anger

c. Interest

d. Disgust

e. Surprise

f. Sadness

g. Fear

Detecting Emotions

Facial muscles reveal signs of emotion.• Difficult to detect

expression of deceit

• Absence of verbal or emotional cues makes detection difficult

Which smile is feigned, which is natural?How can you tell?

Emotions are Adaptive

Darwin speculated that our ancestors communicated with facial expressions in the absence of language. Nonverbal facial expressions led to our ancestors’ survival. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Analyzing Emotion

Feedback Hypotheses

Facial feedback hypothesis Expressions amplify our emotions by activating

muscles associated with specific states [If we smile, we’ll feel happier]

Behavior feedback hypothesis If we move our body as we would when expressing

some emotion we are likely to feel that emotion to some degree

[If we shuffle our feet with downcast eyes, we’ll feel sad]

Dimensions of Emotion

People generally divide emotions intotwo dimensions.

Fear

We learn specific fears through conditioning and observational learning

We are biologically prepared to learn certain fears but not others• Fear of snakes, spiders, heights shared with

prehistoric ancestors Self preservation • Fast driving, bombs, electricity not

conditioned in “genetic” makeup

The Amygdala

a neural key to fear learning

Figure 10.20 The amygdala and fear

Anger

Frustrations, insults… evoke anger Catharsis … emotional release Catharsis hypothesis

“releasing” or venting aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges

Temporary relief may actually amplify anger Reconciliation better than retaliation in

reducing anger and its symptoms

Happiness

Feel-good, do-good phenomenon people’s tendency to be helpful when

already in a good mood More helpful to strangers, give money and

time

Happiness

Research on happiness indicates that common sense notions about what makes people happy are largely incorrect.

Research indicates that subjective rather than objective reality is what is important in deciding happiness.

Happiness

• Income, age, parenthood, intelligence, and attractiveness largely uncorrelated to happiness

• Physical health, good social relationships, religious faith, and culture modestly are correlated to happiness

• Love, marriage, work satisfaction, and personality strongly correlated to happiness

Subjective Well-Being

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life

used along with measures of objective well-beingphysical and economic indicators to

evaluate people’s quality of life

Be able to:

Compare James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories of emotion

Explain how Schachter-Singer reconciled these conflicting views

What is the evolutionary perspective on emotion?

Describe the cognitive, physiological, and neural components of emotion

Explain the facial feedback hypothesis

Motivation and Emotion

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