Motivation and Emotion Chapter 9

Emotions • state of arousal that involves physiological

changes, facial changes, brain activation, cognitive appraisals, subjective feelings, and motivation toward action

• reactions to stimuli

• subjectively experienced as either positive or negative

• trigger physiological changes over which we have no conscious control

• provide motivation to act

• alter thinking and memory

Emotions

• arise partly from cognitive appraisals of stimuli (cortical)

• arise partly from conditioned, automatic responses to stimuli (limbic system)

• communicated by body posture, facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, and general appearance

What came first: thought or emotion? • does emotional response occurs first and

then the cognitive response happen or does cognitive response happen first and then emotional response?

• some psychologists believe that we first respond to a situation with an emotional reaction and then we try to understand it

• other psychologists believe that we first develop cognitions about a situation and then we react to the situation

Theories of Emotions

• James and Lange: bodily response evokes emotional experience; autonomic physiological reaction triggers emotion

• Cannon and Bard-our physical response to a stimulus and our emotional response occur at the same time

• Schachter and Singer two factor-first experience physical response to a stimulus, then make a cognitive interpretation of physical response based on environmental cues and then label arousal state as a specific emotion

Two Major Questions

1. Does bodily arousal come before or after emotional feelings?

2. How do thinking and feeling interact? Does cognition always come before emotion?

Arousal Comes Before Emotion

James-Lange theory: thoughts or the perception of events trigger directly autonomic nervous system changes; awareness of changes reaches the cerebral cortex and then there is an experience of emotion

Even facial expressions and body positions come first: we smile, then feel happy. “We feel sorry because we cry… afraid because we tremble” (James, 1890).

Cannon-Bard Theory

• emotion-provoking stimuli are received by senses and relayed to thalamus

• then sensory impulses are relayed simultaneously to cerebral cortex, which provides conscious experience of emotion and to sympathetic nervous system, which produces physiological state of arousal

Two-Factor Theory • We do more than read our body’s responses

– we interpret them

• Schacter and Singer proposed two-factor theory: agree with James-Lange theory that thoughts or perceptions of events directly trigger autonomic nervous system arousal. Additionally, emotion will emerge only after a cognitive label is attached to the arousal to explain it.

Theories of Emotion

Richard Lazarus Theory • An event occurs

• A cognitive appraisal is made

• THEN, the emotion and physiological arousal follow

• It has been found that changing thinking about an emotional stimulus is related to a reduction in physiological responses

• You are walking home late at night and hear footsteps behind you. You think it’s a mugger. You feel afraid and your heart rate increases

• Sum-up: an event occurs, a cognitive appraisal is made, and then the emotion and physiological arousal occurs

•

Video Clip: Emotion=Arousal plus Interpretation

• drugs such as coffee, nicotine, and alcohol change both brain chemistry and how we feel; can be used as a tool in studying emotion because they stimulate the limbic system, which is normally activated whenever we experience an emotion

• participants are given an amphetamine, a drug that stimulates neural activity; two of the volunteers are told they have been given an inactive, placebo pill; two others are informed that they have received a stimulant

• if changes in biochemistry are the sole source of our emotional experience, all the participants should experience the same emotion regardless of whether they know they have taken a drug.

• 30 minutes into experiment all participants experience arousal. Those who know they received a stimulant are out of their chairs and active. They report positive feelings. In contrast, the unsuspecting subjects are less active, and they experience arousal more negatively.

• research participants’ expectations shaped experience and behavior

Brain and Emotions

• specific patterns of biological arousal are associated with individual emotions

• certain emotions produce activation of very different portions of brain

Components of Emotional Experience

• recognizing another person’s emotions

• feeling an emotion

• expressing an emotion

• acting out an emotion

• controlling or regulating an emotion

Cerebral Hemispheres

• right hemisphere-recognize emotional expressions and process emotional feeling

• left hemisphere- recognize emotional feeling

Amygdala and Emotional Responses

• evaluates incoming sensory information, quickly determines its emotional importance, and manages initial decision to approach or withdraw from a person or situation

• information comes directly from all five of the senses and is acted on immediately, without initial involvement of primary thinking area of brain, the cortex

Prefrontal Regions of Brain • impulses to approach or withdraw • right prefrontal cortex-specialized for withdrawal or

escape • left prefrontal cortex-specialized for motivation to

approach others • people who have higher activation of left area

compared with right area have more positive feelings, higher well-being, and a greater ability to recover from negative emotions

• people who are clinically depressed have less activation in left frontal cortex and greater right side activation(is this difference learned or inborn or a result of depression rather than a cause?)

• parts of prefrontal cortex involved in regulation of emotion: balancing emotion

Hormonal Reactions and Emotions

• amygdala and prefrontal cortex signal danger, body releases hormones, which produce energy of emotion

• under stress-sympathetic division of autonomic nervous system tells adrenal glands to send out two hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine-produce a state of arousal and alertness

Paul Ekman’s Field Work on Emotional Expression

• our facial expressions communicate our internal states

• different expressions communicate different emotions

• In late 1960’s, Ekman traveled to New Guinea to study facial expressions of emotion

• traveled to last stone-age culture on earth: people had virtually no contact with outside world

• Inquiry: whether facial expressions shown by people in industrialized world differ from those of people in New Guinea

• Do emotional expressions change as societies develop or are they fixed and universal?

Why do people across cultures express similar emotions?

• facial-affect hypothesis: a program in our brain turns on when a particular emotion is experienced-a set of nerve impulses enable the face to display an appropriate expression.

• each primary emotion produces a unique set of muscular movements

• facial-feedback hypothesis: facial expressions help determine how people experience and label emotions- wearing an emotional expression provides muscular feedback to the brain that helps produce an emotion congruent with that expression

Nonverbal Communication

• you may look at the following slides and interpret the body language, gestures, mannerisms, and facial expressions of the various people

Body Chemistry and the Brain

• If levels of blood glucose drop, a message is sent to brain from stomach, intestines, and liver to trigger hunger

• Hypothalamus: monitors glucose level and food intake level

Hypothalamus • monitors body’s internal state

• important in regulating eating behavior and body weight

• influences feelings of hunger and fullness

Ghrelin • hunger arousing hormone that is secreted by

an empty stomach

• message to brain: feel hungry and need to eat

• production of ghrelin increases according to meal schedules or when we see or smell food

• bypass surgery for obesity, part of stomach is blocked-remaining stomach produces less ghrelin

Appetite Hormones • Ghrelin: secreted by empty

stomach; signals “I’m hungry”

• Insulin: secreted by pancreas; controls blood glucose

• Leptin: protein secreted by fat cells; increases metabolism and decreases hunger

• Orexin: secreted by hypothalamus; triggers hunger

• PYY: used in digestive tract; signals “I am not hungry”

Hypothalamus • activity in lateral

hypothalamus(sides of hypothalamus) makes you feel hungry

• activity in ventromedial hypothalamus (lower mid-hypothalamus) takes away feeling of hunger

Hunger and the Hypothalamus

• Destruction of the ventromedial hypothalamus disables an animal’s ability to stop feeling hungry

Weight, Intake, and Metabolism • Body has a “weight thermostat” or weight

set point

• Animals tend to hover around set point – a stable weight influenced in part by heredity

–May not be totally fixed, depends on caloric intake and other lifestyle factors

• We vary in our basal metabolic rate, rate at which food is converted to energy and expended by body

–Metabolic rate drops from decreased food intake

Leptin • protein hormone produced by fat tissues

• associated with how hungry or full you feel

• when leptin levels are normal, people eat just enough to maintain their weight

• mutation of ob gene causes fat cells to secrete low levels of leptin: hypothalamus thinks body lacks fat (stored energy) and generates appetite stimulants that signal a person to overeat

• potential recipe for being overweight

The Losing Battle: Why Starvation Diets Backfire

Study: Severely restricting calories starting on day 8 causes some weight loss but metabolism slows down starting day 9, which limits the weight loss

• Sluggish metabolism – our bodies are designed to survive periods of famine

• Explosion of fat cells – fat takes fewer calories to maintain than other tissue, and can shrink and swell, but rarely disappear

Overweight or Obese • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

60% of Americans are overweight and one-third of Americans are considered obese (dangerous level)

• raises risk for variety of health problems: cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and depression

• number of people considered overweight around the world is 20% higher than number suffering from hunger

Factors that Cause Weight Increase

• increased abundance of fast food and processed foods that are inexpensive, readily available, and high in sugar, starch, and carbohydrates

• consumption of high sugar soft drinks that are loaded with calories

• increase in portion size of food and drink

• decline in exercise and other forms of expending energy

• lack of adequate sleep

Environmental Influences

• Too little activity: Watching TV, traveling by car.

• Calorie up

• Exercise down

Research Findings: People eat more…

• from a larger container than a smaller container

• when they serve themselves on large plates rather than small ones

• when food and snacks are prominently displayed, varied, and easily accessible

• when they are being distracted by friends and the environment

Taste Preference: Biology or Culture

• Preferences for sweet and salty tastes are universal and genetic

• Other taste preferences are influenced by culture and experience

• Survival/adaptive strategy: we avoid certain foods if they are unfamiliar or if we got sick after eating them

Comfort Foods

• feel unhappy: soothed with cookies, ice cream, or chips

• as a child you may have come from school and felt irritable-your mom offered you a comforting snack of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk

• learned through conditioning to associate food with comfort and consolation

Social Stigma of Obesity

• obese people may be stereotyped as slow, lazy, and sloppy

• wider people are rated as looking less sincere, less friendly, meaner, and more obnoxious

• women who are obese make an average of $7000 less per year than equally qualified non-obese women

• weight discrimination is found at every stage of employment cycle

Bulimia Nervosa • binge on large quantities of food- feel guilty and depressed

• purging-often induce vomiting or take laxatives to rid themselves of food

• constant binging and purging cycles and use of drugs to induce vomiting or diarrhea can lead to heart failure

• often weight of person with bulimia remains normal

• usually obsessed with maintaining or reducing weight

• suffer from depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, and poor impulse control

• often come from families with a history of emotional problems such as depression, as well as families with obesity problems

• lose as much as 20-25% of their original body weight

• typically begins in adolescence

• most are females

Anorexia nervosa • intense fear of being fat and are obsessed with being thin

• often have distorted body image, meaning that when they look in mirror, they tend to see someone overweight, when others see them as walking skeletons

• often resort to vomiting and laxatives

• often come from very competitive, demanding families

• often perfectionists with a strong need to control all aspects of their lives

• are often successful, attractive, and relatively affluent

• often begins after serious dieting, which somehow gets out of control

• mainly afflicts females between ages 12- 40, although both men and women of any age can develop it

Other Eating Disorders • more than 40% of all cases of eating

disorders occur among men, elderly, ethnic minority groups, young children, and athletes

• binge-eating disorder: binge without purging

• chew whatever food they want but spit it out without swallowing

• normal weight but take no joy in eating because they worry obsessively about gaining a pound

• unhealthy attitude toward food, weight, and body

Other Causes of Eating Disorders

• increase as countries become more developed and Westernized and dieting becomes more popular

• cultures with standards of beauty that have more respect for a woman's personality or other traits, and cultures that appreciate heavier women, have little or no trouble with bulimia

Body Image Distortion and Males

• boys and men have delusion that their muscular bodies are too puny, so they abuse steroids and pump iron excessively

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Some needs are more important than others. Basic needs must be satisfied first

• Exceptions: Some people deny basic needs for self-transcendent reasons (hunger strike)