PSYC18 - Psychology of Emotion

Lecture 1

Professor: Gerald Cupchik

cupchik@utsc.utoronto.ca

S-634

Office Hours: Thurs. 10-11, 2-3

T.A.: Michelle Hilscher

hilscher@utsc.utoronto.ca

S-150

Office Hours: Thurs. 10-11, 2-3

Course Website: www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~cupchik

We can look at the psychology of emotion from different viewpoints:

(1) The person in the street wants to know…

How can I be more/less emotional?

Are some people generally disposed to be more or less emotional?

How can I learn to recognize the emotional states and experiences

of others?

How can I predict, explain, or understand the emotions of

others?

We can look at the psychology of emotion from different viewpoints:

(2) The research psychologist wants to know…

How can emotion be a phenomenon unto itself while at the same time being related to the mind (i.e., thought) and body (i.e., motor expression and somatic response)?

What is the evolutionary function of emotion?

Are there individual differences in emotional style?

What is the relation between emotion experience and emotion management?

What is the relation between expression and experience?

What is the difference between expression and impression?

What are the relations between feeling and emotion?

(3) The clinical psychologist wants to know…

How to help people deal with unconscious or repressed emotions.

How to help people deal with loss.

How to help people become more integrated and productive.

How to help people sleep better, deal with anxiety, find love, etc.

We can look at the psychology of emotion from different viewpoints:

Let’s start with the first major challenge:

To understand emotion as a distinctive experience while at the same time trying to understand how it interacts with cognitive (i.e., thought)

and bodily processes.Worlds

Ludwig Binswanger proposed three worlds:

i. Eigenwelt – personal and private (with ourselves)

ii. Mitwelt – social world (with others)

iii. Umwelt – organic and physical world (the world around)

Existential concept of thrownness – we are thrown, as if by accident, into particular worlds.

Life Themes

i. Adaptation (Darwin)

ii. Meaning-in-the-world (Existential)

Life Episodes

These are events that take place in these worlds as we struggle with these life themes.

Personal Life Narratives

We have experiences and feelings about our life-worlds and events that take place within them. These can be expressed in the forms of narratives or stories in terms of which we define ourselves. These stories comprise facts and interpretations of these facts which we take to be true about ourselves and our worlds.

Layers

Imagine…layers in a cake…of rock in the earth…of the atmosphere.

You are in a life…actually many lives at once.

You are in a world…actually many worlds at once.

Four Fundamental Layers

i. Noetic – includes all mental processes and different forms of knowing (perceptual, intellectual, emotional)

ii. Organic – includes all biological processes

iii. Physical – includes all physical processes

iv. Social – includes all social and cultural systems.

These layers have their own unique properties but also interact with

each other.

Perspectives

Paradox of one body and many selves

Looks like one body and this implies one self… illusion of unity.

But in fact there are many selves in that one body. There are many layers in the single person.

Fromm spoke about division within the self where people are not sure how to integrate their many selves.

Interface of Mind and Body (problem of consciousness):

Consciousness lies at the sentient boundary between stimulation from the outside world and from the inside world, physical, cognitive, and affective during a particular period of time.

How do we see ourselves?

1. Are we objects or processes? (Are we static or dynamic?)

2. Can we change or are we burdened by our personal histories?

3. Literal viewpoint (externalized view)

As objects with features…grades…status…money

(Closed process)

4. Ironic or metaphorical viewpoint

See ourselves in context, changing

(Open process)

5. Shifting viewpoints (engaged versus detached)

Engaged (absorbed in our experiences)

Detached (outside of our experiences)

6. Can we unify these viewpoints?