AP PSYCH

EMOTIONSEMOTION THEORIES

EMOTIONS• You are outside in your yard, when out of the corner of your eye, you see a large pit bull running your way. It’s snarling its large teeth as it gets close to you.

• How do you feel? What do you do?• Fear, nervous, frightened• Start sweating, shaking, run away

Emotions• 4 part process, that interacts with each other (nonlinear)1. Physiological arousal – how your body responds

• Fear sets off an alarm in your autonomic nervous system, enabling you to react. Knot in your stomach, heart racing, sweating…

2. Cognitive interpretation – thinking about your emotion

• The more you think about your emotions, the more heightened they become• This dog is going to hurt me, I am scared of dogs…

3. Subjective feelings- How we feel based on our body reactions and our past experiences• Being afraid, the time that dog bit me when I was a kid makes me

especially scared4. Behavioral expressions - Facial expressions,

vocalizations, action• Scared look on your face, screaming “Oh no, run” and running

away

Emotions involve genetics and learning•Genetics• Genetic predisposition for

depression• Emotions have survival

value and have been shaped by natural selection• Good to fear things that can

harm us• Jealously has evolved to deal

with the biological importance of reproducing

• Humor evolved to serve social purpose - bonds groups

• Learning• Classical conditioning• Observational Learning

Paul Ekman – basic emotions• People understand the same “facial language” around the world• Humans share universal emotions• Smile – happy• Frown – sad or upset• People everywhere can recognize 7 basic emotions

1. Sadness2. Fear3. Anger4. Disgust5. Contempt6. Happiness7. Surprise

Two emotion processing pathways• Unconscious – linked to

implicit memory• FAST• Our body and brain quickly

process and respond to incoming stimuli

• Operates automatically, without deliberate conscious control

• Example: jolting up in the middle of the night to a loud noise

• Classical conditioning• Little Albert’s fear of white objects

• Conscious – linked to explicit memory• SLOWER• Getting excited when you think

about Christmas break• Feeling nervous about a test• Feel emotions because we are

consciously thinking about them

**Systems are linked: We can have an unconscious fear of heights, and consciously know its irrational, or feel more frightened when just thinking about high places.

The Neuroscience of Emotion• THE LIMBIC SYSTEM• Control mechanism in brain for the body's attack, defense, and retreat function.• known as the "fight-or-

flight" response – works with ANS• When parts of the limbic

system are electrically stimulated, dramatic changes in emotions are produced• Amygdala processes

unconscious and conscious emotional messages

The Neuroscience of Emotion• Reticular Formation• Detect emotional reactions, (anger and fear)• Works with the thalamus and amygdala to observe incoming

information.• When a threat is detected, the reticular formation is what sets

off automatic physiological arousal. In return, it may increase heart rate, tense muscles, and trigger sweat and/or a dry mouth.

The Neuroscience of Emotion• Cerebral Cortex• Main component in our conscious emotional pathway• Interprets events, associates them with memories

The Neuroscience of Emotion• Autonomic Nervous

System• Parasympathetic –

pleasant emotions• Sympathetic – unpleasant

emotions

• Brain alerts our body to stressful situations through the Sympathetic NS• Heart race, blood pressure

rise, etc• Parasympathetic restores

body to regular state to counteract sympathetic, return body to normal

The Neuroscience of Emotion• Neurotransmitters

1. Serotonin – depression2. Epinephrine (adrenalin) – fear3. Norepinephrine - anger