Emotion

1. Emotion Chapter 11

2. Emotion • Defining Emotion • Elements of Emotion 1: The Body • Elements of Emotion 2: The Mind • Elements of Emotion 3: The Culture • Putting the Elements together: Emotion and Gender

3. Emotion • A state of arousal involving facial and body changes, brain activation, cognitive appraisals, subjective feelings, and tendencies toward action, all shaped by cultural rules.

4. Elements of Emotion 1: The Body • Primary and secondary emotions • The face of emotion • The brain and emotion • Hormones and emotion • Detecting emotions: Does the body lie?

5. Elements of Emotion 1: The Body • Primary emotions • Emotions considered to be universal and biologically based. They generally include fear, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, disgust, and contempt. • Secondary emotion • Emotions that develop with cognitive maturity and vary across individuals and cultures. • Three biological areas of emotion are • facial expressions, • brain regions and circuits, and • autonomic nervous system.

6. Universal Expressions of Emotion • Facial expressions for primary emotions are universal. • Even members of remote cultures can recognize facial expressions in people who are foreign to them. • Facial feedback • Process by which the facial muscles send messages to the brain about the basic emotion being expressed. • Infants are able to read parental expressions. • Facial expression can generate same expressions in others, creating mood contagion.

7. The Face of Anger • Anger is universally recognized by geometric patterns on the face. • In each pair, the left form seems angrier than the right form.

8. Facial Expressions in Social Context • Across and within cultures, agreement often varies on which emotion a particular facial expression is revealing. • People don’t usually express their emotion in facial expressions unless others are around. • Facial expressions convey different meanings depending on their circumstances. • People often use facial expressions to lie about their feelings as well as to express them.

9. The Brain and Emotion • The amygdala • Responsible for assessing threat. • Damage to the amygdala results in abnormality to process fear. • Left prefrontal cortex • Involved in motivation to approach others. • Damage to this area results in loss of joy. • Right prefrontal cortex • Involved in withdrawal and escape. • Damage to the area results in excessive mania and euphoria.

10. Hormones and Emotion • When experiencing an intense emotion, 2 hormones are released. • Epinephrine • Norepinephrine • Results in increased alertness and arousal. • At high levels, it can create the sensation of being out of control emotionally.

11. The Autonomic Nervous System

12. Detecting Emotions: Does the Body Lie? • Polygraph testing relies on autonomic nervous system arousal. • Typical measures: • Galvanic Skin Response • Pulse, blood pressure • Breathing • Fidgeting

13. Polygraph Tests • Empirical support is weak and conflicting. • Test is inadmissible in most courts. • It is illegal to use for most job screening. • Many government agencies continue to use for screening.

14. Elements of Emotion 2: The Mind • How thoughts create emotions • The two factor theory of emotion. • Attributions and emotions. • Cognitions and emotional complexity

15. Two-factor Theory of Emotion • Physiological arousal • Sweaty palms • Increased heart rate • rapid breathing • Cognitive Label • Attribute source of arousal to a cause • To have an emotion, both factors are required

16. Attributions and Emotions • Perceptions and attributions are involved in emotions. • How one reacts to an event depends on how he or she explains it. • For example, how one reacts to being ignored or winning the silver instead of the gold medal. • Philosophy of life is also influential.

17. Cognitions and Emotional Complexity • Cognitions, and therefore, emotions, become more complex as a child’s cerebral cortex matures. • Self-conscious emotions, such as shame and guilt, do not occur until after infancy, due to the emergence of a sense of self and others. • People can learn how their thinking affects their emotions and can change their thinking accordingly.

18. Elements of Emotion 3: The Culture • Culture and emotional variation • The rules of emotional regulation • Display rules • Body language • Emotion work

19. Culture and Emotional Variation • Culture determines what people feel angry, sad, lonely, happy, ashamed or disgusted about. • Some cultures have words for specific emotions unknown to other cultures. • Ex. Schadenfreude • Some cultures don’t have words for emotions that seem universal to others. • Tahitian and sadness • Differences in secondary emotions appear to be reflected in differences in languages.

20. The Rules of Emotional Regulation • Display Rules • When, where, and how emotions are to be expressed or when they should be squelched. • Body Language • The nonverbal signals of body movement, posture and gaze that people constantly express. • Emotion Work • Acting out an emotion we do not feel or trying to create the right emotion for the occasion.

21. Putting it all together: Emotion and Gender • Physiology and intensity • Sensitivity to other people’s emotions • Cognitions • Expressiveness • Factors which affect expressiveness • Emotion work

22. Putting the Elements Together: Emotion and Gender • Physiology and intensity • Women recall emotional events more intensely and vividly than do men. • Men experience emotional events more intensely than do women. • Conflict is physiologically more upsetting for men than women.

23. Possible reasons for differences in physiology and intensity. • Males autonomic nervous system is more reactive than females. • Men are more likely to rehearse angry thoughts which maintains anger. • Women are more likely to ruminate which maintains depression.

24. Sensitivity to Other People’s Emotions • Factors which influence one’s ability to “read” emotional signals: • The sex of the sender and receiver. • How well the sender and receiver know each other. • How expressive the sender is. • Who has the power. • Stereotypes and expectations.

25. Cognitions • Men and women appear to differ in the types of every day events that provoke their anger. • Women become angry over issues related to their partners disregard. • Men become angry over damage to property or problems with strangers.

26. Expressiveness • In North America women: • Smile more than men. • Gaze at listeners more. • Have more emotionally expressive faces. • Use more expressive body movements. • Touch others more. • Acknowledge weakness and emotions more. • Compared to women, men only express anger to strangers more.

27. Factors Influencing Emotional Expressiveness • Gender roles • Cultural norms • The specific situation

28. Emotion Work and Gender • Women work hard at appearing warm, happy and making sure others are happy. • Men work hard at persuading others they are stern, aggressive and unemotional. • Why? • Gender roles and status.