Types of Emotion & How we Express It

Key Emotions Emotions are universal among humans, and just about every language has a word (or several) for them. We are going to look at four of the most common emotions: Fear, Anger, Happiness, and Empathy.

Fear Fear is an adaptive response signaling danger and need for defense (fight or flight). Sudden novel or intense stimuli can elicit fear in organisms without prior learning (lightning and thunder, other loud sounds) Fear can also be conditioned classically (bit by a spider as a child, fear spiders) observationally (adopt our parents’ and friends’ fears) Through evolution, it’s possible to acquire persistent, specific fears (snakes, heights, anger, not cars or guns)

Anger Anger, or wrath, is an intense emotional response that causes strong discomfort towards a perceived provocation, hurt or threat. Elicitors (causes) of anger can include extreme temperatures, pain, frustration, or perceived injustices. People who are prone to anger show a bias towards interpreting ambiguous situations as hostile ones. This can be environmental: Those used to a hostile environment may perceive hostility where there is none. People with hostile attitudes are more prone to heart disease. Reducing hostility reduces heart problems

Happiness Happiness is an emotional state of well-being, ranging from contentment to intense joy. There are two different “principles” that affect happiness. The adaptation-level principle states that people adapt to a certain level of happiness, and need something better to continue to be happy. This is like tolerance. The relative-deprivation principle is that when we compare ourselves to others, we feel we are worse off.

Some predictors of happiness include high self-esteem, close relationships, engaging work and life goals, religious faith, sleeping well, and exercise. Individual predictors of happiness are partially heritable, and are usually stable. Money has recently been found to better correlate with happiness than previously thought, although money alone still can’t buy you happiness.

Empathy Empathy is the ability to understand and share feelings and emotions with others. Sympathy is different from Empathy. Empathy involves feeling the same emotion as others (Seeing a sad child makes you sad). Sympathy is responding to the emotions of another (seeing a sad child makes you want to help it). Individuals have varying levels of empathy, and we generally feel more empathy to members of our social group than to outsiders. Mirror Neurons are neurons that fire the same way when one observes an action as when one does an action. While generally tied into learning, they may also affect empathy.

Emotional expression & Communication Reflecting on our previous discussion, emotions serve several social functions. When it comes to social contact, they can communicate to others one’s emotional state and intentions, regulate social distance, and form, maintain, and terminate relationships.

Facial Expressions Facial expressions are mostly consistent across cultures for the six basic emotions (Happy, Surprise, Fear, Disgust, Anger, Sad). There are some minor variations with certain cultures, but overall it’s fairly uniform.

Social Facial Expressions Depending on the situation, we are more or less likely to physically express emotions, and to what degree. For example, a study with Spanish soccer fans showed that they smiled more and more openly when facing another soccer fan. Facial expressions in turn regulate and amplify emotion (if you smile while doing something, you are more likely to feel happy about it, even if you were falsely/unknowingly smiling)

Cultural differences Our experiences shape our expression and recognition of emotions. Due to this, some cultures are better at recognizing emotions than others. Emotional cues can also vary from culture to culture. For instance, a “thumbs up” can mean approval in the United States, but in the Middle East it was traditionally an insult, meaning something like “up yours”. (However, after cooperation with American troops in the Gulf and Iraq wars, it has been changing for some.)

How much we express ourselves, and towards what, also varies based on culture. Individualistic Cultures (focus on the individual) generally show stronger and lengthy emotional displays, and are more likely to be prideful or boastful about their accomplishments. Collectivistic Cultures (focus on the group/community) show more subtle signs of emotion (the previous comparison) and don’t begin boasting until a later age, and even then do it much less, if at all.

Development of emotional competence Emotional Competence refers to one’s ability to appropriately express or release one’s inner feelings (emotions). It includes: Emotional awareness of the self and others Mastery of emotion language (using the right words) Acquisition of display rules (culture based) Emotion regulation

Children learn to exaggerate, minimize, or mask social expressions. Examples of this include a “Duchenne” smile (authentic smile) vs a fake smile, or masking your disappointment over a disliked gift. (A Duchenne smile usually involves contraction of the eye muscles as well)

Gender Differences Girls develop emotional competency earlier than boys. Research has shown that this is due to cultural differences: parents generally speak differently to their daughters than to their sons, using a greater number and variety of emotion words with their daughters. (Big boys don’t cry, etc.)