Emotions Emotions – full body responses involve Physiological arousal Expressive behaviors Conscious experience Humans are most emotional of ALL animals TWO BIG QUESTIONS Does physiological arousal precede emotional experience or does physiological arousal follow emotional experience? Does cognition precede emotion?

Why We Have Emotions Emotions are the result of genetics and learning, especially early in life. Emotions serve as arousal states that help organisms cope with important recurring situations. Learned emotional responses, along and genetics are both important components of many psychological disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders and phobias.

Origins of Emotions The biggest breakthrough in the study of emotions was the discovery of two distinct emotional pathways in the brain. One of the pathways is fast, and operates mainly at an unconscious level where it screens incoming stimuli and helps us respond quickly to stimuli even before they reach consciousness. These cues seem to have a built-in, innate sensitivity to certain cues-explains why we have more fears of spiders, heights and lightening than cars or electricity. The other pathway is much slower and linked to explicit memory. While it generates emotions more slowly, it delivers more complex information to our consciousness. This system relies heavily on the cerebral cortex, which is why we can feel fear, despite knowing there is no real basis for that feeling.

Lateralization of Emotion Different parts of our brain deal with different emotions. In the cerebral cortex, the right hemisphere generally specializes in negative emotions and the left hemisphere generally processes more positive and joyful emotions. The idea that each hemisphere specializes in different classes of emotion has been called lateralization of emotion.

Neuroscience of Emotion More mechanisms at work: The Autonomic Nervous System Sympathetic division “Fight” or Flight Response Becomes active when startled by an unpleasant emotion Parasympathetic division Dominates pleasant emotions Hormones Serotonin (sadness) Epinephrine (fear) Norepinephrine (anger) Emotions & The Brain

Linking Emotions and Expressive Behaviors: Facial Feedback The facial feedback effect: facial position and muscle changes can alter which emotion we feel. In one study, people whose faces were moved into smiling or frowning positions experienced a change in mood. Fake a relaxed smile, and you might feel better! It’s not just about faces. In one experiment, extending a 1) middle finger or 2) thumb while reading led to seeing characters with 1) hostility or 2) positive attitude. Click to reveal bullets. Instructor: here are some introductory comments before the bullets appear. We seem biologically ready for emotional experience (sadness) to trigger a related facial expression (drooping eyes, frown). How connected are these feelings and expressive behaviors? Does the connection work in the other direction? Will frowning make me sad? (The images from the book have labels removed. You can remind students of the bandages/rubber band placement.) Exercise you can do with students: with a box of straws, have students alternately 1) hold the end of the straw pursed in their lips only, head tipped down, and 2) hold the straw sideways in their mouths, in gritted teeth, pushed back so that lips are stretched and pushed back, head held back. In each case, ask them to think about a person 1) who lives in the room/house next door, and 2) who lives across the hall/street. Take a poll to see if people felt more negatively about 2) and more positively about 1). About the man at the top feeling happier, you can ask your students: was this because of the facial feedback effect, or because the guy at the bottom was more uncomfortable?   The guy at the top, though forced into a smiling position, ended up feeling happier than the other guy.