Emotions, Stress, and Health

Emotions I. Measuring Emotions A. Self-Reports: are fast and easy but may have questionable accuracy. B. Behavioral Observations: especially of facial expressions are useful. 1) Micro-expressions: brief and involuntary expressions of emotion (like fear and anger) can be very revealing. C. Physiological Measures: use autonomic nervous activity like perspiration and heart rate.

II. Theories of Emotions A. James-Lange Theory: a person’s interpretation of a stimulus evokes the autonomic changes directly. The psychological experience of emotion is the individual’s perception of those physiological changes. B. Schachter and Singer Theory: the intensity of the physiological reaction determines only the intensity of the emotion, not the type of emotion. It is a person’s cognitive appraisal of the situation that determines the emotion that we experience.

III. The Range of Emotions A. Basic Emotions Should… 1) emerge early in life without requiring a great deal of experience. 2) be found across cultures. 3) have a unique biological basis and distinct facial expression. B. Producing Facial Expressions... 1) Voluntary Smile: only utilizes the mouth muscles. 2) Duchenne Smile: involves the eye muscles along with the mouth muscles.

C. Six Basic Emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, & surprise.

IV. Emotions and Decision-Making A. Are emotions a good or bad influence on the decisions we make? 1) Phineas Gage 2) Antonio Damasio’s patient “Elliot” B. Emotional Intelligence: the ability to perceive, imagine and understand emotions and to use that information in decision-making. 1) Trolley Dilemma and Footbridge Dilemma

V. A Survey of Emotions I. Happiness A. Positive Psychology: the study of features that enrich life, such as hope, creativity, courage, spirituality, and responsibility. B. Subjective Well-Being: an individual’s assessment of the degree to which his or her life is pleasant, interesting, and satisfying. C. Keys to Happiness and Personal Fulfillment 1) Intimacy 2) Personal Growth 3) Contribution to the Community

4) Other Influences on Happiness: Inborn temperament or disposition. Being married. Having a religious faith. Being healthy. D. Adaptation-Level Phenomenon: our tendency to judge various stimuli relative to those we have previously experienced. E. Social Comparison Theory: we tend to feel happier when we compare ourselves to people less fortunate than ourselves and less happy when we compare ourselves to those more fortunate than ourselves. F. The Feel-Good, Do-Good Phenomenon: when we are happy, we are more willing to help others.

II. Sadness III. Fear and Anxiety 1) Crying may function mainly to draw attention and sympathy. 2) Interestingly, the actual shedding of tears due to sadness occurs exclusively in humans. 3) Despite the good press given to a cheerful outlook, it appears as if those who are sad or mildly depressed make better decisions than those who are happy and optimistic. III. Fear and Anxiety A. Learning Fear

B. Lie Detection 1) Polygraph: measures arousal such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and electrical conduction of the skin in reaction to a series of questions. 2) Guilty-Knowledge Test: the interrogator asks about information that would only be known to someone who had been involved in the crime. 3) Sending Capacity Hypothesis: as we attempt to control the parts of ourselves that we think would give away our lying (ex. face), we forget to monitor other parts (ex. legs, feet).

IV. Anger and Violence A. Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: frustration caused by a failure to obtain a desired or expected goal leads to aggressive behavior. The potential for aggression depends on being able to attribute the cause of the frustration to someone or something. B. Reconciliation C. Sexual Violence D. Controlling Violence

Stress and Health I. Health Psychology: examines how human behavior can improve health, prevent illness, and aid in the recovery from illness. A. Stress: the pattern of responses an organism experiences when stimuli disrupt its equilibrium or coping abilities. B. Stressor: an internal or external event or stimulus that induces stress. C. Acute Stress: a temporary state of arousal with typically clear onset and offset patterns. D. Chronic Stress: a continuous state of arousal in which an individual perceives demands as greater than the inner and outer resources available for dealing with them.

E. The General Adaptation Syndrome… 1) Alarm: a brief period of high arousal of the sympathetic nervous system, which readies the body for vigorous activity. 2) Resistance: if the stressor goes on for longer than a few minutes, the body enters a phase of prolonged but moderate arousal. 3) Exhaustion: intense and long-lasting stress causes a depletion of proteins in the immune system that can lead to illness, fatigue, weakness, and possibly death. F. Allostasis: the ability to adapt to stress. G. Allostatic Overload: excessive stress resulting in psychological and / or physiological damage. H. Occupational Burnout: emotional exhaustion and a sense that one can no longer accomplish anything related to one’s job.

II. Measuring Stress A. Resources Relative to Magnitude of Threat Model of Stress and Activity: the relationship between a stressor(s) and resources; an unhealthy level of stress occurs when the stressful situation is one that a person regards as threatening and possibly exceeding his or her resources.

III. Handling Stress A. Problem-Focused Coping (Monitoring): people attend carefully to the stressful event and try to take effective action. B. Emotion-Focused Coping (Blunting): people try to weaken their emotional reaction to a stressful event through relaxation, exercise, and / or distraction.

IV. Stress and Illness A. Psychosomatic Illness: an illness that is influenced by someone’s experiences, particularly stressful experiences, or by his or her reactions to those experiences. B. Procrastination and Stress… Time of Semester Early Late College students that procrastinate, report significantly more symptoms of physical illness by the end of a semester than do those who do not procrastinate. 1 8 3 5 Procrastinators Nonprocrastinators C. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): a prolonged period of anxiety and depression following the experience of an extremely stressful event.

V. Positive Effects of Stress D. Type A Personality: describes a highly competitive, impatient, hurried person who typically has an angry and hostile temperament. E. Type B Personality: designates those who are easygoing, less hurried, and less hostile. F. Type C Personality??? the quiet worrier. V. Positive Effects of Stress A. Distress vs. Eustress… B. Posttraumatic Growth: positive psychological change in response to serious illnesses, accidents, natural disasters and other traumatic events.

C. Social Hindrance vs. Social Facilitation… 1) Social Hindrance: an individual’s tendency to perform worse on a difficult task or a task that is not well learned when in the presence of other people than when performing that task alone. 2) Social Facilitation: an individual’s tendency to perform better on an easy task or well learned task when in the presence of other people than when performing that task alone. Social Facilitation Social Hindrance