Emotion

Outline 1. Emotions and decision making 2. Emotional expression 3. Health benefits of emotional expression

Characterizing Emotion Definitional issues Emotions - multi-component, brief, specific responses to challenges or opportunities that are important to the individual’s goals Emotions are nature’s way to trigger in us a useful behavioural response accompanied with an internal embodied experience to a given situation Construal/appraisal Ex: bear fearescape

Circumplex Model of Emotion POSITIVE NEGATIVE LOW AROUSAL HIGH AROUSAL Serene Excited Sad Furious Happy Elated Irritated Embarrassment

Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns  Emotions can malfunction when:  What was functional response in ancestral environment is no longer functional

Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns  Emotions can malfunction when:  Hair-triggering of emotions. Negative emotions sometimes loose their specificity

Mental Disorders: The Big Picture According to the World Health Org (UN): 15% of the world’s burden of illness is mental illness If we include the mental illness component of physical illness, % is even higher—up to 50% More than half of world’s mentally ill are not treated Stigma attached to mental illness Most mental illnesses are treatable

Mental Disorders: The Big Picture According to the World Health Org (UN), the breakdown of mental illnesses are: Unipolar major depression 45% Suicide15% Schizophrenia13% Bipolar disorder11% Obsessive compulsive dis.10% Panic disorder5% Other mental disorders1% Total100%

Are emotions rational? o Gut feelings--The “somatic marker” hypothesis o Bechara et al Iowa card game study o People have feelings that precede their conscious awareness or reasoning o Damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex impairs ability to produce this gut feeling o Descartes’ error (Damasio)—that thinking (mind) is independent of feeling (body)

Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns  Amygdala:  Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex:

Embodied Cognition  Studies show that our bodily experiences affect our thinking (Barsalou)  Nodding vs. shaking head while listening to a persuasive message  Arm flexion (approach) vs arm extension (avoidance) – liking of unrelated novel stimuli

Emotions and Moral Judgments  Emotions affect our moral judgments  Inconsistent with rationalist theories: deontology or consequentialism

Emotions and Moral Judgments  Schnall, Haidt, & Jordan, 2008  Disgust as a moral emotion Moral Judgment: Sex between cousins, releasing morally controversial film, etc.

Emotions and Moral Judgments  Schnall, Haidt, & Jordan, 2008  Disgust as a moral emotion Clean, neat desk OR

Expression and Recognition of Emotions Basic emotions: Cross cultural research: Exist in all languages Recognized across cultures Facial expressions of blind and normally sighted children

Expression and Recognition of Emotions Important cultural variation in: The cultural importance of an emotion (frequency, intensity, number of words) Construal of emotional situations (meaning) Ex: funny vs. insulting Display rules of when/how to express emotions Ex: Matsumoto & Ekman (1989) study

Expression and Recognition of Emotions Important cultural variation in (cont’d) Attentiveness to emotional cues Ishii and colleagues emotional stroop task Complex emotions culturally created Ex: Humiliation (shame + anger) Culture-specific emotions: mamihlapinatapei, amae, honor

Health Benefits of Emotional Expression Is expressing emotions good for you? Studies by Jamie Pennebaker and others: randomly assign ppts to two conditions: 1) “In the next 5 days, write about your deepest thoughts and feelings about an extremely emotional issue that has affected you and your life...” People write about lost loves, deaths of loved ones, tragic failures, sexual and physical abuse

Health Benefits of Emotional Expression 2) Writing about superficial topics (their plans for the day) (Control condition) Studies with college students, the unemployed, new mothers, prisoners, spouses of victims

Health Benefits of Emotional Expression Immediately after: more distress Long term benefits: Writing over longer periods, stronger results Comparable effect across gender, age group, educational level, writing vs. talking

Health Benefits of Emotional Expression Possible explanations: Expression removes the need for suppression Confiding is cathartic, no need to hide Meaning making: most health benefits when

Health Benefits of Emotional Expression Explains some of the positive benefits of

Summary Def. and classification of emotions Emotions as adaptive responses When emotions become dysfunctional Universality and cultural variability of emotions Health benefits of emotional expression