1. PSYC 1000 Lecture 44

2. Emotion –Response of whole organism to pleasant and aversive events of different types Happiness, Sadness, Fear, Anger, … –Three elements Physiological arousal Expressive behaviors Conscious experience –Fit together in complex ways to determine experience of emotion

3. Theories of Emotion What is relationship between mental and physical aspects of emotion? –e.g., Does your heart pound because you are afraid... or are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding? Competing Theories –James-Lange theory –Cannon-Bard theory –Schachter’s two-factor theory –Robert Zajonc’s theory –Richard Lazarus’s theory

4. James- Lange Theory of Emotion Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli –Stimulus  Arousal  Emotion

5. Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: Physiological responses AND Subjective experience of emotion  Arousal –Stimulus   Emotion

6. Schachter’s Two Factor Theory Cognition and Emotion –Experience of emotion involves: Physical arousal + Cognitive label –Schacter-Singer study (later)  Arousal  Stimulus  Emotion  Cognition 

8. Physiological Similarities Gross features of arousal similar in many different, strong emotions, but there are subtle differences in physiological response (and marked differences in psychological experience) –Similar physiological reactions to Fear, Anger, Sexual Arousal –Fear and Joy: Both increase heart-rate

9. Physiological Differences Physical responses, like finger temperature and movement of facial muscles, change during Fear, Rage, and Joy. –Facial muscles: fear  brow, joy  cheek / eye Amygdala shows differences in activation during emotions of Anger and Rage. Brain and Positive vs. Negative emotions –Frontal lobe: Left (positive) vs. Right (negative)

10. Cognition and Emotion Two routes to emotional reaction –Slower, thinking response (right, Schacter & Singer) –Speedy (shortcut) non-cognitive route (left)

11. Cognition can define emotion: Classic Schacter & Singer Study (6 conditions shown below) Adrenaline/InformedCue / Epinephrineof Effects?Model No-Euphoria1. No-Rage2. YesYesEuphoria3. YesYesRage4. YesNoEuphoria*5. YesNoRage*6. Only last 2 groups (*) reported higher levels of the cued emotions: Epin/Adren produced arousal, and being uninformed, arousal was attributed to situation

12. Two Routes to Emotion

13. Culture and Emotion Are various aspects of emotions universal or culture-specific? –Darwin found similarities across cultures and thought emotional expression innate: expressed in infants (above from his book “Emotions in Man and Animals”) and even across species

15. Culture and Emotion Overall, many similarities across cultures in experience, labelling, interpreting, and expressing emotions –e.g., Expression of certain basic emotions claimed to be universal by Ekman and others –Expression of disgust by people from different cultures, of different ages and genders –Expression of various emotions

16. Expression / Perception of Disgust

17. Expressing Emotion Culturally universal expressions

18. Culture and Emotion But there are also some differences across cultures in certain facets of emotion –Descendents of Irish more expressive than descendents of Scandinavians –Display rules Implicit rules about contexts in which appropriate to display different emotions Individualist Cultures (e.g., Canada, UK, …) –EXPRESS negative emotions to in-group members –SUPPRESS to out-group members Collectivist Cultures (e.g., Greece, India, …) –SUPPRESS negative emotions to in-group members –EXPRESS to out-group members Why these differences?

19. Effects of Facial Expressions: Facial Feedback Hypothesis Facial expressions not only reflect our emotions; they also contribute to emotional experience –Manipulate people’s expressions (e.g., hold pen in mouth to create “smile”) intensifies emotion (e.g., how funny cartoons are) –Expressions play causal role, along with Physiology and Cognition

20. Functions of Emotion 1)Motivation and attention –Emotions arouse you to take action and sustain behaviours towards goals –Emotion focuses attention which can improve memory Focus on pertinent aspects of the situation (e.g. when afraid focus on danger) 2)Social functions –Regulate social interactions (glue v. repellent), and engage in prosocial behaviour Sad people most polite – makes sense if there is a common circumstance to a social group that is upsetting. 3)Emotional effects on cognitive functioning –Gordon Bower – emotion is linked to contexts of events –Mood-congruent processing & mood-dependent memory Happy people recollect happy memories and sad people recollect sad memories Same principle as state-dependent learning that was discussed.

21. Arousal and Performance Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks Easy tasks

22. Next Class Stress