Emotion

Announcement

• Thought paper #3 will be posted on website before break.

Emotion

• Why do we have emotions?
• Reproduction (e.g., lust, love)
• Self-protection (e.g., anger & fear)
• Social structure (e.g., love, liking)
• Three major elements:
• Physiological
• Cognitive
• Cultural

Physiological

• Common Sense View
• Event -> Emotion -> Physiological response
• James-Lange Theory
• Event -> Physiological response -> Emotion
• "We feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble (W. James, 1884)."

 

The Face of Emotion

• Six basic facial expressions: anger, happiness, fear, surprise, disgust, and sadness.
• Recognized across cultures with high reliability.
• Consensus highest for happiness, lowest for fear.
• Some context dependence.
• Probably used for communication, both to others and to ourselves.

Emotion & The Brain

• Amygdala
• Evaluates sensory information for emotional importance; approach vs. avoid assessment.
• Damage causes emotional abnormalities.
• Cerebral Cortex
• "Rational" appraisal
• Some hemispheric specialization
• RH: Recognition of emotional expression

Energy of Emotion

• Medulla releases epinephrine & norepinephrine
• Leads to state of arousal, the sine qua non of emotion.
• General vs. specific arousal?

Can lies be detected?

• Even very experienced professionals are no better than chance at detecting whether someone is lying.
• Problem with lie detectors:
• No physiological patterns of responses are specific to lying.
• Interpretation is unreliable
• More likely to accuse the innocent than to release the guilty

Cognitive

• Two-factor Theory of Emotion
• Event -> Physiological response -> Cognitive interpretation -> Emotion
• Emotions may be more closely associated with explanations than with outcomes
• Good vs. bad performance on exams
• Olympic medallists

Loneliness & Depression

• Who are the loneliest people in the US according to surveys?
• Three aspects of cognition are important in loneliness & depression:
• Internality: Internal vs. external causes?
• Stability: Permanent vs. temporary?
• Control: Out of control vs. in control?

Loneliness & Depression

• Depressed or anxious people can learn how thinking affects emotions and change their thinking accordingly.
• Gillham et al. (1995)
• 69 5th & 6th grade children at risk for depression.
• Prevention group was taught to identify pessimistic beliefs; to examine evidence for and against beliefs; to generate more realistic alternatives. Control group received no training.

"Inoculation" Against Depression

The Culture

• Primary-Secondary Emotions
• Primary are experienced universally
  • fear, anger, sadness, happiness, surprise, disgust, & contempt
• Secondary are culture specific
  • German: schadenfreude (joy at another's misfortune)
  • Japanese: ijirashii (the feeling associated with an admirable person overcoming an obstacle)
  • Czech: litost ("a state of torment caused by the sudden insight into one's own miserable self," Kundera)

The Culture

• Primary emotions
• Physiological patterns
• Facial expressions
• Prototypes in language
• Tend to be evoked by the same situations across cultures

The Culture

• But do primary emotions exist?
• Why surprise, disgust, & contempt but not love, shame, & guilt?
• What is a basic emotion?
  • anger in U.S.
  • fago in Ifaluk, Micronesia ("sad feeling one has when a loved one is absent or in need, and the pleasure in being able to care and help")

The Culture

• Communication of emotion
• Display rules
• Emotion work
  • Hiding emotions we feel, and showing emotions we do not feel.
• Vocal communication of emotion
  • Laughter (Bachorowksi & Owren)
  • Voiced, song-like laughs preferred to unvoiced grunts, pants, and snorts.
  • Females who grunted, panted, and snorted were particularly disliked.

Emotion & Gender

• No differences in experience of emotion.
• Which sex is more physiologically reactive? Men.
• Male's autonomic nervous system may be more reactive.
• Men may rehearse negative thoughts more.

Emotion & Gender

• Display rules
• Women express and talk about feelings more.
• Men express only one emotion more than women: Anger.
  • Consequence: Men may be underdiagnosed for depression.
• Emotion Work
• Women: "flight attendants"
• Men: "bill collectors"

Summary

• Emotions have three elements: Physiological, cognitive, & cultural.
• A relatively small number of emotions seem to be common to all cultures.
• The experience of emotion is affected by cognition and culture.