Emotion

1
Emotion

• Psychology 1107

2
Introduction

• Emotions are a mix of
• Physiological arousal of some sort
• Behaviour
• Experience

3
Physiology of emotion

• Extra sugar is made available for energy
• Breathe faster
• Slowed digestion
• Pupils dilate
• Sweat
• Autonomic nervous system kicks in
• epinephrine
• norepinephrine

4
The Yerkes Dodson Law

• Too much arousal is not good
• Too little arousal is not good
• Somewhere in the middle is what you want
• True for most tasks
• Overlearned tasks, the more arousal the better

5
Emotions are a riddle

• It is hard to pick out who is angry, scared or
  sexually aroused by physiological reactions alone
• They feel different though
• Different brain regions light up
• Polygraphs work only on this stuff so it is hard
  to tell if people are guilty, or just generally
  aroused

6
Noverbal communication and emotion

• Kellerman, Lewis and Laird (1989)
• Body language affects emotions
• Women tend to be better than men at detecting
  emotion
• Women express happiness more easily
• Men express anger more easily

7
Body language

• Liars make fewer pauses, more gestures
• There are cultural differences of course
• Personal space
• Gestures
• Nixons famous gaffe
• Facial expressions though seem to be culturally
  independent

8
Facial expressions

• Fear, anger happiness, disgust, surprise are the
  same everywhere
• There is probably an evolutionary basis to this,
  indeed, chimps make expressions that are universal

9
Facial expressions and emotion

• Oddly enough, our emotions can also feed off the
  expressions we are making (Duclas et al, 1989)
• Forced people to smile
• Felt happier
• Ekmans work with actors

10
Experiencing emotion

• Emotions seem to have a few dimensions to them
• Pleasant vs. unpleasant
• Arousal vs. sleepy
• Long vs. short
• Izzard (1977) said there are 10 emotions
• Joy, excitement, surprise, sadness, guilt, anger,
  disgust, contempt, fear, shame
• Said that other emotions are just combinations

11
Fear

• Pretty adaptive, fight or flight
• Learn to fear objects etc
• Observation too
• Nobody fears houses
• Amygdala may be key
• Genetic effects too

12
Anger

• Both others willful acts, and plain ol
  annoyances can make us angry
• Seems maladaptive, but it often leads to a
  solution
• Should you vent?
• Catharsis
• Usually does not work
• Leads to more rage
• Calm down!
• Vent not through anger, but through exercise etc

13
Happiness

• Happy people have better lives than non happy
  people
• Wonder what the direction is though
• Even after bad stuff, happiness levels do not
  seem to change
• It is all relative of course
• We adapt to our lot in life

14
Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange theory
• Emotions come from physiological arousal
• Happiness comes from smiling
• Sadness comes from crying

Perceived Event
Physiological And Behavioural response
Emotional Experience
15
Cannon-Baird Theory
Physiological And Behavioural response

• Emotion originates in the thalamus
• Physiological and psychological systems activated
  simultaneously

Perceived Event
Emotional Experience
16
Schacter Two Factor

• Physiological arousal and cognitive label happen
• Both of which are required for an emotional
  experience

Physiological Arousal
Emotional Experience
Cognitive Label