PSYC18 - Psychology of Emotion

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PSYC18 - Psychology of Emotion Lecture 3
Professor Gerald Cupchik cupchik_at_utsc.utoronto.ca
S-634 Office Hours Thurs. 10-11, 2-3
T.A. Michelle Hilscher hilscher_at_utsc.utoronto.ca
S-150 Office Hours Thurs. 10-11, 2-3
Course Website www.utsc.utoronto.ca/cupchik
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TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE TWO INTELLECTUAL
TRADITIONS We have been talking about two images
of people who emphasize either THINKING or
FEELING. (1) Thinkers as problem solvers who
face challenges and address needs. (2)
Emotionally-oriented people who experience life
in depth. Of course people reflect a balance
between the two modes of being-in-the-world. But
some people tend to express more of one style
than the other.
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This distinction can be traced back to two
important intellectual traditions from the late
1700s. It is essential to realize that current
ideas in psychology are reflections of ideas
started 300 years ago!!!
THE ENLIGHTENMENT ROOTS OF ACTION THEORY Youve
got to take action! There was great action in
the game last night! He was a man of action.
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ENGLAND IN THE 1700s Transition from Feudal and
Christian societies to modern secular
society The emerging modern society in 18th
century Britain was based on free wage labour and
capital, the ubiquity of commercial and
contractual relationships, the principle of
representative government, individual enterprise,
and scientific rationality. This account of the
privatization of action focused on the
contingency between preferences and actions to
maximize benefits that were available to males of
the propertied classes. Determinism and
Rationality were salient themes during the
Newtonian period.
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In emotion we find a transition from PASSIONS
as signs and symptoms of a disobedient fallen
soul TO AFFECTIONS as enlightened movements of
the rational will. A distinction was drawn
between violent passions which affected a person
directly through either internal or external
sensation, and calm, cool, or gentle passions or
interests which formed gradually through
reflection on the outcomes of past actions. The
reflection could be accompanied by the experience
of pain or pleasure, indicators of relative
success or failure of their actions. The
transformation of passion into calm desires could
serve as a motive to guide behaviour.
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Calm desires follow Natural Laws and the good
or evil consequent to action can be quantified
and therefore subject to calculation. The will
then provides a means for transferring these
mental calculations into motor activity. Individu
als were described as acting in a calculating
manner based on cool desires and the resulting
feelings of pain or pleasure provide feedback as
to the success or failure of their
efforts. Philosophers described people as agents
who deliberate regarding the potential outcomes
of actions which are performed for reasons.
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John Locke addressed the problem of identity and
the experience of a continuous self. The
critical point is that individuals are described
as acting in a calculating manner based on cool
desires and the resulting feelings of pain or
pleasure provide feedback as to the success or
failure of their efforts.
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INTRODUCING THE WORD EMOTION Samuel Johnson
(1755) defined emotion as a disturbance of
mind vehemence of passion, pleasing or painful.
The introduction of the word emotion into
common use, replacing the word passions, can be
understood as part of the process of
secularization. The philosopher David Hume made
frequent use of the new word emotion which had
been derived from the word motion, describing
social or physical agitation and, by analogy,
mental agitation or excitement. The distinction
between motive and an emotion became prominent
and replaced the old contrast between reason and
passions.
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AESTHETIC REACTIONS (1) Disinterest - disregard
utility of the object. (2) Unity-in-Diversity Acco
rding to the British Taste Theorists (like
Hutcheson) - The sense of taste was a function of
a practiced eye and therefore experience could
facilitate aesthetic judgment.
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The Enlightenment stressed manipulating an
audiences imagination and emotions by selecting
subject matter that represented universally
shared natural and social worlds. No
assumptions were made about the need for
recipients to possess specialized knowledge in
order to appreciate the work. Images should be
guided by strict mimesis, the controlled
imitation of nature.
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The goal of art was to create an illusionist
style of representation in which the natural
world, governed by laws of causality, could be
faithfully and immediately apprehended by the
senses in a single glance.
According to Richard Payne Knight (1786), theatre
is a kind of passive response. French
neoclassicism emphasized the importance of the
three unities of time, place, and action in
determining dramatic illusion and the evocative
power of a play.
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ROMANTICISM AND EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION - Leibniz
and Continuity of Consciousness - From
Apperception to Minute Perceptions. - The higher
you go up the layers, the clearer your ideas. -
The lower you go down the layers, the more vague
your ideas. English emphasized
vividness. Germans emphasized the mind is
unified. It is both subject matter and structure.
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STRESS THE UNIFIED SOUL... A HARMONY OF SUBJECT
MATTER AND FORM. REDINTEGRATION ONE PART OF A
MEMORY ELICITS THE WHOLE...
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AESTHETIC REACTIONS Johann Elias Schlegel
(1719-1749) He was against any conception of
drama which emphasized its ability to trick the
spectator through the senses and emotion into
believing that the event on the stage is
real. Theatre reflects the social realities and
historical traditions of its audience but at the
same time can enhance social awareness. By
selecting critical moments in life and expressing
them in carefully fashioned dialogue, the
playwright exposes the hidden workings of a
characters mind. The author can provide motives
to account for actions as they unfold in a play
to a greater degree than is available in daily
life. The unity of action is more important
than the unities of time and place. In short,
by providing a meaningful context to account for
action, the author brings coherence and
meaningfulness to the audiences experience.
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August Wilhelm Schlegel ( 1767-1845) Schlegel
described the ways that illusion is shaped by
events on the theatrical stage. He countered the
Neoclassical principle that powerful dramatic
illusion was created by the unity of time, place,
and action, treating it as a waking dream, to
which we voluntarily surrender ourselves. Schleg
el proposed the very modern idea that reality and
illusion actually coexist. The reality of the
dramatic dialogue is that the text is written
the illusion is that dramatic dialogue is spoken
spontaneously.
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Samuel
Taylor Coleridge placed a greater emphasis on the
role of will in adopting an aesthetic attitude.
He described aesthetic illusion as the product of
a willing suspension of disbelief for the moment
which constitutes poetic faith. Coleridge
objected to mechanistic models proposed by
associationists like Knight because they treated
the mind as passive. Instead, he emphasized the
logic of the imagination rather than the
reception of sensation. Imagination provides a
basis for the fluid continuity of conscious
experience. The antipathy that Romantic scholars
felt toward mimesis was reflected in Coleridges
treatment of the distinction between copy and
imitation. While a copy merely mirrors and
reproduces, an imitation reveals the conscious
artistry involved.
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The copy is a mere replica of the real,
reflecting the accidents of the moment. In
imitation, imagination creates an ideal, through
a combination of a certain degree of
dissimilitude with a certain degree of
similitude. Thus, Shakespeare did not merely
copy a character, but rather developed a
character by imitating the psychological
veracities discovered through meditation.
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACTION THEORY THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL SIDE OF ADAPTATION According to
ACTION THEORY philosophers, people are agents who
deliberate regarding potential outcomes of
actions which are performed for
reasons. According to ACTION THEORY, people have
goals, needs and concerns which prompt them to
initiate action, and emotion arises when the
process is either completed or interrupted. Emoti
on is functional because it can facilitate the
process of adaptation. BUT an excess of emotion
can interfere with it.
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• THREE THEMES OF ACTION THEORY
• Autonomous self as agent of action
• The role of will and choice
• (2) Central cortical (versus peripheral visceral)
• Determinants of emotional processes
• (3) Facilitative effects of emotional energy
• on direction and execution
• of adaptive behaviour

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• THREE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
• (Roughly 100 years each)
• Enlightenment 1720-1820
• Emphasis on individuals as agents purposive
  action
• (2) Nineteenth Century 1820-1920
• The emergence of psychophysiology
• Darwin adaptation to environmental challenges
• Role of mental energy centred in the purposeful
  brain
• (3) Twentieth Century 1920-Present
• Behavioural/Cognitive stage

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19TH CENTURY THE EMERGENCE OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(1820-1920) Involuntary versus Voluntary
actions Concrete metaphor of mechanical action
INVOLUNTARY Philosopher Rene Descartes
(1596-1650) Involuntary reflex action Scottish
physiologist Robert Whytt (1768) the sight, or
even the recalled idea of grateful food causes
the saliva to flow into the mouth of a
hungry person and the seeing of a lemon cut
produces the same effect in many people
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VOLUNTARY Mental Energy Metaphor of
transforming heat into mechanical
energy INVOLUNTARY VOLUNTARY EXCITATION
versus INHIBITION
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1830s and 1840s Rigid distinction between
reflex functioning of the spinal cord and brain
stem and a different mode of functioning assigned
to the cerebral hemispheres as the seat of the
mind. Mid-Century Thomas Laycock and later
William Carpenter applied the reflex function to
higher mental activities. They stressed a unified
nervous system which controlled all action and
was governed by fundamental principles of reflex
action.
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THOMAS LAYCOCK (1855)
The fundamental principles of reflex action are
these That there is an apparatus so contrived as
to place the individual in relation with the
external world so they may receive impressions
from it in such a way that, whatever in the world
is good for the organism is sought after and
secured, if possible and whatever is injurious
is avoided or repelled, if possible secured or
repelled automatically and mechanically without
the intervention of any sensation, feeling,
thought, volition, or act of conscious mind
whatever. Reflex Action (1) Mediates between
the organism environment (2) Functions
according to a principle of self-preservation AND
IS (3) Automatic
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HENRY MAUDSLEY (1834-1918)
Specific action tendencies are part of human
behaviour. Acts of thought or of voluntary
attention always involve a motor component,
although that component might only be incipient.
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WILLIAM CARPENTER (1852)

• Distinguished between
• An automatic level of reflex sensorimotor
  functioning
• AND
• (2) A self-determined level of intelligent
  voluntary action
• There can be automatic (i.e., involuntary)
  actions
• mediated at the cerebral level. According to this
  notion
• of ideomotor action ideas can produce automatic
• movements.

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ALEXANDER BAIN (1855 and 1859)
A store of nervous energy transformed from
nutrition into action. While the energy
attributed by physiologists to the body was
purely physical, mental activity could channel
this energy into productive action.
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CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882)
One of the GREAT PARADIGM CHANGES THE ORIGIN OF
SPECIES (1859) - Contradicted the view of
special creation Problem was becoming
acute geographical exploration multiplied the
number of species too many for Noah to have
crowded a pair of each into the ark!
every living thing after his kind - related to
the biblical account of the creation of animal
life and its preservation in Noahs ark during
the deluge.
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GOETHE (1749-1832) German poet and
scientist Argued for the metamorphosis of parts
(1790) in plants for example double flower
from a single flower. ERASMUS DARWIN
(1721-1802) Charles Darwins grandfather Independe
ntly figured out the idea about transmutation of
species but he wrote rhymes about it which did
not have scientific value. LAMARK
(1744-1829) Lamarkians believe in inheritance of
acquired characteristics the modification of
animal form through effort and inheritance.
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• Darwin was directly influenced by
• Malthus theory of limitation of population by
  natural conditions
• (2) Lyells principles of geology the past is
  interpreted in terms of orderly changes in the
  earth not cataclysmic changes which swept all
  life forms away and replaced them with improved
  versions.

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• Continuing with Charles Darwin
• Evolutionary origin of the species through
• Inheritable variation
• occurring spontaneously or by chance
• (2) Natural selection
• a struggle for existence in which all animals
  engage
• His theory challenged the authority of Genesis
  regarding
• special creation (1) inheriting his/her body
  from
• animal ancestors, but is there also (2)
  continuity with respect
• to the mind?

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THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTION IN MAN ANIMALS (1872)
According to Knight Dunlap (1922), Darwins book
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
(1872) provided the impetus to develop the
theory of the emotions as organic processes and
the hypothesis of reaction or response as the
basis of all mental life.
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THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTION IN MAN ANIMALS (1872)
Darwin expressed many ideas current among the
leading psycho- physiologists of the 19th
century reflex action, automaticity of mental
response, nervous energy, and so on BUT he
added an evolutionary twist which rendered
expressive behaviour almost accidental. This
evolutionary perspective led scholars to frame
the process of adaptation in evolutionary terms.
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The combination of purpose, mental reflex action
and nervous energy assume a prominent role in
Darwins three main principles of emotion, which
are generally associated with expressive
behaviour.
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(1) The principle of serviceable associated
habits Certain complex actionsunder certain
states of mindrelieve or gratify certain
sensations, desires, etc. and whenever the same
state of mind is induced, however feebly, there
is a tendency through the force of habit and
association for the same movements to be
performed, though they may not be of the least
use. Today ethnologists call these
intention movement (Tinbergen), which signal
readiness to engage in more complex behaviour of
which this is just a part.
This principle is generally related to expressive
actions which served a purpose in one context
(e.g., cats pulling their ears back to avoid
injury when in conflict), but serve merely as
signs of impending action in another (e.g., ears
pulled back as a preparatory act serving to
signal impending danger to another cat which then
chooses to back off.)
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Facial expression of disgust originates from a
childs spitting up aversive food and is now
associated with anything that is metaphorically
disgusting.
Darwin traced emotional expressions to underlying
action patterns. He did not think they evolved to
communicate emotions. The expressive quality
is just an accident!! This relates to G.
Allport functional autonomy.
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(2) The principle of antithesis When a directly
opposite state of mind is induced, there is a
strong and involuntary tendency to the
performance of movements of a directly opposite
nature, though these are of no use. This
is a purely mechanical relationship. This
principle anticipates the complementarities which
where to become familiar 100 years later in
relation to the sadomasochistic personality
style and the manic-depressive disorder.
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(3) The principle of direct action of the nervous
system
When a sensorium is strongly excited, nerve
force is generated in excess, and is transmitted
in definite directions and this we recognize
as expressive. This explains bodily movements
with little functional value such as trembling of
muscles, cries of pain, screams of rage. These
are energy overflows expended in intense
sensation, active thought, violent movements and
increased glandular activity.
So relief we feel while weeping is related to
the level of activity in the nervous system that
we experience while suffering.
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THE HOMEOSTATIC PRINCIPLE
More intense agony leads to a more intense effort
by the nervous system, and therefore the more
relief we feel when the effort has subsided.