Defining Emotions

1
Defining Emotions

• Physiological Arousal
• Behavioral components
• Cognitive components

2
The Chicken or the Egg?

• Do we think, then feel or do we feel, then think
  ?
• Brain processes
• Basic vs. Complex emotions

3
Early Theories of Emotion

• James-Lange Theory
• argues that physiological arousal precedes and
  causes emotion
• Cannon-Bard Theory
• Emotion and physiological arousal occur
  simultaneously

4
Schachters Two-Factor Theory

• Physiological Arousal Cognitive label
• Our appraisal of the emotion arousing situation
  contributes to the label we attach to the emotion

5
Role of the Brain

• Limbic System
• Amygdala
• allows emotional response to begin before full
  awareness occurs.
• Right Hemisphere
• involved in emotional expression and recognition
• Opponent-Process Theory

6
Cognition and Emotion

• The brains shortcut for emotions

7
Two Routes to Emotion
8
Opponent-Process Theory of Emotion
9
Sympathetic Nervous System

• Different emotions associated with different
  types of arousal (especially for negative
  emotions)
• Use of Polygraphs
• lying should increase physiological arousal
• Problems too easy to obtain false positives and
  false negatives.
• Guilty knowledge test

10
Emotional Arousal
11
Emotion- Lie Detectors

• Control Question
• Up to age 18, did you ever physically harm
  anyone?
• Relevant Question
• Did the deceased threaten to harm you in any way?
• Relevant gt Control --gt Lie

12
Emotion-Lie Detectors
13
Emotion-Lie Detectors

• 50 Innocents
• 50 Theives
• 1/3 of innocent declared guilty
• 1/4 of guilty declared innocent (from Kleinmuntz
  Szucko, 1984)

14
Emotion-Lie Detectors

• Is 70 accuracy good?
• Assume 5 of 1000 employees actually guilty
• test all employees
• 285 will be wrongly accused
• What about 95 accuracy?
• Assume 1 in 1000 employees actually guilty
• test all employees (including 999 innocents)
• 50 wrongly declared guilty
• 1 of 51 testing positive are guilty (2)

15
Arousal and Performance

• Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for
  difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or
  well-learned tasks

Performance level
Difficult tasks
Easy tasks
Low
Arousal
High
16
Defining Emotions

• Physiological Arousal
• Behavioral components
• Cognitive components

17
Non-Verbal Communication

• Tone of voice
• Posture
• Gestures
• strong cultural influence
• Distance
• Touch

18
Gender Differences

• Women better at decoding expressions
• Women seem to have more frequent and intense
  emotions.
• Women express empathy more often.
• Why do these differences exist?
• Socialization
• Role expectations

19
Expressing Emotion

• Gender and expressiveness

20
Facial Expressions

• Darwin
• emotions prepare us for action, signal others,
  and influence behavior.
• emotions are adaptive (enhance survival)
• Ekman
• cross-cultural studies universal emotional
  expression for the basic emotions
• facial feedback hypothesis

21
Basic Emotions

• Happiness
• Sadness
• Anger
• Fear
• Surprise
• Disgust

22
Expressing Emotion

• Culturally universal expressions

23
Defining Emotions

• Physiological Arousal
• Behavioral components
• Cognitive components

24
Fear

• Learning Fear
• The biology of Fear
• Role of the amygdala

25
Anger

• Catharsis
• emotional release
• catharsis hypothesis
• releasing aggressive energy (through action or
  fantasy) relieves aggressive urges
• Best ways of dealing with anger
• Wait
• Discuss or exercise

26
Happiness

• Feel-good, do-good phenomenon
• peoples tendency to be helpful when already in a
  good mood
• What makes us happy?

27
Experiencing Emotion

• Does money buy happiness?

28
Experiencing Emotion

• Values and life satisfaction

29
Experiencing Emotion

• Adaptation-Level Phenomenon
• tendency to form judgements relative to a
  neutral level
• brightness of lights
• volume of sound
• level of income
• defined by our prior experience
• Relative Deprivation
• perception that one is worse off relative to
  those with whom one compares oneself

30
Happiness is...