EMOTION

What is emotion?
Emotion is characterized by:
1) physiological activation
2) expressive behaviors
3) subjective experience

Dimensions of Emotional Experience

Emotion & Physiological Activation

During an emotional experience, our autonomic
nervous system mobilizes energy in the body and
arouses us.

Arousal response to one event can

potentially spill over into our response to
the next event.

Reuters/ Corbis

AP Photo/ Nati Harnik

Arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger, which

can descend into rioting.

Historical Theories of Emotion

James-Lange Theory:
physiological activity
precedes the emotional
experience.
Cannon-Bard Theory:
emotion and the body's
arousal take place
simultaneously.
Schachter-Singer Theory:
physiology and cognition
create emotions. Emotions
have two factors physical
arousal and cognitive label.

Physiological Similarities
Physiological responses may be similar
across various emotions.

M. Grecco/ Stock Boston

Excitement and fear involve similar

physiological arousal.

http://joecarr.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/memorex-chair-man.jpg

horror film
anger-provoking film
sexually arousing film
boring film

While these experiences

would feel different, it
is difficult to identify a
viewers emotion purely
by physiological
observation.

Physiological Differences
Physical responses like finger
temperature and movement of
facial muscles change during
fear, rage, and joy.

Activity in the left hemisphere

associated with positive
emotion; right with negative
emotion.

Amygdala shows differences

in activation during emotions
of anger and rage.

Sadness & Effects of Facial Expression

If facial expressions are manipulated, like
furrowing brows, people feel sad while
looking at sad pictures.

Courtesy of Louis Schake/ Michael Kausman/ The New York Times Pictures

Attaching two golf tees to the face and making their tips
touch makes furrow on the forehead.

Cognition Doesnt Always Precede Emotion

When fearful eyes were subliminally presented to
subjects, fMRI scans revealed higher levels of
activity in the amygdala (Whalen et al. 2004).

Courtesy of Paul J. Whalen, PhD, Dartmouth

College, www.whalenlab.info

Expressed Emotion
emotion as nonverbal social
communication

Emotions as Adaptive
Darwin speculated that,
in the absence of
language, our ancestors
communicated with
facial expression.
Nonverbal facial
expression led to their
survival.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Reading Faces

http://www.g2conline.org/867

Emotion and Communication

Emotion and Communication

When culturally diverse people were shown basic
facial expressions, they did pretty well at recognizing
them (Ekman & Matsumoto, 1989).

Elkman & Matsumoto, Japanese and

Caucasian Facial Expression of Emotion

How many of these emotions can you recognize?

How Well do People Identify

Emotions?

Izard (1977) isolated 10 emotions: most are present

in infancy, excluding contempt, shame and guilt.

Bob Daemmrich/ The Image Works

Patrick Donehue/ Photo Researchers, Inc.

Tom McCarthy/ Rainbow

Michael Newman/ PhotoEdit

Marc Grimberg/ The Image Bank

Nancy Brown/ The Image Bank

Lew Merrim/ Photo Researchers, Inc.

Culture and Emotion

Cultural Display Rules

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/carls064/freealonzo/Schadenfreude.jpg

Schadenfreude
Amae

Specific Universal Emotions

Some fears are easier to

learn than others.
By Monika Suteski

Fear can be adaptive.

Watson (1878-1958)

The amygdala in the

brain associates
emotions like fear with
certain situations.
Courtesy of National Geographic Magazine and Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI) at UCLA. Art and brain modeling by Amanda
Hammond, Jacopo Annese, and Authur Toga, LONI; spider art by Joon-Hyuck Kim

Fear

Causes of Anger
People are angered by foul odors, high
temperatures, traffic jams, and aches and
pains
People generally become angry with friends
and loved ones who commit wrongdoings,
especially if they are willful, unjustified, and
avoidable.

Catharsis Hypothesis
Venting anger through
action or fantasy achieves
emotional release or
catharsis.
Expressing anger breeds
more anger, and through
reinforcement, is habit
forming.

http://wildelycreative.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/anger.jpg

Anger

Cultural Differences
Expression of anger is encouraged in
individualized cultures compared to
cultures that promote group behavior.

Wolfgang Kaehler

Disgust

Happiness
People who are happy:
perceive the world as
safer
make decisions more
easily
are more cooperative
live healthier,
energized, and more
satisfied lives

Happiness
Relationship between emotion and
behavior:
Feel-Good, Do-Good phenomenon

Predictors of Happiness

Emotional Ups and Downs

Over the long run our emotional ups and downs
tend to balance. Although grave diseases can bring
down individuals emotionally, in the long-run,
people adapt.

Courtesy of Anna Putt

Happiness & Others Attainments

Happiness is also relative to our
comparisons with others.
Relative Deprivation is the perception that
one is worse off relative to those with whom
one compares oneself with.

Does Money Buy Happiness?

Its utter absence can

breed misery, yet
having it is no
guarantee of
happiness.

Over a 40-year period, Americans became over twice as wealthy, but no happier.

Bhutan & Gross National Happiness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Bhutan.svg

Index of Happiness? Bhutans New

Leader Prefers More Concrete Goals

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world/asia/index-ofhappiness-bhutans-new-leader-prefers-more-concretegoals.html?_r=0

Deceiving emotion

Detecting and Computing Emotion

Most people find it difficult to detect deceiving
emotion. Even trained professionals detected
deceiving emotions only 54% of the time.
Dr. Paul Elkman, University of California at San Francisco

Which of Paul Ekman smile is genuine?

Duchenne smile
A real smile of
enjoyment, the
Duchenne smile,
involves activation
of muscles that are
not activated during
faked smiles.