12.1 Emotional Behaviours

Question 0

Emotion is a difficult topic because it implies conscious feelings that we cannot observe. Biological researchers therefore concentrate mostly on ____ ____, which are observable, even if the emotional feelings are not.

Answer 0

emotional behaviours

Question 1

By one definition, ____ includes “cognitive evaluations, subjective changes, autonomic and neural arousal, and impulses to action”.

Answer 1

emotion

Question 2

One definition of ____ is “an internal process that modifies the way an organism responds to a certain class of external stimuli”.

Answer 2

motivation

Question 3

Distinguishing between motivation and emotion is ____, and possibly not worth the effort.

Answer 3

difficult

Question 4

Psychologist generally agree that emotion has three components – ____ (“this is a dangerous situation”), ____ (“I feel frightened”), and ____ (“run for the nearest exit”).

Answer 4

cognitions : feelings : actions

Question 5

Emotional situations arouse the ____ ____ ____, which has two branches – the sympathetic and the parasympathetic.

Answer 5

autonomic nervous system

Question 6

____ ____ was the first to understand that the sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for brief, vigourous “fight-or-flight” responses.

Answer 6

Walter Cannon

Question 7

The ____ nervous system increases digestion and other processes that save energy and prepare for later events.

Answer 7

parasympathetic

Question 8

According to James-Lange theory the autonomic arousal and skeletal actions come first. What you experience as an emotion is the label you give to your response: you feel afraid ____ you ran away; you feel angry ____ you attack.

Answer 8

because

Question 9

William James later clarified his position. An ____ has three components: cognitions, actions, and feelings.

Answer 9

emotion

Question 10

The ____ aspect comes first. You quickly appraise something as good, bad, frightening, or whatever. Your appraisal of the situation leads to appropriate action, such as running away, attacking or sitting motionless with your heart racing.

Answer 10

cognitive

Question 11

The James-Lange theory leads to two ____: people with weak autonomic or skeletal responses should feel less emotion, and causing or increasing someone’s responses should enhance an emotion.

Answer 11

predictions

Question 12

In people with an uncommon condition called ____ ____ ____, output from the autonomic nervous system to the body fails, either completely or almost completely.

Answer 12

pure autonomic failure

Question 13

In pure autonomic failure, heartbeat and other organ activities continue, but the nervous system no longer ____ them. Someone with this condition does not react to stressful experiences with changes in heart rate, BP, or sweating.

Answer 13

regulates

Question 14

People with pure autonomic failure report having the same ____ as anyone else. However, they say they feel their emotions much less intense than before.

Answer 14

emotions

Question 15

The decreased emotional feeling of someone with pure autonomic failure is ____ with the predictions from the James-Lange theory.

Answer 15

consistent

Question 16

According to the James-Lange theory emotional feelings result from the ____ ____. If your heart started racing and you started sweating and breathing rapidly you would feel an emotion.

Answer 16

body’s actions

Question 17

Rapid breathing in particular makes people worry that they are suffocating, and they experience a ____ ____, marked by extreme sympathetic nervous system arousal.

Answer 17

panic attack

Question 18

The sensation of smiling increases ____, although only slightly.

Answer 18

happiness

Question 19

Although smiles and frowns slightly alter happiness, smiles are not necessary for happiness. People with a rare condition called ____ ____ cannot move their facial muscles to make a smile. They nevertheless experience happiness and amusement.

Answer 19

Möbius syndrome

Question 20

Overall the results suggest that our perceptions of the body’s actions contribute to our emotional feelings, as the James-Lange theory proposed. Many psychologists therefore refer to the emotions as “____” – that is they depend on responses of the body.

Answer 20

embodied

Question 21

Traditionally, the ____ ____ – the forebrain areas surrounding the thalamus – has been regarded as critical for emotion.

Answer 21

limbic system

Question 22

Much of the ____ ____ also reacts to emotional situations.

Answer 22

cerebral cortex

Question 23

Whereas many brain areas respond to emotion in one way or another, it is ____ important to know whether different brain areas respond to different emotions.

Answer 23

theoretically

Question 24

Many researchers have used PET or fMRI techniques to identify the cortical areas that respond while people look at ____ pictures or listen to ____ stories.

Answer 24

emotional

Question 25

Of all emotions, only disgust seems to be associated with the response of a particular brain area. The ____ ____, or insula, is strongly activated if you see a disgusting picture or the facial expression of someone who is feeling disgusted.

Answer 25

insular cortex

Question 26

Locating ____ in the insular is interesting because that is the primary taste cortex. ____ is literally ____, or bad taste.

Answer 26

disgust

Question 27

Another hypothesis relates the two ____ of the brain to different categories of emotion.

Answer 27

hemispheres

Question 28

Activity of the left hemisphere, especially it’s frontal temporal lobes, relates to the ____ ____ ____ (BAS), marked by low to moderate autonomic arousal and a tendency to approach, which could characterise either happiness or anger.

Answer 28

behavioural activation system

Question 29

Increased activity of the frontal and temporal lobes of the right hemisphere is associated with the ____ ____ ____ (BIS), which increases attention and arousal, inhibits action, and stimulates emotions such as fear and disgust.

Answer 29

behavioural inhibition system

Question 30

The difference between the hemispheres relates to _____: on average, people with greater activity in the frontal cortex of the left hemisphere tend to be happier, more outgoing, and more fun-loving. People with greater right-hemisphere activity tend to be socially withdrawn, less satisfied with life, and prone to unpleasant emotions.

Answer 30

personality

Question 31

The ____ ____ appears to be more responsive to emotional stimuli then the left. For example, listening to the laughter or crying activates the right amygdala more than the left.

Answer 31

right hemisphere

Question 32

People with damage to the ____ ____ ____ had trouble identifying other peoples emotional expressions or even saying whether two people are expressing the same emotion or different ones.

Answer 32

right temporal cortex

Question 33

Evidently, when the right hemisphere is inactive, people do not experience ____ ____ and do not even remember feeling them.

Answer 33

strong emotions

Question 34

We base many important decisions partly on ____ ____ – how we think one outcome or another will make us feel.

Answer 34

emotional considerations

Question 35

In short, when we are making a decision about right and wrong, we seldom work it out ____. One decision or the other immediately “feels” right. After we have already decided, we try to think of a logical justification.

Answer 35

rationally

Question 36

Damage to parts of the ____ ____ blunts people’s emotions in most regards, except for an occasional outburst of anger.

Answer 36

prefrontal cortex

Question 37

Damage to the prefrontal cortex also impairs ____ ____. People with such damage often make impulsive decisions without pausing to consider the consequences, including how they will feel after a possible mistake.

Answer 37

decision-making

Question 38

When given a choice those with prefrontal cortex damage frequently make a ____ ____ and then immediately sigh or wince, knowing that they have made the wrong choice.

Answer 38

quick decision

Question 39

Antonio Damasio examined a man with prefrontal cortex damage who expressed almost __ ____. Nothing angered him. He was never very sad, even about his own brain damage. Nothing gave him much pleasure, not even music. Far from being brilliantly rational, he frequently made bad decisions that cost him his job, his marriage, and his savings.

Answer 39

no emotions

Question 40

In a sense, any choice requires consideration of values and emotions – how we think one outcome or another will make us feel. In Damasio’s words, “Inevitably, emotions are ____ from the idea of good and evil”.

Answer 40

inseparable

Question 41

After damage to a particular part of the prefrontal cortex – the ____ ____ ____ – people seem deficient in their sense of guilt, both in everyday life and in laboratory situations.

Answer 41

ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Question 42

In short, people with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex show less than normal ________. If most people didn’t show a reasonable amount of concern for others, civilisation would fall apart.

Answer 42

concern for others

Question 43

People with damage to either the prefrontal cortex or the amygdala (part of the temporal lobe) are slow in processing ____ ____.

Answer 43

emotional information

Question 44

In short, failure to anticipate the ____ of likely outcomes leads to bad decisions.

Answer 44

unpleasantness