Emotions

Question 1

what is an emotion

Answer 1

1. a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood or relationships with others; instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge
2. often defined as opposite of reasoning

Question 2

stages of emotional processing

Answer 2

1. regulation - to keep relations healthy
2. affective state - can be an emotion (discreet response to a specific stimulus), feeling (longer state), or mood (longer lasting, not tied to a specific stimulus)
3. appraisal - identification of the emotional significance of a stimulus
4. stimulus presentation

Question 3

Darwin

Answer 3

1. emotions are innate - children show similar emotion presentation as adults
2. cross species similarities in emotional expression - emotions evolved
3. Darwin and Ekman - basic emotions exist across cultures - anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise

Question 4

individual functions of emotions

Answer 4

1. expressions change information taken in - e.g. fear results in widening eyes to detect a threat
2. emotions adapt behaviour to help achieve goals e.g. happiness is goal achieved

Question 5

cultural display rules

Answer 5

act of smiling is not universal across cultures

Question 6

innate?

Answer 6

1. blind athletes - use the same emotional expressions because they are innate
2. facial expressions develop in the womb

Question 7

classification of emotions

Answer 7

1. simple dual system theories - Schneirla categorised emotions in terms of approach and withdrawal
2. Jeffrey Gray - behavioural approach, reward and punishment systems as distinct brain circuits
3. Davidson’s valence-asymmetry hypothesis - left sided prefrontal cortex = positive and right sided with negative
4. Russel’s circumplex model

Question 8

the role of emotion expression

Answer 8

1. Ekman et al - participants watched movies either positive or negative, self reported their subjective experience, their facial expressions were videotaped and coded using facial action coding system
2. participant who showed a particular smile movement reported more happiness

Question 9

measuring emotional expressions

Answer 9

1. Ekman and Friesen - developed the facial action coding system
2. marketing interest
3. difference between real and fake smiles depending on which muscles are being used
4. botox - smiles percieved as less genuine
5. facial EMG measures subtle activity in the corrugator (frown) and zygomatic (smile) muscles, EMG positively correlated with emotion perception ability and shows gender differences, fem>male, linked to greater activity in own faces when looking at the pictures

Question 10

social functions of emotions

Answer 10

1. wide eyes in fear = threat signal, white of eye helps to quickly direct attention to gaze locations
2. happy/angry are reinforcers
3. sadness elicits caregiving
4. Fridlund - participants viewed a pleasant video, either alone, alone believing a friend was doing the same task, watching with a friend, smiling measured using EMG, smiling increased as settings become more social
5. other psychologists have repeated and varied intensity of film, still smile more with friends

Question 11

James Lange theory

Answer 11

1. emotions are sets of bodily responses that occur in response to emotive stimuli
2. different patterns of bodily change code different emotions
3. heart rate and skin conductions to measure emotions

Question 12

Cannon-Bard theory

Answer 12

1. argued against previous theory because emotions occurred even if brain was disconnected from viscera, bodily changes not emotion specific, bodily changes are too slow, stimulation of bodily change does not result in emotions
2. but emotions occurred even if brain disconnected from viscera when less intensive, bodily changes are partly emotion specific
3. emotions depends on brain mechanisms

Question 13

two factor theory of emotion (Schachter and Singer)

Answer 13

1. gave misinformed subjects adrenaline injections, resulting arousal/emotions were interpreted on a basis of contextual cues provided by actors
2. emotion is a function of both cognitive factors and physiological arousal
3. people search the immediate environment for emotionally relevant cues to label and explain

Question 14

appraisal and emotion

Answer 14

1. Lazarus - relational meaning, emotions not caused by events in environment, or by intra-psychic factors but by person-environment relationships that can change over time and circumstances
2. emotion rooted in appraisal

Question 15

the emotional brain

Answer 15

1. limbic system thought to be very important
2. specifically amygdala -plays an important role
3. amygdala lesions in monkeys - changes in social behaviour, hyper-orality, social disinhibition, absence of emotional motor and vocal reactions
4. lesions in humans result in emotional blunting and reduced fear conditioning, impaired perception of facial expressions of fear
5. electrical stimulation results in autonomic reactions associated with feelings of fear
6. fMRI studies show the amygdala is activated in response to facial expressions of emotion

Question 16

Joseph LeDoux - 2 amygdala pathways

Answer 16

1. cells in sensory thalamus that will fire in response to threatening stimuli
2. to amygdala which triggers fight or flight response
3. slower pathway - high road - processing the stimulus

Question 17

Modern affective neuroscience

Answer 17

1. brain imaging
2. behavioural experiments
3. lesion studies
4. electrophysiological recordings

Question 18

influence of genes

Answer 18

1. different types of genes for serotonin transporters, short form is less efficient transporter
2. serotonin has a bigger effect in short form
3. high form have a much lower response
4. association between genes and depression/anxiety

Question 19

depression

Answer 19

1. when people with depression asked to identify emotion expressed
2. less likely to say a mildly happy face is happy
3. less sensitive to positive stimuli
4. people with anxiety and depression often show subtle changes in sensitivity to emotional expressions compared with healthy people
5. people with depression show increased amygdala responses to negative facial expressions
6. antidepressants reduced amygdala response to negative facial expressions

Question 20

disgust - insula cortex

Answer 20

1. insula is important for taste, conditioned taste aversion
2. stimulating in humans - people can report unpleasant taste, nausea
3. lesions in this area - reduced recognition of disgust and report less disgust
4. neuroimaging study - disgust faces insula link
5. OCD - elevated disgust sensitivity involved in washing symptoms, neuroimaging when asking OCD to imagine touching something handled by lots of people, insula activated