UNIT PREVIEW
Emotions are psychological responses that involve an interplay among (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behavior, and (3) conscious experience.
James and Lange argued that we feel emotion after we notice our bodily responses. Cannon and Bard contended that we feel emotion when our body responds. Schachter and Singer’s twofactor theory states that to experience emotion, we must be aroused and cognitively label the emotion.
Although the physical arousal that occurs with the different emotions is for the most part indistinguishable, researchers have discovered subtle differences in brain circuits, finger temperatures, and hormones. In using physiological indicators to detect lies, the polygraph does better than chance but not nearly well enough to justify its widespread use.
Some emotional responses are immediate, as sensory input bypasses the cortex, triggering a rapid reaction outside our conscious awareness. Others, especially responses to complex emotions, require interpretation.
We decipher people’s emotions by “reading” their bodies, voices, and faces. Although some gestures are culturally determined, facial expressions, such as those of happiness and fear, are universal. Facial expressions not only communicate emotion but also amplify the felt emotion.
Carroll Izard has identified 10 basic emotions, most of which are present in infancy. This uit examines three human emotions in detail: fear, anger, and happiness. Although we seem biologically predisposed to acquire some fears, what we learn through experience best explains the variety of human fears. Anger is most often aroused by frustrating or insulting acts that seem willful, unjustified, and avoidable. Expressing anger may be temporarily calming, but in the long run, it can actually arouse more anger. Happiness boosts people’s perceptions of the world and their willingness to help others. However, even significant good events seldom increase happiness for long, a fact explained by the adaptation-level and relative deprivation principles.
Exposure to prolonged stress can increase our susceptibility to serious illness. Health psychology provides psychology’s contribution to behavioral medicine. Among its concerns are the effects of stress and how to control it, how our emotions and personality influence our risk of disease, and the promotion of healthier living.
Walter Cannon viewed our response to stress as a fight-or-flight system. Hans Selye saw it as a three-stage general adaptation syndrome. Modern research assesses the health consequences of various life experiences. Coronary heart disease has been linked with the anger-prone Type A personality. Stress may also affect the progression of other serious illnesses, including AIDS and cancer.
Click link below for a Crash Course on Emotion:
Theories of Emotion
An emotion is a response of the whole organism that involves an interplay among (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience.
The James-Lange theory states that our experience of an emotion is a consequence of our physiological response to a stimulus; we are afraid because our heart pounds (say, in response to an approaching stranger).
The Cannon-Bard theory, on the other hand, proposes that the physiological response and our emotional experience occur simultaneously. Heart pounding and fear occur at the same time—one does not cause the other.
Schachter and Singer’s two-factor theory of emotion focuses on the interplay of thinking and feeling, not on the timing of feelings. This theory states that to experience emotion, one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal.
When finished, go to http://edmodo.com and take the 8B:1 Quiz 
Embodied Emotion
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls arousal. In an emergency, the sympathetic nervous system automatically mobilizes the body for fight or flight, directing the adrenal glands to release hormones that increase heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar level. Other physical changes include tensed muscles, dry mouth, dilated pupils, slowed digestion, and increased sweating. The parasympathetic nervous system calms the body after a crisis has passed, although arousal diminishes gradually.
In many situations, arousal is adaptive. For example, when taking an test, moderate arousal is best. In general, too little arousal can be disruptive; too much can tax the body.
Similar physiological arousal occurs during fear, anger, and sexual arousal. Nonetheless, these emotions feel different. And, despite similar arousal, sometimes our facial expressions differ during these three states. For example, people may appear “paralyzed” with fear or “ready to explode” with anger
Fear and rage are sometimes accompanied by differing finger temperatures and hormone secretions. Emotions may also stimulate different facial muscles. During fear, brow muscles tense. During joy, muscles in the cheek and under the eye pull into a smile. Emotions differ much more in the brain circuits they use. For example, brain scans show increased activity in the amygdala during fear. Finally, emotions activate different areas of the brain’s cortex. The right prefrontal cortex becomes more electrically active as people experience negative emotions, such as disgust. The left frontal lobe shows more activity with positive emotions.
The polygraph measures several physiological indicators of emotion—for example, changes in breathing, cardiovascular activity, and perspiration. Research suggests it errs about one-third of the time, too often to justify its widespread use in business and government. It more often labels the innocent guilty than the guilty innocent. A more effective approach is the guilty knowledge test. Several research teams are exploring new ways to detect deception.
The spillover effect occurs when arousal from one event affects our response to other events. Dozens of experiments show that a stirred-up state can be experienced as different emotions depending on how we interpret and label it. Arousal fuels emotion and cognition channels it.
Sometimes we experience unlabeled emotion. Sensory input can take the low road, following a pathway that leads via the thalamus to the amygdala, bypassing the cortex and triggering a rapid reaction that is outside our conscious awareness. Other, more complex emotions, including hatred and love, require interpretation and so take the high road, being routed along the slower route to the cortex for analysis. Automatic emotion and the importance of conscious thinking in emotion illustrate our two-track minds.
When finished, go to http://edmodo.com and take the 8B:2 Quiz
Expressed Emotion
All of us communicate nonverbally as well as verbally. For example, a firm handshake immediately conveys an outgoing, expressive personality. With a gaze, an averted glance, or a stare, we can communicate intimacy, submission, or dominance. Most people can detect nonverbal cues, and we are especially sensitive to nonverbal threats. Experience contributes to our sensitivity to cues, as studies of abused children demonstrate.
Our brains are rather amazing detectors of subtle expressions. For example, a mere 10-second clip of a teacher’s voice or face enabled viewers to assess whether the teacher liked and admired the child he or she was addressing.
Research indicates that we read fear and anger mostly from the eyes, happiness from the mouth. Introverts are better emotion-detectors than extraverts, although extraverts are easier to read. The absence of gestures, facial expressions, and tones of voice in e-mails deprives us of an important source of information.
Women generally surpass men at reading people’s emotional cues. Women’s nonverbal sensitivity gives them an edge in spotting lies. Their skill at decoding others’ emotions may also contribute to their greater emotional responsiveness in both positive and negative situations. When surveyed, women are far more likely than men to describe themselves as empathic. Women also tend to experience emotional events more deeply with greater brain activation in areas sensitive to emotion.
Although some gestures are culturally determined, facial expressions, such as those of happiness and anger, are common the world over. Cultures also share similarities in display rules (such as expressing more emotion to fellow group members than to outsiders). Children’s facial expressions, even those of blind children who have never seen a face, are also universal. Charles Darwin suggested that before our ancient ancestors communicated in words, their ability to convey threats, greetings, and submissions with facial expressions helped them survive. Emotional expressions may also enhance our survival in other ways. For example, surprise widens the eyes, enabling us to take in more information. Disgust wrinkles the nose, closing it from foul odors. Cultures differ in how much they express emotions. For example, cultures that value individuality display mostly visible emotions. In Chinese culture, which encourages people to adjust to others, personal emotions are less visibly displayed. Like most psychological events, emotion is best understood as a biological, cognitive, and social-cultural phenomenon.
The facial feedback effect indicates that expressions amplify our emotions by activating muscles associated with specific states, and the muscles signal the body to respond as though we were experiencing those states. For example, students induced to make a frowning expression reported feeling a little angry. Students induced to smile felt happier and found cartoons funnier. Similarly, the behavior feedback phenomenon shows that if we move our body as we would when experiencing some emotion (shuffling along with downcast eyes, as when sad), we are likely to feel that emotion to some degree. Acting as another acts helps us feel what another feels.
When finished, go to http://edmodo.com and take the 8B:3 Quiz
Experienced Emotion
Carroll Izard’s investigations identified 10 basic emotions: joy, interest-excitement, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt. Although other researchers argue for additional emotions, Izard contends that other emotions are combinations of these 10. When psychologists have asked people to report their experiences of different emotions, all seem to place emotions along the dimensions of pleasant/positive versus unpleasant/negative (the emotion’s valence) and high-versus-low arousal. On the valence and arousal dimensions, terrified is more frightened than afraid, and delighted is happier than happy.
Fear is often an adaptive response. Fear of enemies binds people together, and fear of injury protects us from harm. What we learn through experience best explains the variety of human fears. Through conditioning (associating emotions with specific situations) and observation (watching others display fear in response to certain events or surroundings), the short list of naturally painful and frightening events multiplies into a long list of human fears.
We seem biologically prepared to learn some fears faster than others. We quickly learn to fear snakes, spiders, and cliffs, but we are less predisposed to fear cars, electricity, bombs, and global climate change. A key to fear-learning lies in the amygdala, a limbic system neural center deep in the brain. If people suffer amygdala damage, they may consciously remember a threatening event but show no emotional effect of it. Individual differences in fearfulness are partly genetic.
Some fears fall outside the average range. These phobias are intense fears of specific objects or situations.
People report that anger is often a response to friends’ or loved ones’ misdeeds and is especially common when those acts seem willful, unjustified, and avoidable. Blameless annoyances such as foul odors, high temperatures, or a traffic jam can also make us angry.
Although “blowing off steam” may temporarily calm an angry person, it may also amplify underlying hostility, and it may provoke retaliation. The catharsis hypothesis maintains that “releasing” aggressive energy through action or fantasy reduces anger. Research has not supported the catharsis hypothesis. Angry outbursts may be reinforcing and therefore habit forming. In contrast, anger expressed as a nonaccusing statement of feeling can benefit relationships by leading to reconciliation rather than retaliation. When reconciliation fails, forgiveness can reduce one’s anger and its physical symptoms.
A good mood boosts people’s perceptions of the world and their willingness to help others (the feel-good, do-good phenomenon). Mood-boosting experiences make us more likely to give money, pick up someone’s dropped papers, volunteer time, and do other good deeds. After decades of focusing on negative emotions, psychologists are now actively exploring the causes and consequences of well-being (self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life).
Positive emotion rises over the early to middle part of most days. Although stressful events trigger bad moods, the gloom nearly always lifts by the next day. Times of elation are similarly hard to sustain and, over the long run, our emotional ups and downs tend to balance. Even significant bad events, such as a serious illness, seldom destroy happiness for long. The surprising reality is that we overestimate the duration of emotions and underestimate our capacity to adapt.
At a basic level, money helps us to avoid misery, but having it is no guarantee of happiness. Sudden increases in wealth such as winning a state lottery only increase happiness in the short term. In the long run, increased affluence hardly affects happiness. For example, during the last four decades, the average U.S. citizen’s buying power almost tripled, yet the average American is no happier. More generally, research indicates that economic growth in affluent countries has not boosted morale or social well-being. Ironically, those who strive hardest for wealth tend to experience lower well-being. What matters more is how we feel about what we have.
The adaptation-level phenomenon describes our tendency to judge various stimuli relative to those we have previously experienced. If our income or social prestige increases, we may feel initial pleasure. However, we then adapt to this new level of achievement, come to see it as normal, and require something better to give us another surge of happiness.
Relative deprivation is the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself. As people climb the ladder of success, they mostly compare themselves with those who are at or above their current level. This explains why increases in income may do little to increase happiness.
High self-esteem, close friendships or a satisfying marriage, and meaningful religious faith are among the predictors of happiness. Age, gender, parenthood, and physical attractiveness are among the factors unrelated to happiness.
When finished, go to http://edmodo.com and take the 8B:4 Quiz
Stress and Health
Click link below for a Crash Course lesson on Stress & Health:
In a 2007 Gallup poll, three in four respondents reported that they “sometimes” or “frequently” experience stress in daily life. Prolonged stress increases our risk for serious illness and death. By studying how our emotions and personality influence our risk of disease, the effects of stress, and the promotion of healthier living, health psychologists contribute to behavioral medicine, the interdisciplinary field that integrates behavioral and medical knowledge.
Stress is not just a stimulus or a response; rather, it is the process by which we appraise and cope with environmental events. When perceived as challenges, stressors can arouse and motivate us to conquer problems. When perceived as threats, prolonged stressors can harm us and increase the risk of illness.
Walter Cannon observed that, in response to stress, the sympathetic nervous system activates the secretion of stress hormones, triggers increased heart rate and respiration, diverts blood to skeletal muscles, and releases sugar and fat from the body’s stores, all to prepare the body for either fight or flight. In addition to this first (and faster) stress response system, a slower system involves the cerebral cortex stimulating the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland to trigger the release of glucocorticoid stress hormones, such as cortisol, from the outer part of the adrenal glands. A more common stress response in women is tend and befriend.
In Hans Selye’s general adaptation syndrome (GAS), the body’s adaptive response to stress is composed of three phases. In Phase 1, we experience an alarm reaction due to the sudden activation of our sympathetic nervous system. Heart rate increases and blood is diverted to the skeletal muscles. With our resources mobilized, we then fight the challenge during Phase 2, resistance. Temperature, blood pressure, and respiration remain high, and there is a sudden outpouring of stress hormones. If the stress is persistent, it may eventually deplete our body’s reserves during Phase 3, exhaustion. With exhaustion, we are more vulnerable to illness or even, in extreme cases, collapse and death.
Catastrophic floods, hurricanes, and fires are followed by increased rates of psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety. Those who experience significant life changes, such as the death of a spouse, divorce, or loss of a job, are vulnerable to disease. Experiencing a cluster of such crises puts one even more at risk. Daily hassles, such as rush-hour traffic, long lines at the store, aggravating housemates, and e-mail spam, may be the most significant sources of stress. Over time, these little stressors take a toll on our health and well-being.
Stress can increase the risk of coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in North America. It has been linked with the competitive, hard-driving, and impatient Type A personality. The toxic core of Type A is negative emotions, especially the anger associated with an aggressively reactive temperament. Under stress, the sympathetic nervous system of the Type A person redistributes bloodflow to the muscles and away from internal organs, such as the liver, which removes cholesterol and fat from the blood. The resulting excess cholesterol later gets deposited around the heart. The more easygoing Type B personality is less physiologically reactive when harassed or given a difficult challenge and less susceptible to coronary heart disease. Pessimism and depression also can have a toxic effect on a person’s health.
Psychophysiological illness refers to any stress-related physical illnesses such as hypertension and some headaches. Our understanding of the impact of stress on resistance to disease has fostered the development of the field of psychoneuroimmunology, which studies how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect our immune system and resulting health.
The secretion of stress hormones suppresses the immune system’s white blood cells, called lymphocytes. B lymphocytes are important in fighting bacterial infections, and T lymphocytes fight cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances. Two other agents of the immune system are the macrophage and the natural killer cells (NK cells). When animals are physically restrained, given unavoidable electric shocks, or subjected to noise, crowding, cold water, social defeat, or maternal separation, they become more susceptible to disease. Studies suggest that stress similarly depresses the human immune system, making us more vulnerable to illness. The immune system can err in two directions: overreacting, it may attack the body’s own tissues; underreacting, it may allow a virus to erupt.
Stress and negative emotions correlate with a progression of HIV infection to AIDS and with the speed of decline in those infected. Efforts to reduce stress also help somewhat to control the disease. Educational initiatives, bereavement support groups, cognitive therapy, relaxation training, and exercise programs that reduce distress have all had positive consequences for HIV-positive individuals.
Although stress does not produce cancer cells, some researchers have reported that people are at risk for cancer a year or so after experiencing depression, helplessness, or bereavement. A large Swedish study found that people with a history of workplace stress had greater risk of colon cancer than those who reported no such problems. Although a relaxed, hopeful attitude may enhance the body’s natural defenses against a few proliferating cancer cells, merely maintaining a determined attitude is not likely to derail the powerful biological forces at work in advanced cancer or AIDS.
When finished, go to http://edmodo.com and take the 8B:5 Quiz
Varsity Tutor Flashcards:
https://www.varsitytutors.com/ap_psychology-flashcards/other-emotion-concepts
https://www.varsitytutors.com/ap_psychology-flashcards/theories-of-emotion
*Work Cited: All summary notes come from *Myers Pyschology for AP, Lecture Guides (2011 Worth Publishers)