Models of Emotions

1. Models of Emotions Approaches to conceptualising emotion

2. Aims of the lecture: • Overarching: try to define the term ‘emotion’ • To acquaint you with the principal current emotion theories and research. • To highlight the similarities and differences of terminology in the area (emotion, mood, affect etc.) • Continue on the culture vs. Body debate

3. Defining emotion : A Multicomponential (Scherer, 1994) • Cognitive component • Interpretation of emotion-eliciting event • Action readiness • Increases or decreases in one’s desires to take action • Feelings • Pleasure or pain • Physiological change • heart rate raises

4. Interpretation of emotion-eliciting event: Appraisal • The idea of APPRAISAL (Arnold & Gasson 1954): events in the world are processed in terms of their significance in relation to the concerns of the individual and that this is an important aspect of emotion • More modern: (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988) • pleasantness, • situational • control • predictability • effort required • attentional activity

5. Primary appraisal (Lazarus, 1991) • Goal relevance • only relevant events to concerns or goals will result to emotion • Goal congruence • moving towards or away from goals cases positive or negative emotion • Type of ego involvement

6. Lazarus primary appraisal flow chart EVENT 1. GOAL RELEVANCE Emotion No emotion 2. GOAL CONGRUENCE positive negative 3. EGO INVOLVEMENT Pride (enchancing self esteem) Anger (damaging self-esteem) Fear/anxiety (threat to self) Happiness Love (mutual affection)

7. Criticisms of appraisal theories • Evidence come from self-reports of people often about prototypic stories • No observational data • Appraisals are ‘cold’ (Zajonc, 1980) where emotions are ‘hot’ • Emotions are basically about positive or negative affect. • Basic emotions

8. Emotion: Necessary and sufficient conditions • Change in action readiness (Frijda, 1985) • An individual must make a cognitive appraisal of something as “good” or “bad” (Clore et al. 1994)

9. Affect • “internal mental states that are primarily based on affect” (p. 325, Ortony, Clore and Foss, 1987) • Affect • “the irreducible aspect of emotion that gives feelings their emotional, non cognitive character” (p383, Frijda, 1993) • For many the most basic feature of emotion. Batson et al. (1992) argued that affect is phylogenetically and ontogenetically more primate than either emotion or mood.

10. Mood • Emotions are specific, internal states, where moods are none-specific. • People in good mood are: • more helpful and more cooperative (Carnevale & Isen, 1986; Isen, Clark, & Schwartz, 1976) • more likely to start a conversation, • more persuasive in producing counter attitudinal messages and • more easily persuaded in some circumstances • speak faster and • report more life satisfaction.

11. Models of mood mediating information processing Resource allocation model (Ellis & Ashbrook, 1988) The associative network model (Bower, 1981; Isen, 1984) Feelings as information (Scwartz, 1990; Schwartz & Clore, 1988) The affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995)

12. Affective phenomena in terms of time course (adapt. Oatley & Jekins, 1996) --Expressions-- -- Autonomic -- changes --- Self-reported --- emotions ---------- Moods ---------- ---- Emotional Disorders ---- --- Personalitytraits -- Weeks Seconds Hours Years Minutes Days Months Lifetime

13. Approaches to conceptualising emotion • The discrete/basic emotions • (Ekman, 1972; 1992; Izard, 1977; Tomkins, 1963) • The dimensional approach • The circumplex model (Russel, 1978; 1980; 1983) • Plutchnic’s multidimentional model • The prototype approach

14. The discrete/basic emotions • Distinct biological and physiological elements, universal ‘pre-wired’ systems • Criteria to distinguish basic from non-basic • distinct and recognisable facial expression • rapid, automatic appraisal • a unique feeling state

15. Basic emotions • Ekman, Friesen & Ellsworth (1972): • happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, disgust • Tomkins (1962, 1963): • + interest, distress, and shame • - sadness • Izard (1977) : • + joy,contempt, shyness, guilt

16. 9 characteristics that distinguish basic emotions • Distinctive universals in antecedents events • “We assume that a small number of higher-order goals exist that are related to survival and self-regulation. These common goals guide behaviour and regulate the Universal aspects of the appraisal and planning process • Distinct universal signals • Ekman (1982); Russel (1994) • Distinctive physiology • Presence in other primates

17. Distinguishing Basic Emotions • Coherence among emotional response • quick onset • Brief duration • Automatic appraisal • Unbidden occurrence

18. Russel’s circumplex model of emotion ACTIVE • Fear • astonishment • annoyance • excitement • distress • delight • frustration • happy NEGATIVE POSITIVE • Pleasure • misery • contentment • sadness • depression • calmness • sleepiness • tiredness PASSIVE

19. THE PROTOTYPIC APPROACH EMOTIONS POSITIVE NEGATIVE Joy Love Anger Sadness Fear fondness Agony Infatuation Loneliness Pride Grief Bliss Contentment

20. References • Batson, Shaw & Oleson (1992) Differentiating affect, mood, and emotion: Towards functionally based conceptual distinctions. In M.S.Clark (Ed.) Review of Personality and social Psychology:Emotion. Sage • Clore, Schwartz & Conway (1994) Affective causes and consequences of social information processing. I Wyer & Srull (eds.) Handbook of social cognition. Hillsdale: Erlbaum • Frijda, (1985) • Ortony, Clore and Foss, (1987) The referencial structure of the affective lexicon. Cognitive Science, 11, 361-384 • Shaver, P., Schwartz, J., Kirson, D., and O'Connor, C. (1987). Emotion knowledge: Further exploration of a prototype approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1061-1086. • Fischer, Shaver & Carnochan (1990). How emotions develop and how they organise development. Cognition and Emotion, 4, 81-127