Emotion

1. Emotion Chapter 11 ©1999 Prentice Hall

2. Emotion • Defining Emotion. • Elements of Emotion 1: The Body. • Elements of Emotion 2: The Mind. • Elements of Emotion 3: The Culture. • Putting the Elements together: Emotion and Gender. ©1999 Prentice Hall

3. Emotion • A state of arousal involving facial and body changes, brain activation, cognitive appraisals, subjective feelings, and tendencies toward action, all shaped by cultural rules. ©1999 Prentice Hall

4. Elements of Emotion 1: The Body • Primary and secondary emotions. • The face of emotion. • The brain and emotion. • Hormones and emotion. • Detecting emotions, Does the body lie? ©1999 Prentice Hall

5. Elements of Emotion 1: The Body • Primary emotions • Emotions considered to be universal and biologically based. They generally include fear, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, disgust, and contempt. • Secondary emotion • Emotions that develop with cognitive maturity and vary across individuals and cultures. • Three biological areas of emotion are • facial expressions, • brain regions and circuits, and • autonomic nervous system. ©1999 Prentice Hall

6. Universal Expressions of Emotion • Facial expressions for primary emotions are universal. • Even members of remote cultures can recognize facial expressions in people who are foreign to them. • Facial feedback. • Process by which the facial muscles send messages to the brain about the basic emotion being expressed. • Infants are able to read parental expressions. • Facial expression can generate same expressions in others, creating mood contagion. ©1999 Prentice Hall

7. The Face of Anger • Anger is universally recognized by geometric patterns on the face • In each pair, the left form seems angrier than the right form ©1999 Prentice Hall

8. Facial Expressions in Social Context • Across and within cultures, agreement often varies on which emotion a particular facial expression is revealing. • People don’t usually express their emotion in facial expressions unless others are around. • Facial expressions convey different meanings depending on their circumstances. • People often use facial expressions to lie about their feelings as well as to express them. ©1999 Prentice Hall

9. The Brain and Emotion • The amygdala. • Responsible for assessing threat. • Damage to the amygdala results in abnormality to process fear. • Left prefrontal cortex • Involved in motivation to approach others. • Damage to this area results in loss of joy. • Right prefrontal cortex • Involved in withdrawal and escape. • Damage to the area results in excessive mania and euphoria. ©1999 Prentice Hall

10. Hormones and Emotion • When experiencing an intense emotion, 2 hormones are released. • Epinephrine • Norepinephrine • Results in increased alertness and arousal. • At high levels, it can create the sensation of being out of control emotionally. ©1999 Prentice Hall

11. The Autonomic Nervous System ©1999 Prentice Hall

12. Detecting Emotions: Does the Body Lie? • Polygraph testing relies on autonomic nervous system arousal. • Typical measures: • Galvanic Skin Response • Pulse, blood pressure • Breathing • Fidgeting ©1999 Prentice Hall

13. Polygraph Tests • Empirical support is weak and conflicting. • Test is inadmissible in most courts. • It is illegal to use for most job screening. • Many government agencies continue to use for screening. ©1999 Prentice Hall

14. Elements of Emotion 2: The Mind • How thoughts create emotions. • The two factor theory of emotion. • Attributions and emotions. ©1999 Prentice Hall

15. Two-factor Theory of Emotion • Physiological arousal • Sweaty palms • Increased heart rate • rapid breathing • Cognitive Label • Attribute source of arousal to a cause • To have an emotion, both factors are required ©1999 Prentice Hall

16. Attributions and Emotions • Perceptions and attributions are involved in emotions. • How one reacts to an event depends on how he or she explains it. • For example, how one reacts to being ignored or winning the silver instead of the gold medal. • Philosophy of life is also influential. ©1999 Prentice Hall

17. Elements of Emotion 3: The Culture • Culture and emotional variation. • The rules of emotional regulation. • Display rules. • Body language. • Emotion work. ©1999 Prentice Hall

18. Culture and Emotional Variation • Culture determines what people feel angry, sad, lonely, happy, ashamed or disgusted about. • Some cultures have words for specific emotions unknown to other cultures. • Ex. Schadenfreude • Some cultures don’t have words for emotions that seem universal to others. • Tahitian and sadness • Differences in secondary emotions appear to be reflected in differences in languages. ©1999 Prentice Hall

19. The Rules of Emotional Regulation • Display Rules • When, where, and how emotions are to be expressed or when they should be squelched. • Body Language • The nonverbal signals of body movement, posture and gaze that people constantly express. • Emotion Work. • Acting out an emotion we do not feel or trying to create the right emotion for the occasion. ©1999 Prentice Hall

20. Putting it all together: Emotion and Gender • Physiology and intensity. • Sensitivity to other people’s emotions. • Cognitions. • Expressiveness. • Factors which affect expressiveness. • Emotion work. ©1999 Prentice Hall

21. Putting the Elements Together: Emotion and Gender • Physiology and intensity • Women recall emotional events more intensely and vividly than do men. • Men experience experience emotional events more intensely than do women. • Conflict is physiologically more upsetting for men than women. ©1999 Prentice Hall

22. Possible reasons for differences in physiology and intensity. • Males autonomic nervous system is more reactive than females. • Men are more likely to rehearse angry thoughts which maintains anger. • Women are more likely to ruminate which maintains depression. ©1999 Prentice Hall

23. Sensitivity to Other People’s Emotions • Factors which influence one’s ability to “read” emotional signals: • The sex of the sender and receiver. • How well the sender and receiver know each other. • How expressive the sender is. • Who has the power. • Stereotypes and expectations. ©1999 Prentice Hall

24. Cognitions. • Men and women appear to differ in the types of every day events that provoke their anger. • Women become angry over issues related to their partners disregard. • Men become angry over damage to property or problems with strangers. ©1999 Prentice Hall

25. Expressiveness • In North America women: • Smile more than men. • Gaze at listeners more. • Have more emotionally expressive faces. • Use more expressive body movements. • Touch others more. • Acknowledge weakness and emotions more. • Compare to women, men only express anger to strangers more. ©1999 Prentice Hall

26. Factors Influencing Emotional Expressiveness • Gender roles. • Cultural norms. • The specific situation. ©1999 Prentice Hall

27. Emotion Work and Gender. • Women work hard at appearing warm, happy and making sure others are happy. • Men work hard at persuading others they are stern, aggressive and unemotional. • Why? • Gender roles and status. ©1999 Prentice Hall