PSY 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Eating Disorder, Leptin, Ejaculation
21 Jun 2018
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Chapter 8 Notes
●Emotional Experience: The Feeling Machine
○POSITIVE or NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE associated with a particular
PATTERN of PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY
■AROUSAL- active or passive the PSYCHOLOGICAL experience
■VALENCE- how positive or negative
●THEORIES
A. JAMES-LANGE THEORY: Stimuli trigger activity in the body which in turn
produces an emotional experience in the mind
a. Emotion is the CONSEQUENCE and not the cause of our body’s
reactions to events in the world
b. Without the heart pounding, and the muscles clenching, we would have no
experience of emotions at all
Major problems of this theory
1. Sometimes emotional experiences happen more rapidly than bodily
responses do
a. Feeling embarrassed quick pants fall and blushing 30 seconds later
2. People are not always aware of their bodily responses (heart rate)
3. Unemotional events can cause the body to respond too
4. Fewer unique patterns of bodily activity than there are unique emotional
experiences
B. CANNON-BARD Theory: stimulus SIMULTANEOUSLY triggers activity in the
body AND emotional experience in the mind
C. Two-factor theory: a stimulus triggers a GENERAL STATE of AROUSAL in the
body, which the mind then INTERPRETS as a specific emotion
●People have just one bodily reaction to all emotional stimuli that is called
AROUSAL
●INTERPRETATION differ based on the situation/occasion (hot room vs seeing
bear)
Neuroscience of Emotion
●The AMYGDALA (1930s-Monkey)
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○The amygdala plays an important role in emotion; threat detector
○APPRAISAL is made by amygdala: evaluation of the emotion-relevant
aspects of a stimulus
○In order to feel an emotion you must know there is something to be
afraid of
○Fast (thalamus → amygdala) and slow (thalamus → cortex → amygdala)
pathways of fear in the brain
●Amygdala damage- recognition of happiness, sadness, and surprise was normal
but recognition of anger disgust and fear was IMPAIRED
○Do not feel fear when they see a threat but feel fear when they
experience a threat
TWENTIETH CENTURY THEORY of emotions
●Joseph LeDoux (2000) information about a stimulus takes TWO ROUTES
simultaneously: the FAST pathway and the SLOW pathway
The Regulation of Emotion
●Use of cognitive and behavioral strategies to CONTROL one's emotional
experience
●One of the best strategies for emotion regulation is REAPPRAISAL:
changing emotion by changing the MEANING of the emotion-eliciting stimulus
○Ex. considering your courses as opportunities for learning vs things you
need to get through to fulfill your degree requirements
●When people engage in reappraisal, their cortices are activated and moments
later their amygdala is deactivated (activity of amygdala was successfully
downregulated)
Emotional Communication: Messages without words
●EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION: observable sign of an emotional state
○43 muscles in the face capable of creating more than 10,000 unique
configurations of emotions
○Observers can read our emotions, especially in our face
Communicative Expression
●UNIVERSALITY HYPOTHESIS: emotions expressions have the same meaning
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for everyone
○People (even those who have never seen a human face) are generally
good at judging and creating the same facial expressions
○There are five universal emotions : ANGER, DISGUST, FEAR,
HAPPINESS, SADNESS
■Surprise and contempt may have universal patterns too
Cause and Effect of Expressions
●Words are symbols
●FACIAL EXPRESSIONS are SIGNS
○They are not arbitrary, but are signs of emotions
○Caused by the things they signify
●FACIAL FEEDBACK HYPOTHESIS: emotional expressions can CAUSE the
emotional experiences they SIGNIFY
Deceptive Expression
●DISPLAY RULES are NORMS for the control of appropriate emotional
expression
1. INTENSIFICATION: exaggerating emotional expression
a. “Wow a bow tie, wow, it’s just what i always wanted”
2. DEINTENSIFICATION: muting emotional expression
a. When losing a contest “No really im fine with the silver medal”
3. MASKING: expressing OTHER emotion while feeling another
a. Ex. what an interesting talk! Everybody loved it!
4. NEUTRALIZING: no expression of the emotion one is feeling
a. Poker face
Sincere Expressions may “leak out”
●Sincere emotions involve:
1. MORPHOLOGY: the use of reliable muscles
a. Crinkled eye corners in a genuine smile
2. SYMMETRY: expressions tend to be more symmetrical
3. DURATION: last between half a second and 5 seconds
4. TEMPORAL PATTERNING: appear and disappear smoothly as opposed to
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Positive or negative experience associated with a particular. Arousal- active or passive the psychological experience. B. cannon-bard theory: stimulus simultaneously triggers activity in the body and emotional experience in the mind. C. two-factor theory: a stimulus triggers a general state of arousal in the body, which the mind then interprets as a specific emotion. People have just one bodily reaction to all emotional stimuli that is called. Interpretation differ based on the situation/occasion (hot room vs seeing bear) The amygdala plays an important role in emotion; threat detector. Appraisal is made by amygdala: evaluation of the emotion-relevant aspects of a stimulus. In order to feel an emotion you must know there is something to be afraid of. Fast (thalamus amygdala) and slow (thalamus cortex amygdala) pathways of fear in the brain. Amygdala damage- recognition of happiness, sadness, and surprise was normal but recognition of anger disgust and fear was impaired.
