PSYC 111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11.1: Stanley Schachter, Cortex System, Theory-Theory
10/2/17
11.1: Theories of Emotion: What Causes Our Feelings?
404-415
• Emotions- mental states or feelings associated with our evaluation of our experiences
• Discrete emotions theory- humans experience a small number of distinct emotions that
are rooted in their biology and combine in complex ways. Advocates of this theory say
that 1) each emotion has its own biological roots and 2) serves one or more distinctive
evolutionary functions. They also argued that since the brain’s cortex system (key role in
thinking) evolved later than the limbic system (key role in emotion) that our emotional
reactions to situations come before our thoughts about them.
• Support for an evolutionary basis of emotions
1. when someone suggests you eat a cockroach your body will do a whole bunch of
signs…when you wrinkle your nose and contract your mouth you’re reducing the
chances of ingesting the substance, by sticking our your tongue you’re increasing
the chance you’ll expel it, by turning your head you avoid it, by closing your eyes
you limit the damage it can do to your visual system.
2. Charles Darwin pointed out the similarities between the emotional expression of
humans and many nonhuman animals. When dogs bare fangs, it’s like humans
who snarl.
3. Eugene Morton showed deep-seated similarities in communication across most
animal species. When birds make high pitched noises when tickled, it’s like
humans laughing.
4. Perhaps these reactions share the same evolutionary origins.
• Primary emotions- emotions believed by some theorists to be cross-culturally universal
(happiness, disgust, sadness, fear, surprise, contempt, anger)
• Cultural differences in emotional expression: display rules- cross cultural guidelines for
how and when to express emotions. (Americans and Japanese Americans watched a
travel scene and a gory scene alone and then in front of a researcher. Americans
portrayed neutral expressions and disgust in both encounters, Japanese Americans
portrayed neutral expressions and then disgust at the gory film alone, but in front of the
researcher masked their negative feelings.
• Emotions and physiology- we can differentiate at least some primary emotions by their
patterns of physiological responding (heart rates increase more when we are angry and
scared as opposed to happy or surprised)
• Pan Am smile- fake smile, has movement of the mouth but not of the eyes. Duchenne
smile- eyes crinkle and mouth turns upward.
• Cognitive theories of emotion- theories proposing that emotions are products of
thinking
• James- Lange theory of emotion- theory proposing that emotions result from our
interpretations of our bodily reactions to stimuli.
• Somatic marker theory- theory proposing that we use our “gut reactions” to help us
determine how we should act.
