PSY 3126 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Autonomic Nervous System, Bear Attack, Cheq Wong Language
28 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
November 8, 2017
Emotions
What is an emotion?
James-Lange theory of emotion: emotion = physiological response to stimuli
-
-Focuses on physiological arousal that arises from the autonomic nervous system
-Our bodies respond to stimuli in the world by preparing us to react in a survival-facilitating way, and our emotions
are our bodily changes that signal how we should behave
-Different emotions are associated with different forms of physiological arousal
•Ex. Embarrassment = sensation of blood rushing to the face, love = feeling of one’s stomach turning end over
end, fear = heart pounding
-Criticisms: physiological responses are not specific enough to emotion
Two-factor theory of emotion: emotion = interpretation of our physiological response
-
-Focuses on interpretation
-Needs both the physiological response and the interpretation of the arousal
-The same physiological arousal can produce different emotions, depending on its interpretation
-People don’t have an especially fine-tuned awareness of their bodily sensations and look to cues from their
environment to help them level their physical sensations
-Believed that the autonomic nervous system alone was too simple to produce all of our complex emotions
Stimulus/Situation,
(e.g.,Bear,attack)
Response,(e.g.,
pounding,heart)
Subjective,
emotion, (e.g.,
fear)
Responses,stem,from,
autonomic,nervous,system
1
November 8, 2017
-Ex. Placed participants in either a euphoric- or an anger-producing environment. Gave them a placebo, a shot of
epinephrine and informed them their arousal would increase, or gave a shot of epinephrine and lied to say it
wouldn’t influence arousal.
•The strongest emotions were experienced by those in the epinephrine-uninformed conditions, and the emotion
felt was consistent with the environment they were placed in
-Felt lots of arousal and attributed it accordingly based on the cues they were receiving from the environment
-The same physiological arousal was interpreted as both euphoria and arousal
•People in the epinephrine-informed condition felt little emotion because they attributed their arousal to the shot
•People in the placebo felt little emotion because they felt little arousal
Emotions: Universal or Culturally Variable?
James-Lange theory: should be universal due to physiological similarities of all humans
Two-factor theory: emotions should vary across cultures because different cultural experience may lead us to have
different interpretations of physiological responses
Q: Is smiling an arbitrary, culturally learned way of expressing happiness?
-Smiling tends to occur before the complex labelling of the emotion (knowing you’re happy)
-Infants, adults, and people born blind all smile when happy
-Suggests that it’s something that is more basic and universally human
Facial expressions are often reflexive
-Adults make approximately the same number of expressions as infants (even infants are born blind)
Evidence for cultural universals in facial expressions:
-The face (Ekman & Friesen, 1971): showed people pictures of people displaying various emotions
•Found 6 universal emotions: anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust
•In particular, pride has been proposed to be a universally recognized emotion
-Different in that it involves much of the body, not just the face (ex. Erect posture, head tilted back, slight
smile, arms extending away/held akimbo)
-Displayed even by blind wrestlers after victory
•This was found to be true even in cultures that have not been exposed to Western ways (ex. The Fore of New
Guinea)
Evidence for cultural variability in facial expressions:
-People are better at recognizing emotions displayed by those from their own cultures
•Signifies that while facial expressions are interpreted to indicate similar emotions across cultures, the degree to
which each expression is recognized varies across cultures
2
November 8, 2017
•In general, people are better at predicting the emotional expressions of people they have been exposed to more
•Also signifies that facial expressions are functional universals and not accessibility universals
-People of low SES are better at interpreting facial expressions than those of higher SES
•May be because they must attend more closely to what those of higher status might be thinking and feeling
-Ex. Emotional constraint in East Asian cultures: socialized to repress expressions of socially destructive emotions
(ex. anger) in order to maintain social harmony
•Emphasis on eyes vs. mouths: East Asians tend to focus on eyes when deciphering emotions more
-Eye movements are harder to control
-Since people are suppressing their emotions, it’s more useful to look at areas that are harder to control
•Ex. Study paired tops and bottoms of different faces
-Found that Japanese people paid more attention to the top of the image and eyes
-Americans paid more attention to the bottom of the image and mouths
•Explains why anime has really large eyes compared to mouths, which is not true in Western cartoons
-Cultures vary in terms of display rules
•Display rules: culturally specific rules that govern which facial expressions are appropriate in a given situation
and how intensely they should be exhibited
•Display rules dictate:
-The intensity of expressions
-When an expression is appropriate
-Ritualized displays (expressions not made universally)
•Ex. Pain expression in Italian vs. Irish hospital patients: Italians are more likely to report feeling pain and to have
expressed pain than Irish people
•Ex. The face: ritualized displays - expressions not made universally
-NB: these facial expressions are ritual displays and produced voluntarily, and are thus different than the
reflexive universal emotions
-Embarrassment is recognized universally as looking away, looking down, possibly touching the face
-Biting the tongue is also a way of expressing embarrassment, but is only recognized by Indians
Emotional Experience
Do differences in the expression of emotions affect the experience of emotion?
Facial feedback hypothesis: proposes that we use our facial expression to infer our emotional state
-Thus, by making a particular facial expression, we can think we are experiencing the corresponding emotion
3
Document Summary
James-lange theory of emotion: emotion = physiological response to stimuli. Focuses on physiological arousal that arises from the autonomic nervous system. Our bodies respond to stimuli in the world by preparing us to react in a survival-facilitating way, and our emotions are our bodily changes that signal how we should behave. Different emotions are associated with different forms of physiological arousal: ex. Embarrassment = sensation of blood rushing to the face, love = feeling of one"s stomach turning end over end, fear = heart pounding. Criticisms: physiological responses are not speci c enough to emotion. Two-factor theory of emotion: emotion = interpretation of our physiological response. Needs both the physiological response and the interpretation of the arousal. The same physiological arousal can produce different emotions, depending on its interpretation. People don"t have an especially ne-tuned awareness of their bodily sensations and look to cues from their environment to help them level their physical sensations.
