PS102 Study Guide - Autonomic Nervous System, Prefrontal Cortex, Mirror Neuron
Document Summary
Emotion: a state of arousal involving facial and bodily changes (face, brain, body), brain activation, cognitive appraisals (such as interpretation of events), subjective feelings and tendencies toward actions. Emotion as a tree: biological capacity for emotion is the trunk & root system; thoughts and explanations create the many branches; and culture is the gardener that shapes the tree. Primary emotions: emotions that are considered to be universal and biologically-based fear, sadness, joy, anger, surprise, disgust & contempt. These emotions have distinctive physiological patterns & corresponding facial expressions & situations that evoke them are the same everywhere. Secondary emotions: emotions that are specific to certain cultures. Charles darwin said that human facial expressions are innate & were develop because they allowed our ancestors to tell between a friendly stranger & a hostile one. Some researchers have argued that pride is a basic human emotion; its adaptive function is to motivate people to achieve and excel thereby increasing their attractiveness.
