CH12 EMOTIONS STRESS AND HEALTH Emotions response of the whole organism involving 1 Physiological bodily arousal heart pounding 2 Expressive behaviors quickened pace 3 Conscious experience a Thoughts Is this a kidnapping b Feelings panic fear joy 2big questions 1 Does your bodily arousal come before or after your emotional feelings a Did I first notice my racing heart then feel terror Or did my sense of fear come first making my heart beat fast and pace quicken 2 How do thinking cognition and feeling interact Does cognition always come before emotion Did I think about a kidnapping threat before I reacted emotionally James Lange Theory our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological bodily response to emotion arousing stimuli bodily response arousal comes BEFORE Emotion we feel sorry because we cry NOT we cry because we feel sorry notice racing heart shake with fright feel the emotion Cannon Bard Theory emotion arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the experience of the emotion Arousal and Emotion Occur SIMULTANEOUSLY Walter Cannon body s responses heart rate perspiration body temp are too similar and they change too slowly to CAUSE the diff emotions Philip Bard bodily responses and experienced emotions occur separately but simultaneously My heart pounded AS i experienced fear this theory was challenged by studies of people with severed spinal cords Lower spine injuries lost sensation only in their legs reported little change in emotions intensity High spinal cord injury could feel nothing below neck DID report changes some reactions were less intense than before the injuries emotions expressed mostly in body areas ABOVE the neck were felt MORE intensely Ex increase in weeping lumps in throat getting choked up when saying goodbyes etc our bodily responses seemingly feed out experienced emotions Schachter Singer Cognition can DEFINE emotion Schachter Singer believed that emotional experience requires conscious interpretation of arousal physical reactions thoughts emotions Two factor theory to experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal o Spillover effect arousal spills over from one event to the next Ex arousal form a soccer match anger rioting violence Arousal fuels emotion cognition channels it Cognition may NOT precede Emotion Zajonc LeDoux and Lazarus We have many emotional reactions apart from even BEFORE our interpretation of a situation o Ex liking someone or something immediately without knowing why Emotional responses can follow 2 different brain pathways o High road complex feelings hatred love travel via thalamus to the brain s cortex analyzed and labeled before command is sent out by the amygdala emotion control center to respond o Low road simple likes dislikes fears take neural shortcut that bypasses the cortex Fear provoking stimulus would travel via thalamus directly to amygdala Enables QUICK emotional response BEFORE our intellect intervenes to interpret Amygdala reactions are so fast that we may be UNAWARE of what s transpired Some emotional responses do NOT require CONSCIOUS thinking MUCH of our emotional life operates via the automatic speedy low road Lazarus Appraisal is it dangerous or not sometimes without our awareness defines emotion o We assess the sound of the rustling bushes as the presence of a threat LATER realizing that it was just the wind Emotions Autonomic Nervous System Sympathetic division of your autonomic nervous system MOBILIZES your body for action directing your adrenal glands to release stress hormones epinephrine adrenaline and norepinephrine noradrenaline Autonomic nervous system controls physiological arousal Sympathetic division arousing Parasympathetic calming Pupils dilate pupils contract Salivation decreases salivation increases Skin perspires skin dries Heart accelerates heart slows Digestion inhibits digestion activates Adrenal glands secrete stress decrease secretion of stress hormone Hormone Arousal affects perform in different ways DEPENDING ON THE TASK Ex taking a test pays to be MODERATELY AROUSED alert but not trembling with nervousness TOO LITTLE arousal disruptive Physiology of emotions do different emotions activate different physiological and brain pattern responses Different emotions do NOT have sharply distinct biological signatures They DON T engage sharply distinct brain regions Insula neural center deep inside brain activated when we experience various social emotions lust pride disgust lights up for various emotions bite into disgusting food smell the same disgusting food think about biting into a disgusting bug feel moral disgust over sleazy business etc Despite similarities these emotions FEEL different and LOOK different o Facial muscles Fear joy prompt similar increased heart rate stimulate diff facial muscles o Emotions activate in different areas of brain s cortex Negative emotions right prefrontal cortex tends to be more active than the left Depression prone people those with generally negative personalities more right frontal activity Positive emotions trigger more left frontal lobe activity Positive personality show more activity in left frontal than right Detecting emotion in others Most of us read NONVERBAL cues well Especially good at detecting NON VERBAL THREATS Subliminally flashed words more often sense the presence of negative ones snake bomb Crowd of faces a single ANGRY face pops out faster than a single HAPPY one When hearing another language most of us readily detect ANGER Experience can sensitize us to particular emotions Physically abused children are much quicker than others to spot the signals of anger in a face morphing form anger to fear Difficult to detect DECEIVING expressions behavioral differences between liars and truth tellers are too minute for most people to detect Some are more sensitive than others to physical cues introverts tend to excel at reading others emotions extroverts are generally easier to read GENDER EMOTION NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR WOMEN Surpass men at reading people s emotional cues when given thin slices of behavior Surpass men in deciding whether a male female couple is genuine romantic or posed phony couple Greater emotional literacy b c nonverbal sensitivity Saying goodbye to friends after graduation o Men describe simpler emotional reactions I ll feel bad o Women express more complex It ll be bittersweet I ll feel both happy and sad Better at decoding others emotions Greater