Ch 12 Emotion Stress and Health 10 31 2013 Emotion feelings response of whole organism involving Physiological arousal o HR might increase sweaty palms pupils dilate o All things that are going to happen internally Expressive behaviors o Things that are on display for other people to see o Crying facial expressions smile body posture upright vs slouched ect Conscious experience o Evaluation of the situation o What you are thinking about Cognition and emotion Historical emotion theories o James Lange theory of emotion You experience the physiological response first Then experience emotion If you do not have a change in physiology then you wont have a change in emotion o Cannon Bard Theory Physiological changes and emotional experience happen at the same time o Schachter Singer Two factor theory Physiological changes and cognitive label how you feel in the situation and interpret the situation determines your emotion If you see change in physiology as new and exciting your emotion will be excited If you are afraid in situation your emotion will be fear Cognition may not precede emotion o More connections from amygdala emotions to cortex logic than visa versa So Emotions influence thinking more than thinking influences emotion o Thinking high road Seeing something scary Visual input goes to thalamus Thalamus sends to occipital lobe Then sends info to frontal lobe Frontal lobe will interpret stimulus and evaluate if stimulus is good or bad Frontal lobe sends info to amygdala Amygdala gives fear response Sometimes immediate reaction isn t always the Helps you make the correct decision and evaluate right one situation Benefit o Speedy low road Seeing something scary Visual input goes to thalamus Thalamus sends straight to amygdala Amygdala gives fear response Benefit React to something dangerous quickly can save life Not within conscious control Event just leads to emotional response But to know what emotion is appropriate we need to know what we re responding to appraisal Embodied Emotion physiological reaction When you are facing emotional stimulus diff parts of body do diff things Parasympathetic brings you back to normal Performance level o Best for easy tasks when you have a high level of arousal o Best for difficult tasks when you have a low level of arousal The physiology of emotions o Similar physiological responses to a wide variety of different emotions Excited and scary give very similar body reactions HR increases pupils dilate perspire o Internal states of body are a bad indicator of emotion Instead of looking at internal states can look at o Brain Insula activated by social emotions Lust pride disgust o Facial expressions Brow is large indicator if furrowed than angry if up then happy o Left or right frontal lobe activity If positive moods more left than right Detecting emotion in others o Facial expressions o pop out effect for negative words and faces will better find angry faces than happy faces in a collage of stuff will better find negative words in a word search because if you can detect anger you want to avoid them so you don t get harmed o individuals who have been abused are more likely to see anger in anger fear faces faces in middle are more ambiguous can be fear or anger ppl who have been abuse are more likely to call these ambiguous faces angry because you ve been sensitized to see anger in ppl defense mechanism o unconscious expression of microexpressions very subtle facial expressions o difficulty perceiving fake emotions o gestures facial expressions and tone of voice o same gesture has different meanings in different cultures o use similar facial expressions for same emotions throughout cultures biologically hardwired if these facial expressions were learned you would expect these facial expressions to be different in different culture Expressed Emotion culture and emotional expression even ppl who have been blind since birth give same facial expressions for emotions contextual info influences how we perceive emotions effects of facial expresseions o don t just convey emotions they regulate it o facial feedback effect facial muscle states trigger corresponding feelings o if you physically make someone smile they will be happier o if you physically make someone frown they will be sadder o behavior feedback phenomenon what you re doing with your body influences how you feel basic emotions o cross cultural exist across time and across space o present from infancy o seem to be hard wired because infants don t have time to learn complex emotions o by combining basic emotions you get different more o any one of your emotions will be put on continuum low arousal and high arousal on x axis pleasant positive and unpleasant negative on y axis high and pleasant enthusiastic low and pleasant relaxed low and unpleasant sad high and unpleasant angry Stress and Health Stress process by which we perceive and respond to stressors things that cause stress must be threatening or challenging Can be beneficial activates immune system and solve problems will learn to be a better person ect Can also be detrimental increase chance of chronic illness PTSD circulatory respiratory digestive problems Stressors o Catastrophes unpredictable large scale problems effect a large amount of people o Significant life events both happy and sad events Women more stressed than men Seem to be most stressed in 20s o Daily hassles minor daily annoyances Can compound and lead to health issues General adaptation syndrome o Phase 1 alarm reaction Ability to handle stress goes down Pick yourself back up in order to deal with it o Phase 2 resistance Best able to handle stress Although tapers off at the end o Phase 3 exhaustion Shorted telomeres caps at end of chromosomes o One of reasons we age and die o Speeds up process of shortening telomeres the stress response system o response to stress withdrawal wanting to be alone tend and befriend behavior interacting with others social support system Stress and illness o Psychophysiological illness stress related physical illness such as hypertension and some headaches if you can regulate stress you can regulate certain illnesses o psychoneuroimmunology study of how psychological neural and endocrine processes collectively affect the immune system and health o people who are more stressed out will have a longer healing time o stressed people are more vulnerable to colds Coping with Stress o Coping alleviating stress using emotional cognitive or behavioral