Transcript Emotions
HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY? EMOTIONS, STRESS & HEALTH! Ch. 12 Emotions Name as many emotions as you can: Excitement Anger Fear Happiness Surprise Disgust Shame Sadness Contempt Guilt Physiology of Emotion Emotions cause an aroused physiological state: automatic/sympathetic nervous system. Glucose released Respiration increased Blood clotter released Adrenaline: epinephrine, norepinephrine Blood pressure up. Stress Creates the aroused physiological state for an extended period of time, reeking havoc on the immune system and other brain/body systems, leading to anxiety and/or depression. Arousal and Performance Arousal theory states that with easy and well-learned tasks, arousal enhances performance. With difficult or unrehearsed tasks arousal hurts performance. Arousal and emotion It is very difficult to tell the difference between aroused emotional states: anger, fear, lust: although the behavioral look of each is distinct. This implies a cognitive component. Emotion and the Brain Different emotions flow through different brain circuits. Disgust and sadness tends to trigger right brain circuits. Happiness and other positive emotions tend to be left frontal lobe activities. Expressing Emotion Feeling emotion and expressing emotions are two very different things. Much of communication is nonverbal: body, face and gestures. Staring into eyes can give good “love” information. People are very good at reading nonverbal cues. You can tell a happy face from 100 yds. Angry faces tend to leap out of the crowd at you. Reading Emotions Introverts are better at reading nonverbal cues, extroverts are better at expressing them. Expressiveness and Culture Cultures vary in the emotions that they express and the intensity in which they express it. However, facial expressions for various expressions are universal. For instance, Japanese rarely show selfaggrandizing and negative emotions, but likely to show happiness, as means of social glue. Expressiveness Expressions not only communicate emotion, but they also regulate it. Smiling will make you happier. Walking boldly will make you more confident. Pull up on your desk, push down on it, which feels better? Experiencing emotion Emotions can be categorized in three different ways: Pleasant vs. unpleasant Intense vs. sleepy Long-lasting vs. brief: which lasts longer? Sadness lasts longer than grief/anger. Concealing emotions Humans are also good at intentionally concealing emotions. Studies show that only those highly trained for looking for deceit are good at it, even law enforcement officers rarely do better than random guessing. However, without intentional deception, even the very young can read emotions with great accuracy. Fear Controlled by the amygdala located at the ends of the hippocampus in the Limbic system of the lower brain. Fear is adaptive to fight/flee from dangerous events. We can learn to fear just about anything, but we fear some things easier than others: heights, spiders, snakes. Figure 13.5 The brain’s shortcut for emotions Myers: Psychology, Eighth Edition Copyright © 2007 by Worth Publishers Fear Humans can learn to fear embarrassment and social situations which can become maladaptive when extreme. Chronic anxiety (fear) of social events can have devastating effects on your immune system and other mood systems (depression/anxiety disorders). Extreme fear of a specific trigger is called a phobia. Thresholds of Fear Peoples’ triggers for fear vary. Some are not easily fearful: test pilots, serial killers, type B personalities; while some are anxious/nervous almost all the time. Tranquilizers operate on this brain/body system. Happiness One’s mood colors everything else: memories, assessments of relationships, relative well-being (ratio of positive thoughts versus negative or as a sense of life satisfaction), thoughts of the future. Feel Good, Do Good Phenomena: one of the most consistent findings in Psych: The happier you are the more likely you are to help others. Happiness People have a happiness set point (50% heritable). In general happiness hovers in a range around that point independent of life circumstances. If something extremely bad happens or extremely good , you eventually rebound back to your range. Two years later, the relative happiness of accident paraplegics and lottery winners is the same. Money and Happiness Money does not buy happiness. There is no relationship between money and happiness, with the exception of the desperately poor in impoverished countries. Money only buys a temporary surge of happiness. Adaptation-Level Principle The tendency to judge various stimuli relative to our previous experiences. If circumstances change, within months you recalibrate your level and then emotionally judge experiences relative to the new circumstance. Adaptation-Level Principle So, for material wealth to increase relative-well being would require an-ever increasing abundance. Think about the Amish; never had, never missed. Relative Deprivation Principle Not only is happiness relative to our own previous experiences, but we compare ourselves to others just above and just below us. So, if everyone gets an A, we’re not as happy as if we got the only A. If you’re GPA is 3.0, you’ll be happier comparing yourself to 2.0s than 4.0s. Basically someone is always above and always below. Get Happiness!!!!(within your inherited range) Most derived enjoyment from becoming engrossed in interesting meaningful work and play (the less expensive, the better): Get flow. Form close meaningful relationships with others. People who feel an internal locus of control report being happier. Have faith in something larger than themselves. What are emotions? The interplay of physiological arousal, expressive behavior and conscious experience. James-Lange Theory Says that emotions are experienced AFTER physiological arousal occurs and the brain reads the response. Cannon-Bard Theory Disagreed with James-Lange, says that emotions occur SIMULTANEOUSLY in the brain and body. The brain routes the sensory message to both at the same time. Cannon-Bard’s theory explains how the same physiological arousal can cause different emotions. Schacter’s Two-Factor Theory OR Schacter-Singer 2-Factor Theory Combines the other two. Says that the physical arousal is the fuel that intensifies the emotion. However after arousal occurs, the brain then puts a label on through cognition, deciding what the emotions should be. Epinephrine experiment with college students. Their experience of emotion depended on what they believed. Opponent Process Theory of Emotion When you feel one emotion (fear of public speaking), you will feel the opposite feeling when resolved (feeling elated afterward). But when the first emotion is repeated, it is less intense and the opponent feeling becomes stronger. (So next less afraid of public speaking, but the elation is stronger when done.) Opponent Process Theory of Emotion Examples: Do drugs, feel good, come down, get depressed. Do more drugs, not as high, come down harder. Exercise hard, causes pain, stop exercise, feel sense of well-being, exercise again, little easier, stop-- well-being is even better. Moral: Do painful/difficult/disciplined stuff (studying) as primary emotion, because the reward is more pleasurable. Anger Most people report becoming at least mildly angry several times a week. Generally triggers are perceived misdeeds of friends and loved ones. Particularly anger-provoking when the deeds are thought to be willful, unjustified and avoidable. Anger Anger is adaptive for arousing protective reactions, but maladaptive when it fuels behaviors we later regret. Anger and Catharsis Displaying anger is not cathartic (cleansing)--it increases anger. The immediate soothing effect it causes becomes positively reinforcing, building anger as habitual response. Dealing with Anger Calm down first!!! Remember the fuel of emotion is physical arousal, so when you come back to homeostasis, you’ll be more rational. Deal with issues, quickly and directly (after calming down), so as not to rehearse the anger-provoking incident. Aerobic exercise elevates mood, and burns epinephrine and cortisol.