Chapter 9 Emotion

Emotion is the powerful social signal about how you feel, emotion help you adapt and survive in your
world, emotions cause physiological around and motivate many of your behavior.
3 Function of emotion
1. Social emotion
-Facial expressions that accompany emotions communicate the state of your personal feelings
and provide different social signals that elicit a variety of response from those around you.
2. Adaptation and survival
-Emotions have also adaptive value; one may smile as a gesture of friendliness, and sociability,
one may look angry to settle some conflicts.
3. Arousal and motivation
Physiological Aspects of Emotions
Most of the physiological changes that take place during emotional arousal from the activation of the
sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system as it prepare our body for emergency action. The
sympathetic division is responsible for the following involuntary physiological changes that accompany
experience.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Blood Pressure and heart rate increase.

Respirations become more rapid.
Pupils dilate.
Perspiration increases to provide of saliva and mucous decreases.
Blood sugar level increases to provide more energy.
Blood clots more quickly in case of wounds.
Blood is diverted from the stomach and intestines to the brain and skeletal muscles.
Rising of the hair on the skin causing goose bumps.

Basic Emotions
Basic emotions, most of which can be seen even among infants;
1. Joy is a highly pleasant emotion associated with accomplishment, satisfaction.
2. Fear is a strong emotional reaction involving subjective feeling of unpleasantness, agitation
and a desire to flee or hide, and accompanied by widespread activity.
3. Disgust is the emotional feeling accompanying attitudes for repulsion, rejection or
withdrawal.
4. Anger is an the emotional reaction elicited by any of a number of stimulating situations,
including threat, overt aggression, restraint, verbal attack, disappointment or frustration,
and characterized by strong responses in the sympathetic nervous system.
5. Surprise is the emotional reaction that arises when we come upon something suddenly or
unexpectedly
6. Sadness is the emotional feeling characterized by low spirits, unhappiness or sorrow.
7. Distress is being in extreme pain, whether of the body or of the mind.
8. Interest is a feeling of intentness, concern or curiosity about something.
4 categories of emotions
1. Negative emotion- anger, fear, shame, sadness, and jealousy.
2. Positive emotion- happiness, joy, pride, and love.
3. Borderline emotion-hope, contentment, compassion.

4. Non-emotion- grief, depressions frustration, disappointment, nervousness, tension, surprise

The Range of emotions
1. Basic or primary emotions
They are the innate, unlearned and universal emotions they found in all cultures are
reflected in the same facial expressions and emerge in children at an early age.
2. Secondary emotions
These are formed from the various combinations of the primary emotions and very from
culture to culture.
Basic
Joy
Acceptance
Fear
Surprise
Sadness
Disgust
Anger
Anticipation

Secondary
love
Submission
Awe
Disappointment
Remorse
Contempt
Aggressiveness
Optimism

Theories of Emotions
James Lange Theory
We have experiences, and as a result, our autonomic nervous system creates physiological events such
as muscular tension, heart rate increases, perspiration, dryness of the mouth, etc. This theory proposes
that emotions happen as a result of these, rather than being the cause of them.
The sequence thus is as follows:
Event ==> arousal ==> interpretation ==> emotion

Cannon-Bard Theory
When a stimulating event happens, we feel emotions and physiological changes (such as muscular
tension, sweating, etc.) at the same time.
The sequence thus is as follows:

Event ==> Simultaneous arousal and emotion

Schachter-Singer Theory
the two-factor theory inserts a third step between physical arousal and subjective feelings. In this
theory, general arousal leads to cognitive assessment of the surroundings (the middle step), which in
turn allows a person to identify his or her subjective feelings.

Lazarus Theory

Facial feedback Theory

The bodily sensation prepares us for action, as in the Fight-or-Flight reaction. Emotions grab our
attention and at least attenuate slower cognitive processing.
This is not a new theory and was proposed in 1884. It combined the ideas of William James and Danish
physiologist Carl Lange, who largely independently arrived at the same conclusion. William James
described it thus:

"My theory ... is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our
feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion. Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are
sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, and angry and strike.
The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect ... and that the more
rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we
tremble ... Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in
form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear, and judge it best to
run, receive the insult and deem it right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or angry"
Lange particularly added that vasomotor changes are the emotions.
It was largely supplanted by the Cannon-Bard theory, but of late, it has made something of a come-back,
although the notion of causality is not as strong and there is ongoing uncertainty as to the chicken-andegg question of which comes first, physiological and emotional feelings.
Example
I see a bear. My muscles tense, my heart races. I feel afraid.
Schacher singer theory
Schachter and Singer retained some aspects of the James-Lange theory in their own two-factor theory of
emotion. They still saw emotional experiences as a sequence of events, with steps dependent on
previous experiences.
However, the two-factor theory differs from the James-Lange theory in one important aspect. It
postulates a general arousal resulting from the sensing of an emotional stimulus rather than the very
specific set of physical responses proposed by the James-Lange theory.
Using the "bear in the room" example that is a favorite of emotion theorists, here's how the two-factor
theory would work.
Sensing the bear in the room would result in general arousal. The general arousal triggers a cognitive
assessment: Why am I feeling aroused? Oh, there is a bear in the room. This cognitive assessment makes
use of knowledge and memories of bears (and perhaps their eating habits), which in turn leads to the
subjective feeling of fear.
Cannon
In neurobiological terms, the thalamus receives a signal and relays these both to the amygdala, which is
connected with emotion. The body then gets signals via the autonomic nervous system to tense
muscles, etc. This was a refutation of the James-Lange theory (which proposed that emotions followed
arousal) by Cannon and Bard in the late 1920s.