Ch13 Emotion

CHAPTER 13 Lecture Notes: EMOTION Emotion: a response of the whole organism Physiological arousal Expressive behaviors Conscious experience Emotional Arousal Autonomic Nervous System controls physiological arousal Sympathetic Division (arousal) Parasympathetic Division (calming) Pupils dilate EYES Pupils contract Decreases SALIVATION Increases Sweats SKIN Dries Increases RESPIRATION Decreases Accelerates HEART Slows Inhibits DIGESTION Activates Secrete Stress Hormones ADRENAL GLANDS Decreases secretion of stress hormones Arousal and Performance: Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks. Lie Detectors Polygraph: machine that is commonly used in attempt to detect lies; measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion (i.e. perspiration, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing changes Control Question: Up to age 18, did you ever physically harm anyone? Relevant Question: Did the deceased threaten to harm you in any way? Relevant --- Control --- Lie Is 70% accuracy good? Assume 5% of 1000 employees are actually guilty of stealing . . after testing all employees 285 will be wrongly accused What about 95% accuracy? Assume that 1 in 1000 employees are actually guilty . . after testing all employees 50 are wrongly declared guilty and 1 of 51 testing positive are guilty (2%) EXPERIENCING EMOTION amygdala: neural key to learning fear catharsis: emotional release; catharsis hypothesis- "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges Feel-good, do-good phenomenon: people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood. Subjective Well-Being: self perceived happiness or satisfaction with life; used along with measures of objective well-being (physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life. Adaptation-Level Phenomenon: tendency to form judgments relative to a "neutral" level (i.e. brightness of lights, volume of sound, level of income); defined by our prior experience Relative Deprivation: perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself THEORIES OF EMOTION Does you heart pound because you are afraid …. or are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding? James-Lange Theory of Emotion Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli 412813525400000222313525400000Sight of oncoming car Pounding heart Fear (perception of stimulus) (arousal) (emotion) Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: physiological responses and subjective experience of emotion 321373510096500Pounding heart (arousal) 321373519812000Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Fear (emotion) Schachter's Two Factor Theory of Emotion To experience emotion one must: be physically aroused and be able to cognitively label the arousal Emotion and cognition feed on each other