Motivation and Emotion

1. Motivation and Emotion

2. Emotion • physiological activation • expressive behaviors • conscious experience

3. Theories of Emotion • Does your heart pound because you are afraid... • or are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding?

4. Does physiological arousal precede or follow your emotional experience? Does cognition (thinking) precede emotion (feeling)? Controversy

5. Common Sense View When you become happy, your heart starts beating faster. First comes conscious awareness, then comes physiological activity. Bob Sacha

6. The Elements of Emotional Experience • Cognitive component • Subjective conscious experience • Physiological component • Bodily (autonomic) arousal • Behavioral component • Characteristic overt expressions

7. The Elements of Emotional Experience • Cognitive component involves subjective feelings that have an evaluative aspect • a cognitive appraisal of an event is an important element in emotional experience • “new” Positive psychology -- increasing research on contentment, well-being, human strength, and positive emotion.

8. The Elements of Emotional Experience • Physiological component - arousal associated with emotion occurs through the autonomic nervous system. • fight-or-flight response • The galvanic skin response (GSR) measures autonomic activation • a polygraph or lie detector measures autonomic fluctuations • Polygraph tests are sometimes inaccurate and not reliable enough to be submitted as evidence in most types of courtrooms.

9. The Elements of Emotional Experience • Physiological component – • In the brain, the limbic system is the emotional circuit (the • hypothalamus, the • amygdala, and • adjacent structures); • Joseph LeDoux (1996) - amygdalaplays a particularly central role in modulating emotions.

10. The Elements of Emotional Experience • Behavioral component - Characteristic overt expressions • body language and facial expressions • Research indicates considerable cross-cultural similarities in the ability to differentiate facial expressions of emotion • The facial-feedback hypothesis holds that facial muscles send signals to the brain that help it recognize the emotion being experienced…smile and feel better.

11. The Elements of Emotional Experience • Behavioral component - Characteristic overt expressions • Cross-cultural similarities have also been found in the cognitive and behavioral components, although display rules, or norms for regulating appropriate expression of emotion, vary from culture to culture.

12. Theories of Emotion • James-Lange (body, then emotion) • Feel afraid because pulse is racing • Cannon-Bard (simultaneous) • Thalamus sends signals to both the cortex and the autonomic nervous system • Schacter’s Two-Factor Theory • Look to external cues to decide what to feel • Evolutionary Theories • Innate reactions with little cognitive interpretation

13. James-Lange Theory of Emotion • Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli • We feel emotion because of biological changes in our body caused by stress. • our mind recognizes the feeling • you see a snake, your pulse races, and you feel afraid because your pulse is racing.

14. Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Pounding heart (arousal) Fear (emotion) James-Lange Theory

15. Cannon-Bard Theory • Similar physiological changes correspond with drastically different emotional states. • The physiological change and cognitive awareness must occur simultaneously in the thalamus • you see a snake, the information is sent to the thalamus, relayed to the cortex and autonomic nervous system at the same time

16. Pounding heart (arousal) Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Fear (emotion) Cannon-BardTheory of Emotion • Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: • physiological responses • subjective experience of emotion

17. Schachter–Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion • Physiological responses and cognitive awareness happen at the same time but… • when two groups are exposed to the same stimuli, those who are already physiologically aroused experience more intense emotions than those not aroused • Biology and Cognition interact with each other to increase the experience. • you feel autonomic arousal and look around to see why…if there’s a snake you feel fear.

18. Pounding heart (arousal) Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Fear (emotion) Cognitive label “I’m afraid” Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion • To experience emotion one must: • be physically aroused • cognitively label the arousal

20. Misattribution of arousal • Evolutionary theories of emotion assume that emotions are innate reactions that require little cognitive interpretation • Misattribution can occur when people misinterpret their autonomic arousal

21. Dutton and Aron (1974) • Men divided into two groups were assigned to cross one of two bridges -- one bridge was 10 feet above a stream, the other was a swaying, 230 foot suspension bridge; • as each crossed, he was met by an attractive female with a questionnaire in hand…. The suspension bridge men called the woman for a date significantly more often than the low bridge men, • This suggests misattribution of arousal as attraction rather than fear.

22. Emotions involve bodily responses. Some of these responses are very noticeable (butterflies in our stomach when fear arises) others are more difficult to discern (neurons activated in the brain) Embodied Emotion

23. Robert Plutchik (1984, 1993) devised a model of how primary emotions blend together to form secondary emotions.

24. Figure 10.24 Primary emotions

25. Emotion and Physiology Autonomic nervous system controls physiological arousal Sympathetic division (arousing) Pupils dilate Decreases Perspires Increases Accelerates Inhibits Secrete stress hormones Parasympathetic division (calming) Pupils contract Increases Dries Decreases Slows Activates Decreases secretion of stress hormones EYES SALIVATION SKIN RESPIRATION HEART DIGESTION ADRENAL GLANDS

26. Arousal and Performance • Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks Compare to motivation

27. Physiological Similarities Physiological responses related to the emotions of fear, anger, love, are very similar. Excitement and fear involve a similar physiological arousal.

28. Physiological Differences • Physical responses, like finger temperature and movement of facial muscles change during fear, rage, and joy. • The amygdala shows differences in activation during the emotions of anger and rage. • Activity of the left hemisphere (happy) is different from the right hemisphere (depressed) for emotions More dopamine receptors: nucleus accumbens

29. What is the connection between how we think(cognition) and how we feel(emotion)? Can we change our emotions by changing our thinking? Can arousal response to one event spill over into our response to the next event. Arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger, which could lead to rioting Cognition and Emotion

30. The brain’s shortcut for emotions Sensory input may be routed from the thalamus directly to the amygdalafor an instant emotional reaction or to the cortex for analysis

31. Emotion: Lie Detectors • Polygraph machine commonly used to detect lies • measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion • perspiration • cardiovascular • breathing changes

32. Emotion—Lie Detectors • Control Question • Aim to make anyone nervous (baseline) • Up to age 18, did you ever physically harm anyone? • Relevant Question • Did [the deceased] threaten to harm you in any way? • Relevant response greater than control response  Lie

33. But even at 95% accuracy . . . • If 1 in 1000 employees is actually guilty and all employees are tested, 50 will be wrongly declared guilty

34. Expressed Emotion • How do we decipher people’s emotions? • body language • tone of voice • facial expressions • Are these behaviors cultural? gender bound? • How good are we in detecting true or false emotions?

35. Nonverbal Communication • People more speedily detect an angry face than a happy one

36. We read fear and anger mostly from the eyes, happiness from the mouth • Experience influences how we perceive emotions • physically abused children are quicker to pick out the angry face than non-abused children • At what point does the person morph into fear?

37. Gender Differences • Women generally surpass men at reading people’s emotional cues • Spotting lies • Greater emotional literacy • Greater emotional responsiveness to positive and negative situations • More empathic…more likely to express empathy

38. 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Number of expressions Women Men Sad Happy Scary Film Type Gender and expressiveness

39. Universal Facial Expressions • The number of specific inherited facial patterns or expressions that signal specific feelings or emotional states [such as a smile signaling a happy state] • Cross cultural • Anger • sadness • Happiness • fear • Surprise • disgust • Contempt

40. Culturally universal expressions

41. Figure 10.22 Cross-cultural comparisons of people’s ability to recognize emotions from facial expressions

42. Infants’ naturally occurring emotions • Joy • Anger • Interest • Disgust • Surprise • Sadness • Fear

43. Detecting Emotions • Facial muscles reveal signs of emotion. • Difficult to detect expression of deceit • Absence of verbal or emotional cues makes detection difficult Which smile is feigned, which is natural? How can you tell?

44. Detecting Emotions • Facial muscles reveal signs of emotion. • Difficult to detect expression of deceit • Absence of verbal or emotional cues makes detection difficult Which smile is feigned, which is natural? How can you tell?

45. Emotions are Adaptive Darwin speculated that our ancestors communicated with facial expressions in the absence of language. Nonverbal facial expressions led to our ancestors’ survival. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

46. Analyzing Emotion

47. Feedback Hypotheses • Facial feedback hypothesis • Expressions amplify our emotions by activating muscles associated with specific states [If we smile, we’ll feel happier] • Behavior feedback hypothesis • If we move our body as we would when expressing some emotion we are likely to feel that emotion to some degree [If we shuffle our feet with downcast eyes, we’ll feel sad]

48. Dimensions of Emotion People generally divide emotions into two dimensions.

49. Fear • We learn specific fears through conditioning and observational learning • We are biologically prepared to learn certain fears but not others • Fear of snakes, spiders, heights shared with prehistoric ancestors Self preservation • Fast driving, bombs, electricity  not conditioned in “genetic” makeup

50. The Amygdala • a neural key to fear learning