Emotion

1. Emotion

2. Outline • Emotions and decision making • Emotional expression • Health benefits of emotional expression

3. Characterizing Emotion Definitional issues Emotions - multi-component, brief, specific responses to challenges or opportunities that are important to the individual’s goals • Emotions are nature’s way to trigger in us a useful behavioural response accompanied with an internal embodied experience to a given situation • Construal/appraisal • Ex: bear fear escape

4. Circumplex Model of Emotion HIGH AROUSAL Excited Furious Embarrassment Elated Irritated POSITIVE NEGATIVE Happy Sad Serene LOW AROUSAL

5. Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns • Emotions can malfunction when: • What was functional response in ancestral environment is no longer functional

6. Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns • Emotions can malfunction when: • Hair-triggering of emotions. Negative emotions sometimes loose their specificity

7. Mental Disorders: The Big Picture • According to the World Health Org (UN): • 15% of the world’s burden of illness is mental illness • If we include the mental illness component of physical illness, % is even higher—up to 50% • More than half of world’s mentally ill are not treated • Stigma attached to mental illness • Most mental illnesses are treatable

8. Mental Disorders: The Big Picture • According to the World Health Org (UN), the breakdown of mental illnesses are: • Unipolar major depression 45% • Suicide 15% • Schizophrenia 13% • Bipolar disorder 11% • Obsessive compulsive dis. 10% • Panic disorder 5% • Other mental disorders 1% • Total 100%

9. Are emotions rational? • Gut feelings--The “somatic marker” hypothesis • Bechara et al Iowa card game study • People have feelings that precede their conscious awareness or reasoning • Damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex impairs ability to produce this gut feeling • Descartes’ error (Damasio)—that thinking (mind) is independent of feeling (body)

10. Emotions as Adaptive Response Patterns • Amygdala: • Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex:

11. Embodied Cognition • Studies show that our bodily experiences affect our thinking (Barsalou) • Nodding vs. shaking head while listening to a persuasive message • Arm flexion (approach) vs arm extension (avoidance) – liking of unrelated novel stimuli

12. Emotions and Moral Judgments • Emotions affect our moral judgments • Inconsistent with rationalist theories: deontology or consequentialism

13. Emotions and Moral Judgments • Schnall, Haidt, & Jordan, 2008 • Disgust as a moral emotion Moral Judgment: Sex between cousins, releasing morally controversial film, etc.

14. Emotions and Moral Judgments • Schnall, Haidt, & Jordan, 2008 • Disgust as a moral emotion Clean, neat desk OR

15. Expression and Recognition of Emotions • Basic emotions: • Cross cultural research: • Exist in all languages • Recognized across cultures • Facial expressions of blind and normally sighted children

16. Expression and Recognition of Emotions • Important cultural variation in: • The cultural importance of an emotion (frequency, intensity, number of words) • Construal of emotional situations (meaning) • Ex: funny vs. insulting • Display rules of when/how to express emotions • Ex: Matsumoto & Ekman (1989) study

17. Expression and Recognition of Emotions • Important cultural variation in (cont’d) • Attentiveness to emotional cues • Ishii and colleagues emotional stroop task • Complex emotions culturally created • Ex: Humiliation (shame + anger) • Culture-specific emotions: mamihlapinatapei, amae, honor

19. Health Benefits of Emotional Expression • Is expressing emotions good for you? • Studies by Jamie Pennebaker and others: randomly assign ppts to two conditions: • 1) “In the next 5 days, write about your deepest thoughts and feelings about an extremely emotional issue that has affected you and your life...” • People write about lost loves, deaths of loved ones, tragic failures, sexual and physical abuse

20. Health Benefits of Emotional Expression • 2) Writing about superficial topics (their plans for the day) (Control condition) • Studies with college students, the unemployed, new mothers, prisoners, spouses of victims

21. Health Benefits of Emotional Expression • Immediately after: more distress • Long term benefits: • Writing over longer periods, stronger results • Comparable effect across gender, age group, educational level, writing vs. talking

22. Health Benefits of Emotional Expression • Possible explanations: • Expression removes the need for suppression • Confiding is cathartic, no need to hide • Meaning making: most health benefits when

23. Health Benefits of Emotional Expression • Explains some of the positive benefits of

24. Summary • Def. and classification of emotions • Emotions as adaptive responses • When emotions become dysfunctional • Universality and cultural variability of emotions • Health benefits of emotional expression