Emotions and Health

1. Emotions and Health

2. EMOTIONS Distinct Emotions Approach: 10+ Basic emotions Joy, Interest/excitement, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Fear, Shame, Guilt

4. You arrive home late, tired and slightly irritated after a hard day of work. You flip on the lights in your bathroom and glance downward at your green toothbrush. There, nestled in the slightly frayed bristles, lies a cockroach, reluctant to move, the insect waves its feelers at you

7. Disgust Highly adaptive, often food-related Marked by aversion towards something distasteful Ensures people select & reject appropriate food Facial expression: * wrinkling nose * gaping expression But psychology of disgust extends beyond role in food recognition => model for acquisition of values

8. Would you use toothbrush again? ….even if it was dropped into boiling water & sterilized?

9. Paul Rozin Thirsty subjects would not drink glass of juice with sterilized cockroach in it But some people even refused to drink other juice poured into a different glass after witnessing this.

10. “Sympathetic magic” People believe that when two objects come into contact they acquire like properties Contagion Not a conscious, rational processes Fundamental, universal process (although some disgust elicitors are cultural) Dog Soup (Korea)

11. Disgust Elicitors: 4 broad categories 1. Core disgust elicitors Objects potentially capable of contaminating foods Roaches, flies, feces

12. Disgust Elicitors: 4 broad categories 2. Animal-reminder disgust elicitors Reminders of animal origins => threatens sense of mortality “Terror Management Theory” E.g., death, poor hygiene, bizarre forms of sexual behavior

13. Disgust Elicitors: 4 broad categories 3. Sociomoral disgust Emotional reaction due to moral sense E.g., rape, violence, murder

14. Disgust Elicitors: 4 broad categories 4. Interpersonal disgust From contact with someone of unsavory origins E.g., would you wear sweatshirt that had been worn by serial murder Jeffrey Dahmer Caste system, in India: 3,500-yr-old system based on degrees of dirt and disgust. Untouchables perform most disgusting tasks (gravediggers, street sweepers) Higher castes reluctant to eat food handled by lower caste

15. Fear Adaptive response Why so many fears? * can learn to fear almost anything * e.g., cars, flying, failure, mice

16. Lab-reared Wild-reared Fear Susan Mineka: Learning by observation • Wild monkeys afraid of snakes • lab monkeys NOT afraid of snakes

17. Fear Predisposed to some fears * Snakes, spiders, cliffs * But NOT cars, electricity, bombs

19. Components of emotions E.g., Fear (experience) associated with increased heart rate (among other things) wide eyes, clenched teeth, etc. E.g., Happiness (experience) associated with decrease in heart rate (decreased arousal) smile But…what comes first?

20. Do we smile because we are happy or are we happy because we smile? Three theories of emotion provide different answers…. All agree that emotions related to autonomic nervous system & body in general

21. Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Pounding heart (arousal) Fear (emotion) 1. James-Lange Theory Interpretation of event evokes autonomic changes in body=>emotion arises from perception of these changes * contrasts with common sense view! * e.g,. We decide we are sad because we cry, smiling makes us happy Different patterns of autonomic response elicit different emotions (e.g., “butterflies” & anxiety) But is this plausible?

22. Pounding heart (arousal) Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Fear (emotion) 2. Cannon-Bard Theory • Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: • physiological responses • subjective & cognitive aspects of emotion

23. 3. Schacter-Singer two-factor theory Schacter-Singer Experiment  injected student volunteers with hormone epinephrine (mimics effects of arousal for 20-30 mins.) ·     subjects told either: o    would have physiological effect o    would not have physiological effect ·     subjects in either: o    euphoria conditon (playful confederate) o    anger condition (insulting questionnaire) “which member of your immediate family does not bathe or wash regularly” “with how many men (other than your father) has your mother had extramarital relationships? 4 or fewer, 5-9, 10 or more” ·     subjects not warned about physiological arousal attributed it to either euphoria or anger

25. 3. Schacter-Singer two-factor theory Situation determines cognitive appraisal, which determines the emotion Physiological arousal determines intensity of emotion

26. “Misattribution of arousal” Dutton & Aron, 1974

27. Condition 1: High bridge Condition 2: Low bridge 39% called woman 9% called woman Implications for horror movies, amusement-park rides, etc.

28. Facial Feedback Theory (Ekman) Subjects directed to pose expressions Sensory feedback from the expression contributes to the emotional feeling

29. Facial expressions effect self-reported anger and happiness

30. Facial expressions affect the rest of the body

31. What are Emotions? • What are emotions? • A motivated state consisting of • Physiological arousal • Expressive behaviors • Cognitive/Conscious Experience • Nature and Nurture side: • Everyone has emotions  Nature side • Culture affects how we express them  Nurture side

32. Joy Surprise Anger Contempt Shame Interest – Excitement Sadness Disgust Fear Guilt The 10 Basic Emotions:

33. Biopsychology of Emotion: • The Brain: Key Areas • Limbic System • Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding, Mating • Important Parts: • Hypothalamus – Changes in breathing/heart rate during “fight-or-flight” • Amygdala – Fear and Rage • Septum – Thin membrane in center of ventricle • Suppresses negative emotional states (e.g., fear) • Also: Frontal Lobe – “brake system” for amygdala

35. Biology & Emotion: • With Arousal: • Autonomic NS kicks in and • Sympathetic NS activated • Epinephrine and Norepinephrine are released • Heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar rise, preparing us for fight or flight • When we can calm down, parasympathetic NS kicks in

36. Interesting Facts: • Positive emotions activate the left hemisphere more, while negative emotions activate the right hemisphere more. • Arousal and stress can actually help us, up to a certain point. • After we reach that point, performance declines • The point is different for easy and difficult tasks

37. Performance level Difficult tasks Easy tasks Low Arousal High Yerkes-Dodson Curve:

38. More Cool Facts: • Body language can convey a *lot* of information! • Body language and gestures mean different things in other cultures • Eye contact • “thumbs up” in Australia, Ghana “Up yours” • “OK sign” in Brazil  Obscene • Facial expressions are similar all over the world – “Nature” component

39. Health How do our emotions affect our health?

40. Stress • Stressor: event or stimulus that threatens an organism’s physical or psychological well-being • Coping mechanism: response by the threatened organism to minimize or avoid the effects of the stressor • Stressors may elicit the “fight or flight” repsonse

41. General Adaptation Syndrome • Alarm stage: immediate emergency response • Fight or flight • Resistance stage: prepared for longer attack • Immune system increases to max capacity • Exhaustion stage: body systems fail • Physiological and immune systems cannot maintain elevated response any longer • Resistance drops below normal levels, leaving the organism very vulnerable

42. Cortisol: The Stress Hormone • Cortisol produces many of the body’s physiological responses to stress • Converts protein to glucose for energy • Regulates inflammation from injury • Activates sympathetic nervous system

43. Stress • Sex differences in response to stress • Males: fight or flight • withdrawal • Females: tend and befriend • nurturing

44. Stress and Health • Long term effects of stress • Heart disease • Immune deficiency • Decreased sexual interest • Growth problems • Reduced bone density • Reduced muscle mass • Blood sugar imbalances • Cancer • Caused by chronically high cortisol levels

45. How to Cope with Stress:Boosting Your Immune System • Get plenty of rest • Exercise regularly, outdoors when possible • At least 4 times a week for 30 minutes • Practice meditation or yoga • Laugh as much as possible • Eat lots of fruits and vegetables • At least one a day from each of the seven color groups • One serving per 20 lbs of body weight

46. Eat for Immunity • Purple/Red: Grapes, grape products (red wine, grape juice), prunes, cranberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, red peppers, plums, cherries, eggplant, red beets, raisins, red apples, red pears • Red: Tomatoes, pink grapefruit, watermelon • Orange: Carrots, mangos, apricots, cantaloupes, pumpkin, acorn squash, winter squash, sweet potatoes • Orange/Yellow: Orange juice, oranges, tangerines, yellow grapefruit, lemon, line, peaches, papaya, pineapple, nectarines • Yellow/Green: Spinach, collard, mustard greens, turnip greens, yellow corn, avocado, green peas, green beans, green peppers, yellow peppers, cucumber, kiwi, romaine lettuce, zucchini, honeydew melon, muskmelon • Green: Broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, bok choi, kale • White: Bananas, garlic, onions, leeks, celery, asparagus, artichoke, endive, chives, mushrooms

47. The Importance of Touch Evolutionary perspective • Most primate species spend about 20% of their time grooming each other • Hygienic and social functions • In humans, language replaced grooming about 50,000 years ago • We spend 20% of our day talking

48. The Importance of Touch • Language is very recent; the vast majority of human evolution occurred prior to the development of language • Our immune systems (and endocrine systems) evolved in a context of constant contact with other (grooming) • Touching other humans boosts the immune system (particularly skin to skin contact) • Also regulates growth, hormones, and development

49. The Importance of Touch • Psychosocial dwarfism • “Failure to thrive” • Condition in which infants who are not touched and held fail to develop • Orphanages • Modern lifestyles • Kangaroo care

50. Touching and Psychological Health • Societies which have higher levels of affection between parents and children and which do not punish premarital sex have much lower levels of violence than societies which are less affectionate and in which premarital sex is punished • A study of 49 modern hunter-gatherer societies found that in 48 of them, the levels of violence and aggression could be accurately predicted by levels of affection and whether premarital sex is permissible • Among industrialized nations, high touch cultures such as France have much lower violence/homicide rates than low touch cultures such as the United States • The homicide rate in the U.S. is up to 22 times as high as the rate in France!