EMOTION
Dr Nesif J. Al-Hemiary
MBChB –FICMS(Psych)
International Associate RCPsych(UK)
Emotion and Motivation
•
They are closely related.
•
Emotions can activate and direct behavior.
•
Emotions may accompany motivated behavior.
•
Despite similarities, there are differences:
1-emotions are triggered from outside,
whereas motives are activated from within.
2-motive is usually elicited by a specific need, but an
emotion can be elicited by a wide variety of stimuli.
•
These distinctions are not absolute.
•
Nevertheless, emotions and motives are different
enough in their sources , subjective experience ,and
effects on behaviors.
Components of emotion
1.
Cognitive appraisal: person’
s assessment
of the personal meaning of the current
circumstances.
2.
Subjective experience: the affective state
or feeling tone that colors private
experience.
3 .
Thought and action tendencies: urges to
think and act in particular ways.
Components of emotion
4.
Internal bodily changes : physiological
responses ,particularly those involving the
autonomic nervous system such as
changes in heart rate and sweat glands
activity.
5. Facial expression: muscle contractions that
move facial landmarks-like cheeks ,lips,
nose, and brows- into particular
configuration.
6. Responses to emotions: how people
regulate , react to , or cope with their own
emotion or the situation that triggered it.
Emotions and Moods
1 .
Emotions typically have a clear cause. Moods are
free floating and diffuse affective states.
2.
Emotions are typically brief, lasting only seconds or
minutes but moods endure longer lasting hours or
days.
3.
Emotions typically implicate the multiple component
systems ,but moods may be salient only at the level
of subjective experience.
4 .
Emotions are often conceptualized as fitting in to
discrete categories like fear , anger, joy, and
interest. Moods by contrast are conceptualized as
varying along dimensions of pleasantness and
arousal level
.
Cognitive appraisal
•
Is an interpretation of the personal meaning of
certain circumstances (personal-environment
relationship) that result in an emotion.
•
Largely responsible for differentiating the
emotions.
•
We often emphasize cognitive appraisal when we
describe the quality of an emotion. We say “
l was
angry because she was unfair.”
•
Assessment of unfairness is clearly an abstract
belief that result from a cognitive process.
•
Cognitive appraisal affects also the intensity of
emotions.
Cognitive appraisal theories
•
The two- factor theory
:
emotions result from the combination of two
factors- an initial state of unexplained arousal
plus a cognitive explanation (or appraisal) for
that arousal.
•
James- Lange theory
:
Autonomic arousal differentiate emotions so
that there must be a distinct pattern of
autonomic activity for each emotion
.
Cognitive appraisal theories
:
•
Facial feedback hypothesis
This hypothesis runs parallel to the James-Lange
Theory : just as we receive feedback about ( or
perceive ) our autonomic arousal , so do we
receive feedback about our facial expressions,
and this feedback can cause or intensify the
experience of emotions.
•
Contemporary theories
:
These theories acknowledge that cognitive
appraisals can occur automatically , outside
conscious awareness.
Cognitive appraisal theories
•
Debate continues ,though, over how much of
the appraisal process can occur unconsciously.
•
One recent suggestion is that only the most
rudimentary appraisals of valence ( Are these
circumstances good for me or bad for me?)
and urgency ( How quickly must l respond? )
are made outside of awareness. By contrast
,more complex appraisals , such as agency (
Who is to blame?), result from conscious
information processing.
•
Amygdala : register emotional reactions
Subjective experience
•
Subjective experience of emotions, or feelings,
guide behavior, decision making, and
judgment.
•
Different emotions carry urges to think and act
in certain ways called
thought action
tendencies.
•
According to broaden- and- build theory,
positive emotions broaden people’
s
momentary thought action repertoires, which
in run can build lasting resources for survival.
•
Subjective experiences also steer memory,
learning ,and risk assessment
.
Emotions and thought –action
tendencies
•
Anger --------- attack
•
Fear
---------
escape
•
Disgust --------- expel
•
Guilt
---------- make amends
•
Shame ---------- disappear
•
Sadness --------- withdraw
•
Joy
---------- play
•
Interest --------- explore
•
Pride
---------- dream big
Bodily changes
•
Intense negative emotions involve physiological
arousal caused by activation of the sympathetic
division of the autonomic nervous system.
•
Positive emotions appear to have an undoing
effect on lingering negative emotional arousal.
•
People with spinal cord injuries , which limit
feedback from the autonomic nervous system,
report experiencing less intense emotions.
•
Other studies also suggest that visceral
perception contributes to the intensity of
emotions.
•
The James- Lange Theory states that
autonomic arousal differentiates the
emotions, and recent evidence
suggests that , to a degree ,the pattern
of arousal (for example heart rate and
skin temperature) differs for different
emotions
.
Facial Expression
•
The facial expressions that accompany a subset of
emotions have a universal meaning. People from
different cultures agree on what emotion a
person in a particular photograph is expressing.
•
Communicative power.
•
Cultures may differ in the factors that elicit certain
emotions and in display rules that specify how
emotions should be experienced and expressed.
•
In addition to their communicative function,
emotional expressions may contribute to the
subjective experience of an emotion (the facial
feedback hypothesis) .
Responses to emotions
(Emotional regulation)
•
People almost always respond to or regulate
their emotions by either exaggerating or
minimizing them ,and the ability to do so
predicts social success.
•
Emotion regulation strategies has been
classified as either:
a- cognitive.
b- behavioral
.
Responses to emotions
(Emotional regulation)
And as either:
a- diversion
b- engagement.
•
Responses to emotion can influence other
components of the emotion process.
•
The strategies people use to regulate
emotions can have unexpected
repercussions.
•
For instance suppressing facial expression
increases autonomic arousal and impairs
memory.
Emotions ,Gender , and Culture
•
Emotions vary by gender and culture, perhaps most
typically at the front- end of the emotion process( such
as person- environment relations and cognitive appraisals)
and the back-end of the emotion process( such as
responses to emotion).
•
Many gender differences can be linked to gender
stereotypes about emotions, which assign ”
powerless
emotions”
, like sadness and fear, to women, and powerful
emotions, like anger and pride, to men.
•
Cultural differences in individualism versus collectivism also
yields differences in emotion ,with collectivism’
s greater
focus on relationships affecting both appraisal processes
and regulation strategies.
AGGRESSION
•
Aggression is a behavior that is
intended to injure another person (
physically or verbally) or to destroy
property.
Aggression as a drive
•
According to Freud’
s psychoanalytic theory ,many
of our actions are determined by instincts
,particularly the sexual instinct. When expression
of these instincts is frustrated an aggressive drive
is induced.
•
Later psychoanalytic theorists broadened this
frustration –aggression hypothesis, proposing
that whenever a person’
s effort to reach a goal is
blocked, an aggression is induced that motivates
behavior intended to injure the obstacle
(
person or object) causing the frustration
.
•
This hypothesis receives some support from studies
showing a biological basis for aggression.
•
In some animals ,aggression is controlled by
neurological mechanisms in the hypothalamus.
Stimulation of the hypothalamus of a rat or a cat
can lead to rage or killing response.
•
In humans, and certain other mammals, aggressive
behavior is largely under cortical control and hence
is affected by past experience and social influences
.
Aggression as a learned response
•
According to the social-learning theory,
aggressive responses can be learned through
imitation and increase in frequency when
positively reinforced.
•
Children are more likely to express
aggressive responses when they are
reinforced for such actions than when they
are punished for the actions.
Aggressive expression and catharsis
•
Studies that try to distinguish between aggression as a
drive and aggression as a learned response often focus
on catharsis.
•
Catharsis is purging of an emotion by experiencing it
intensely.
•
If aggression is a drive , expression of aggression should
be cathartic ,resulting in reduction in the intensity of
aggressive feelings and actions.
•
On the other hand, if aggression is a learned response
,expression of aggression could result in an increase of
such actions
.
•
Evidence indicates that aggression either
increases subsequent aggressive behavior or
maintains it at the same level, arguing against
catharsis.
•
When given repeated opportunities to shock
another person who can not retaliate, college
students become more and more punitive.
•
Indirect or vicarious expression of aggression also
shows no evidence for catharsis: there is a
positive relationship between the amount of
media violence children consume and the extent
to which they act aggressively
.
THANK
YOU