Emotions

Psychology Department
Emotions
 The word emotions means' to move'

 A state characterized by , involving

 Physiological arousal
 Expressive behaviors (changes in Facial expressions,
Gestures, Body Posture)
 Subjective feelings
An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated
with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts and behavior.
Emotions are subjective experiences, or experienced from
an individual point of view.
Emotion = PC+EE+EF
Physiological Changes (PC)---Changes in body
functions
Emotional Expression (EE)---Outward signs that an
emotion is occurring
Emotional Feeling (EF)---The private, subjective
experience of having an emotion.
Study of the meaning of body movements, posture,
hand gestures, and facial expressions---Kinesics
(Body Language)
Mood
A mood is the mildest form of Emotion
Moods are low intensity emotional states that can last
for many hours, or even days.
The brain and Emotion
Emotions can be either positive or Negative
Positive emotions are processed mainly in the left
hemisphere, and negative in the right side; so we can
feel happy and sad at the same time.
An area in brain called Amygdala is responsible for
producing emotions.
People who suffer from any damage to Amygdala,
become blind to emotions.
Primary Emotions
 Robert Plutchik (2003) has
identified eight basic
emotions, and these are:
1. Fear
2. Surprise
3. Sadness
4. Disgust
5. Anger
6. Anticipation
7. Joy
8. Acceptance
Physiological Changes During Emotions
When we experience an intense emotions, such as fear or
anger, we are aware of number of bodily changes. For
example:
rapid heart beat
Breathing
dryness of the throat and mouth
increased muscle tension
Perspiration
trembling of the extremities
a sinking feeling in the stomach.
Physiological Changes During
Emotions
Most of the physiological changes that occur during
emotional arousal result from activation of the
sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous
system as it prepares body for emergency action.
Sympathetic system is responsible for the following
changes:
i) Blood Pressure and heart rate increase
ii)Respiration becomes more rapid
iii)The pupils of the eye expand
Cont.
iv) Perspiration increases while discharge of saliva and
mucous decreases
v) Blood sugar level increases to provide more energy
vi) The blood is thicken more quickly in case of wounds
vii) Movement of the gastrointestinal tract decreases;
blood is preoccupied from the stomach and intestines
and sent to the brain and skeletal muscles.
viii) The hairs on the skin become rigid
Theories of Emotions
Psychologists and physiologists have all worked to
formulate some general principles to guide us in
thinking about the emotions.

Some of these theories are discussed here.

1. James- Lange theory
2. Cannon- Bard theory
3. Schachter Singer theory
James Lang theory
It combined the ideas of William James and Danish
physiologist Carl Lange, who largely independently
arrived at the same conclusion, was proposed in 1884.

Theory states that “Our experience of emotion is our

awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-
arousing stimuli”

The perception of bodily changes as they occur is the

emotion.
Cont….
 Example
I see a bear. My muscles tense, my heart races. I feel afraid.
 So What?
Using it
Watch people's physiological signals (facial color, etc.) and deduce what
emotions will result.
 Defending
Notice your own physical feelings and think about how these lead to
emotion. If you could relax deliberately, would you feel better?
 Description
When a stimulating event happens, we feel emotions and physiological
changes (such as muscular tension, sweating, etc.) at the same time.
The sequence thus is as follows:
 Event ==> Simultaneous arousal or physiological changes ==>
emotion
Cont….
James further claims that 'we feel sorry because
we cry, angry because we beat, afraid because we
shiver
The James-Lange theory, in opposition asserts
that first we react to a situation (running away
and crying happen before the emotion), and then
we interpret our actions into an emotional
response. In this way, emotions serve to explain
and organize our own actions to us.
Cannon Bard theory
The Cannon-Bard theory is a psychological
theory developed by physiologists Walter
Cannon and Philip Bard.
It was formulated after James Land theory of
emotion.
Cannon and Bard (1929) rejected the James Lang
theory.
Cont….
It States that an emotion arousing stimulus
simultaneously triggers:
 a) Physiological responses
b) the subjective experience of emotion.
people feel emotions first and then act upon them.
They both proposed that when we perceive an
environmental stimulus during emotion, the
thalamus in the brain reacts.
According to the theory, after an emotion inducting
stimulus is perceived, the thalamus is the initial site
of the emotional response.
In turn, the thalamus sends a signal , and
communicates a message to the cerebral cortex
regarding the nature of emotion being experienced.
Schachter-Singer Theory
 Also called Two Factor theory of emotion.
 It states that “to experience emotion one must
1. Be physically aroused
2. Cognitively label the arousal”.
 This theory emphasized that we identify the emotion
we are experiencing by observing our environment
and comparing ourselves with others.
 In other words given a state of arousal ,we
experience the emotion that seems appropriate to the
situation in which we find ourselves.
Schachter-Singer Theory
In a classical experiment subjects were told that they
would receive a vitamin injection of a drug.
In reality they were given a drug that causes an
increase in physiological arousal, including higher
heart and respiration rates and a reddening of the
face---responses that typically occur as part of strong
emotional responses. Although one group of subjects
were informed of the actual effects of the drug
Subjects in both groups were then individually placed
in a situation where a confederate (associate person)
of the experimenter acted in one of the two ways. In
one condition, he acted angry and hostile,
complaining that he would refuse to answer personal
questions to the experimenter asked him to complete.
In the other condition, his behavior was quite the
opposite: He behaved joyfully, flying paper airplanes
and acting quite happy with the situation.
Schachter-Singer Theory
The key purpose of the experiment was to determine
how the subjects would react emotionally to the
confederate’s behavior. When they were asked to
describe their own emotional state at the end of the
experiment, subjects who knew the effects of the drug
were relatively unaffected by the behavior of the
confederate: being informed of the effects of the
epinephrine earlier, they thought their arousal was
due to the drug, hence they reported experiencing
relatively little emotion.
Schachter-Singer Theory
On the other hand subjects who had not been told of
the drugs real effects were, another was kept in the
dark.
 Influenced by the confederate’s behavior. Exposed to
the angry confederate they also felt angry. In sum, the
results suggested that uninformed subjects turned to
the environment and the behavior of others for an
explanation of the physiological arousal they were
experiencing.
Schachter-Singer Theory
The results of the Schachter- singer experiment
support a cognitive view of emotion, in which
emotions are determined jointly by a relatively
nonspecific kind of physiological arousal and the
labelling of the arousal based on cues from the
environment. There is evidence that in some cases
physical arousal is not essential for emotional
Schachter-Singer Theory
The results of the Schachter- singer experiment
support a cognitive view of emotion, in which
emotions are determined jointly by a relatively
nonspecific kind of physiological arousal and the
labeling of the arousal based on cues from the
environment. There is evidence that in some cases
physical arousal is not essential for emotional
experience to occur and that physiological factor
alone can account for one’s emotional state.