Understanding Emotions: Subjective Experience, Behavior, and Origins, Assignments of Psychology

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General Psychology-online

Fall 2019

EMOTION

Chapter 10, part 2

Emotion I. What is an emotion? Explain each of the following three dimensions: Emotion is a feeling state, it can be either positive or negative, it also changes one’s psychological state, and influences behavior.

1. Physiological arousal It refers to the psychological state of an individual, it includes being attentive, awake, and alert. Physiologically, the body experiences an increase of pressure and rate in blood and respiration, and the digestive system slows down. 2. Subjective experience or “feelings.” Subjective experience refers to the emotional and physical feelings that are totally internal to an individual, these feelings cannot be shared with another person, cannot be measured by anyone else but the individual, and even if two people are exposed by the same stimuli, there is no assurance that they are both experiencing the same feelings. - Describe Pennebaker’s experiment on emotional disclosure. What was manipulated and measured? What happened – what were the results? What did they show? The experiment was composed of 46 undergraduate students randomly assigned to four different writing groups. At the beginning of the test, the students took some assessments that measured things related to anxiety, disability, and health behaviors. Their blood pressure was also measured pre and post writing. The groups consisted of a control group, where they wrote about trivial things for 15 minutes, each day, for 4 days. The other three groups wrote about traumatic experiences, group 1: the feelings related to those experiences, group 2: the trauma facts related to the traumatic events, and group 3: a combination (feelings and facts). Afterwards, they filled out a physical symptom and affective (mood) check lists. 4 months after the writing period, they received a packet of surveys inquiring about their long-term impact of the experiment, also, the experimenters reviewed how many visits the participants had had to the health services. The results showed that those people in the group that wrote about their feelings and facts of their traumatic experiences (combination group) showed a remarkable reduction in health issues, those in the groups 1 and 3 reported more lasting-effects. Emotional disclosure (telling/writing about emotions and feelings) has a positive effect in health improvement. **3. Behavior - expression of emotion

• Describe how emotion is displayed in behavior.** Emotions are those that represent how you feel internally, behavior is what you do in a more tangible way and it is usually linked to the emotions felt. Behaviors are commonly driven by emotions; the most common way of emotion expression is through facial responses, tone of voice, and gestures. An example of an emotion displayed in behavior is when an individual is angry, their facial expressions tent to be rougher, their voice tone is deep and loud, their posture would show defiance, and their gestures can be seen in the way they move their hands maybe in a violent or pronounced way. General Psychology

negative emotions, to grow, thrive and, carry on a healthy life. Some examples of positive and negative emotions are: love, happiness, satisfaction, fear, sadness, loneliness.

- Describe/ explain how they are associated with approach versus avoidance behaviors, and with different brain circuits It is believed that positive emotions/affects activate and are processed by the left frontal lobe, where functions like language, social behavior, and problem solving are involved. Negative emotions would activate and be processed by the right frontal lobe, where non-verbal abilities functions are involved. That is why preschoolers with more activation in their left frontal lobe show more social behaviors that those where their right frontal lobe is more active, they would show more avoidance and isolation. IV. Two Brain Systems for Processing Emotion Describe each of the two brain systems for generating emotion - the pathway and its function: As part of the limbic system, the amygdala plays an important role in reactions to stimuli, such as emotions and behaviors. The amygdala is in charge of receiving sensorial information and it is highly involved in creating emotional responses, especially fear. 1. Subcortical circuit: Thalamus  Amygdala The thalamus sends sensory information directly to the amygdala, which draws out and immediate emotional response, fear for example, when walking in the neighborhood and suddenly a dog barks at you, making you jump and move out of the way very quickly. This is merely a circuit that increases the chances of survival. 2. Cortical circuit: Thalamus  Cortex  Amygdala In this circuit the thalamus sends information to both structures, the amygdala and the cortex, the cortex would make a more detailed processing, which is then sent to the amygdala, this generates two emotional responses (the amygdala’s and the cortex’s). In the example with the dog, you are walking down the street, the dog barks at you, response one: you jump quickly out of the way, but then you recognize that dog (cortex’s response after its processing), and fear is replaced, now you kneel and say hi to that good boy. V. Emotion Regulation - describe/ explain what it is, and how it is terribly important in life! Emotion regulation refers to the action of modulate an emotional state, either before or after an event, in order to meet environmental requirements. Those who are good at regulating their emotions (especially the negative ones) tend to be more flexible at adapting to stressful situations, can focus better, and are more able to resolve conflicts. Some strategies that are consciously used to regulate negative emotions are: going out for a walk, meditate, and work out. General Psychology

VI. Theoretical Perspectives on Emotion A. Psychodynamic perspective: People can be unaware of their emotions.

- Explain this statement by giving an example. A person is feeling ill, maybe some bad stomachaches, cannot sleep well, but too busy to realize what is causing all these ailments. Finally, this person goes to the doctor who finds out they have significant loss of weight, ‘when was the last time you sat at the table to eat a good meal’? - asks the doctor-. This discovery results in a long story where the ill person ends up disclosing all this information related to anger issues and stress, since they were very busy to stop and analyze their situation, they were unaware of the reality and thus, the root cause of the aches and discomfort. This individual might have been avoiding their root emotions unconsciously to stay away from confronting the reality and the consequences of dealing with the true, the façade is far ‘easier’ than putting in the effort to fix and be more subjective towards oneself. - Describe the “Illusory mental health” study by Shedler et al. (1993). Who were the participants, and what did the researchers have them do? What were the results? What did they show? The participants filled out a questionnaire regarding their mental health and also described what their earliest memories consisted of. Some people reported, in the questionnaire, being happy and healthy but described memories linked to unpleasant emotions, they were considered to have illusory mental health (IMH). In a second part of the study, the persons with IMH were presented whit an anxiety-provoking task, which actually triggered a big amount of psychological distress and anxiety, they still would report having low levels of anxiety, thus, they were unaware of their emotions. Illusory mental health is when a person consciously denies distress but shows physiological symptoms that represent possible medical illness. Their physiological ailments reflect that their conscious and unconscious mental states do not match. **B. Cognitive Perspective: Emotions result from cognitive processing of stimuli in the environment.

• Describe the Schachter-Singer experiment that involved giving a shot of adrenaline to one group of participants. What did the researchers have them do? What were the results?** Participants were administered with either a shot of a placebo or adrenaline, set into three groups 1-was informed, 2-misinformed, 3-not informed at all about what the possible effects from what was administered to them could appear. When the participants were in the waiting room, a fake participant would act as if evoking either anger or euphoria. Those that knew the details of the experiment would link their arousal to the injected drug. The people that didn’t know about the arousal effect, didn’t know the reason why, but they actually felt angry or euphoric, which was triggered by the fake participant’s attitude in the waiting room. General Psychology