Introductory Lecture
(1) Emotions
1. Emotions shape our experiences of the world around us
○ Attention (lecture 4)
○ Memory (lecture 5)
○ Decision-making (lecture 7)
○ Regulation of social behaviour
○ Communication
○ Health (~lecture 9)
2. Emotions occur on different levels
● Facial expressions
● Bodily changes
● Feelings
● Actions
● Neural responses
3. Emotions are shared, but there exists individual differences
→ while emotions are biologically universal (eg fear, anger, happiness), individuals
vary significantly in how they experience, express, and regulate emotions
4. Disorders of emotional processing (ie autism, phobias, psychopathy)
Historical Segregation
Thoughts Feelings
● Orderly chain of reasoning ● Operate in ways that sometimes do not
● ‘Head’ make logical sense
● ‘Heart’
1.1 Are Emotions and Cognition Antagonists?
Individual differences in self-control
1. Delayed gratification task
○ Eat marshmallows now: the emotional system
○ Have more marshmallows later: the rational system
● Observing whether kids have developed cognition to conceptualise the future
○ Consider, delay option is still an emotionally guided choice: emotions after waiting
and getting more marshmallows are better (depends on reward system)
● Difficulty in emotion and cognition research: hard to separate reward from all other
components of emotion → definitions don’t always match in every study that we look at
● Interestingly, this was also done with squids and they are capable of doing it → not
necessarily the emotional vs rational system (segregating emotional value of reward is tricky),
but about exerting inhibition for future emotion
,2. Moral Dilemmas: people react adversely to having to
kill another person even if it is rationally the best
solution to the dilemma
Eg trolley problem
● We have varying levels of dilemmas with
varying levels of feelings/emotions attached to
them
Cognition without emotion? (Damasio, 1994)
● Damage to emotion-processing regions of the brain results in
○ Problematic decision-making
○ Impulsive, reckless interpersonal behaviours
And, distressing emotions (ie stress, worry, depression, anxiety) have both cognitive and emotional
features
(a) Manipulations of cognitive appraisal (of a situation) systematically impact emotions
(b) Manipulations of emotion systematically impact cognition, memory and judgement
→ Hence, cognition and emotion interact
1.2 Affective Primacy Hypothesis
Affective (emotional) responses can occur independently of, and prior to, cognitive appraisal
or conscious thought
Some of our reactions to emotional stimuli may have non-cognitive bases
Consider, which comes first? Emotion or Cognition?
The mere exposure effect/familiarity principle: describes our tendency to develop preferences for
things simply because we are familiar with them
● Repeated presentations of a stimulus → greater liking
● Basic principle of any advertisements
● Lack of conscious awareness is a characteristic of this effect
● Processing was done in frontal regions and hence, did not require increased amygdala
activation
● But, cognition ≠ conscious awareness
Consider the relationships between the emotional networks and cognitive networks of the brain
● Connections contribute to adaptive and maladaptive behaviours
● No 2 damage to various networks result in the same exact type of loss/change in behaviour
,1.3 What is Emotion?
What is the difference between…
1. Emotions: discrete, brief and consistent responses to an internal or an external event which
has a particular significance for the organism (Scherer, 2005, p697)
○ Coordinated response of brain, autonomic NS and behaviour
○ Emotions are embodied → feel it in various parts of our bodies
○ Emotions are not very susceptible to top-down control (resistant to top-down control)
○ Emotions are not encapsulated, penetrate other psychological processes
2. Moods: more diffuse, less intense states that lack a clear trigger → result in cognition
→ state of emotion
○ Duration: hours to days
○ Function: biasing cognition
○ Nature of cause: non-specific
○ Intensity: low
3. Feelings: subjective representation of emotions
→ subjective representation of emotion
○ Our thoughts about emotions
○ Can last longer, even after chemicals left the body
○ Can only be measured by subjective report
○ Feelings have a more cognitive aspect compared to emotions
Feature Emotions Moods Feelings
Duration Short-term Long-term Varies
Cause Specific trigger General, unclear Personal interpretation
Intensity High Low to moderate Varies
Physical Response Strong Mild Minimal
Examples Fear, anger Irritable, cheerful Loved, guilty
Other aspects of affective life
● Attitudes: relatively enduring, affectively coloured beliefs, preferences and predispositions
towards objects and persons
● Affective style: relatively enduring, stable dispositions that bias an individual toward
perceiving and responding with a particular emotional quality, emotional dimension or mood
● Temperament: affective styles that are apparently early in life, maybe genetic
○ Individual differences in emotional reactivity
Cognitive dimensions of emotions (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985)
● Pleasantness: extent to which emotion feels positive or negative to the person experiencing it
○ High pleasantness: happiness, love, excitement, anger?
○ Low pleasantness: sadness, fear
● Valence: the intrinsic attractiveness (positive valence) or averseness (negative valence) of an
emotion
○ Positive valence: joy, pride, hope
○ Negative valence: shame, guilt, frustration
, ● Certainty: the degree to which a person feels certain about what caused the emotion and what
will happen next
○ High certainty: confidence, anger (eg "I know why I'm angry and what I should do
about it")
○ Low certainty: confusion, surprise (eg "I don’t know why this is happening or what
will happen next")
● Control: the extent to which a person feels they can influence the situation causing the
emotion
○ High control: pride, guilt (eg "I did this, and I can change it")
○ Low control: fear, helplessness (eg "this is out of my hands")
● Incidental emotions: the emotions we carry with us to the decision that have nothing to do
with the decision
○ Human choices are influenced by emotions
○ Task: in experiment or real life
■ Relevant emotions = dependent on the task
■ Irrelevant emotions = incidental emotions
● Affective states (moods or emotions)
● Emotional content of stimuli present in the environment
● Not directly linked to the task
○ Appraisal tendency framework (ATF; Lerner and Keltner, 2000): describes how and
why emotions affect judgement and decisions
○ Incidental emotions causes effects consistent with underlying appraisal tendencies
○ These effects alter judgements and choices; it’s hard even if you are instructed to
ignore incidental emotion during an experiment
Dynamic interaction:
● Emotions can influence what we attend to, remember, plan, and think about
● Cognitive processes (eg interpretation and attention) can impact mood and emotional
well-being
● Affective-cognitive interactions at the neural level are a key focus
Incidental moods can affect risk-probability assessments (Loewenstein et al., 2001)
In good moods, people are more optimistic In bad moods, people overestimate the chances
about the chances of favourable events (Nygren of unfavourable events (Johnson and Tversky,
et al., 1996) 1983)
● The appraisal tendency of certainty ● No certainty, appraisal of risk
● Uses more heuristic cues in decision ● Make decisions carefully (Tiedens and
making (Tiedens and Linton, 2001) Linton, 2001)
● Anger ≈ contentment → note: anger is
similar to good mood in certainty and
optimism that people feel
Angry individuals make relatively optimistic Fearful individuals make relatively pessimistic
and risk-seeking choices and risk-aversive choices
● More like happy than fearful
(1) Emotions
1. Emotions shape our experiences of the world around us
○ Attention (lecture 4)
○ Memory (lecture 5)
○ Decision-making (lecture 7)
○ Regulation of social behaviour
○ Communication
○ Health (~lecture 9)
2. Emotions occur on different levels
● Facial expressions
● Bodily changes
● Feelings
● Actions
● Neural responses
3. Emotions are shared, but there exists individual differences
→ while emotions are biologically universal (eg fear, anger, happiness), individuals
vary significantly in how they experience, express, and regulate emotions
4. Disorders of emotional processing (ie autism, phobias, psychopathy)
Historical Segregation
Thoughts Feelings
● Orderly chain of reasoning ● Operate in ways that sometimes do not
● ‘Head’ make logical sense
● ‘Heart’
1.1 Are Emotions and Cognition Antagonists?
Individual differences in self-control
1. Delayed gratification task
○ Eat marshmallows now: the emotional system
○ Have more marshmallows later: the rational system
● Observing whether kids have developed cognition to conceptualise the future
○ Consider, delay option is still an emotionally guided choice: emotions after waiting
and getting more marshmallows are better (depends on reward system)
● Difficulty in emotion and cognition research: hard to separate reward from all other
components of emotion → definitions don’t always match in every study that we look at
● Interestingly, this was also done with squids and they are capable of doing it → not
necessarily the emotional vs rational system (segregating emotional value of reward is tricky),
but about exerting inhibition for future emotion
,2. Moral Dilemmas: people react adversely to having to
kill another person even if it is rationally the best
solution to the dilemma
Eg trolley problem
● We have varying levels of dilemmas with
varying levels of feelings/emotions attached to
them
Cognition without emotion? (Damasio, 1994)
● Damage to emotion-processing regions of the brain results in
○ Problematic decision-making
○ Impulsive, reckless interpersonal behaviours
And, distressing emotions (ie stress, worry, depression, anxiety) have both cognitive and emotional
features
(a) Manipulations of cognitive appraisal (of a situation) systematically impact emotions
(b) Manipulations of emotion systematically impact cognition, memory and judgement
→ Hence, cognition and emotion interact
1.2 Affective Primacy Hypothesis
Affective (emotional) responses can occur independently of, and prior to, cognitive appraisal
or conscious thought
Some of our reactions to emotional stimuli may have non-cognitive bases
Consider, which comes first? Emotion or Cognition?
The mere exposure effect/familiarity principle: describes our tendency to develop preferences for
things simply because we are familiar with them
● Repeated presentations of a stimulus → greater liking
● Basic principle of any advertisements
● Lack of conscious awareness is a characteristic of this effect
● Processing was done in frontal regions and hence, did not require increased amygdala
activation
● But, cognition ≠ conscious awareness
Consider the relationships between the emotional networks and cognitive networks of the brain
● Connections contribute to adaptive and maladaptive behaviours
● No 2 damage to various networks result in the same exact type of loss/change in behaviour
,1.3 What is Emotion?
What is the difference between…
1. Emotions: discrete, brief and consistent responses to an internal or an external event which
has a particular significance for the organism (Scherer, 2005, p697)
○ Coordinated response of brain, autonomic NS and behaviour
○ Emotions are embodied → feel it in various parts of our bodies
○ Emotions are not very susceptible to top-down control (resistant to top-down control)
○ Emotions are not encapsulated, penetrate other psychological processes
2. Moods: more diffuse, less intense states that lack a clear trigger → result in cognition
→ state of emotion
○ Duration: hours to days
○ Function: biasing cognition
○ Nature of cause: non-specific
○ Intensity: low
3. Feelings: subjective representation of emotions
→ subjective representation of emotion
○ Our thoughts about emotions
○ Can last longer, even after chemicals left the body
○ Can only be measured by subjective report
○ Feelings have a more cognitive aspect compared to emotions
Feature Emotions Moods Feelings
Duration Short-term Long-term Varies
Cause Specific trigger General, unclear Personal interpretation
Intensity High Low to moderate Varies
Physical Response Strong Mild Minimal
Examples Fear, anger Irritable, cheerful Loved, guilty
Other aspects of affective life
● Attitudes: relatively enduring, affectively coloured beliefs, preferences and predispositions
towards objects and persons
● Affective style: relatively enduring, stable dispositions that bias an individual toward
perceiving and responding with a particular emotional quality, emotional dimension or mood
● Temperament: affective styles that are apparently early in life, maybe genetic
○ Individual differences in emotional reactivity
Cognitive dimensions of emotions (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985)
● Pleasantness: extent to which emotion feels positive or negative to the person experiencing it
○ High pleasantness: happiness, love, excitement, anger?
○ Low pleasantness: sadness, fear
● Valence: the intrinsic attractiveness (positive valence) or averseness (negative valence) of an
emotion
○ Positive valence: joy, pride, hope
○ Negative valence: shame, guilt, frustration
, ● Certainty: the degree to which a person feels certain about what caused the emotion and what
will happen next
○ High certainty: confidence, anger (eg "I know why I'm angry and what I should do
about it")
○ Low certainty: confusion, surprise (eg "I don’t know why this is happening or what
will happen next")
● Control: the extent to which a person feels they can influence the situation causing the
emotion
○ High control: pride, guilt (eg "I did this, and I can change it")
○ Low control: fear, helplessness (eg "this is out of my hands")
● Incidental emotions: the emotions we carry with us to the decision that have nothing to do
with the decision
○ Human choices are influenced by emotions
○ Task: in experiment or real life
■ Relevant emotions = dependent on the task
■ Irrelevant emotions = incidental emotions
● Affective states (moods or emotions)
● Emotional content of stimuli present in the environment
● Not directly linked to the task
○ Appraisal tendency framework (ATF; Lerner and Keltner, 2000): describes how and
why emotions affect judgement and decisions
○ Incidental emotions causes effects consistent with underlying appraisal tendencies
○ These effects alter judgements and choices; it’s hard even if you are instructed to
ignore incidental emotion during an experiment
Dynamic interaction:
● Emotions can influence what we attend to, remember, plan, and think about
● Cognitive processes (eg interpretation and attention) can impact mood and emotional
well-being
● Affective-cognitive interactions at the neural level are a key focus
Incidental moods can affect risk-probability assessments (Loewenstein et al., 2001)
In good moods, people are more optimistic In bad moods, people overestimate the chances
about the chances of favourable events (Nygren of unfavourable events (Johnson and Tversky,
et al., 1996) 1983)
● The appraisal tendency of certainty ● No certainty, appraisal of risk
● Uses more heuristic cues in decision ● Make decisions carefully (Tiedens and
making (Tiedens and Linton, 2001) Linton, 2001)
● Anger ≈ contentment → note: anger is
similar to good mood in certainty and
optimism that people feel
Angry individuals make relatively optimistic Fearful individuals make relatively pessimistic
and risk-seeking choices and risk-aversive choices
● More like happy than fearful
