Introduction to psychology
Chapter 10: Emotion and Motivation
10.1 What Are Emotions?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Distinguish between primary and secondary emotions.
Discuss the roles that the insula, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex play in emotional
experience.
Compare and contrast the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and Schachter-Singer two-
factor theories of emotion.
Define misattribution of arousal and excitation transfer.
Emotion: an immediate, specific negative or positive response to environmental
events or internal thoughts. (sometimes called affect).
For psychologists, emotion has three components:
- A physiological process e.g. heart beating fast and sweating.
- A behavioral response e.g. eyes and mouth opening wide.
- A feeling that is based on cognitive appraisal of the situation and
interpretation of bodily states e.g. I’m scared!
Feeling: the subjective experience of the emotion, such as feeling scared, but not the
emotion itself.
Moods: are diffuse, long-lasting emotional states that do not have an identifiable
object or trigger.
Refer to people’s vague senses that they feel certain ways.
Emotions Vary in Valence and Arousal
Emotion theorists distinguish between primary and secondary emotions. This approach is
conceptually similar to viewing color as consisting of primary and secondary hues.
, Primary Emotions: emotions that are innate, evolutionarily adaptive, and universal.
These emotions include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, surprise, and
contempt.
Secondary Emotions: blends of primary emotions.
These emotions include remorse, guilt, submission, shame, love, bitterness,
and jealousy.
Circumplex Model: emotions are plotted along two continuums:
Valence: how negative or positive they are.
Arousal: how arousing they are.
- Generic term used to describe physiological activation or increased
autonomic responses.
Positive activation states are associated with increased dopamine whereas
negative states appear to be associated with an increase in norepinephrine.
Emotions Have a Physiological Component
Emotions involve activation of the autonomic nervous system to prepare the body to meet
environmental challenges different level of specificity for each emotion.
Limbic System
Limbic system structures: insula, amygdala, and various structures of the prefrontal cortex
are important for emotions.
The insula receives and integrates somatosensory signals, helping us experience
emotion.
- Especially active when people experience disgust, anger, guilt, anxiety etc.
Amygdala process the emotional significance of the stimuli and generates immediate
emotional and behavioral reactions. There are two pathways:
- Fast pathway: sensory information travels quickly through the thalamus
directly to the amygdala.
- Slow pathway: more deliberate and thoughtful evaluations. Sensory
information travel from the thalamus to the cortex and then to the amygdala.
The amygdala is also associated with emotional learning, memory of emotional
events, and the interpretation of facial expressions of emotion.
Amygdala responds to facial expressions, especially sensitive to the intensity of
fearful faces.
There Are Three Major Theories of Emotion
, Common sense suggests that experiences generate emotions which then lead to bodily
responses and behavior. Three major theories have proposed different ways that these
processes might work.
James-Lange Theory
James-Lange Theory of Emotion: people perceive specific patterns of bodily
responses, and as a result of that perception they feel emotion.
Pro: Brain imaging studies found that different primary emotions produce
different patterns of brain activation suggests that different experiences
that generate emotion are associated with different physiological reactions.
Against: Other research indicates that physical reactions are often not
specific enough to fully explain the subjective experience of emotions.
Cannon-Bard Theory
Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion: information about emotional stimuli is sent
simultaneously to the cortex and the body and results in emotional experience and
bodily reactions respectively.
Information from an emotion-producing stimulus is processed in subcortical
structures, which then send information separately to the cortex and body.
As a result, people experience two separate things at roughly the same time.
Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory
Two-Factor Theory of Emotion: a label applied to physiological arousal results in the
experience of an emotion.
Whatever the person believes caused the emotion will determine how the
person labels the emotion.
Misattribution of Arousal: misidentifying the source of arousal. Physical
states caused by a situation can be attributed to the wrong emotion. (e.g.
bridge and attraction experiment)
Chapter 10: Emotion and Motivation
10.1 What Are Emotions?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Distinguish between primary and secondary emotions.
Discuss the roles that the insula, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex play in emotional
experience.
Compare and contrast the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and Schachter-Singer two-
factor theories of emotion.
Define misattribution of arousal and excitation transfer.
Emotion: an immediate, specific negative or positive response to environmental
events or internal thoughts. (sometimes called affect).
For psychologists, emotion has three components:
- A physiological process e.g. heart beating fast and sweating.
- A behavioral response e.g. eyes and mouth opening wide.
- A feeling that is based on cognitive appraisal of the situation and
interpretation of bodily states e.g. I’m scared!
Feeling: the subjective experience of the emotion, such as feeling scared, but not the
emotion itself.
Moods: are diffuse, long-lasting emotional states that do not have an identifiable
object or trigger.
Refer to people’s vague senses that they feel certain ways.
Emotions Vary in Valence and Arousal
Emotion theorists distinguish between primary and secondary emotions. This approach is
conceptually similar to viewing color as consisting of primary and secondary hues.
, Primary Emotions: emotions that are innate, evolutionarily adaptive, and universal.
These emotions include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, surprise, and
contempt.
Secondary Emotions: blends of primary emotions.
These emotions include remorse, guilt, submission, shame, love, bitterness,
and jealousy.
Circumplex Model: emotions are plotted along two continuums:
Valence: how negative or positive they are.
Arousal: how arousing they are.
- Generic term used to describe physiological activation or increased
autonomic responses.
Positive activation states are associated with increased dopamine whereas
negative states appear to be associated with an increase in norepinephrine.
Emotions Have a Physiological Component
Emotions involve activation of the autonomic nervous system to prepare the body to meet
environmental challenges different level of specificity for each emotion.
Limbic System
Limbic system structures: insula, amygdala, and various structures of the prefrontal cortex
are important for emotions.
The insula receives and integrates somatosensory signals, helping us experience
emotion.
- Especially active when people experience disgust, anger, guilt, anxiety etc.
Amygdala process the emotional significance of the stimuli and generates immediate
emotional and behavioral reactions. There are two pathways:
- Fast pathway: sensory information travels quickly through the thalamus
directly to the amygdala.
- Slow pathway: more deliberate and thoughtful evaluations. Sensory
information travel from the thalamus to the cortex and then to the amygdala.
The amygdala is also associated with emotional learning, memory of emotional
events, and the interpretation of facial expressions of emotion.
Amygdala responds to facial expressions, especially sensitive to the intensity of
fearful faces.
There Are Three Major Theories of Emotion
, Common sense suggests that experiences generate emotions which then lead to bodily
responses and behavior. Three major theories have proposed different ways that these
processes might work.
James-Lange Theory
James-Lange Theory of Emotion: people perceive specific patterns of bodily
responses, and as a result of that perception they feel emotion.
Pro: Brain imaging studies found that different primary emotions produce
different patterns of brain activation suggests that different experiences
that generate emotion are associated with different physiological reactions.
Against: Other research indicates that physical reactions are often not
specific enough to fully explain the subjective experience of emotions.
Cannon-Bard Theory
Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion: information about emotional stimuli is sent
simultaneously to the cortex and the body and results in emotional experience and
bodily reactions respectively.
Information from an emotion-producing stimulus is processed in subcortical
structures, which then send information separately to the cortex and body.
As a result, people experience two separate things at roughly the same time.
Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory
Two-Factor Theory of Emotion: a label applied to physiological arousal results in the
experience of an emotion.
Whatever the person believes caused the emotion will determine how the
person labels the emotion.
Misattribution of Arousal: misidentifying the source of arousal. Physical
states caused by a situation can be attributed to the wrong emotion. (e.g.
bridge and attraction experiment)
