Summary Biopsychology Chapter 12

Bio Psychology – Chapter 12 “Emotional Behavior”

 Psychologists define emotion in terms of three components:
o Cognition
o Action
o Feeling
 Emotions, Autonomic Arousal, and the James-Lange Theory
o Emotional situations arouse the autonomic nervous system
o Each situation evokes its own special mixture of sympathetic and
parasympathetic arousal
o The James-Lange theory of emotion suggests that autonomic
arousal and skeletal action occurs first in an emotion
o The emotion that is felt is the label that we give the arousal of the
organs and muscle
o James-Lange theory leads to two predictions:
 People with a weak autonomic or skeletal response should
feel less emotion
 Increasing one’s response should enhance an emotion
o Research indicates the following:
 Paralyzed people report feeling emotion to the same degree
as prior to their injury
 People with “pure autonomic failure” still report feeling
emotion but less intensely
 Pure autonomic failure: output from autonomic
nervous system to body fails
 Suggests other factors are involved in the perception of
emotion
o BOTOX blocks transmissions at synapses and nerve-muscle junctions
o People with BOTOX injections show:
 Slower time in reading unhappy sentences
 Weaker than usual emotional responses after watching short
videos
 Points to body change being important for feeling an
emotion
 However, people with certain types of brain damage
show “normal” responses
o According to the James-Lange theory, emotional feelings result from
the body’s action
o Panic attacks are marked by extreme sympathetic nervous system
arousal (rapid heartbeat, fast breathing, etc.)
 Only if perceived as occurring spontaneously
o Creating certain body actions may also slightly influence emotion
 Smiling slightly increases happiness
 Inducing a frown leads to the rating of stimuli as slightly less
pleasant
o Indicates that perception of the body's actions do contribute to
emotional feeling
o However, body’s actions are not required
o Example: Möbius syndrome
 Brain Areas Associated with Emotion
o Emotional experiences arouse many areas of the brain

, o The limbic system includes the forebrain areas surrounding the
thalamus
 Traditionally been regarded as critical for emotion
o PET and fMRI studies also suggest many other areas of the cerebral
cortex, especially the frontal and temporal lobes, are activated
during an emotional experience
o Measurement of evoked responses indicate the brain is specialized
to attend strongly to facial expressions
o Emotions tend not to be localized in specific parts of the cortex
o A single emotion increases activity in various parts of the brain
o Localization in the brain seems to exist for the emotion of disgust
o The insular cortex is strongly activated during exposure to stimuli
perceived as “disgusting”
 Different parts react to different types of disgusting scenes
 Also the primary taste cortex
 Also reacts to frightening stimuli and angry faces, so not
completely dedicated to disgust
o The two hemispheres of the brain play different roles in emotion
o Activation of the frontal and temporal areas of the left hemisphere is
associated with “approach” and the Behavioral Activation
System
 Marked by low to moderate arousal
 Can characterize either happiness or anger
o The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) is associated with
increased activity of the frontal and temporal lobe of the right
hemisphere
 Increases attention and arousal
 Inhibits action
 Stimulates emotions such as fear and disgust
o Differences in frontal cortex activity relates to personality
o People with greater activity in the left hemisphere tend to be
happier, more out-going, and friendlier
o People with greater left hemisphere activity tend to be socially
withdrawn, less satisfied with life, and prone to unpleasant emotions
o The right hemisphere seems to be more responsive to emotional
stimuli than the left
o Damage to the right temporal cortex causes problems in the ability
to identify emotions of others
o When the right hemisphere is inactive, people do not experience
strong emotions and don’t remember feeling them
o Those with damage to the left hemisphere are better at detecting
others’ emotions
 The Functions of Emotions
o Functions of emotions include:
 Adaptive values (fear leads to escape, anger lead to attack,
etc.)
 Allow us to make quick decisions
 Help us make moral decisions
o The consequences of our decisions have emotional considerations
o Emotions are an important component to moral decisions

, o Failure to anticipate the unpleasantness of an event can lead to bad
decision making
o Contemplating moral decisions activates the prefrontal cortex,
cingulate gyrus, and amygdala
o Damage to the prefrontal cortex impairs decision making
o Leads to impulsive decision-making without pausing to consider
consequences
o Stems from failure to anticipate unpleasantness of an outcome
o Example: Phineas Gage
o Those with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex show
decreased guilt
 Attack and Escape Behaviors
o Attack and escape behaviors are closely related physiologically and
behaviorally
o Corresponding behaviors are anger and fear
 Attack Behaviors
o Pain, threat, or other unpleasant stimuli can trigger an attack
behavior
o Attack behaviors are associated with increased activity in the
corticomedial area of the amygdala
o After experiencing a provocation, people are more likely to attack for
a period of time afterwards
o An initial attack behavior increases the probability of a second
attack behavior
o Environmental factors associated with increased violent tendencies
include:
 Exposure to lead
 Witness or victim of violence in childhood
 Living in a violent neighborhood
o Twins studies suggest genetic contribution to the likelihood of violent
behavior
o Monozygotic twins resembled each other much more than dizygotic
twins with regard to violent and criminal behavior
o Attempts to identify a specific gene have found only a weak effect
o Example: one gene linked to aggression only found among Finnish
people
o Violence is particularly enhanced with both a genetic predisposition
and an early troubled environment
o Example: Interaction between MAOA levels and childhood
maltreatment
o Hormones also influence aggressive behavior
o Male aggressive behavior is influenced by the hormone testosterone
o On average, males engage in more aggressive and violent
behaviors than do females
o Research shows that men with the highest rates of violent behavior
also have slightly higher testosterone levels
o “Triple imbalance hypothesis”: violence depends on other chemicals
besides testosterone, notably cortisol and serotonin
 Aggression levels are highest when cortisol levels are low and
testosterone levels are high
 Serotonin tends to inhibit violent impulses