MODULE 2

EMOTIONS

Definition: A complex pattern of bodily and mental changes that involve physiological
arousal, subjective feelings, cognitive processes, and characteristic behavioural or
expressive responses, often in reaction to a personally significant event or situation.

Derived from the Latin word emovere, which means “to move”

Nature of Emotion:
●​ Multicomponential: Emotions are not simple reactions but involve multiple
interacting elements. These elements are:
○​ Typical physiological changes occur in heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration, and other
bodily functions. Most are caused by activity in the SNS and by the hormones adrenaline
and noradrenaline, which the adrenal glands release into the bloodstream.
○​ Emotional expressions, or outward signs of what a person is feeling,
○​ Emotional feelings (a person’s private emotional experience)
●​ Emotions are linked to many basic adaptive behaviours, such as attacking,
fleeing, seeking comfort, helping others, and reproducing. Such behaviours help us
survive and adjust to changing conditions
●​ Automatic: Emotions tend to involve automatic reactions that are difficult to
regulate, though some control is possible.
●​ Subjective: Emotion is a highly personal experience, consciously felt as pleasant
or unpleasant.
●​ Universality (Basic Emotions): Research by Robert Plutchik and Paul Ekman
suggests a set of primary or fundamental emotions recognised across cultures.
●​ Dynamic: Emotions can vary in intensity and mix to form more complex states.

Components of Emotion:
1.​ Cognitive Component:
"People’s cognitive appraisals determine the emotions they experience."
 This involves evaluating the personal meaning of a stimulus (emotional appraisal).
For example, a speech might be anxiety-arousing for one person but routine for
another based on their appraisal.
"Mixed Emotions": It is possible to experience positive and negative emotions
simultaneously. This is explained by different brain hemispheres processing
positive (left) and negative (right) emotions.

2.​ Physiological Component

Emotions trigger immediate bodily changes.
"A pounding heart, sweating palms, butterflies in the stomach, and other bodily
reactions are major elements of fear, anger, joy, and other emotions."
➔​ Autonomic Nervous System (ANS): The ANS, specifically its sympathetic and
parasympathetic branches, plays a critical and often unconscious role in emotional
arousal.
➔​ Sympathetic Branch: Activates the body for "fight or flight" in emergencies,
releasing hormones like adrenaline.
➔​ Parasympathetic Branch: Reverses emotional arousal, calming the body and
conserving energy.
Sudden Death: Intense emotional stress can be fatal due to excessive sympathetic
activity (leading to a heart attack) or a severe parasympathetic rebound (slowing
the heart to a stop).
Brain Areas:
The hypothalamus, amygdala, and limbic system are central to emotions.
●​ The amygdala is crucial for fear responses and "allows us to respond to potential
danger before we know what’s happening."
●​ The prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in the voluntary control of emotional
reactions.
●​ The right hemisphere seems to mediate positive emotions, whereas the left
hemisphere mediates negative emotions. However, its accuracy is highly debated
 because emotional arousal can occur for reasons other than lying, and some
individuals can control their autonomic responses.

3.​ Behavioural Component:

Emotions are revealed through overt expressions like facial expressions, gestures,
posture, and vocalisations—collectively known as "body language" or kinesics

Classification of expression

Primary Emotions:
Plutchik’s Model / Plutchik’s wheel of emotions
Developed by Robert Plutchik in 1980, a graphic depiction illustrating the relationships
between emotions.
In Robert Plutchik’s model, there are eight primary emotions, as listed in the inner areas.:
fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation, joy, and trust (acceptance).
These 8 primary emotions are polar opposites, based on the physiological reaction each
emotion creates. These can vary in intensity (e.g., "anger at its least level of intensity is
annoyance. At its highest level of intensity, anger becomes rage").

Mixed /component emotions: Adjacent emotions may combine to give the emotions
listed around the perimeter. (e.g., joy + anticipation = optimism; joy + fear = guilt
Mood: A low-intensity, long-lasting ( can persist for hours, days, or even longer)
emotional state that colours a person’s perception of the world, often not linked to a
specific event. Moods are influenced by circadian rhythms, tending to be lower on
weekdays and peaking on weekends. Mood is subjective, typically reported by the person
Affect: The immediate, observable expression of emotion, typically short-lived, changes
moment to moment and is triggered by a specific event. Objective inferred by others
based on facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language.
Mood = long-term mental state.
Affect = appearance of emotion right now

Expression of emotions

●​ Facial Expressions: Considered the "most expressive part of your body," with over
20,000 possible expressions.
○​ Universality: Basic expressions like fear, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise,
and happiness are recognized worldwide, suggesting universal biological
roots. Even blind children display these.
○​ Duchenne Smile: An authentic smile involves not just the mouth but also
the small muscles around the eyes, creating "crow’s-feet," signaling
genuine happiness.
○​ Cultural Differences: While basic expressions are universal, some are
shaped by learning and culture (e.g., sticking out the tongue in China for
surprise, not disrespect).
 ●​ Body Language (Kinesics): Reveals an "overall emotional tone" and feelings like
relaxation/tension and liking/disliking.
○​ Chameleon Effect: Unconsciously imitating others' postures and
expressions can foster liking.
○​ Detecting Deception: Subtle clues include a decrease in illustrators
(gestures that illustrate speech) and an increase in emblems (culturally
understood gestures that may contradict verbal statements).

Gender and Emotion:

Western men are more likely to experience alexithymia (difficulty expressing/naming
emotions).
Boys are often encouraged to express only anger and hostility, while girls are encouraged
to express sadness, fear, shame, and guilt.
This learned inhibition can hinder close relationships and contribute to health problems
like depression. ​
​
Theories of emotion

James-Lange Theory:
"Emotional feelings follow bodily arousal and come from awareness of such arousal."
●​ One of the best-known examples of a physiological theory of emotion.
●​ Proposed by psychologist James (1884) and physiologist Carl Lange suggests that
emotions occur as a result of physiological reactions to events.
●​ Your emotional reaction is dependent upon how you interpret those physical
reactions
●​ We perceive a stimulus, our body reacts, and then we feel the emotion based on
our interpretation of those bodily changes.
●​ Criticisms: Physiological arousal can occur without emotion (e.g., exercise),
visceral changes are too slow to precede the conscious experience of emotion, and
 people experiencing very different emotions can have similar arousal patterns.
such as fear, joy, and anger, exhibit similar patterns of autonomic arousal that are
not readily distinguishable.

Cannon-Bard Theory:
"Emotional feelings and bodily arousal occur at the same time."
●​ Proposed by Walter Cannon and Philip Bard.
●​ Also known as the thalamic theory. Walter Cannon disagreed with the
James-Lange theory of emotion.
●​ The thalamus simultaneously triggers both emotional feelings in the cortex and
bodily arousal via the hypothalamus.
●​ When an event occurs, the thalamus transmits a signal to the amygdala. Amygdala
plays an important role in emotional processing, including emotions such as fear
and anger. The thalamus also sends signals to the ANS, resulting in physical
reactions such as muscle tension, trembling, and sweating.
●​ Cannon and Bard suggests that we feel emotions and experience physiological
arousal such as sweating, trembling, and muscle tension simultaneously and
independently
●​ Criticisms: Overemphasizes the thalamus's role (limbic system and hypothalamus
also key), and suggests emotions occur automatically without cognitive input.

Opponent process theory

●​ Proposed by Richard L. Solomon (1980).
●​ Every strong emotional reaction is followed by an opposite reaction, and over
time, the initial emotion weakens while the opposite emotion strengthens.
●​ When a stimulus causes an initial emotional response (State A), the body
automatically triggers an opposite emotional response (State B) to restore balance.
●​ With repeated exposure, the opponent process (State B) becomes stronger and
occurs more quickly, while the initial emotion (State A) becomes weaker.
 ●​ Eg; Riding a roller coaster: First time – Initial fear (A), followed by relief or
excitement (B). Repeated rides – Fear diminishes, excitement/pleasure becomes
stronger.
●​ Criticism: The theory works better with strong, high-arousal emotions like fear or
joy, but struggles to explain low-intensity, complex emotions. Many emotions
don't have well-defined opposites, which challenges the idea that all emotions
come in opposing pairs as the theory suggests. [Eg; surprise] The theory doesn't
explain how individual interpretation shapes emotion.

Schachter's Cognitive Theory (Two-Factor Theory)

●​ Also known as the Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
●​ Proposed by Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer in 1962.
●​ States that emotion is a product of both physiological and cognitive processes. The
physiological arousal occurs first, and then the individual must identify the reason
for this arousal to experience and label it as an emotion.
●​ Emotion occurs when we apply a particular label to general physiological arousal,
a process called attribution.
●​ Emotion arises from two components:
○​ Physiological arousal – changes in bodily functions (e.g., heart rate,
sweating).
○​ Cognitive labeling – interpreting the arousal based on the context or
situation.
●​ Example: Seeing a bear causes arousal; if the bear seems unfriendly, arousal is
labeled as fear.
●​ Misattribution: Arousal can be mistakenly attributed to a source, influencing
emotional experience (e.g., increased heart rate from a bridge being misattributed
as attraction).
 ●​ Criticisms: May oversimplify cognitive processes, as some emotions occur too
quickly for conscious labeling. Not all emotions need labeling – Some emotions
(like fear) can be automatic. Not everyone interprets arousal the same way.

Lazarus’s Cognitive Appraisal Theory:

●​ Proposed by Richard Lazarus in the 1960s.
●​ Core Idea: Emotion is not automatic; it is a result of how we cognitively evaluate
(appraise) a situation.
●​ Sequence: Stimulus → Cognitive Appraisal → Emotion + Physiological Response
(simultaneously).
●​ Types of Appraisal:
○​ Primary Appraisal: "Is this relevant to me?" (threat, challenge, loss, or
benefit) Is the situation a threat, challenge, loss, or benefit?
E.g., You see a dog running toward you. You assess: “Is it dangerous?
○​ Secondary Appraisal: "Can I cope with it?" (evaluating resources)
What are your resources to deal with it (skills, support, options)?
E.g., “Can I escape? Do I have experience with dogs?”
●​ Criticisms: Some emotions may occur without conscious thought, people are not
always aware of their appraisals. and the relationship between Emotions and
cognition can be difficult to [Link] many cases, thoughts and feelings happen
so closely together that it becomes difficult to distinguish whether the thought
caused the emotion or vice versa.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis:

"Sensations from facial expressions help define what emotion a person feels."
●​ Posed expressions can alter emotions and bodily activity; "making faces" can
actually cause emotion.
●​ Example: Holding a pen in teeth (forcing a smile) makes cartoons funnier than
holding it in lips (forcing a frown).
●​ Implication: Forcing a smile can sometimes improve mood.
●​ Criticisms: Mixed research findings, and context matters; Facial expressions may
not influence emotions if people are aware they're being manipulated. emotion
involves more than just facial expressions - Bodily posture, voice, and
environment also play roles.