Chapter 4:

Emotion Presented by:

Reem Abdulaziz-Julia Maroun-Ephrem Nassif
Introduction
● We, as humans, are distinct with our ability to think and develop
abstracts views alongside our emotions.

● We give events emotions that fit into distinct categories, either

positive like a favorite sports team win or negative like losing a loved
one. Emotions do not need a big event to arise, but happen on a
constant basis daily.

● Where and how emotions form is yet to be agreed on, if it comes

from conscious or unconscious awareness or if it is biological. What
purpose they serve and if we are able to inhibit their expression is
also unknown.
 01
The Experience of
Emotion
What does it mean to feel an
Emotional experience is a mystery, but science
emotion?
has identified the varieties of emotional
experience, the causes and consequences of
emotional expression, and the interplay between
mind and body that gives rise to emotion.

The varieties of emotional

Our daily emotional life is complex, a person may
experiences
feel diverse emotions that do not seem related at
all yet they represent their unique mental state.
The Structure of
Emotions
● These emotions we feel have been mapped into two dimensions:

1. Evaluation: positive (pleasant, desirable) or negative (unpleasant, undesirable).

Independent of evaluation, emotions differ in the degree to which they represent high
versus low level of activation.
2. Activation: represents the extent to which an emotion is associated with heightened
physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure) and heightened potential for
taking action in some way.

● Considering this structure you would believe that they are equally
balanced, but this is in fact not true. However, there are more
negative emotions than positive emotions, and they are experienced
more easily as well.
● A study conducted by Averill (1980) on the emotion vocabulary found in English
dictionaries showed:
1. Imbalance in emotion words: Out of 558 English emotion words, 62% were labeled
negative, while only 38% positive.
2. Personality Traits Ratings: General traits (honest or hardworking) are seen positively
(57%), but emotion-related traits (ex happy or angry) are mostly negative (74%).

● To answer the question of how frequent and readily experienced emotions are
Van Goozen and Frijda (1993):
1. Commonly Mentioned Emotions: In an exercise to name as many emotional words
in 5 minutes across seven countries, the most common emotions were negative (anger,
sadness, fear) rather than positive emotions (joy).
2. Emotional Prevalence: Across these countries the emotions that came to mind more
readily were anger, sadness, fear and joy – three bad to one good.
 Affect Intensity
● Everyone experiences the same basic emotions, but people differ in
how they experience these emotions. An event might promote the
emotion in two people, but one of them may feel the emotion more
intensely. This is called affect intensity.

● People with a higher degree of affect intensity:

○ react more strongly to events
○ have a higher need for social stimulation
○ have greater sensitivity to sensory stimulation (e.g., sights and sounds)
○ more physically arousable
 Affect Intensity
● (Continued)
Affect intensity has implications for the effectiveness of social influence
tactics that rely on emotional appeals. Moore and Homer (2000), created two
versions of a radio ad for a new burglar alarm. The content and length of
both versions were the same, but one was decidedly more emotional in its
pitch. The emotional version was introduced by an 8-year-old boy who was
home alone when a burglar attempted to break in. Appropriate sound effects
depicting a break-in and the cries for help by the child could be heard in the
background.

● Participants with high affect intensity had a stronger reaction to the

emotional version than those with low affect intensity. This however did not
make it more effective in selling the alarm, if the audience is predisposed to
react strongly to such an appeal because it creates an emotional state that is
too intense for the message to be processed and embraced.
Emotional Expression:
Universality in Emotional Expression
● Charles Darwin contributed to our understanding of the link between the experience and
expression of emotion. It was generally believed that humans had special facial muscles
given to them by God that enabled them to express uniquely human sentiments such as
compassion and love. This challenged Darwin’s proposition that all species—including
humans—have a common ancestor, and that traits that proved adaptive for earlier species
were preserved and are reflected in present-day species.

● Darwin’s principle of serviceable habits states that expressions of human emotion can be
traced to our primate and mammalian ancestors. Human expressions of anger —like
primate species— furrow their brows, expose their teeth, tighten their posture and clench
their fists. To display warmth and kindness, humans—like primates—open their arms and
show their palms to one another.

● Darwin also pointed out that blind individuals, nonetheless had the same repertoire of
emotional displays as did sighted humans and other mammalian species.
Emotional Expression:
Universality in Emotional Expression
(Continued)
Studies investigated whether emotions are displayed in the same way
by people in cultures around the world who had no contact with one
another. If people everywhere express emotions in the same way, this
would suggest that a biological basis for emotional expression that
might, in turn, reflect evolutionary, as opposed to cultural, origins.
Ekman et al. (1969) presented 3,000 photos of actors portraying six
emotions to people in Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and the United
States. Their task was to select from six emotion terms the one that best
matched the feeling the person was displaying in each photo. The
accuracy in matching emotions to faces was extremely high—close to
90%—in all five cultures.
 Culture and Emotional Expression
● Cultures differ in the extent to which they teach their members to conceal
their emotional reactions. If a culture teaches people not to reveal their
emotions, the facial expressions of these people may be hard to read—
especially by people in a different culture.

● Restraint and concealment of emotions is emphasized more in collectivist

cultures than in individualistic cultures. Comparing European Americans
(greater individualism), Asian Americans (greater collectivism) are less
likely to display smiles indicating politeness, although the two groups do
not differ in their expression of smiles indicating inner joy. At the same
time, however, Japanese people are more likely than European and
European American people to mask anger with a polite smile. An angry
outburst in Japan is considered a shameful loss of control, so it is better to
“grin and bear it”—at least in public.
Mind, Body & Emotion
● Emotions are more than simple outputs of mental process. The way
we FEEL emotions goes beyond other mental processes. To feel
something means that the body is actively involved. (when angry ->
increased heartbeat, tense muscles).

● When any emotion is experienced, there is a link between mind and

body.
 Facial Feedback
● The link between emotional experience and facial
expression a two way street. The facial feedback
hypothesis states that feedback from muscles in the
face magnify existing emotions and can even evoke
emotions. This means if you were to put on a ”happy
face” that could generate happiness or furrowing
your brows could cause anger.

● This hypothesis was argued by saying that if you

were to tell someone to express certain facial
expressions they will generate thoughts in order for
them to do so. Thus making this not biological rather
psychological.

● Fritz Strack and his colleagues developed a way of

inducing facial displays of emotion without their
corresponding mental states. They asked participants
to hold a pen in one of two ways.
● Both of these positions have emotions related to them: the ”pen in lips”
resembles a frown (sadness) and the “pen in teeth” resembles a smile
(happiness). To test these positions the participants were asked to rate cartoons
and those with “smile” ultimately rated the same cartoons as more funnier than
those with a “frown”.

● This effect extends beyond the face. Movements associated with positive
feelings lead us to evaluate stimuli more favorably, even if they are not
particularly desirable, and vice versa.

● Gary Wells and Richard Petty demonstrated this effect with head movements.
Students were told to test a set of headphones by moving their heads up and
down or side to side while listening. Later, they asked the students whether they
agreed with the viewpoint expressed in what they heard. The students
expressed greater agreement while nodding their heads up and down than with
the editorials they heard while shaking their heads from side to side.
 Bodily Arousal
●
(Continued)
Emotions involve another bodily connection that can exist independently of
what your face and limbs are doing, bodily arousal—a speeding up of your
physiological state, such as increased heart rate, breathing rate, or muscle
tension. To feel an emotion is to experience physical sensations that go beyond
expressions and movements.

● The role of arousal in emotion was provided by William James and Carl Lange
who argued that survival depends on very fast and efficient responses to
environmental events, particularly those that represent potential danger. If you
are walking in a forest and reach two separate roads one with a bear and one
without which one would you choose? The though process to take your decision
shows brain power but its not a psychological feature that allows us to react
quickly.
 Bodily Arousal
●
(Continued)
So, James suggested that there is a direct and immediate link between the
perception of a threatening event and the bodily arousal necessary for
appropriate action. The James-Lange theory of emotion holds that stimuli
trigger activity in the autonomic nervous system, which in turn produces an
emotional experience in the brain.
1. you see the bear
2. your heart starts pounding and your leg muscles contract
3. you experience fear—experience of your body’s activity.
Emotional experience is the consequence, not the cause, of your
body’s reaction to objects and events.
 Interpretation of Bodily
● Arousal
Walter Cannon, pointed out several problems with James’ theory. The Cannon-
Bard theory of emotion states:
1. People often have difficulty in detecting changes in their autonomic activity.
2. Non-emotional stimuli can cause the same pattern of autonomic activity as do
emotional stimuli, yet they do not produce emotions.
3. There are not enough unique patterns of autonomic activity to account for all the
unique emotional experiences that people are capable of.

● In the Schachter-Singer model, a noteworthy (e.g., unexpected, consequential)

event promotes physiological arousal. And if the event has unambiguous meaning
—like stumbling upon a bear—the arousal promotes immediate action without
bringing in the mind for a second opinion. But if the event has less clear meaning
—stumbling upon a mountain goat—the mind attempts to clarify the significance
of the event and direct action on one path rather than others (approach, freeze, or
run away).
 Interpretation of Bodily Arousal
● To (Continued)
test their model, Schachter and Singer (1962) created a situation in which
participants were physiologically aroused and then either informed, uninformed,
or misinformed about the source of this arousal. Participants (all males) were told
that the experiment concerned the effects of a new vitamin compound— Suproxin
. A physician injected them with what they thought was Suproxin, but which was
actually one of two drugs: (1) epinephrine, which stimulates the sympathetic
nervous system (SNS) in preparation for fight or flight by increasing heart rate and
blood pressure; or (2) a placebo.

1. Participants who were injected with epinephrine were told what physical symptoms
to expect (informed) – shaky hands.
2. Other epinephrine participants were told that there were no side effects
(uninformed).
3. Other epinephrine participants were told to expect symptoms that would not occur
(misinformed), shoulder tension or a mild headache.
 Interpretation of Bodily Arousal
● (Continued)
Then an accomplice was sent into the room to wait with them in two separate
conditions:
1. In the euphoria condition, the accomplice seemed to enjoy the experience.
2. In the anger condition, the experimenter asked the accomplice and the participant
to complete a five-page questionnaire consisting of some seemingly pointless
questions.

● Not knowing why they were aroused apparently engaged their mental processes
so as to come up with a reason. In their search for an explanation for their
unexpected arousal, participants took their cue from the accomplice.
Misattribution of
Arousal
● Related to the role of interpretation in generating emotions.

● People find cartoons funnier and erotic scenes sexier after rigorous
physical exercise.

● This often happens beyond our awareness, and people usually

attribute the arousal to something else.

● Those who suffer from insomnia sleep faster when given a placebo
described as a stimulant before bedtime (they attribute the
increased heart rate as an effect of the stimulant).
Mental Dynamics
● Both conscious and unconscious processes play a role in generating
emotions (we can consciously generate a happy thought, and thus
feel happy).

● In other words, the mind operates as a dynamic system.

● Two dynamic properties of thinking are related to emotional

experience:
1. The speed of thought
2. The variability of thought

Note that one can generate rapid thoughts that go back to a common
theme, or very slow thoughts related to different themes
Mental Dynamics
(Continued)
Different combinations are
associated with two negative
emotions: depression (slow and
repetitive) and anxiety (fast and
repetitive).
Mental Dynamics (Continued)
● Cognitive consistency (unlike cognitive dissonance) can make
thinking enjoyable, such as when one is reading a book.

● This is a special case of perceptual fluency, where people enjoy

familiar processes that are easy to understand.

● However, processing information that is too easy becomes boring.

● Optimal mental experience or flow is when one engages with

activities that match their capacities.

● Achieving coherence in mental activity is enjoyable.

Emotional Adaptation
● Our psyche seems to always strive to maintain a state of equilibrium.

● Hedonic treadmill metaphor explains this process (no matter how

far or fast we run on a treadmill, we remain in the same place).

● Deviations in emotions are corrected to maintain a coherent view.

● This is similar to a thermostat that reestablishes temperature

settings in a household.

● There is a tendency for emotions to subside with time, which is

necessary to maintain stability.
Personal Happiness
● Each person has his own baseline levels of happiness.

● Only 10% of the variations in happiness is attributed to experiences.

● 40% is shaped by activities we choose to do (how we handle stress

or interpersonal relations).

● Genetics are responsible for 50% of the variations.

● These variations, from an evolutionary perspective, exist for different

survival functions (promote relationships, vigilance…).
Affective Forecasting
● It refers to predicting how a person would feel about a certain event
(whether positive or negative) after time has passed.

● People tend to overestimate how they will feel about such events in the
future.

● We return to baseline sooner than expected.

● Interestingly, intense emotional states tend to dissipate more quickly than

milder ones.

● This is due to the excessive mental effort used to engage regulatory

processes to return to equilibrium.
 Emotional Variability
● Equilibrium strength differs
among people.

● Weak equilibriums are

associated with neurotic people
who experience a wider range
of emotions.

● They show more errors in

affective broadcasting.
 02
The Purpose of
Emotion
Why do people have
emotions?
● As we have seen before, emotions play a crucial role from an
evolutionary perspective.

● Furthermore, the psychological point of view emphasizes the role of

emotions in the following:
1. Attention
2. Thinking
3. Goal-directed actions

● Without emotions, these processes prove impossible.

Attention
● Emotions affect attention in the following ways:

1. Makes us aware of environmental changes (oriented

reflex upon hearing unexpected noises accompanied by
physiological arousal).

2. Direct our attention to events congruent with current

emotions (mood congruence principle, where a
happy person is more likely to notice or recall positive
events)
 Thinking
Judgment (about people and
Reasoning (about events)
actions)
Processing style perspective, where positive
mood facilitates the use of heuristics and
People usually rely on global feelings to
stereotypes (not associated with lazy
answer complex questions.
thinking).
They rely on these common feelings
Negative mood makes one feel that
only when they are unconscious of the
previous knowledge is inadequate, so it
reason behind such feelings.
motivates searching for a safer conclusion.
Emotions tend to shape judgments in
Positive mood induces more creative and
ambiguous situations.
flexible thinking.
 Studies on Judgment
● In one study, researchers asked people
how satisfied they are with their lives.

● Only half the participants were asked

about the weather before the main
question.

● The assumption was that people would

report less satisfaction on overcast days.

● This held true only when participants

were not asked about the weather (not
thinking consciously about it).
Studies on Reasoning
● Researchers tried to induce positive mood in participants by giving
them candy, showing them exciting films, etc…

● They were later asked to make word associations

● Those who were in a positive mood tended to give more novel

associations.

● For example, people in a positive mood associated the word “chair”

with “leader”, while those in a negative mood associated the same
word with “table”.
Action
● An action without emotion lacks urgency and commitment.

● Neuroscientific evidence: Every decision or intention that leads to

behavior is associated with centers of the brain that register
emotions.

● The motivational function of emotion arises in social contexts,

promoting behavior that changes the tenor of an interaction or even
a long-term relationship.

● However, there is no guarantee that an emotion will have the

intended consequence.
 Action and Emotion

Emotion can impact how well an action

Emotion can dictate what people do
is performed (whether an emotional
(which course of action they take when
state enhances versus impairs the
faced with options)
quality of behavior)
Choice of
Action
● Much of the time our choices are dictated by feelings rather than by thoughtful
considerations.

● Thinking is useful for framing the alternatives, but emotions are what count
when one must choose among the alternatives.

● Allowing our emotions to dictate our behavior may lead to trouble sometimes,
but it has an important role in our psychological makeup.

● The role of emotion is particularly noticeable in situations involving a stressful

event. People, like other animals, respond to stress with fight-or-flight behavior.

● Emotional ambivalence leaves the person in state of limbo, making it difficult to

act.
 The Approach-Avoid Conflict

● Point of equilibrium : a balance between

the competing emotion-based motives.

● When both food and shock were in the

same location, a rat ran toward the goal,
then stopped at the balance point and
turned around. But in moving away from
the location, the approach tendency
became greater than the avoid tendency,
so the rat reversed its path again and
The blue line shows the change in force
headed toward the location. exerted by a rat as it approaches a
location associated with food.
The red line shows the change in force
exerted by a rat as it escapes a location
associated with electric shock
 Quality of Action Performance
● For any action there is an optimal level of
arousal for maximally effective performance.

● For actions that are familiar, simple, or easy to

enact, higher levels of arousal tend to facilitate
performance.

● For actions that are novel, complex, or difficult

to enact, a high level of arousal can impair
performance.

● It is difficult to think clearly and focus on the

details of one’s behavior when one is too
aroused, whether positively (intense
excitement) or negatively (intense fear).
 03
The Control of
Emotion
Sometimes, a positive mood might
be inappropriate or
counterproductive.
Particularly when future benefits outweigh immediate benefits,
people try to adopt the most useful emotions, even if they are
unpleasant.
 Emotional Regulation
Mental Control of Emotion Bodily Control of Emotion

The suppression of unwanted emotions By changing one’s bodily state, one

can prove maladaptive over time. can change one’s emotional state.

Suppressed thoughts and emotions

tend to burst into consciousness when
mental energy is not exerted to keep Inducing a positive mood:
them suppressed.
Standing upright rather than slouching
Suppressing unwanted feelings can
have health consequences, such as Pulling one’s arms toward the body
decreased functioning of the immune rather than pushing them away from
system. the body
 Emotional Regulation
Behavioral Control of Emotion

To make themselves feel better, people do things that produce good feelings (eat a
favorite food, listen to music…)
People in an unpleasant mood can distract themselves by watching television,
surfing the internet, taking a shower…
People also control their emotions by seeking social support.

However, these strategies do not address the source of the negative emotion.

There are situations in which it is advantageous or appropriate to dampen a positive

emotional state in favor of a neutral or perhaps even a negative emotional state.

When people anticipate interacting with someone they feel close to (e.g., a
relationship partner), they do not go out of their way to change their mood—they
stick with the mood they have, whether it is highly positive or highly negative
 Gender Differences in Emotional
Men
Regulation Women

Distracting themselves with other Rumination (obsessively thinking about

thoughts and activities the problem)

Use alcohol and drugs Turn to food

See sexual activity as a good way to Like to call someone or go shopping to get
improve their mood out of an emotional slump

More likely to make light of their problem Fail to find humor in their problem
 Emotional Intelligence
● “The ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as
to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and
to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and
intellectual growth”.

● People differ in their emotional intelligence.

● Some people tend to misread the emotional states of other people,

whereas others seem to excel at perceiving and understanding how other
people feel. And although emotion facilitates effective decision-making for
some people, it can prove disastrous for others.
 Perceiving emotions
The four aspects of
emotional intelligence
tested in the Mayer- Facilitating thought
Salovey-Caruso-
Emotional Intelligence
Test, which assesses the Understanding emotions
EQ (emotional
equivalent to IQ).

Managing emotions