Emotions
Prabin Shrestha
National Academy for Medical Sciences (NAMS)
Emotions
• Derived from Latin word ‘Emovere’ meaning to move,
agitate, energize, stir up, excite.
• It is a stirred up, disturbed state that is experienced
throughout the individual’s body.
• Emotion is a motivated state, marked by physiological
arousal, expressive behavior and mental experiences.
• It is a motivational state, that energizes individual to act. It
bring physiological changes like change in BP, heartbeat,
respiration, etc. It also have behavioral components like
laughing, waving hands, running, etc. The emotional state is
accompanied by subjective feeling like joy, happiness, fear,
anger, etc. This feeling generated by same stimulus may
however differ from individual to individual.
Emotions
• Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at
someone or something.
• Emotion is an acute disturbance of the organism
as a whole, psychological in origin, involving
behavior, conscious experience and visceral
functioning.
• An emotion is a complex psychological state that
involves three distinct components: a subjective
experience, a physiological response and a
behavioral or expressive response.
Emotions
• Emotions have the following qualities:
• It is the disturbance in the body which stimulates a
person.
• Emotions arise due to psychological reasons. When a
person is happy, sad or angry, the main cause is the
psychological state of the person.
• Emotions changes the behavior and physiological
functioning.
• A person must be conscious for emotions to be felt.
• Emotions are important part of humans. It makes our
life more colorful and meaningful. Without
emotions, each of our actions would be meaningless.
Characteristics of Emotions
• Emotion is a strong feeling.
• Emotion is usually transitory in nature; i.e. it
tends to have a relatively clear beginning and
end and a relatively short duration.
• Emotional experience has a valence; i.e.
emotion is either positive or negative.
• Emotional experience alters thoughts
processes often by directing attention
towards something or away from others.
Characteristics of Emotions
• It produces on action tendency, i.e. the
motivation to behave in certain ways.
• Emotional experiences usually happens
without willful intent. Usually we do not
produce emotions intentionally.
• Emotions are marked by physiological
changes and behavioral components.
• Stimulus should be present for emotion to be
produced. Contextual stimuli is present during
emotional experience.
Functions of Emotions
• Preparing us for action: Emotions act as a link between events
in our environment and our responses. For example, if you saw
an angry dog charging toward you, your emotional reaction
(fear) would be associated with physiological arousal of the
sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, the
activation of the “fight-or-flight” response.
• Shaping our future behavior: Emotions promote learning that
will help us make appropriate responses in the future. For
instance, your emotional response to unpleasant events
teaches you to avoid similar circumstances in the future.
• Helping us interact more effectively with others : We often
communicate the emotions we experience through our verbal
and nonverbal behaviors, making our emotions obvious to
observers. These behaviors can act as a signal to observers,
allowing them to understand better what we are experiencing
and to help them predict our future behavior.
Theories of Emotions
• There are three major theories of
emotions:
1. James Lange Theory of Emotions
2. Cannon Bard Theory of Emotions
3. Schachter Singer Theory of
Emotions
James Lange Theory
• It is the oldest and most important theory of
emotions.
• It was proposed by American Psychologist, William
James and Carl Lange in 1884 and 1885 respectively.
Later this theory was merged.
• This theory suggests that emotions occur as a results
of physiological reaction to events.
• Emotional experience is, very simply, a reaction to
instinctive bodily events that occur as a response to
some situation or event in the environment. “We
feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike,
afraid because we tremble”
James Lange Theory
• According to this theory, we see an external stimulus that
leads to a physiological reaction. Our reaction is dependent
upon how we interpret these physical reactions.
• When you are walking in a jungle and you see a tiger. You
begin to tremble and your heart begins to race. The James
Lange Theory proposes that you will interpret your physical
reactions and conclude that you are frightened. (I am
trembling, therefore I am afraid).
• This theory emphasize that, in the beginning a person reacts
to certain stimuli in the environment causing bodily changes
which affects the nervous system, which is when emotion is
felt. Thus, according to this theory, emotion is not the reason
for different functioning of the body but is the result of a
stimulated body.
James Lange Theory
• When there is a loud noise, the nervous system is stimulated
causing the emotions of fear to be expressed through the act
of running.
• This theory basically says that the emotional action takes
place before the experience and the expression of emotions.
• This theory holds that physiological changes precedes
emotional experiences and specific emotions are attached
with physiological changes.
• Fear was associated with cold feet but anger was not.
• Disgust include increased muscles activity but no change in heartbeat.
• Blood flow increase in anger but decreases in fear.
• Different emotions are attached with different physiological
reactions.
Cannon Bard Theory
• It was proposed by Walter Cannon and Philip Bard in
1927.
• The basic assumption of the theory is “Different
emotions are attached with same state of
physiological arousal.”
• According to this theory, subjective experience of
emotions and physiological changes are
independent of each other and are triggered
simultaneously.
• We feel emotions and experience physiological
reactions (sweating, trembling, muscles tension)
simultaneously.
Cannon Bard Theory
• More specifically, it is suggested that emotions
result when the thalamus sends a message to the
brain in response to a stimulus, resulting in a
physiological reaction.
• This theory rejects the view that physiological
arousal alone leads to the perception of emotion.
Instead, the theory assumes that both
physiological arousal and the emotional
experience are produced simultaneously by the
same nerve stimulus, which Cannon and Bard
suggested emanates from the thalamus in the
brain.
Schachter Singer Theory
• This theory was proposed by Stanley Schachter and
Jurome Singer in 1962.
• This theory is also known as two factor theory of
emotions, because this theory believes that emotional
experiences is the outcome of two factors: Physiological
arousal and attribution (assigning a cause for that
arousal).
• This theory is also called cognitive theory of emotions
because this theory holds that cognitive interpretation
leads to emotional experience.
• This approach to explaining emotions emphasizes that
we identify the emotion we are experiencing by
observing our environment and comparing ourselves
with others.
Schachter Singer Theory
• Physiological arousal occurs first and then the individual must
identify the reasons behind this arousal in order to
experience and label it as emotion.
• According to this, first we perceive emotions producing
stimulus. This leads to bodily arousal and physiological
changes. We then attribute a cause to the arousal. The
attribution depends upon our cognitive (mental) processing
and stimulus. Attribution of cause leads to the feeling of
emotions.
• An experiment conducted to prove this hypothesis:
A comedy movie was shown to three group of people.
1st Group: Injected Adrenaline (related with body arousal): Funniest
2nd Group: Placebo Group (a substance with no chemical property):
Between
3rd Group: Tranquilizers: Not Funny
States of Emotions
States of Emotions
• Emotions are broadly divided into two types:
Positive Emotions: The emotions which causes
pleasantness are called positive emotions. E.g.
Love, Joy, Happiness, Laughter, Hope,
Optimism, Self Confidence.
Negative Emotions: The emotions which causes
unpleasantness are called negative emotions.
E.g. Sorrow, Anger, Fear, Sadness, Boredom,
Guilt.
State of Emotions
• Psychologists divide emotions as primary and secondary
emotions.
• Primary emotions are biologically based and are considered
to be universal. They are fairly simple to understand. They
are reacting to external events. Some precipitating events
may cause you to experience emotions. E.g. you may feel sad
that someone hurt you or anxious about an upcoming test.
• Secondary emotions are blends of primary emotions, i.e.
combinations of two primary emotions. A secondary
emotion is what you feel about the feeling itself. E.g. you
may feel anger about being hurt or shame about your
anxiety. Secondary emotions turn emotions into complex
reactions.
States of Emotions
• Aristotle in 4th century B.C, referred to 14 irreducible
emotions.
• Psychologist Paul Eckman created Facial Action Coding
System (FACS), a taxonomy that measures the movement of
all the faces 42 muscles as well as the movement of head
and eyes. He discovered six facial expressions universal to
all people over the world. They were: happiness, sadness,
surprise, fear, anger and disgust. He later went on to add
the seventh one contempt.
• Robert Plutchik: Wheel of emotions. It identifies eight basic
emotions: Joy, Sadness, Trust, Fear, Disgust, Anger, Surprise
and Anticipation. These basic emotions then mix and
combine to form a variety of feelings.
Wheel of Emotions