CHAPTER 2 B: EMOTION

Definition: - The feeling aspect of the consciousness, characterized by a certain

physical arousal, a certain behavior that reveals the inner feelings to the outside
world and an inner awareness of feelings.

Emotion is a strong feeling which has arousing and motivating properties. Emotions can activate and
direct behavior in the same way as biological or psychological motives. The English word emotion is
derived from the Latin word “emovere”. The related term "motivation" is also derived from the word
movere. Motivation is goal oriented; emotion is the subjective affective experience that accompanies
the behavior.

THE THREE ELEMENTS OF EMOTION

i) The Physiology of emotion

Physically when a person experiences an emotion, there is an arousal created by the sympathetic
nervous system. The experience of emotion is associated with a variety of bodily changes, both overt
and covert. Following overt and covert changes occur in the body at the time of emotion:

 Face becomes red with excitement or anger;

 Eyes are protruded;
 The pupils of the eyes are dilated.
 Heart rate and blood pressure increases.
 Respiration becomes more rapid;
 The electrical resistance of the skin decreases;
 The blood clots more quickly at the time of injury;
 Blood sugar level increases to make the organism energetic;
 Gastrointestinal activities decrease or even stop totally;
 Blood is canalized from stomach and intestine to the motor organs and brain;
 The hairs stand on their roots.
 Muscle tension
 Tremors
 Eye blinking

The amygdala, a small area located within the limbic system on each side of the brain is associated
with fear in both humans and animals and is also involved in the facial expressions of human
emotions. Emotions even work differently depending on which side of the brain is involved.
Researchers have found that negative feelings such as sadness, anxiety and depression seem to be a
function of primarily the left hemisphere of the brain.
 ii) The behaviour of emotion: Emotional expression

When a person is very angry or afraid, we usually can recognise what his emotion is by the way he
behaves. But distinguishing one emotion from the other and to be accurate is quite difficult. There
are certain patterns of responses and behaviour which help us overcome this problem. A
fundamental and universal pattern of emotional response is the “startle response” which is the
primitive of all emotional responses. Facial and vocal expressions are also ways of expressing
emotion, so are postures and gestures.

iii) Subjective experience: Labelling Emotion

The third component of emotion is interpreting the subjective feeling by giving it a label: anger, fear,
disgust, happiness, sadness, shame, interest and so on. Another way of labelling this component is to
call it the cognitive component, because the labelling process is a matter of retrieving memories of
previous similar experiences, perceiving the context of emotion, and coming up with a solution which
is labelling the emotion.

The conscious experience of emotion involves the integration of information from three sources

Memory of past
experiences and
appraisal of
current situation

Conscious
experience Inputs to brain from
and external stimuli
labeling of
emotion

Inputs to brain from

internal organs and
skeletal muscles
THEORIES OF EMOTION

1) James-Lange Theory

In the 1880s, two theorists, psychologist William James and physiologist Carl Lange,
independently proposed an idea that challenged commonsense beliefs about emotion. This idea, which
came to be known as the James-Lange theory, The James-Lange theory of emotion argues that an
event causes physiological arousal first and then we interpret this arousal. According to this theory,
people feel sad because they cry, and, likewise, they feel happy because they smile. This theory
suggests that different physiological states correspond to different experiences of emotion. Only
after our interpretation of the arousal can we experience emotion. If the arousal is not noticed or is
not given any thought, then we will not experience any emotion based on this event.
Example: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and
you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. You notice these
physiological changes and interpret them as your body's preparation for a fearful situation. You then
experience fear.

The physiologist Walter Cannon disagreed with the James-Lange theory, posing three main arguments
against it:

 People can experience physiological arousal without experiencing emotion, such as when they
have been running. (The racing heart in this case is not an indication of fear.)
 Physiological reactions happen too slowly to cause experiences of emotion, which occur very
rapidly. For example, when someone is in a dark alley alone, a sudden sound usually provokes
an immediate experience of fear, while the physical “symptoms” of fear generally follow that
feeling.
 People can experience very different emotions even when they have the same pattern of
physiological arousal. For example, a person may have a racing heart and rapid breathing both
when he is angry and when he is afraid.
 2) Cannon-Bard Theory

The Cannon-Bard theory was proposed by physiologists Walter Cannon(1927) and Philip Bard
(1934) which argues that we experience physiological arousal and emotional at the same time, but
gives no attention to the role of thoughts or outward behavior. Bard expanded on this idea by stating
that the sensory information that comes into the brain is sent simultaneously (by the thalamus) to
both the cortex and the organs of the sympathetic nervous system. The fear and the bodily reactions
are, therefore, experienced at the same time - not one after the other.
Example: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and
you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. At the same time as these
physiological changes occur you also experience the emotion of fear.

 Lashley criticized that the thalamus would have to be pretty sophisticated to make sense of all
the possible human emotions and relay them to the proper areas of the cortex and body.

3) Schachter-Singer Theory (Cognitive arousal theory)

According to this theory, an event causes physiological arousal first. You must then identify a
reason for this arousal and then you are able to experience and label the emotion.

In 1962, Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer proposed this theory to explain emotion. They
said that people’s experience of emotion depends on two factors: physiological arousal and the
cognitive interpretation of that arousal. When people perceive physiological symptoms of arousal,
they look for an environmental explanation of this arousal. The label people give an emotion
depends on what they find in their environment.

Example: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and
you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens. Upon noticing this arousal
you realize that is comes from the fact that you are walking down a dark alley by yourself. This
behavior is dangerous and therefore you feel the emotion of fear.
 4) Lazarus Cognitive Appraisal Theory

This theory states that a thought must come before any emotion or physiological arousal. In
other words, you must first think about your situation before you can experience an emotion. The
psychologist Richard Lazarus’s (1970) research has shown that people’s experience of emotion
depends on the way they appraise or evaluate the events around them.
Example: If Tracy is driving on a winding road by the edge of a high cliff, she may be
concerned about the danger of the road. Her passenger, on the other hand, thinks about the beauty of
the view. Tracy will probably feel frightened, while her passenger may feel exhilarated.

5) Facial Feedback Theory

According to the facial feedback theory, emotion is the experience of changes in our facial
muscles. In other words, when we smile, we then experience pleasure, or happiness. When we frown,
we then experience sadness. It is the changes in our facial muscles that cue our brains and provide the
basis of our emotions. Just as there are an unlimited number of muscle configurations in our face, so
to are there a seemingly unlimited number of emotions.

Example: You are walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you and your
eyes widen, your teeth clench and your brain interprets these facial changes as the expression of fear.
Therefore you experience the emotion of fear.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF EMOTION

The Autonomic Nervous System

Many of the bodily changes that occur in emotion are produced by the activity of a part of the nervous
system called the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Thus system is a part of the peripheral nervous
system, and its activity is to a larger extent under the control of the central nervous system. The ANS
consists of many nerves leading from the brain and spinal cord out to the smooth muscles of the
various organs of the body, to the heart, to certain glands, and to the blood vessels serving both the
interior and exterior of the body. The ANS has two parts: One part is the sympathetic system which is
active during aroused states and prepares the body for extensive action by increasing the heart rate,
raising blood pressure, increasing blood sugar (glucose) levels, and raising the levels of certain
hormones in the blood. This is the part of the ANS that is active in many strong emotions, especially
fear and anger.
In emotion, the sympathetic system causes the discharge of the hormones epinephrine (adrenalin) and
norepinephrine (noradrenalin). Nerve impulses in the sympathetic system which reach the inner part of
the adrenal glands, located on top of the kidneys, trigger the secretion of these hormones which then
go into the blood and circulate around the body.
Epinephrine affects many structures of the body. In the liver, it helps mobilize glucose (blood sugar)
into the blood and thus makes energy available to the brain and muscles. It also causes the heart to
beat harder. Thus epinephrine duplicates and strengthens many of the actions of the sympathetic
system on various internal organs. In skeletal muscles, epinephrine helps mobilize sugar resources so
that the muscles can use them more rapidly. The major effect of norepinephrine is to constrict
peripheral blood vessels and so raise blood pressure.
The other part of the ANS called the parasympathetic system tends to be active when we are calm and
relaxed. In contrast with the sympathetic system, the parasympathetic system does many things that
helpto build up and conserve the body stores of energy. Many of the effects of the parasympathetic
system are opposite the effects of sympathetic system like decrease in heart rate, reducing blood
pressure and diverting the blood to the digestive tract.
In active, aroused emotional states, sympathetic activity predominates; in calmer states,
parasympathetic activity is dominant. But both systems can be active in many emotional states; the
pattern of bodily activity characteristic of the emotion is a blend of parasympathetic and sympathetic
activity. In anger, the heart rate increases (a sympathetic activity) as does stomach activity ( a
parasympathetic activity).
The Brain and Emotion

The brain is involved in the perception and evaluation of situations that give rise to emotion. If a
situation results in an emotional state, the brain controls the somatic and autonomic patterns of activity
characteristic of the emotion; in other words, it controls the physiological expression of the emotion.
Of course, the brain is also involved in directing the behavior driven by the emotional state and is
necessary for the emotional feelings we have.
A number of structures in the core of the brain are directly involved in regulating and coordinating the
activity patterns characteristic of the stronger emotions, especially fear, anger and pleasure. These core
parts of the brain include the hypothalamus and a complex group of structures known as the limbic
system. The term limbic comes from the Latin word meaning “border”. These structures of the system
form a ring or border, around the brain stem as it enters the forebrain. Experimenters have found that
damage to some of the structures of the limbic system produces great changes in the emotional
behavior of animals like making tame animals wild. Stimulation of certain parts of the limbic system
and hypothalamus produces behavioral patterns very much like those in naturally occurring emotions.
In addition, electrical stimulation of portions of the limbic system and hypothalamus, as well as the
other brain regions, is rewarding to animals and pleasurable for human beings.
The aroused state that is part of many emotions is due in part to increased activation of brain cells in
cerebral cortex, limbic system and hypothalamus. Activity of cells in these brain areas is itself directly
or indirectly influenced by nerve fibers which fan out from a core region of the brain – the reticular
formation - to reach almost all brain areas involved in regulating emotion. Since the activity fibers
from the reticular formation must go upward, or ascend, to reach the higher brain areas involved in
emotion, the activating portion of the reticular formation is called the ascending reticular activating
system (ARAS).In addition to the tinge of arousal it provides for emotional states, the ARAS is
fundamentally involved in keeping us awake, alert and conscious.