6.1 Introduction. 6.2 What makes emotion emotional? Text in black is from the DD307 course book.

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1 Text in black is from the DD307 course book. 6.1 Introduction Emotion can be studied from the perspective of biological processes, social representations/perception, individual vs. society and combinations of all of these; They can be considered as private experiences, or maybe only make sense in some context (e.g. anger only feels like that if there are appropriate stimuli/reasons etc.) The relationship between emotion and factors such as subjective experience, cognitive appraisal, physiological response and facial expression is disputed are they actually connected or is this just perceptual? Averill and Nunley (1992) suggest two models like an artichoke where there s a heart or core of emotion surrounded by all the other things that are associated with emotions (e.g. facial expressions, bodily responses, verbal expressions etc.), or alternatively like an onion where all of these factors are what make up our emotions; There is disagreement on whether emotions are socially learned or evolutionarily pre programmed ; Social psychology can help our understanding by explaining the effects and functions of emotion in social interactions ; The chapter includes: a brief historical outline of emotion theories; how the factors associated with feeling an emotion are linked together; how the cognitive social/experimental and discursive psychological explanations of emotion might be aligned. 6.2 What makes emotion emotional? This section reviews three theories that try to explain why we feel emotions ; It concludes that there may be more to this than subjective experience ( Say what? There might be a social dimension??)

2 6.2.1 James feedback theory Event/situation Perception of event Physiological response Feeling of emotion Basically James (1884) suggested: Bodily response precedes emotion: we respond to the situation by speeding up pulse/secreting hormones/sweating/whatever, then what we feel is that particular set of responses which we associate with a specific emotion; Different sets of responses result in different emotions ; This conflicted with previous theories that claimed perception of the situation caused the emotion, which in turn generated the physiological response; He came to this conclusion using introspection (he thought of an emotion, removed all bodily responses from the thought, concluded there was nothing left of the emotion); This poses three problems : it s unscientific it depends on what he (subjectively) imagined, which could be different for each person replicating the process; it also doesn t explain how the bodily response is triggered by particular stimuli how does the body know that the responses matching fear should be produced when a tiger appears? it doesn t explain whether the sensation of the bodily response or the interpretation of the situation is more important in the feeling of emotion Cannon s theory Cannon (1927) disagreed with James, claiming that similar sets of bodily responses were associated with different emotions ; For example anger and fear could share the same symptoms, because similar bodily responses were needed to enable us to react appropriately; He suggested that we feel emotion in the brain, not in the autonomic nervous system; Neither James nor Cannon s theories have a social dimension they focus on internal responses and interpretations Schacter s theory

3 This later theory ( Schacter, 1959 ) is more social in nature, claiming that people try to work out how they should feel by comparing how they actually feel with how they perceive others in the same situation are feeling ; This conflicts with James and Cannon s theories as comparing other s behaviour shouldn t be necessary if emotion is based on fixed biological factors; However it has aspects of both: James the feeling of emotion comes from how we perceive our body is reacting; Cannon these reactions are not specific to individual emotions; Schacter in order to work out which of the possible emotions we should be feeling we check on what others are feeling in the same situation; He also claimed that emotion depended on two factors : physiological : autonomic response determines emotional intensity and cognitive : what we think of the situation affects the emotional quality (which one we feel, e.g. anger, joy etc.) We decide how/what we feel depending on what we think is causing the physiological response a cognitive appraisal theory To test this Schacter and Singer (1962) carried out an experiment : Four conditions: euphoria with adrenaline or placebo injection and anger with adrenaline or placebo injection ; Some of the adrenaline condition participants were told they would feel increased heart rate, clamminess, others were not This meant they could either associate physiological response to the injection or not; Two IVs physiological arousal and emotional situation ; DV was whether emotion was reported; Stooges were used in the euphoria condition to create an atmosphere of fun, and in the anger condition they pretended to become increasingly angry; The expectation was that only participants who experienced autonomic reaction without being able to attribute it to the injection and who attributed it to the situation (e.g. feeling happy in the company of the happy stooge) would report feeling emotion ; However the evidence was not conclusive : Adrenaline injected participants did not report more emotion than those given placebos; Some participants reported conflicting emotions (e.g. felt mildly happy in the anger conditions!) The social situation may have been sufficient to cause emotion irrespective of whether the participants had been given adrenaline a confounding variable. Methodological issues: Artificial emotional situations may not have been ecologically valid; Valid measurement of reported emotion is hard required self report ( How happy did you feel? ) Schacter believed emotion was under reported (e.g. not wanting to admit to getting angry), so even he had doubts; Ethics: drugging participants, misleading them about the purpose of the test, insulting them in the angry condition.

4 However the theory that the context and our interpretation of it drives emotion was highly influential. Note: the treatment of Emotion in DD303 is far more comprehensive - table below from my DD303 notes James-Lange (1890s) Cannon-Bard (1920s) Schacter-Singer (1960s) Assertions Behaviour precedes emotion (and causes it) and cognition We feel (cognition) fear (emotion) because we run away (behave), happiness because we laugh etc. A unique set of physiological responses causes each feeling of emotion (e.g. love vs fear) Physiological responses are similar across most emotions many shared e.g. faster heart rate/perspiration). What differs is the cortical response to these. Cortical areas initiate both subjective experience and physiological response these can occur simultaneously Bodily response is critical but physiological responses are not unique to emotions Emotion comes from our interpretation of why we are having these responses given the context/situation, i.e. our cognitive appraisals. Emotion = non specific bodily response + context + cognitive appraisal Implications If we can prevent the bodily reaction the emotion will not be felt Emotion and physiological response can occur independently sadness can be felt without crying given the appropriate thalamus activation. Emotional feeling is more than bodily responses. We should be able to change how we feel by changing how we think about it Evidence Le Doux (1996) the speed of the startle reflex exceeds the time needed for conscious awareness. Emotional response is reduced in animals and humans with spinal damage that prevents some bodily responses. Physiological responses are not unique; Animals and humans with spinal damage that prevents some bodily responses can still feel emotion. Ekman et al. (1983) identified specific sets of physiological response linked to a subset of emotions, e.g. higher than usual heart rate in sadness, lower than usual in disgust. Ciacoppo (2000) claims this evidence is weak but says levels of motivation may be higher in negative emotions. Schacter and Singer (1962) found participants injected with adrenaline had no emotional response if told in advance that it would accelerate their heart rate. Claimed that this was because these participants could attribute the response to the injection, while the others who felt an emotional response could not. Also, participants who experienced emotion mirrored the emotion displayed by a stooge felt happy if the stooge displayed happiness. Contradicts James Lange as same response led to different emotions depending on context/cognitive appraisal. Supports James Lange as those not expecting

5 a response experienced an emotion. 6.3 Appraisal theory - a cognitive social approach Appraisal theories consider that emotion results from our perception of external events and how we interpret them, rather than in terms of internal symptoms; Arnold (1960) suggested that what makes us react emotionally when we perceive external events is whether they are relevant to things we want or not. This is different to James, who asked how we can tell what subjective emotion we re feeling ; Arnold considers emotion in terms of our tendency to act, which could be linked to other outcomes such as autonomic reaction (preparedness) and facial expressions ; James = phenomenological considerations, Arnold = functional According to Arnold, how we appraise our situation ( What is the personal significance of this event to me? ) can affect whether we feel emotion or not in that situation and what emotion we feel if we do; Smith and Lazarus (1993) proposed another appraisal theory: Primary appraisal: we consider maybe unconsciously how the situation affects our goals (its motivational relevance ); If it doesn t, we don t get emotional; If it does, we consider the motivational congruence of the situation does it help us achieve goals or not? Secondary appraisal: we appraise the situation itself, which determines the emotion we actually feel How can we explain the situation ( accountability )? How can we deal with it ( coping potential )? Example: if insulted (the situation) we might feel angry if we don t think we deserved it, or guilty if we think we did A problem with this theory is its circularity explaining a conscious feeling of anger as due to an unconscious appraisal that someone else is at fault, but then using the experience of anger as evidence that we have unconsciously appraised the other person as blameworthy... It may be that emotion and appraisal are too closely related to be explained separately..

6 6.4 Emotion and social identity This section explores how: the social groups we identify with affect our emotions because we appraise how the other members of these groups are responding to the situation, as well as what those groups define as acceptable feelings; the social context locates events spatially and temporally, giving them meaning that influences our emotions Group identification in appraisal theory The cognitive social explanation of emotion is that we respond to situations that have personal significance; However we feel emotion as the results of what happens to other people too; This means we appraise events in terms of how they relate to the groups we identify with just belonging to a group can result in emotion ; Doosje et al (1998) found that people can feel guilty by association because they identify with certain groups ( German people may feel guilty about being feeling German because of the Nazis ); According to Eliot Smith (1993) over identification with social groups can cause people to reject ambiguous evidence of wrong doing because they privilege their group membership over the evidence. (However if the evidence is not ambiguous they tend to favour it over their group membership and see the wrong doing) Emotional labour We may be manipulated to adjust our appraisals of the situation in order to change how we feel experimental situation other people (society) ourselves (agency) Emotional labour refers to how people may manage their emotions (or those of others) to put their employers needs ahead of their own Example: flight attendants may see drunken passengers as being like little children scared of flying, so feel genuinely sympathetic towards them rather than angry because they re just drunken arses :) ( Hochschild, 1983 )

7 6.5 Basic emotions This section considers basic emotions such as anger, fear, happiness etc. that are considered to be universal; These are linguistic categories but are actually not universal and are not directly linked to facial expressions ; Maybe we can only describe emotions but not access them directly ; Emotions depend on social events and actions, and vice versa (e.g. others actions/reactions may depend on the emotions we display; this implies that emotions have a social dimension although it doesn t prove they re actually socially rooted... Ekman (1972) formulated a neurocultural theory of emotion : emotions are adaptive ; we ve developed auto appraisers to output facial expressions, to feel in particular ways and to react automatically to particular situations in a suitable way that improves our social chances ; these reactions correspond to different emotions ; we also learn about when we should feel/react in particular ways through society emotional socialisation varies in different situations so not all emotions are universal in particular situations ( display rules ). EVENT pre wired body reactions/expressions social mediation variable expression of emotion Evidence for this is offered by cross cultural facial expression judgement studies (remote cultures with or without previous contact with Western cultures) Facial expression of basic emotions Ekman et al. (1969) found people in Borneo identified the emotions shown in pictures of N.Americans. which suggested a link between emotion and facial expression that is universal ; However agreement was much lower than 100% (except for smile = happy) which prompts the questions: Why does this gap exist? Why doesn t it exist for smiles/happiness? Jim Russell (1994) claimed that faces do tell us if emotion is being experienced but that they don t indicate what emotion is being felt ; Therefore we may try to infer what is being felt by linking parts of facial expressions to kinds of feeling (e.g. upturned lips to some pleasant emotion); This implies that some parts of these expressions may be universal but specific expressions don t indicate particular emotions;

8 Fridlund (1994) argues that expressions are not used to indicate what emotion we are feeling but to communicate a message to others (e.g. back off) The nature of emotion categories A flaw in Ekman s research study was that participants linked photos to words describing emotion, not to emotion directly: There could be translation problems or words in one language that don t exist in the other or that have different meanings; Russell (2003) argues that emotions are culturally constructed meanings, not a reflection of real psychological states This suggests we match what we see to what we think we should feel in the situation. Both Schacter and Russell claim the sequence Perceive internal response interpretation/appraisal Emotion It is important not to confuse concepts about emotions (e.g. the words that describe them) with the emotions themselves Example: the word schadenfreude exists but that doesn t mean that there s a specific emotion of feeling pleasure at someone else s misfortune, it may just describe feeling the emotion of pleasure in a situation where someone else is suffering. 6.6 Emotion discourse Doosje et al. (1998) gives the example of self report in emotion studies (e.g. guilt by association in section 6.4.1) Russell (2003) claims this method has limitations because it tells us about how people interpret what they feel, not about the actual feeling and because they use concepts that are not well defined ; These concepts are imprecise because they don t match up well with the feelings they describe Fuzzy concepts ; However they may not be trying to communicate accurate cognitive representations, but may be trying to fit their description to the context (tell the researcher what they think is appropriate communicate not describe ); Russell complains that emotion research ignores how well emotion representations match the motions felt; Edwards ignores this and is more interested in what people use emotion talk ( discursive formulations ) for in their everyday interactions ( Flexible categories rather than Fuzzy ) e.g. saying someone did something out of jealousy might be done to show how serious their action was (presenting jealousy as a serious reason), or to undermine their action (jealousy as an emotional over reaction); However we might not be able to tell from the discourse which one is correct.

9 Edwards s Discursive Psychological approach Cognitive social approach Method Examine what is said Experiments Research goals Examine how emotion talk is used (spoken or written) what do people use it to achieve? Don t try to explain what causes emotional phenomena don t even assume they are psychological in nature Examine facial expressions, subjective feelings, body responses Try to explain what causes emotion, links between emotion/feeling/appraisals/physiology A criticism of Edwards s approach is that focusing on what is said and ignoring underlying causes may only give a partial explanation of emotion: we can feel emotion before we describe it; we feel emotions irrespective of the use that we make of descriptions of our them; Edwards response is that whatever emotions are, they don t come with labels so even naming them is done to achieve some purpose; Also, the discursive approach focuses on descriptions and their uses but it doesn t stop us examining non linguistic phenomena associated with emotion the facial expressions etc. studied in the cognitive approach), and may even be applicable to understanding these. 6.7 Prelinguistic emotion? A problem for the discursive approach is how to study the emotions of infants before they learn to speak; Two approaches have been proposed: Look at how their emotions are constructed in talk by caregivers; Treat non verbal signs (facial expressions etc.) as elements of conversation. Vasu Reddy (2000) took the latter approach videotaped infants playing in front of a mirror and found that when others looked at them they often turned their heads while starting to smile ( gaze withdrawal ); Problem of subjective interpretation what is a smile? what counts as gaze withdrawal? This has to be resolved by consensus where any other researcher querying the interpretation checks the video to see what they think. Researchers typically apply similar words to these behaviours (high inter rater reliability), and this approach has been extended to emotion study in adults ( Keltner, 1995 ); These facial expressions might be caused by emotion, but see Fridlund (section 6.5.1) they could just be sending a leave me alone message;

10 Either way they are relational/interactional either sending a message or resulting from emotion and hence signalling feeling to another person. 6.8 Emotion as relation alignment According to the discursive approach, emotion talk is functional (done to achieve a goal) rather than proof that emotions exist as psychological objects; The same outcome may be achievable by describing something in emotional terms or by nonverbal communication e.g. smile in stead of saying I m happy! Conversation analysis of nonverbal signals suggests that their recipients interpret them in emotional terms,so an interpretation of emotion talk is that it s just a more obvious form of this non verbal communication and that both forms of communication aim to make both people relate to their interaction in the same way ( relation alignment ) We may use emotional display to achieve social effects that don t fit our cognitive appraisal of the situation showing anger not because we feel angry but because it communicates to others that we are concerned about a problem that we believe should be addressed. Future research may tie together the discursive function of emotion talk and non verbal action (what we say about how we feel and what we show nonverbally) in regard to emotion.