Agenda: 20 January Administrative Issues Enrollment Research Participation Pool Handout Update on coursepack & next week’s readings In-class experiment Today’s topic: Three Enduring Questions

Three Enduring Questions What is an emotion? What causes an emotion? Why do we have emotions?

I. What is an Emotion? Basic Definitions: Physiological & Functional Physiological: James (1884) Emotion is the feeling of bodily sensations (peripheral account, rather than central) Some support: facial feedback, etc. However, correlations between cognitive, physiological, and behavioral systems is low.

I. What is an Emotion (cont.)? Basic Definitions: Physiological & Functional Functional Definitions: Frijda – Defined by changes in Four Systems Subjective feeling Appraisal Action readiness Physiological response Campos – Processes that “establish, maintain, change, or terminate the relation between the person and the environment on matters of significance to the person.”

I. What is an Emotion (cont.)? Affect subsumes mood, emotion, temperament, preference, evaluation, etc. Features that Distinguish Emotion from Mood Time course (see p. 124 in Oatley) Subjective salience Facial expression/signature Specificity of eliciting event (target)

II. What Causes an Emotion? Three Different Approaches 1. Appraisal Theories (Smith & Ellsworth, etc.) Recognition of a significant event, followed by an evaluation of its consequences along specific dimensions Primary & Secondary Appraisal (Lazarus) Primary: Goal relevance? Goal congruence? Ego involvement? Secondary: How will I cope with it?

II. What Causes an Emotion (cont.)? Appraisal Theories, cont. Dimensions of evaluation Pleasantness Anticipated effort Attentional Activity Certainty Agency (human, environment) Control (self, other)

II. What Causes an Emotion (cont.)? Three Different Approaches (cont.) 2. Defining Characteristics (Frijda) Real transgressions of concerns produce emotion Changes in conditions lead to emotion

II. What Causes an Emotion (cont.)? Three Different Approaches (cont.) 3. Neuroscience (Panksepp) A system of circuits that respond unconditionally to stimuli arising from major life-challenging circumstances; they activate or inhibit motor subroutines as well as autonomic and hormonal changes.

Antecedent conditions Multi-modal response tendencies Facial program Motor program Physiologic support Vocalization program Emotion prototype Inter- personal Intra- personal Appraisal Cognition Subjective experience

III. Why do we Have Emotions? One answer: Evolutionarily Adaptive Emotions as adaptations that solve problems Ekman: “primary function of emotion is to mobilize the organism to deal quickly with important interpersonal encounters.” Another function is to signal action, hence fairly universal muscle patterns in face Emotions as “cognitive interrupts” (Simon) Emotions set processing priorities

III. Why do we Have Emotions (cont.)? A second answer: Social Constructed Lutz and Averill: Cultures socialize emotion to maintain social order Norms about permissible feelings Marxist: those in power have control over feeling rules

III. Why do we have emotions (continued)? Comparison between two approaches: Why variation across cultures? Evolutionary: Cultural display rules modify already occurring emotion. Constructed: Display rules constitute emotional experience