PSY1115: Psychology of Motivation and Emotion, Edith Cowan University Presentation

What We'll Cover Today

Background to Basic Emotions
What are they and are they universal?
Facial expressions and emotion
Basic Emotions: Fear, Anger, Sadness & Happiness
How/why they're generated and the purpose they serve
Complex Emotions: Guilt, Pride, Envy and Empathy
The role of socio-cognitive factors

Key Contributors to Basic Emotions

• Paul Ekman - 6 basic emotions, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise and happiness (Ekman, 1992)
• Plutchick - 8 basic emotions: anger, fear, disgust, sadness, surprise, anticipation, trust and joy (Plutchik, 2001)
• Other psychologists/researchers suggest as few as four core emotions (Jack et al. 2014)
• Izard - based emotions have distinct neural underpinnings and clear 'phenotypes'

Prof. Paul Ekman demonstrating the basic emotion of ... happiness

New Study on Basic Emotions

WRITTEN ALL OVER YOUR FACE: HUMANS EXPRESS FOUR BASIC EMOTIONS RATHER THAN SIX, SAYS NEW STUDY
Published: 3 February 2014

The Basic Emotions: Adaptive Role

• Why do we have them? An adaptive role in dealing with fundamental life-tasks
• Specific facial expressions have evolutionary benefit (Jack et al. 2014)
• Basic emotions can be combined/transformed into more complex emotions (e.g., love), reflecting greater cognitive input (Gu et al. 2019)

Our basic emotions are (generally) easily recognisable and have an adaptive purpose ...
---
COMMI
... such as fleeing from danger

The Dimensional Approach to Emotions

• Circumplex model- recognises shared characteristics between emotions (Russell, 1980)
• Emotions are the product of a spectrum of arousal (high - low) and valence (positive - negative)

Circumplex Model of Affect

Arousal
high
High-Arousal,
Negative-Valence
Tense
Excited
I
High-Arousal,
Positive-Valence
Angry
Delighted
Frustrated
Happy
4-negative neutral - positive->Valence
Depressed
Content
I
Low-Arousal,
Negative-Valence
Bored
Relaxed
Tired
Calm
IV
Low-Arousal,
Positive-Valence
low

Emotions arise out of patterns of activation of the neural systems which underlie arousal and valence (e.g., pleasure)
Posner et al. (2005)

Dimensional nature of emotions - capturing factors such as valence and intensity + commonalities (Liu et al. 2018)
Example: Happiness = high positive valence, moderate arousal

The Importance of Facial Expressions

• All basic emotions possess distinct facial expressions, reflecting underlying neurophysiological processes (Ekman, 1992)
• Unique facial musculature activation patterns + coding system ('action units') provide social cues to others

FX
Faces (and other things like body language) help us convey our emotional state

Universal Expressions of Emotion

TEDEd
ARE THERE
UNIVERSAL
EXPRESSIONS
OF EMOTION?

• Facial expressions elicit behavioural responses such as avoidance for anger, and approach for happiness (Seidel et al. 2010)

TED-Ed: Are there universal facial expressions of emotion?

Can Facial Expressions Modulate Emotion?

First ... do we think they can?
Let's test it!

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

A famous study in the 1980s suggested that holding pen in between your teeth would activate 'smile muscles', thus eliciting positive emotions (Strack et al. 1988)

• Facial Feedback Hypothesis: Facial actions can independently influence our subjective emotional state
• Explains why smiling may elicit positive feelings in the absence of any positively-valenced stimuli
• Söderkvist et al (2018) - Only brief (<5m) effects which mainly attenuate current emotion
• Coles et al. (2022) - facial mimicry can initiate+ amplify feelings of happiness

The Guardian - You can smile yourself a little happier, scientists suggest

Combined Emotions

• Basic (discrete) emotions are the building blocks, but there are numerous other emotions developed from dynamic emotion-cognition interactions (Izard, 2007)
• Example: Embarrassment generally involves a violation of some social norm/self-consciousness
• Emotion schemas: Beliefs/mental models about emotions, resultant from complex cognitive appraisals of our emotional experiences

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

Optimism
Serenity
Joy + Trust
Love
Joy
Acceptance
Trust
Anticipation + Anger
Agressiveness
Antici-
pation
Ecstacy
Trust + Fear
Submission
Annoyance
Anger
Rage
Terror
Fear
Apprehension
Loathing
Amazement
Grief
Fear + Surprise
Awe
Sadness
Surprise | Distraction
Sadness + Disgust
Remorse
Pensiveness
Disapproval
Surprise + Sadness

Plutchik's wheel of emotions - captures combinations of basic emotions along with variations in factors such as intensity
(Image source)

Serenity + Interest
Interest
Vigilance
Admiration
Disgust + Anger
Contempt
Boredom | Disgust

Distinguishing Emotion From Mood

Key Differences Between Moods and Emotions

• DURATION MINUTES TO HOURS
• PROVOCATION LOWERS THRESHOLD NEEDED TO TRIGGER EMOTIONS
• MODULATION REGULATION MOSTLY UNAFFECTED
• EXPRESSION NO UNIQUE NONVERBAL EXPRESSIONS
• AWARENESS DIFFICULT TO IDENTIFY EXACT TRIGGER(S) CAUSING MOOD

EMOTIONS

• DURATION SECONDS TO MINUTES
• PROVOCATION MORE EASILY EXPERIENCED WITHIN MOODS BELONGING TO SAME "FAMILY"
• MODULATION MORE DIFFICULT TO REGULATE IF EXPERIENCED WITHIN MOOD
• EXPRESSION UNIVERSAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
• AWARENESS TRIGGERS MORE EASILY IDENTIFIABLE

PaulEkmanGroup.
Source

• Pervasive changes to emotion/mood/affect extending beyond our expectations (schemas) present a challenge to psychological health
• A difficult distinction to make as emotion and mood are often used interchangeably
• Affect/Feeling: A state of mind that occurs in response to emotion
• Core affect - see Russell (2003) and Barrett & Bliss-Moreau (2009)

"He's a very moody person"
"He's a very emotional person"
Does your interpretation of these statements differ?

The Basic Emotions: Fear

• An intervening variable between a context-dependent stimulus and behavioural responses (Adolphs, 2013)
• Fear energises us to react to stimuli which are perceived as an imminent threat
• Typifies the evolutionary value of emotional responses - inbuilt adaptive responses to escape a survival threat

Fear Response Mechanism

Fear
Prefrontal
Cortex
Amygdala
Visual
Cortex
Threat
Behavioural
and
Physiological
Responses
Image source

But ... public speaking isn't a threat to our survival* yet it can still trigger a fear response
*unless your audience is a pack of bears

Fear responses are commonly seen as resulting from an in-built 'survival circuit' that activates and drives behavioural responses to various threats (Bracha, 2004)

The Basic Emotions: Fear Responses

• Behavioural responses aren't confined to 'fight or flight' e.g., fainting, freezing (Bracha, 2004)
• Appraisal component - subjective interpretation of underlying neurophysiological response results in different behaviour
• Phobias: Situation-specific, intense and often excessive fear response

Do ONE THING EVERY DAY That SCARES YOU
Our ancestors would be very confused if they saw this inspirational quote

• Anxiety: Psychological/physiological arousal in response to an unknown, circumstantial or anticipated threat (Tovote et al. 2015)

The Basic Emotions: Anger

• Energises behaviour to deal with threat, potentially adaptive as a form of defensive/protective behaviour (Cassiello-Robbins et al. 2016)
• Associated with other antecedent factors such as goal frustration and perceived injustice
• Spectrum of intensity: irritability through to hostility and aggression

Think about the last thing that made you angry, can you trace it back to one of the eliciting factors mentioned above or was it something else?

The Basic Emotions: Anger and Disgust

• Anger can help us gain or retain control over our environment
• Developmental perspective: Modelled behaviour can perpetuate anger as a maladaptive control mechanism
• While 'purposeful' in the short term, anger can manifest in violent behaviour and other highly negative outcomes (Ammerman et al. 2015)

Anger and Violent Crime

Fanning the flames: How anger fuels violent crime in youth
Published: April 7, 2022 12.43am AEST
The Conversation article by Dr. Erinn Acland

Disgust

Strong aversion to an unpleasant or offensive stimulus
Like fear, adaptive properties to prevent us from exposure to stimuli which threaten our health)

• Excessive disgust proneness/sensitivity can underlie OCD and anxiety disorders (Knowles et al. 2018)

The Basic Emotions: Sadness

• Associated with reduced arousal, avoidance, withdrawal as well as characteristic facial expressions/behavioural patterns
• Still potential functional/adaptive purposes: Sadness is a coping mechanism is response to loss or goal-related challenges (Nesse, 1990)
• Sadness also serves social purposes, can foster more sensitive interpersonal communication (Forgas, 2017)

The Neuroscience of Sadness - Arias et al. (2020)

The Basic Emotions: Sadness and Clinical Disorders

• Intensity and duration of 'sadness' is heterogenous and context-dependent
• Important to distinguish between sadness and potential clinical disorders (e.g., major depression)

DSM-V Criteria for Depression

DSM-V: 5+ symptoms (e.g., subjective depression, insomnia, weight loss, anhedonia) have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.

Diathesis-Stress Model of Depression

Adverse developmental experiences
Dysfunctional attitudes
(schemas):
cognitive vulnerability
Pervasive negative
cognitive bias:
depression
Activation by
stressful events

Diathesis-stress model of depression
Critically, normal sadness resultant from stressors/experiential factors doesn't always lead to depression
Beck, 2008