General+Theories+of+Emotions

__Darwin__: started the recognition of emotion based on behavior, body language and facial expression.


 * What is an emotion?**
 * Psychological: Physical reaction to a stimuli : heart rate, expression, breathing, sweating, shakiness, digestion, pupils dilate, etc.
 * Cognitive: changes are cause by emotions, or changes in the way you think.
 * Behavioral: responses are caused by emotions : running, crying, laughing.
 * Feelings: emotional expression and experience

Emotional Experience(s) >> Mood(s) or Emotion(s) - some people seem consistently more happy. Is such a person a person with happy emotions or a person with a happy mood?
 * What is an emotional experience?**


 * Mood: generalized affective reaction for an extended period of time [month, week, year(s)]
 * Emotion: specific reaction to a specific event.
 * Personality: stable characteristics you display

__Inducing Emotions__ - imagine or create an emotion - Read a story/film that elicits emotion. - Remember a story - Look at Pictures

__Measuring Emotions__ - Self report : is less effective or has low validity. - Physiological measurement - Behavioral Observations

Validity = the tautological measure of reflection upon reality that is encapsulated in the data gathered in social research.

- Physiological measurements of emotions have higher validity than self-reports of emotion. Because self reports are based upon judgements of the individual being studied and physiological measurements are based upon the physical response of the body of the research participant.

__Physiological Measurements of Emotion:__ - fMRI or functional magnetic resonance Image - breathing measurements - heart rate measurements.

__James-Lange Theory__ : stated that if a person were to see a bear then he would run away and subsequently perceive the emotion fear. When a scientist refuted this theory by saying that in some instances that people do not run from the bear, such as a bear caged, William James reformed his theory to by saying that some form of cognition takes place before the body acts - The person decides whether or not to run from the bear. My take is that the first James-Lange theory implies that it is a natural, hardwired response in the brain for a person to run from a bear.
 * Theories of Emotion:**

__The Cannon-Bard Theory__ : states that the body and the mind respond to stimuli independently and simultaneously. In the Cannon-Bard Theory the body will react to an event and the mind will consider the event that the body is reacting to and the emotions being felt. My take is that this is a Dualistic approach. I think that it is a cool concept.

__The Schacter-Singer Theory__ : based upon an experiment in which the scientists gave research subjects injections of epinephrine or placebo and observed how they reacted to a euphoric actor or an agitating actor. Physical Arousal --> Emotional Experience and [Cognitive interpretation --> Emotional Experience] = Psychosomatic emotional experience

__The Relationship Among Cognition, Feeling, Physiology, and Behavior__ James says that they are, Cannon-Bard says no. Research says there are some body sensations that co-occur so frequently that expect that we can't have emotion without them. Researchers are torn between this question. Some recent research suggests we can have emotional feelings before we can actually label them
 * Are Body sensations necessary?
 * Are Behaviors Necessary?
 * Was William James correct?

- William James : we can have emotional feelings before we even feel them to idenitify.
 * __Micro-expressions:__ happen so quickly there is no control over certain facial expression - this goes hand-in-hand with emotions.

__Basic Emotions Model__ : 6 basic facial expressions recognized across a variety of cultures & each emotion is discrete and functional for our environment and survival - happiness - sadness - anger - fear - surprise - disgust
 * Classification of Emotions**

- 2 independent dimensions - The low ends are not well defined
 * Watson and Tellegen's Positive and Negative Affectivity** (PANAS)
 * positive affectivity (ranges from strong positive emotion like elation to low positive affectivity)
 * negative affectivity (ranges from strong negative emotion like fear and anger to low negative affectivity)