Emotions - Lecture 1

Front 1

Philosophy of Emotion

Back 1

- Master-Slave metaphor
- Emotions considered inferior, stupid, bestial, dangerous for a long time
- Emotion and reason are opposites

Front 2

What is an emotion?

Back 2

- Complex multi-faceted phenomena
- Feelings/subjective experience
- Physiological reactions
- Definition is theory-bound

Front 3

Izard (2010)

Back 3

- Definition of emotion:
- Consists of neural circuits, response systems and a feeling state/process that motivates and organises cognition and action

Front 4

Emotion Elicitation

Back 4

- Needed for scientific study of emotions
- Animal models have limits and may be unethical
- Difficult to elicit in a laboratory, ethical considerations

Front 5

Emotion Measurement

Back 5

- Needed for scientific study of emotions
- Difficult to measure private phenomena
- Need to measure observable phenomena like physiological reactions

Front 6

Tasks for Theories of Emotion

Back 6

1. Define emotion
2. How are emotions generated?
3. What are the relations between cognition, motivation and emotion?
4. What is the role of action tendencies and physiological activity?
5. What is the functional dependency between different emotions?
6. Effects of emotions on long-term outcomes for individual and society

Front 7

Theories of Emotion

Back 7

- James-Lange Theory: Am I sad because I cry?
- Learning Theory: How does the brain learn to be afraid?
- Somatic Marker Hypothesis: How do emotions influence our decision-making?
- Appraisal Theory: What is the role of 'thinking' in 'feeling'?
- Basic Emotions: What is the universal, innate set of emotions?