Basic information about Emotion

Basic Information About Emotion

Emotion

What is Emotion?

Emotion is a heightened state of arousal and personal feelings or it is defined as a stirred-up state of an organism involving internal responses.

What are the kinds of emotion?

1.  Fear

Fear is a response to some fear-producing stimulus.  Phobia is when fear becomes irrational and takes on compelling properties.  Example: Claustrophobia or the fear of closed spaces.

2.  Anger

Anger may vary from being modestly “worked-up” to being “bitter” enrage or infuriated.  This may initiated additional responding such as hostility, aggressions, or regressions.

3.  Pleasure

Pleasure ranges from simple reactions of delight or fun to state experiences of love. For example: hugging, kissing, smiling, and laughing.

What are the General Characteristics of Emotion?

1.  Indicator of Emotion

Gestures, postures, facial expressions and movements may be used to help understand the emotion being expressed.

2.  Physiological Changes

The physiological changes such as a GST (Galvanic Skin Response): increased heart rate, breathing pattern, blood pressure and perspiration are measures which are often interpreted as indicators of emotion.

3.  Emotion as Response

This implies that emotions are responses to the provoking stimuli.

4.  Stimulus Identification

Stimulus identification because of much subjectivity, the stimulus that generated the response must be accurately evaluated.  Example: Tears, is it always an emotional response?  Chopping onions can cause tears.  Lose eyes can also cause tears.

5.  Anthromorphism

Anthomorphism is attributing human characteristics to a lower organism.  Example: when the dog wags its tail because you gave him food, this does not necessarily mean that dog is happy.  It is more appropriate to say that the dog responded with tail-wagging.

What are the Theories about Emotion?

1. James Lange Theory

This theory maintains that bodily changes are primarily antecedent to the mental state (not the sequence from situation to bodily disturbances to the mental state).  Example:  We would not say that “We meet a lion, run and are frightened.” Similarly, we feel sad because we cry, afraid because we tremble.

2.  Cannon-Bard

A reinforcement of Cannon-Daua of the well-know hypothalamic views:

• One perceives a situation to be a fearful one.
• Hypothalamus is aroused and sends impulses to the brain (cerebral cortex) and to the various part of the body.
• Thus, we have the knowing and feeling of fear at the same time, that we have bodily changes and action of going away.  Example: “You see a bear, becomes frightened and run away”.

3.  Dollard and Miller’s Frustration-aggression Hypothesis

The aggression hypothesis states that when a goal is blocked or thwarted, anger and aggression may the results.  It means that when one is frustrated he can be aggressive.  But not all aggressions result to frustration.

What are the Two Types of Frustrations?

A.  Personal Frustrations

Personal frustrations result from personal insufficiencies such as inadequate intelligence, lack of physical strength, disabling disease or other handicaps.

B.  Environmental Frustrations

Environmental frustrations are obstacle through the restriction imposed by people, those caused by nature such as flood, typhoons, earthquakes, rugged mountains, and etc.