Emotion: Study with Video Lessons, Practice Problems & Examples

Emotion

In this video, we're just going to be defining emotion and distinguishing it from mood. And they differ in a couple of important ways. So the first is that emotions tend to be quite fleeting. They'll usually last for, like, minutes at a time, whereas moods tend to be quite long-lasting. They can last for hours or sometimes even days at a time.

Now emotions are felt relatively intensely, whereas moods tend to be relatively lower in intensity. And then a big difference between them is that emotions often or almost always occur in response to a specific event or stimulus. So some kind of stimulus, like, triggers the emotional response. Whereas moods often do not occur in response to any one specific event. I'm sure we've all had the experience of just kind of being in a good mood or, like, being in a bad mood, and you don't really know why.

You can't quite pinpoint, like, what put you in that mood. Whereas with emotions, we can usually kind of point to the source of whatever is stirring up emotions within us. So based on that, we're going to be defining mood as a diffuse long-lasting state that lacks a clear cause and can influence a person's emotional experiences. We’ve all been there. You guys know how sometimes being in a bad mood can make it a little bit easier to feel negative emotions on those days.

Right? And we're going to be defining emotion as a brief intense response to a stimulus that involves physiological changes, cognitions, and behavior. So based on that definition, you can see how emotions have three components to them. And these are important because each of these plays a really important role in our experience of the emotion. So the first component is physiological changes and the arousal that we experience with the emotion.

So this could be, you know, your heart beating faster, it could be certain neurotransmitters being released or certain neurotransmitters not being released. Any kind of physiological change or event in your body that happens as a result of the emotion. Next up, we have cognitive processes. So this includes things like your feelings, so like your subjective feelings, how you label the emotion, how you feel about it, as well as appraisals. And we're going to define appraisal a little bit later in the chapter, so don't worry about that yet.

Just be aware that it is part of cognition. And then finally, we have behavioral expression. How we show that emotion to the world. Right? So this includes facial expressions and body language.

Any kind of behavior that happens as a result of the emotion or behavior that you have to inhibit because you are feeling that emotion. Alright. So that is the definition of emotion, and I will see you guys in our next video. Bye bye.

Emotion Example 1

Alright, so Nishi is taking an important exam and she feels very nervous about it. She notices that her heart rate is elevated and her palms are sweating. These responses reflect which component of emotion. So remember, emotion has 3 main components: physiology, cognition, and behavior.

The changes being described here, her higher heart rate and sweaty palms, are reflecting some physiological changes. Right? Something changing in her biology because of the emotion that she is experiencing. Now, if we're thinking about these other components, the fact that she is aware of being nervous reflects the cognitive aspect of emotion, which is her subjective feeling and understanding of what is happening in her body. And then behavioral would include any facial expressions, body posture, things like that that signal to other people what emotion you might be feeling.

And then remember, mood is a completely separate thing from emotion. Moods tend to be more diffuse, they are longer lasting, and they tend to be lower intensity. Alright, so our answer here is A; this is a physiological component of emotion. And there you go.

Which statement below correctly identify the difference between a mood and an emotion?

I) Emotions are often in response to a specific event, while moods are usually not.

II) Moods are relatively intense, while emotions are not.

III) Emotions are usually fleeting, while moods are relatively long-lasting.

• A. I & II.
• B. I & III.
• C. II & III.
• D. I, II, & III.

The Dimensions of Emotions

Alright. So we can describe emotional experiences using 2 dimensions. And some researchers have tried using more than these 2 dimensions, but honestly, these 2 work very well and so most researchers tend to stick with these. So the first dimension is valence, which is essentially going to tell us whether the emotion feels pleasant or unpleasant. So valence will range from negative to positive.

So negative valence essentially means that the emotion feels unpleasant to us, and positive valence means that the emotion feels pleasant. And then our other dimension is arousal, which is essentially going to be the level of physiological arousal that the emotion causes. You can kind of think of this as how much the emotion energizes you or drains energy from you. So arousal will range from low to high. So low would kind of be draining your energy, high would be energizing you.

So if we look at our little graph here with our two dimensions, again, we're going from high arousal, energizing down to low arousal, kind of draining our energy, and then from negative valence or feeling unpleasant to positive valence or kind of feeling more pleasant. So you can kind of think of this like an intercept midpoint as complete neutrality. It doesn't feel pleasant. It doesn't feel unpleasant. Your body is basically producing 0 physiological change.

You are just at complete neutral homeostasis there. So obviously, emotional experiences are subjective, but most people can use these two dimensions to label some basic emotions very easily. So we're going to do that right now. So imagine we have some negative valence, so the emotion feels unpleasant to us, but very high arousal. So let's say our respiration, our blood pressure, our heart rate are increasing.

We feel very energized, and it's paired with that unpleasant or negative feeling. Maybe many of us would label that type of feeling as anger. Right? Anger tends to be very energizing, but it obviously feels kind of unpleasant. Now imagine we still have that high arousal, so we have increased blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, etcetera, but now it is a pleasant feeling emotion.

We might interpret that more like excitement. Right? Excitement is very energizing and it obviously feels very good. Now if we move down to low arousal, so let's say we have kind of a drop in blood pressure, slow our breathing, slow our heart rate, but we still have that positive valence, it still feels pleasant. That might be interpreted more like feeling calm.

Right? We might even get some muscle relaxation in there. Now if we have that low arousal but it is a negative valence, it feels kind of unpleasant, we might feel something more like sadness. Right? Being sad is like the energy-draining emotion. Right? It's very hard to feel energized when you feel sad. Alright. So those are just some ways to label some basic emotions using these two dimensions, and I will see you guys in the next video.

Bye bye.

Emotion Example 2

Okay. So for this one, we are going to be thinking about these emotions in terms of our 2 dimensions, valence and arousal. And then based on that, we're going to be placing them somewhere on our graph. So our first emotion here is joy, and joy is a very energizing emotion. Right?

It tends to give you very high arousal. You have kind of an increased heart rate, increased breathing, and obviously, it has positive valence. It feels very pleasant. So we're going to put joy over here in this quadrant. Our next emotion is to be relaxed.

Obviously, that is also positive valence. It feels good to feel relaxed, but typically when we are relaxed our physiology is going to go below baseline. Right? Our breathing slows, our heart rate slows, and so it is a low arousal emotion. We're going to put that here in this quadrant.

Alright, our next emotion here is annoyed. So annoyed is kind of interesting. It's not going to cause as high of an arousal as anger. Right? But I know when I feel annoyed, I definitely get above baseline.

I get like a little kick in my heart rate, a little kick in my blood pressure. Right? So we're probably not going to put it as high up as we had anger. We had anger kind of like over here. Right?

So it's probably not that high arousal, but it's definitely getting us above baseline, and obviously feeling annoyed tends to feel quite unpleasant or more negative valence. So we'll put that kind of over here. Okay, so not super high arousal, but definitely getting us kind of above that baseline. And then finally we have bored, and being bored is obviously very unpleasant. That is negative valence and it usually kind of drains your energy.

Right? How ironic is that? Because when you're bored you kind of need energy to figure out what to do next, but when you're bored you just don't want to do anything. Very annoying. So we will put bored over here.

So bored kind of is low arousal, kind of drains your energy, and feels unpleasant. Alright, so there you guys have it, and I will see you in the next one. Bye bye.

True or False: If false, choose the answer that best corrects the statement.

The valence of an emotion is how intense the emotion feels.

• A. True.
• B. False; valence is a measure of physiological arousal.
• C. False; valence is a measure of how long the emotion lasts.
• D. False; valence is how pleasant an emotion is.