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Summary Biopsychology Chapter 12
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Bio Psychology – Chapter 12 “Emotional Behavior” Psychologists define emotion in terms of three components:
o Cognition
o Action
o Feeling
Emotions, Autonomic Arousal, and the James-Lange Theory
o Emotional situations arouse the autonomic nervous system
o Each situation evokes its own special mixture of sympathetic and
parasympathetic arousal
o The James-Lange theory of emotion suggests that autonomic
arousal and skeletal action occurs first in an emotion
o The emotion that is felt is the label that we give the arousal of the
organs and muscle
o James-Lange theory leads to two predictions:
People with a weak autonomic or skeletal response should
feel less emotion
Increasing one’s response should enhance an emotion
o Research indicates the following:
Paralyzed people report feeling emotion to the same degree
as prior to their injury
People with “pure autonomic failure” still report feeling
emotion but less intensely
Pure autonomic failure: output from autonomic
nervous system to body fails
Suggests other factors are involved in the perception of
emotion
o BOTOX blocks transmissions at synapses and nerve-muscle junctions
o People with BOTOX injections show:
Slower time in reading unhappy sentences
Weaker than usual emotional responses after watching short
videos
Points to body change being important for feeling an
emotion
However, people with certain types of brain damage
show “normal” responses
o According to the James-Lange theory, emotional feelings result from
the body’s action
o Panic attacks are marked by extreme sympathetic nervous system
arousal (rapid heartbeat, fast breathing, etc.)
Only if perceived as occurring spontaneously
o Creating certain body actions may also slightly influence emotion
Smiling slightly increases happiness
Inducing a frown leads to the rating of stimuli as slightly less
pleasant
o Indicates that perception of the body's actions do contribute to
emotional feeling
o However, body’s actions are not required
o Example: Möbius syndrome
Brain Areas Associated with Emotion
o Emotional experiences arouse many areas of the brain
, o The limbic system includes the forebrain areas surrounding the
thalamus
Traditionally been regarded as critical for emotion
o PET and fMRI studies also suggest many other areas of the cerebral
cortex, especially the frontal and temporal lobes, are activated
during an emotional experience
o Measurement of evoked responses indicate the brain is specialized
to attend strongly to facial expressions
o Emotions tend not to be localized in specific parts of the cortex
o A single emotion increases activity in various parts of the brain
o Localization in the brain seems to exist for the emotion of disgust
o The insular cortex is strongly activated during exposure to stimuli
perceived as “disgusting”
Different parts react to different types of disgusting scenes
Also the primary taste cortex
Also reacts to frightening stimuli and angry faces, so not
completely dedicated to disgust
o The two hemispheres of the brain play different roles in emotion
o Activation of the frontal and temporal areas of the left hemisphere is
associated with “approach” and the Behavioral Activation
System
Marked by low to moderate arousal
Can characterize either happiness or anger
o The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) is associated with
increased activity of the frontal and temporal lobe of the right
hemisphere
Increases attention and arousal
Inhibits action
Stimulates emotions such as fear and disgust
o Differences in frontal cortex activity relates to personality
o People with greater activity in the left hemisphere tend to be
happier, more out-going, and friendlier
o People with greater left hemisphere activity tend to be socially
withdrawn, less satisfied with life, and prone to unpleasant emotions
o The right hemisphere seems to be more responsive to emotional
stimuli than the left
o Damage to the right temporal cortex causes problems in the ability
to identify emotions of others
o When the right hemisphere is inactive, people do not experience
strong emotions and don’t remember feeling them
o Those with damage to the left hemisphere are better at detecting
others’ emotions
The Functions of Emotions
o Functions of emotions include:
Adaptive values (fear leads to escape, anger lead to attack,
etc.)
Allow us to make quick decisions
Help us make moral decisions
o The consequences of our decisions have emotional considerations
o Emotions are an important component to moral decisions
, o Failure to anticipate the unpleasantness of an event can lead to bad
decision making
o Contemplating moral decisions activates the prefrontal cortex,
cingulate gyrus, and amygdala
o Damage to the prefrontal cortex impairs decision making
o Leads to impulsive decision-making without pausing to consider
consequences
o Stems from failure to anticipate unpleasantness of an outcome
o Example: Phineas Gage
o Those with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex show
decreased guilt
Attack and Escape Behaviors
o Attack and escape behaviors are closely related physiologically and
behaviorally
o Corresponding behaviors are anger and fear
Attack Behaviors
o Pain, threat, or other unpleasant stimuli can trigger an attack
behavior
o Attack behaviors are associated with increased activity in the
corticomedial area of the amygdala
o After experiencing a provocation, people are more likely to attack for
a period of time afterwards
o An initial attack behavior increases the probability of a second
attack behavior
o Environmental factors associated with increased violent tendencies
include:
Exposure to lead
Witness or victim of violence in childhood
Living in a violent neighborhood
o Twins studies suggest genetic contribution to the likelihood of violent
behavior
o Monozygotic twins resembled each other much more than dizygotic
twins with regard to violent and criminal behavior
o Attempts to identify a specific gene have found only a weak effect
o Example: one gene linked to aggression only found among Finnish
people
o Violence is particularly enhanced with both a genetic predisposition
and an early troubled environment
o Example: Interaction between MAOA levels and childhood
maltreatment
o Hormones also influence aggressive behavior
o Male aggressive behavior is influenced by the hormone testosterone
o On average, males engage in more aggressive and violent
behaviors than do females
o Research shows that men with the highest rates of violent behavior
also have slightly higher testosterone levels
o “Triple imbalance hypothesis”: violence depends on other chemicals
besides testosterone, notably cortisol and serotonin
Aggression levels are highest when cortisol levels are low and
testosterone levels are high
Serotonin tends to inhibit violent impulses
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