ANXIETY AND RELATED DISORDERS - 2021/2022
UTRECHT UNIVERSITY
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY MASTER
WEEK 1 - LECTURE 1 - EMOTION THEORY
What is an emotion?
- Difficult to define, physiological response, cognitive, behavioral response
Higher vs lower emotions: Happy, Anxious, Sad, Angry, Ashamed, - want to see what is the
basic of the behavior so that we can change it
- Ask what someone is afraid of⇾ bring to cognitive part, general basic function in
anxiety disorders.
● Stimulus than anxiety, reaction
● Only the event we consider important can trigger an emotion
1. Emotion theory and Anxiety
2. Anxiety disorders
Anxiety is an emotion experience, state, phenomenon, consisting of 3 different aspects
● Emotion is more than a feeling: all these appear together, but are not always present
or concurrent.
1. Physiological aspects: e.g. heart-pounding, doesn't tell you anything about the
emotion, riding with the train, or in a negative situation like anger or anxiety
you also have the heart racing, but the emotion that goes together goes with
this is the same (the heart rate) but the meaning, the feeling is a different one
2. Cognitive aspects: (peripheral response)
a. Cognitive (experience/feelings) helps us be awar of the emotion
b. Unconscious, can’t really measure, but we have some evidence, of
cognitive appraisal before it comes to cognitive, behavioral experience
3. Motoric aspects (behavioral aspects), action tendencies, how our muscle
response face,gesture, posture
Loosely coupled systems: concordant/ discordant. Not able to couple them, fight or flight,
most of the time-intense emotions, or we don't have so quick excess to.
Related concepts: mood, attitude & temperament
, ● Attitude: a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person,
thing, or event. Attitudes are often the result of experience or upbringing, and they
can have a powerful influence over behavior. While attitudes are enduring, they can
also change.
● Mood: constant psychology state, lasts longer than emotions. Triggered by specific
objects and lead to relevant behaviors,e.g. broader action, approaching or retreating.
Have more bias on cognition than on action
- an affective state, less specific, less intense, and less likely to be provoked by
a particular stimulus or event.
● Emotion: complex experience of consciousness, bodily sensation, and behavior that
reflects the personal significance of a thing, an event, or a state of affairs, automatic,
fast, not logical
● Temperament: chronic disposition independently of objects. General. An aspect of
personality concerned with emotional dispositions and reactions and their speed and
intensity; the term often is used to refer to the prevailing mood or mood pattern of a
person.
Neuroticism: we see this a lot, people coming for treatment score high on this
Anxiety, time limited current state, body not prepared to experience panic for long state.
Two dimensions
● The valence of an emotion ⇾
- Highly positive: think of an emotion of excitement about something pleasant
- Highly negative: anger, e.g. when someone is shouting at you
● Higher the arousal, the more impact it has on the individual
Functions of emotion (language, memory, attention)
- What functions do emotions have?
● Q: When do they occur? The greatest common denominator?
● A: when vital interests are at stake
Emotions (Fridja):
- Are ¨action tendencies¨
- Cause, experience, action tendency, and function
, - E.g. When you are low in energy you experience hunger, hunger then provokes you to
consume food, you try to get something to eat so that you can maintain a good level of
energy.
- Same with when you put your hand, and you experience acute pain ⇾ take your
finger away and rest ⇾ so that it can recover
- Flight fight or freeze escape from the treatment so that we are secure.⇾ evolutionary
point of view ⇾ to have children
Theoretical background:
1. Evolutionary theory: our emotions exist because they serve an adaptive role.
Emotions motivate people to respond quickly to stimuli in the environment, which
helps improve the chances of success and survival.
2. James-Lange theory: proposed that bodily changes come first and form the basis of
an emotional experience. Thus, emotions are caused by bodily sensations (you
become happier when you smile, you are afraid because you run).
- See a bear-> heart beat, physical response->feeling scared
3. Cannon-Bard theory: the lower part of the brain also called the thalamus, controls
your experience of emotion. At the same time, the higher part of the brain, also called
the cortex, controls the expression of emotion. It is believed that these two parts of the
brain react simultaneously.
- See the bear-> physiological heart rate AND at the same time feeling the fear
->so both appreat at the same time, not because of the physiological sensations
4. Schachter-Singer theory - the two-factor theory of emotions: emotion results from
the interaction between two factors: physiological arousal and cognition. More
specifically, this theory claims that physiological arousal is cognitively interpreted
within the context of each situation, which ultimately produces the emotional
experience.
, - Seeing the bear-> physiological-> appraise the situation-> understnad why this
lead you to the feelings so cognitive appraisal-> then you feel the fear
- A stimulus causes physical arousal, we cognitively label the physical response
and associate it with an emotion, we feel the emotion
- It's not so much about the labeling of the physiological arousal ⇾ stimulus
followed by the thought of the stimulus + immediate exposure of
physiological response ⇾ fight or flight
- About cognition, appraisal of the stimulus and the behavior the stimulus
evokes
5. Cognitive appraisal theory: emotions are extracted from our evaluations of events
that cause specific reactions in different people. Essentially, our appraisal of a
situation causes an emotional or affective, response that is going to be based on that
appraisal.
- Stimulus appears, thought labeling the stimulus + immediate experience of
physiological response Fight or flight
- Cognition, the appraisal of the stimulus and behavior the stimulus evokes
Fight or flight or freeze
- Tonic immobility: is a natural state of paralysis that animals enter, often called
animal hypnosis. Tonic immobility plays a role in survival if it helps a hunted animal
to blend in with its surroundings. Not always fight or flight but also the freeze
Appraisal
- Emotion requires ´interpretation´ of a stimulus: sometimes (very) fast and
preconscious
- Emotions are extracted from our evaluations (appraisals or estimates) of events that
cause specific reactions in different people. Essentially, our appraisal of a situation
causes an emotional or affective, response that is going to be based on that appraisal.
- E.g. you are in your room, and you hear a vase falling ⇾ you interpret the sound you
hear ⇾ provokes an emotion
- Cognitive interpretation ⇾ fear
The illusion of the dynamics of emotional expressions taken 2.6 second
- The more than a split of a second we make a general appraisal of a situation, on the
unconscious process, no prefrontal cortex involved, so not goes on a conscious level,
first appraisal and action
- Two types of appraisal: quick or irrelevant
- Hort cognitive appraisal, and more secondary appraisal of a situation
Primary and secondary
● Primary appraisal, he or she evaluates two aspects of a situation: the motivational
relevance and the motivational congruence, "How relevant is this situation to my
needs?" Thus, the individual evaluates how important the situation is to his or her