Defining Emotions

PSY391: Lecture 2
Lecture created by Dr. Graeme Ditchburn
Agenda
• Emotions
• Emotions, Moods, and Temperament
• Discrete, Basic, Categorical, Core, Emotions
• Mood and Affect
• Emotions and Moods

• Emotions and Interventions

• Emotions and Moods
Consider Your Emotions / Moods
• Think for a moment about the kinds of emotions or moods you’ve
had in the past few months
• We encounter a variety of emotions in the average week, often in
reaction to events that have occurred, at work, at home, at university,
on the freeway.
• These emotions have influences on various elements of behaviour.
• Consider a time when you have been in a great mood at work / university
• How did your performance at work / university go that time?
 Emotions / Feelings / Moods / Temperament
• What are emotions (AAAP):
• A temporal response to an object, event, environment
• A subjective (self-referential) mental state (e.g. anger, anxiety)
• An impulse to act (e.g. fight/flight)
• Physiological changes (e.g. blood pressure, heart rate)

• Emotions (CCAAT):
• Change over time
• Communicate – signals response to self/others
• Activate – Readiness for action
• Affect what, how well, and how quickly we perceive things
• Trigger other emotions/feelings (e.g. jealousy – hate)
 Emotions / Feelings / Moods / Temperament
• What are moods:
• Enduring emotional states with no specific object
• Generalised feelings attached to multiple objects and events if
activated.

• What is temperament:
• A predisposition to an emotion (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987).
 Discrete, Basic, Categorical, Core, Emotions

• Many models have emerged in the literature with much debate

regarding how to define basic/core emotions whether from an
evolutionary or social perspective

• For example, the differences between anger and disgust and the
differences between fear and surprise, are thought to have developed
later for social functions and not for survival (Mansourian et al., 2016).
 Discrete, Basic, Categorical, Core, Emotions

• Jack et al. (2014) and others (Gu et al., 2015, 2016; Wang & Pereira,
2016; Zheng et al., 2016) have proposed that there are four basic
emotions: fear, anger, joy, and sadness.
• As Izard (2007) states: people need the category label of fear to explain
flight to one another for safety, anger to explain the frustration of
blocked goal responses, joy (or its equivalent) to explain the pride of
achievement, and sadness to explain the experience of a life-changing
loss .
 Some examples of Core Emotions
Jack et. al., Ekman et. al., Ekman & Friesen Plutchik Izard
(2014) (1972) (1986) (1962) (1979; 2007))

1. Happiness 1. Fear 1. Fear 1. Fear 1. Interest

2. Sadness 2. Anger 2. Anger 2. Sadness 2. Joy
3. Fear 3. Joy 3. Joy 3. Anger 3. Surprise
4. Anger 4. Sadness 4. Sadness 4. Joy 4. Sadness
5. Disgust 5. Contempt 5. Surprise 5. Anger
6. Surprise 6. Disgust 6. Disgust 6. Disgust
7. Surprise 7. Anticipation 7. Contempt
8. Trust 8. Self-hostility
9. Fear
10. Shame
11. Shyness
12. Guilt
Cowen & Keltner (2017)

1. Admiration 15. Envy

2. Adoration 16. Excitement
3. Aesthetic appreciation 17. Fear
4. Amusement 18. Horror
5. Anxiety 19. Interest
6. Awe 20. Joy
7. Awkwardness 21. Nostalgia
8. Boredom 22. Romance
9. Calmness 23. Sadness
10. Confusion 24. Satisfaction
11. Craving 25. Sexual desire
12. Disgust 26. Sympathy
13. Empathetic pain 27. Triumph
14. Entrancement
 Short Break

Short break time

See you back here in 5 minutes
 Dimensions: Valence and direction…
• Affective valence refers to how positive or negative individuals
evaluate their feeling state (pleasant/unpleasant) e.g. Most individuals
evaluate joy as positive, and anger, disgust, fear, and sadness as
negative. However, individuals also differ in how positive (and
negative) they find these states.

• Motivational direction refers to whether the individual is inclined to go

toward (approach) or away (avoid) from something. Individuals also
differ in these motivational inclinations.
 … and the dimension - arousal
• Arousal (activation) refers to subjective experiences of being aroused
as well as physiological responses (e.g., activation of the sympathetic
nervous system).
• Some theories regard affective valence to be linked with motivational
direction, i.e., positive affect is associated with approach and negative
affect is associated with avoidance.
• Arousal is often regarded as independent of affective valence but it is
often conceptualised as similar to motivational intensity (i.e., the
intensity of approach or avoidance motivation. But, or one can be
aroused by an activity (e.g. exercise, funny film) but be unmotivated to
act.
 Motivational Direction
• Attitudes toward discrete emotions predict emotional situation selection, for
example, individuals with less negative attitudes toward fear are more likely to
express interest in viewing fear-evoking stimuli.

• Attitudes toward discrete emotions correlate in different directions with their

associated trait emotions depending on whether the trait emotions are approach- or
withdrawal-motivated emotions.

• Attitudes toward approach-motivated emotions, such as anger and joy, correlate

directly with the reported experience of associated trait emotions (i.e., anger and
joy).

• Attitudes toward withdrawal emotions (fear, disgust) correlate inversely with the
experience of associated trait emotions (fear, disgust).
 Motivational Direction (continued)
• Individuals who scored higher in their liking for approach-oriented emotions
experienced more of the emotions in response to joy- and anger-evoking stimuli

• Individuals who scored higher in their liking for withdrawal-oriented emotions

experienced less of the emotions in response to fear and disgust-evoking stimuli.

• This suggests that affective valence differs as a function of discrete emotions, and
individual differences in attitudes toward discrete emotions predict state and trait
emotions depending on the discrete emotion’s classification as an approach- or
withdrawal-motivated emotion. A consideration of both discrete and dimensional
conceptual views on emotions is needed to explain this complex pattern of results.
 Short Break

Short break time

See you back here in 5 minutes
 Anger
• Anger is commonly defined as a negative emotion that occurs when someone else is
perceived as being responsible for a perceived misdeed or harm to ourselves and it
motivates a desire to punish the responsible party but it also occurs when things
don’t go our way.
• Thus, anger as a state that often (but not always) occurs when expected and desired
approach-oriented goals are blocked. This state of anger then functions to increase
approach motivation that may cause movement towards the lost goal as well as
other associated outcomes.
• For example, think of the anger we may feel when a vending machine fails or when
another person intentionally cheats us out of money. Anger may motivate attempts
to retrieve the chocolate by other means or motivate attempts to punish the cheat.
 Anger (continued)
• Despite being conceptualised as a negative emotion, anger is associated with
measures of positive valence. For instance, anger is directly related to positive
activation (PA), a subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS).
• Anger has been found to be directly correlated with PA, and inversely correlated
with happiness, despite PA and happiness correlating directly with each another.
• One interpretation of these studies is that PA feelings may be evaluated positively by
the person experiencing them while also being angry. It is also possible that, in an
anger context, the PA items are not evaluated positively but are instead measures of
approach motivation.
• Anger items (hostile, irritable) cluster with approach-related positive items (proud,
excited, strong). Thus, although evidence suggests a relationship between anger and
approach, the prominence of the evaluative dimension means that this is not always
immediately apparent.
 Functions of Discrete Emotions & Dimensions
• Discrete emotions likely serve evolutionarily-derived psychological and
behavioural functions. For example, anger causes the organism to renew
efforts to keep desired objects or it may cause destruction of the
blocking agent. Sadness may cause the organism to reintegrate with
socially supportive others, and fear may cause protection of oneself or
others.

• Dimensions of emotion, such as valence, arousal, and motivational

direction, may have global psychological functions. For example,
research has revealed that emotionally arousing stimuli cause orienting,
and that it is the broad dimension of arousal, rather than discrete
emotions, that causes orienting.
 Functions of Discrete emotions & Dimensions
• In addition, emotions high in motivational intensity (desire, anger, fear)
narrow cognitive scope, whereas emotions low in motivational intensity
(satisfaction, some forms of sadness) broaden cognitive scope.
• The narrowing of cognitive scope during motivationally intense
emotions may serve the function of aiding in successful approach or
avoidance. In other words, by focusing on the desired (or aversive)
object, the organism may be more likely to obtain (or avoid) it; if the
organism was not so focused and was distracted by other things, s/he
might fail to obtain the desired object or avoid the harm. On the other
hand, with emotions low in motivational intensity, organisms have
reduced their efforts and the mind may broaden so that new
opportunities can be seen.
 Discrete Emotions
(1) how affective valence within discrete emotions differs as a function of individuals
and situations, and how these differences relate to various functions;
(2) that anger (and other emotional states) should be considered as a discrete
emotion but there are dimensions around and within anger;
(3) that similarities exist between approach-related positive and negative discrete
emotions and they have unique motivational functions;
4) that discrete emotions and broad dimensions of emotions both have unique
functions; and
(5) evidence that a “new” discrete emotion with discrete functions exists within a
broader emotion family
 Emotional triggers
• Immediate Stimuli
• Classical Conditioning
• Memories or thoughts
 Short Break

Short break time

See you back here in 5 minutes
 Implicit Emotions
• So far we have discussed explicit emotions, i.e., those which the
individual is aware of.
• Implicit emotions, as implied, refers to those emotions that the
individual is not aware of.
• The focus of research has been on emotional regulation and valence:
• Compatible - the two emotional valences are consistent
• Incompatible - the two emotional valences are opposite
• Studies have shown that different emotions being superimposed on each other
can have a regulating effect on emotions overall (Gyurak et al., 2011; Koole and
Rothermund, 2011).
 Implicit Emotions and the self-regulation of
emotion
• Koole et al., (2011) proposes three ways in which implicit processes may
support emotion regulation.

1. Allowing people to decide whether or not to engage in emotion regulation,

through implicit activation of emotion regulation goals and implicit
monitoring of whether emotional responses are compatible with these goals.
2. Guiding people in selecting suitable emotion regulation strategies, by
activating habitual strategies and by tailoring strategies to situational
affordances.
3. Facilitating the enactment of emotion regulation strategies.
 Implicit Emotions
Gyurak, A., Gross, J. J., and Etkin, A. (2011).
Explicit and implicit emotion regulation: a dual-
process framework. Cogn. Emot. 25, 400–412.
doi: 10.1080/02699931.2010.544160
 Short Break

Short break time

See you back here in 5 minutes
 Mood & Affect
• A glance at the Mental Measurement Yearbooks will reveal that a quite
bewildering range of tests has been developed to assess mood. Some measure
single moods (e.g. the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Depression
Adjective Checklist),
• While questionnaires such as the Profile of Mood States (POMS; Lorr and
McNair, 1988), the Howarth Mood Adjective Checklist (HMACL-4; Howarth,
1988), the Eight State Questionnaire (8SQ; Curran and Cattell, 1976), the
Differential Emotions Scale (DES-III; Izard et al., 1982), the Nowlis Mood
Adjective Checklist (Nowlis and Nowlis, 1956), the UWIST Mood Adjective
Checklist (Matthews et al., 1990) and the Clyde Mood Scale (Clyde, 1963) each
claim to measure a number of distinct mood states.
• There is good evidence that these multi-scale tests measure two broad
dimensions of mood known as Positive Affect (energy) and Negative Affect
(anxiety/tension) (Lorr and Wunderlich, 1988; McConville and Cooper, 1992b;
Watson et al., 1988).
Hierarchical structure of Affect
Positive and Negative Affect
• Positive / Negative Affect
• Valence of the emotional content
• Level of Activation High Negative High Positive
• Typically considered as high vs.
low

• Trait positive/negative affect

• State positive/negative affect Low Negative Low Positive

• PANAS (Watson et al., 1988)

True/False
• If we have a disposition towards more positive and engaged
emotions, then it’s likely that we’ll interpret daily events with a
similarly positive emotional state.
• Low negative affectivity would describe someone having a calm,
serene emotional state.
 Myths and Emotions
• Emotions are not irrational
• Emotions inhibit adaptability
• Emotions are not just biological but socially constructed (Averill, 1982;
Harre, 1986)

• But…
• Under certain circumstances they do disrupt reasoning (Damasio,
1994)
 Emotions and Change
So there are individual differences in:

• The subjective experience of emotions and therefore the ways these are
defined/conceptualised (Fehr & Russell, 1991; Russell, 1991)
• The intensity of emotions
• The extent to which moods change (McConville, 1992). There are inter-individual
differences in intra-individual mood change.
 Intra-individual differences in Moods
For example, a meta-analysis by Houben et al. (2015) shows that people
who show elevated levels of (trait) depression, anxiety, and other
components of Neuroticism:
• show more variable moods, as measured by the standard deviation of
their mood scores over time.
• have moods which swing more rapidly from one extreme to the other,
rather than transitioning more slowly (even though the standard
deviation of the scores is the same).
• have moods which are unpredictable from previous moods.
These last two areas have not been heavily researched, but it does seem
that extreme variations in mood, rapid shifts in mood and moods that
vary at random are associated with Neuroticism and its component
Emotions and Interventions
How Does Emotion Inform Interventions?
• Job Enrichment (continued)
• Ng and Sorensen (2009)
• Positive affectivity associated with
• Promotional opportunities
• Procedural justice
• Autonomy within the job
• Negative affectivity associated with
• Role conflict
• Interpersonal conflict
• General work overload
How Does Emotion Inform Interventions?

(Daniel & Sonnentag, 2014, p. 51)

Music, Emotion, and Athletic Performance
• Lane , Davis, and Devonport (2011)
• Examined the perceived importance of music as a motivating influence via
emotion on athletic performance, and the impact this had on self-ratings of
performance
• Music picks chosen before athletic performance vetted by participants based on
rhythm response, musicality, cultural impact, and association  provided
indicator of music-mood regulation
Findings
• Demonstrated significant effect for music-mood regulation and self-rated
performance
• Runners believed that music picks were important in establishing a beneficial
mood state for improved performance
• Should we be picking our soundtracks to be congruent with tasks?
Music, Emotion, and Work Performance
• What happens when your job requires you to do things that you may
not necessarily want to do?
• Example from recent Iraq conflict, and the contents of soldiers’ iPods
(Gilman, 2010)
https://www.iedunote.com/acquired-needs-
theory
• Employees have been successfully trained to stimulate their
achievement need.
• Trainers have been effective in teaching individuals to think in terms
of accomplishments, winning, and success, and then helping them to
learn how to act in a high achievement way by preferring situations
where they have personal responsibility, feedback, and moderate risk.
What other emotion focussed interventions
might work and why?
• Think about:
1) Manipulating PA and NA
2) Goal orientation
3) Using needs as a guide
 References
• Cowen, A. S., & Keltner, D. (2017). Self-report captures 27 distinct categories of emotion bridged by
continuous gradients. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(38), E7900-E7909.
• Damasio, A. 1994. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York:
Gosset/Putnam.
• Daniel, S., & Sonnentag, S. (2014). Work to non-work enrichment: The mediating roles of positive
affect and positive work reflection. Work & Stress, 28(1), 49-66.
doi:10.1080/02678373.2013.872706
• Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Ellsworth, P. (1972). Emotion in the Human Face: Guide-lines for
Research and an Integration of Findings: Guidelines for Research and an Integration of Findings.
Pergamon.
• Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1986). A new pan-cultural facial expression of emotion. Motivation and
emotion, 10(2), 159-168.
• Fehr, B., & Russell, J. A. (1991). The concept of love viewed from a prototype perspective. Journal
of personality and social psychology, 60(3), 425.
• Gilman, L. (2010). An American Soldier’s iPod: Layers of identity and situated listening in Iraq. Music
and Politics, 4(2).
• Gyurak, A., Gross, J. J., and Etkin, A. (2011). Explicit and implicit emotion regulation: a dual-process
framework. Cogn. Emot. 25, 400–412. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2010.544160
References
• Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a
theory. Organizational behavior and human performance, 16(2), 250-279.
doi:10.1016/0030-5073(76)90016-7
• Hochschild, A. R. (2012). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (1st
ed.). University of California Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pn9bk
• Houben, M., Van Den Noortgate, W. & Kuppens, P. 2015. The Relation between Short-Term
Emotion Dynamics and Psychological Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological
Bulletin, 141, 901–930.
• Hülsheger, U. R., & Schewe, A. F. (2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: a
meta-analysis of three decades of research. Journal of occupational health
psychology, 16(3), 361. doi:10.1037/a0022876
• Izard, C. E. (1979). Differential Emotions Scale. ETS m 1979.
• Izard, C. E. (1992). Basic emotions, relations among emotions, and emotion-cognition
relations.
• Izard, C. E. (2007). Basic emotions, natural kinds, emotion schemas, and a new paradigm.
Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 2, 260–280. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00044.x
 References
• Jack, R., Garrod, O., and Schyns, P. (2014). Dynamic facial expressions of emotion transmit an
evolving hierarchy of signals over time. Curr. Biol. 24, 187–192. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.064
• Joseph, D. L., Jin, J., Newman, D. A., & O'Boyle, E. H. (2015). Why does self-reported emotional
intelligence predict job performance? A meta-analytic investigation of mixed EI. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 100(2), 298.
• Kaplan, S., Bradley, J. C., Luchman, J. N., & Haynes, D. (2009). On the role of positive and
negative affectivity in job performance: a meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Applied
psychology, 94(1), 162. doi:10.1037/a0013115
• Koole, S. L., & Rothermund, K. (2011). “I feel better but I don't know why”: The psychology of
implicit emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion, 25(3), 389-399.
• Landy, F. J. (2013). Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and organizational
psychology (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Lane, A. M., Davis, P. A., & Devonport, T. J. (2011). Effects of music interventions on emotional
states and running performance. Journal of sports science & medicine, 10(2), 400.
• Mansourian, S., Corcoran, J., Enjin, A., Lofstedt, C., Dacke, M., and Stensmyr, M. (2016). Fecal-
derived phenol induces egg-laying aversion in drosophila. Curr. Biol. 26, 2762–2769. doi:
10.1016/j.cub.2016.07.065
References
• Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence. Emotional development
and emotional intelligence: Educational implications, 3, 31.
• Mayer, J. D., Roberts, R. D., & Barsade, S. G. (2008). Human abilities: Emotional
intelligence. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 59, 507-536.
• McConville, C. & Cooper, C. 1992a. Mood Variability and Personality. Personality and
Individual Differences, 13, 1213–1221.
• McConville, C. & Cooper, C. 1992b. The Structure of Moods. Personality and Individual
Differences, 13, 909–919.
• Plutchik, R. (1962). The Emotions: Facts, Theories, and a New Model. New York, NY: Random
House.
• Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., DeChurch, L. A., & Wax, A. (2012). Moving emotional labor beyond
surface and deep acting: A discordance–congruence perspective. Organizational Psychology
Review, 2(1), 6-53.
• Ng, T. W., Sorensen, K. L., & Yim, F. H. (2009). Does the job satisfaction—job performance
relationship vary across cultures?. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40(5), 761-796.
• Oatley, K., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1987). Towards a cognitive theory of emotions. Cognition
and emotion, 1(1), 29-50.
References
• Russell, J. A. (1991). Culture and the categorization of emotions. Psychological
bulletin, 110(3), 426.
• Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, cognition and
personality, 9(3), 185-211.
• Shockley, K. M., Ispas, D., Rossi, M. E., & Levine, E. L. (2012). A meta-analytic investigation of
the relationship between state affect, discrete emotions, and job performance. Human
Performance, 25(5), 377-411. doi:10.1080/08959285.2012.721832
• Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures
of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of personality and social
psychology, 54(6), 1063. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063