Mark Moran
Prof. Norma Graham
Psychology W3001
April 29, 1999
Emotion
Human emotion is such a broad and complex subject that it has historically been approached by many separate areas of psychology. Developmental psychologists might consider emotion as the result of evolving stages in the human mind, perhaps corresponding to a more sophisticated mental scheme as the person grows older. A behavioral psychologist, rather than explaining emotion directly, would probably try to explain a person’s conduct or demeanor as a response to condition, either direct Pavlov conditioning or reward-based S-R conditioning. A social psychologist would be primary concerned with the effect of a person’s peer group or society on his emotions, as in a situation that leads to embarrassment. The social psychologist would also concentrate on a person’s ability to judge other people emotions and how those influence his own. A clinical psychologist’s job is to help people understand their emotions through therapy including conversation and sometimes hypnosis. The first famous group of these psychologists are Sigmund Freud’s followers, who believe that emotion is determined by a person’s frustrated unconscious dreams and desires. As a response to these psychologists, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers developed humanistic psychology. Their focus on emotion is to look at people’s conscious minds and to help them develop positive self images, so that their in-born set of drives can lead them to pursue creative activities and a more satisfying life. (Gray 14-25)
Despite the inherent complexity, there have been experiments on human emotion in the past thirty years. In the 1960’s, Stanley Schacter developed a theory of emotion that says that the type of emotion a person feels is based on his perception of the environment (stimulus) and the intensity of the emotion is based on a person’s awareness of his own physiological response to the stimulus. Put more simply, a person who is highly aroused will experience an emotion more intensely than someone who isn’t. This previous arousal can come from caffeine, sweating, a rapid heartbeat, etc. To test his theory, Schacter injected one group of people with adrenaline (epinephrine) and another group with a placebo. He then exposed both groups to conditions that would elicit emotions. He found that the adrenaline did not produce any emotion by itself, but that it strengthened whatever emotion was expected from the condition. The people who had been unknowingly injected with adrenaline reported more humor when watching a comedy, more fear when watching a horror film, and more anger when insulted. (Gray 221-222)
Emotion also seems to be highly influenced by facial expressions, of both other people around and of oneself. Fifteen years ago, Paul Ekman proposed the idea that smiling or frowning can actually make the smiler or frowner feel more happy or sad. In one experiment, unknowing subjects were asked to look at a picture while forcing a smile or a frown on their face. While the content of the picture had a big effect on their mood, it was also influenced by the artificially induced facial expression. Those who smiled reported themselves to be happier, and those who frowned reported more anger. In a related experiment, people reported themselves happier after repeating a long e vowel sound, which forces the face into a smile. This effect did not happen for other vowel sounds. Finally, studies have repeatedly shown that a person’s mood is strongly affected by the facial expressions of others around them. Smiling in one person induces happiness in another, just as sadness and anger generate corresponding emotions, and most noticeably, laughter has an almost contagious effect. (Gray 223, 525)
I think that emotion is highly dependent on circadian rhythms, or some combination of how long a person has been awake and what time of day it is. Some people seem to be “winders” and start the day off in a crummy, tired mood which gradually increases throughout the day, while others start of fresh and shiny and fall off as the day wears on. Both groups, I guess, feel better when they wake up in the mid-morning rather than unusually early or late. Likewise, it seems to me that sleeping too long or to little can also induce negative feelings. As an experiment, I suggest a group of people record their emotional state at various times of day. Some part of this group should then change their schedule so that they either sleep more or less than they like, but more importantly so that they wake up at a different time of day than they are accustomed to. While this study would be based on subjective mood reports, like many other emotion experiments, I think that if it is done with enough subjects it could yield interesting information about how time influences people’s emotions.
Gray, Peter. Psychology, Third Edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 1999.