The Emotional Self - Week 14

The Emotional Self - Week 14

• Intended Learning Outcomes: Students are expected to demonstrate understanding of emotions, their role in shaping the emotional self, encompassing emotional awareness, expression, and regulation. They should also analyze the multifaceted nature of emotions, considering cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components, and understand how emotions contribute to self-identity.

Definition of Emotion

• The term emotion originates from the French word emouvoir, meaning "to shake, to stir."
• An emotion is a strong mental or instinctive feeling, such as love or fear, involving bodily and mental processes.
• Emotions are typically brief, intense experiences involving physiological changes, like changes in heart rate, facial expressions, and hormonal secretion.

Basic Emotions

• According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, there are eight basic families of emotions:
  • Fear (Safety): anxiety, apprehension, nervousness, concern, consternation, misgiving, wariness, qualm, edginess, dread, fright, terror, and phobia.
  • Anger (Justice): fury, outrage, resentment, wrath, exasperation, indignation, vexation, acrimony, animosity, annoyance, irritability, hostility, hatred, and violence.
  • Sadness (Loss): grief, sorrow, cheerlessness, gloom, melancholy, self-pity, loneliness, dejection, despair, and depression.
  • Enjoyment (Gain): happiness, joy, relief, contentment, bliss, delight, amusement, pride, sensual pleasure, thrill, rapture, gratification, satisfaction, euphoria, whimsy, ecstasy, and mania.
  • Love (Attraction): acceptance, friendliness, trust, kindness, affinity, devotion, adoration, infatuation, and agape.
  • Disgust (Repulsion): contempt, disdain, scorn, abhorrence, aversion, distaste, and revulsion.
  • Surprise (Attention): shock, astonishment, amazement, and wonder.
  • Shame (Self-control): guilt, embarrassment, chagrin, remorse, humiliation, regret, mortification, and contrition.

Components of Emotions

• Physiological arousal: Involves the brain, nervous system, and hormone secretion.
• Subjective feelings: Subjective awareness of interpreting one's emotional state.
• Cognitive processes: Involves memories, perceptions, expectations, and interpretations.
• Behavioral reactions: Include both expressive and instrumental behavioral reactions.

Characteristics of Emotions

• Emotions are closely related to a person's biological needs.
• Emotions occur when an individual's basic needs are either hindered or satisfied.
• Emotions are helpful for individual satisfaction of needs and in terms of the intensity and duration of emotional responses to situations/stimuli.
• Emotions and logical thinking have an inverse relationship. Increased emotional intensity typically decreases the ability for logical thinking, and vice-versa.
• Emotions often manifest in overt behaviors, serving as expressive indicators of internal emotional states.

Characteristics of Feelings

• Feelings are more enduring than emotions.
• Feelings arise from the cognitive interpretation and subjective evaluation of emotions.
• Feelings are influenced by personal experiences, cultural norms, and individual differences.
• Feelings have characteristics such as a pleasantness-unpleasantness dimension, an excitement-numbness dimension, and a tension-relaxation dimension.

Distinctions between Emotions and Feelings

• Emotions are intense and temporary, while feelings are low-key and sustainable.
• Emotions establish people's initial attitudes toward reality and alert people to immediate dangers, helping with survival, whereas feelings establish attitudes toward reality and alert people about anticipated dangers, helping with long-term survival.
• The aftermath of an intense emotional experience often influences an individual's mood, but the characteristics of feelings are generally more complex and can last longer than emotions and be sustained over time.

Major Theories Related to Emotions

• James-Lange Theory: Emotions do not begin in the mind but are caused by bodily sensations.
• Cannon-Bard Theory: Emotions occur when the thalamus sends a message to the brain in response to a stimulus. This leads to both a conscious experience of emotion and a physiological reaction concurrently.
• Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory: Emotions have two components: physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation.

Neuroscience of Emotions

• The Limbic System: A complex set of structures in the brain that play a key role in the regulation of emotions and cognitive functions. Key structures include the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and hypothalamus.
• Amygdala: A central component of the limbic system responsible for processing emotions, especially fear and pleasure, the formation and storage of emotional memories, and assessment of emotional significance of stimuli.
• Hippocampus: Involved in memory formation and contributes to emotional regulation. Consolidates memories, including those associated with emotional experiences, by interacting with the amygdala.
• Thalamus: Relays sensory information, including emotional stimuli, to various parts of the brain facilitating rapid processing of emotionally relevant information.
• Hypothalamus: Regulates the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system, orchestrating physiological responses associated with emotions, such as changes in heart rate, body temperature, and hormone release.
• Cingulate cortex: Involved in emotional processing, conflict resolution, and the regulation of emotional responses. Plays a role in emotional learning by connecting to the amygdala.
• Insular cortex: Associated with processing and regulating emotions, plays a role in the subjective experience of emotions, including awareness of one's emotional state, and interpretation of emotional cues form the environment, and interoceptive awareness which allows perception and interpretation of signals from the body.
• Fornix: A fiber bundle that connects the hippocampus to other limbic structures, facilitates communication within the limbic system, supporting the integration of emotional and cognitive processes.

Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to understand, assess, and manage one's emotions, as well as the emotions of others.
• Highly emotionally intelligent people understand their own emotions and those of others, which enables them to better navigate social relationships.

5 Components of Emotional Intelligence

• Self-Awareness: Being aware of one's emotions as they arise.
• Self-Regulation: Managing one's impulses and responding appropriately.
• Self-Motivation: Staying motivated and persistent despite challenges.
• Empathy: Understanding others' feelings, needs, wants, and concerns.
• Relationship Management: Managing others' emotions, organizing groups, and negotiating solutions.

Emotional Regulation

• Emotional regulation is a process that influences which emotions are experienced, when, and how they’re manifested.
• Emotional regulation may be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and it affects the emotion-producing process.

Three Components of Emotional Regulation

• Initiating actions: Triggered by emotions.
• Inhibiting actions: Triggered by emotions.
• Modulating responses: Triggered by emotions.

Two Forms of Emotional Regulation

• Cognitive reappraisal: Evaluation of a situation prior to personal valuation, to change perspectives on an event to reduce intensity.
• Suppression: Denial and masking of expressions to hide one's current emotional state.

Research-Based Emotional Regulation Strategies

• Reappraisal: Changing one's perspective to reduce emotional intensity.
• Self-soothing: Using techniques to regulate emotions and calm distress.
• Attentional control: Focusing on specific aspects of a situation while deliberately diverting attention from others.

Other Emotional Regulation Strategies

• Learning to identify and label emotions.
• Understanding the functions of emotions.
• Reducing and letting go of painful emotions.
• Increasing positive emotions.

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

• A circular model of emotions developed by Robert Plutchik, designed to help people identify and understand emotional experiences.

Emotional Hijacking

This quiz covers week 14 of the Emotional Self course, focusing on understanding and analyzing emotions and their impact on self-identity. Students will explore various aspects of emotional awareness, expression, and regulation, along with the physiological and cognitive components of emotions.