Feeling All the Feels: Crash Course Psychology #25

Summary

The video script explores the complex nature of human emotions, discussing their role in motivation and decision-making. It delves into various theories, including the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and Schachter & Singer's two-factor theory, to understand the interplay between physiological responses and cognitive processes in emotional experiences. The script also highlights the autonomic nervous system's influence on emotions and the importance of recognizing and interpreting emotional cues accurately for effective daily functioning.

Takeaways

• 😤 Emotion is a complex response involving the mind and body to a stimulus, including physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience.
• 🤔 Emotions serve important functions, providing energy and motivation to meet goals and needs, and can improve performance in various situations.
• 👨‍🏫 The James-Lange theory suggests that our feelings follow our bodily reactions to situations, implying that we feel sad because we cry or scared because we shake.
• 🏥 Walter Cannon disagreed with the James-Lange theory, proposing that physiological responses are too similar across different emotions to be the direct cause of those emotions.
• 🤝 The Cannon-Bard theory posits that bodily responses and emotions occur simultaneously but separately, meaning a racing heart doesn't cause fear, nor does fear cause a racing heart.
• 💭 Today's psychologists generally agree that emotions are intertwined with cognition, meaning how we interpret a situation can influence the emotion we feel.
• 🔬 Schachter and Singer's two-factor theory states that to experience an emotion, one must have physiological arousal and cognitively label that arousal.
• 🧪 An experiment by Schachter and Singer demonstrated the 'spillover effect' of arousal, showing that subjects' emotions were influenced by the behavior of others in the room.
• 🧠 Robert Zajonc argued that emotions can occur separately from or even before cognition, suggesting that we react emotionally before our brain consciously processes the situation.
• 🛤️ Emotions can be processed by two different neural pathways in the brain: the 'high-road' for complex feelings analyzed by the cortex, and the 'low-road' for instant reactions handled by the amygdala.
• 🤝 The autonomic nervous system, with its sympathetic and parasympathetic branches, plays a crucial role in mobilizing our emotional responses, preparing us for action or calming us down.

Q & A

What is the general idea of emotion according to the script?

Emotion is a mind and body's integrated response to a stimulus, involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience.

How do emotions serve us in our daily life?

Emotions provide energy and motivation that helps us meet our goals and needs, and they often improve our performance in various situations.

What are the main components of the James-Lange theory of emotion?

The James-Lange theory suggests that our feelings follow our bodily reactions to external situations, implying that physiological arousal precedes emotion.

What was Walter Cannon's criticism of the James-Lange theory?

Walter Cannon argued that many bodily reactions are too similar across different emotions, making it difficult to see how they could cause such distinct emotional experiences.

What is the core idea of the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion?

The Cannon-Bard theory posits that bodily responses and emotions occur separately but simultaneously, meaning that a racing heart doesn't cause fear, nor does the feeling of fear result in a racing heart; both just happen together.

What is the 'two-factor theory' proposed by Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer?

The two-factor theory states that to experience an emotion, one must have physiological arousal and cognitively label that arousal.

What does the script suggest about the relationship between cognition and emotion?

The script suggests that cognition plays a significant role in defining emotion, as our interpretation of a situation can greatly influence the emotion we experience.

What is the 'spillover effect' mentioned in the script, and how was it examined in an experiment?

The 'spillover effect' refers to the phenomenon where arousal from one event can influence the emotional response to a subsequent event. Schachter and Singer examined this by injecting subjects with epinephrine and observing how they reacted to an actor's behavior in a waiting room.

How does Robert Zajonc's theory differ from the two-factor theory of emotion?

Robert Zajonc's theory contends that emotions are the result of labeling our arousal, suggesting that emotional reactions can occur separately or even before cognition kicks in.

What are the 'high-road' and 'low-road' pathways in the context of emotional processing?

The 'high-road' pathway involves complex feelings that are processed through the cortex and involves cognitive processes, while the 'low-road' pathway allows for quick, instinctive emotional reactions without cognitive processing, often in response to immediate threats or simple stimuli.

What role does the autonomic nervous system play in emotional responses?

The autonomic nervous system, with its sympathetic and parasympathetic branches, mobilizes emotional responses by increasing or decreasing physiological arousal, preparing the body for action or calming it down.

Outlines

00:00

😀 Emotional Expression and Theories

This paragraph discusses the phenomenon of public emotional outbursts by celebrities and the general public, emphasizing that emotions are not just irrational but serve important functions such as providing energy and motivation. It introduces the concept of emotions as integrated responses involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience. The paragraph also touches on the complexity of emotions, including questions about the interaction between thinking and feeling and the sequence of these processes. It sets the stage for exploring various theories of emotion, starting with the James-Lange theory, which suggests that physiological arousal precedes emotional experience, and the Cannon-Bard theory, which posits that bodily responses and emotions occur simultaneously but separately.

05:01

🧠 Theories of Emotion and Cognition

The second paragraph delves into different theories of emotion, starting with the Schachter and Singer's 'two-factor theory,' which combines physiological arousal with cognitive labeling to produce an emotional experience. It describes an experiment involving epinephrine injections and actors to illustrate how subjects' expectations and interpretations of their physiological state influence their emotional reactions. The paragraph also introduces Robert Zajonc's opposing view that emotions are primarily a result of labeling arousal, with cognitive processes playing a less central role. It further explains the neural pathways of emotional processing, distinguishing between the 'high-road' for complex feelings and the 'low-road' for immediate reactions, and discusses the role of the autonomic nervous system in emotional arousal, including the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses.

10:04

📚 Recap of Emotional Theories and Their Implications

The final paragraph serves as a recap of the video's content, summarizing the key theories discussed: James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter & Singer, and Zajonc. It highlights the relationship between cognition and emotion and the role of the autonomic nervous system in mobilizing emotional responses. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding emotions for navigating daily life and hints at the potential confusion and danger of misreading emotions, setting up for further exploration in subsequent content.

Keywords

💡Emotion

Emotion refers to a complex psychological state that involves physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience. It is central to the video's theme, which explores the nature and function of emotions in human behavior. The script uses examples such as fear when hearing footsteps at night, illustrating how emotions can be triggered by stimuli and influence our actions.

💡Physiological arousal

Physiological arousal is the body's automatic response to stimuli, such as an increased heart rate or sweating, which is part of the emotional experience. In the video, it is discussed as a component of emotions, with the example of a pounding heart when feeling fear.

💡Expressive behaviors

Expressive behaviors are the observable actions or reactions that individuals exhibit in response to their emotions. The video mentions quickening one's pace as an example of an expressive behavior in response to fear.

💡Conscious experience

Conscious experience pertains to the subjective feelings and thoughts that accompany an emotion. The script relates this to the video's theme by describing the internal monologue one might have when feeling fear, such as wondering if they are about to be mugged.

💡James-Lange theory

The James-Lange theory suggests that our emotions are the result of interpreting our physiological responses to events. The video references this theory to explain the historical perspective on the sequence of emotion experience, stating that we feel sad because we cry or scared because we shake.

💡Cannon-Bard theory

The Cannon-Bard theory posits that physiological responses and emotions occur simultaneously but independently. The video uses this theory to challenge the idea that bodily reactions alone determine our emotions, suggesting instead that a racing heart does not cause fear but occurs alongside it.

💡Cognition

Cognition refers to the mental processes of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. The video discusses cognition's role in shaping our emotional responses, such as interpreting a dog's behavior as threatening or friendly, which influences whether we feel afraid.

💡Two-factor theory

The two-factor theory, proposed by Schachter and Singer, asserts that emotion results from the combination of physiological arousal and the cognitive labeling of that arousal. The video describes an experiment involving epinephrine injections and actors to illustrate how cognition directs the emotional experience.

💡Arousal

In the context of the video, arousal refers to a state of activation or stress that prepares the body for action. It is discussed in relation to the two-factor theory and how it can be misattributed to different causes, affecting the emotional experience.

💡Autonomic nervous system

The autonomic nervous system is responsible for the body's involuntary responses, including those related to emotions. The video explains its role in emotional responses, particularly the sympathetic division that prepares the body for action and the parasympathetic division that calms it down.

💡Zajonc theory

The Zajonc theory, proposed by Robert Zajonc, suggests that cognition follows rather than precedes emotional reactions. The video mentions this theory to highlight the debate on whether emotions are a result of our physiological responses or our cognitive interpretation of them, using the example of an automatic reaction to a sudden noise.

Highlights

Celebrities like Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, and Kanye West have been known for expressing too much emotion in public.

Emotion outbursts are not unique to celebrities and can influence our perception of emotions as irrational.

Emotions can provide energy and motivation to meet goals and needs, despite occasional public failures.

Emotions play an important role in how we think and behave, influencing our performance in various situations.

Emotion is defined as a mind and body's integrated response to a stimulus, involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience.

Psychologists are still trying to understand how thinking and feeling interact and which one comes first.

The James-Lange theory suggests that our feelings follow our bodily reactions to external situations.

Walter Cannon disagreed with the James-Lange theory, arguing that bodily reactions are too similar to cause different emotions.

The Cannon-Bard theory proposes that bodily responses and emotions occur separately but simultaneously.

Most psychologists today agree that emotions are intertwined with cognition, affecting how we interpret and react to situations.

Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer's two-factor theory states that to experience emotion, one must have physiological arousal and cognitively label that arousal.

Schachter and Singer's experiment with epinephrine showed that subjects' emotions were influenced by the actor's behavior in the waiting room.

Robert Zajonc argues that emotions are the result of labeling our arousal, occurring separately or even before cognition.

Neuroscientists have identified two pathways in the brain for processing emotions: the high-road for complex feelings and the low-road for simple reactions.

The autonomic nervous system, specifically the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches, plays a crucial role in mobilizing emotion.

Optimal arousal is necessary for effective functioning in different situations, such as navigating through fast-moving traffic.

Emotions can be distinguished by their patterns of brain activity, with positive feelings showing more activity in the left frontal lobe and negative ones in the right.

Understanding and being able to read emotions in oneself and others is vital for navigating daily life.

Transcripts

Mel Gibson did it, Tom Cruise nearly busted Oprah's couch doing it, and Kanye pretty much

has owned it for years now.

I'm talking about expressing too much emotion, usually in public and in weird and often insensitive

ways.

Such regrettable outbursts are not unique to celebrities, of course, and they can be

enough to make us think of our emotions as irrational.

But they're not...

well, not usually.

When they're not getting the better of us, they have work to do.

Part of their job is to provide the energy and motivation that lets us meet our goals

and our needs, and despite the occasional public fail, they often improve our performance

in a given situation.

So emotions play an important role in how we think and behave.

Of course, when they blow up and someone screams at a flight attendant or punches a paparazzo

or jumps on stage and grabs the mic away from a teenager in the middle of her acceptance

speech to say that someone else deserve the honor more - all hail Beyoncé - you're kind

of off the rails of normal emotional function.

Okay, definition time, general idea.

Emotion is a mind and body's integrated response to a stimulus of some kind.

Emotions involve physiological arousal, expressive behaviors and conscious experience.

These can be short flashes or long, lingering responses, and they can be very clear or very

confusing.

Say, you're walking home at night and you hear footsteps behind you.

Physiological arousal occurs in the form of your heart pounding, your expressive behaviors

could be like quickening your pace or moving toward a streetlight, and your conscious experience

may include thinking "Oh I'm...

I'm... gonna get mugged now?

Is this like a werewolf behind me?"

Feeling, you know, fear and panic.

We know those three pieces are there, but psychologists are still puzzling out exactly

how they fit together.

How do thinking and feeling interact?

Which one comes first?

And do these bodily reactions - the pounding heart, the need to pee, the sweaty palms - come

as a result of the thought "I"m scared", or did my tweaking out body trigger the thought

in my brain?

These are just some of the questions that we'll be looking at in this messy, exhilarating,

and terrifying world of emotions - no one gets out unscathed.

[Intro]

Our emotions represent and construct a big part of who we are.

Think of how boring we would be - how boring the world would be without joy, embarrassment,

heartache, or fear.

What would motivate us to make decisions, be cautious, or bold, or strive to understand

each other?

What would keep our humanity intact?

Where would punk rock come from?

No doubt, we need our emotions, but how do they work?

Well, like, apparently everything in psychology, there are a few different theories.

In the late 1800s, pioneering American psychologist William James suggested that our feelings

follow our bodily reactions to external situations; that, for example, you feel sad because you

are crying, or you're scared because you're shaking like a leaf.

This idea was also proposed by Danish psychologist Carl Lange, and so, this concept that physiological

arousal precedes emotion is called the James-Lange theory.

But American physiologist Walter Cannon wasn't feeling it.

He thought that too many of the body's reactions were too similar: a racing heart, fluttering

stomach, and sweaty hands could be attributed to passion, fear, excitement, or anger.

So how could they cause such different emotions?

His colleague, Philip Bard, agreed, concluding that bodily responses and emotions occur separately,

but simultaneously - and this idea is the base of the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion.

In other words, a racing heart doesn't cause fear, nor does the feeling of fear result

in a racing heart, rather, both things just happen together.

Today, most psychologists agree that our emotions are also tangled up with our cognition: whether

or not we're afraid of a dog on the sidewalk depends a lot on whether we're interpreting

the animal's behavior as threatening or friendly, probably also, what our personal history with

dogs is.

In the 1960s, American psychologist Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer interpreted this

idea that cognition can define emotion, into what they called their "two-factor theory".

They believed that to experience emotion, you must both fear physiological arousal,

and cognitively label that arousal.

And again, please remember that in psychology, arousal is different from how you're used

to using it.

Here, arousal can be thought of as activation or stress, or even energy - an increase in

reactivity or wakefulness that primes us for some kind of action.

So sometimes, arousal can spill over from one event to the next: say you just watched

a heated soccer match, and you're all revved up, and someone looks at you funny.

Suddenly, you might label that lingering arousal as anger, and the next thing you know, the

whole stadium is one big rioting aggro chain reaction.

Schachter and Singer examine this so-called "spillover effect" with an experiment that

involved an usual combination of college guys and drugs.

First, they injected a bunch of college guys with the hormone epinephrine.

This is basically adrenaline, and as you yourself have probably experienced, it induces a level

of physiological activation that can go any number of ways emotionally.

But then they threw a curve ball - some of the subjects were told to expect symptoms

of feeling all revved up, while others were told the injection wouldn't produce any effects

at all.

Then, after being injected, each subject was left in a waiting room, and with them in the

room was an actor, pretending to wait as well, and acting either all jerky and irritated,

or super happy and euphoric.

So the dude's just sitting there, jacked up on this hormone, and his heart is racing,

and his cheeks are all flushed, and in the case where the subject was told not to expect

the effects, the study found that the guy would actually adopt the emotion of the actor

in the room, becoming happy or testy, depending on how the person was acting.

His body was having a physiological response to the hormone, but he ended up effectively

deciding which emotion he was feeling.

But, if the subject had been told that the injection would make him feel all pumped up,

he'd actually report very little emotion, just because he was blaming that racing heart

and flushed face on the drug, not a particular state of mind.

So in terms of the two-factor theory, the cause of physiological arousal had to be identified

before a person could feel and label the response as a particular emotion.

To Schachter, Singer, and their disciples, this meant that arousal spurs emotion, but

cognition directs it.

And yet, some researchers like Polish-born American psychologist Robert Zajonc, contend

that all emotions are the result of just putting a name to our arousal - he suggests that many

of our emotional reactions occur separately, or even before our cognition kicks in.

If you hear a sudden crash outside your window, you'll automatically react with a jolt before

your brain has the chance to think, "Gee, what was that crazy noise?

Should I feel startled?"

This is, in part, because when it comes to emotions, it's thought that our brains process

sensory input by two different kinds of roots - top-down, or bottom-up approaches, and neuroscientists

can actually chart these two pathways in action.

Some bigger, more complex feelings, like love and hatred take what we call the "high-road."

Say, you read a love letter from your sweetie.

You can pin that mushy feeling in your heart to the sensory stimulus of reading traveling

from your eyes all the way through your thalamus to your brain's cortex.

There, it can be analyzed by means of your cognitive process, perhaps, consciously, perhaps

implicitly - and labelled with, like, "Aw, so sweet," at which point, it heads to your

limbic system, the central brain region that drives emotion, motivation.

At that point, you respond with all the warm-fuzzies.

Other emotions, like simple likes, aversions, and fears, don't have to involve actual thinking,

and take a sort of "low-road" neural path.

Like, that crash outside, or a baseball flying at your head.

Such "jump-out-of-your-chair" stimuli bypass the cortex and zip right from the ear or the

eye to the amygdala in the limbic system.

It's a knee-jerk reaction that allows us to react quickly, often in the face of potential

danger.

In other words, that slower, high-road cortex route allows thinking about feeling, while

the quick low-road shortcut allows instant emotional reaction.

The stomach flip that happens when you see your ex, or the ten thousand pee breaks you

gotta take before you give a speech, or your heart racing after a really good kiss - it's

hard to argue with the fact that we often feel emotions with our bodies as much as with

our brains.

And you can thank your autonomic nervous system the next time you're freaking out or trying

to calm yourself down.

Perhaps, you recall when we talked about the roles of the sympathetic and parasympathetic

branches of our autonomic nervous system.

The sympathetic division is what arouses you in a crisis - it makes you hyper aware, makes

your heart rate and breathing increase, spikes your blood sugar for extra energy - all that

fun stuff.

It's like a pit crew readying you for action, and once it's done its job and the danger

has passed, the parasympathetic division steps in and talks you back down from the edge,

slowing down your heart and breathing rates, and shutting off those stress hormones.

Generally, rubbing your back and being all, "Everything's gonna be okay, baby."

What you need is the right degree of arousal for the situation: for example, if you're

navigating through fast moving traffic in an unfamiliar city, you wanna hit the sweet

spot of optimal arousal that allows you to focus your attention without either freaking

out or getting all mellow and sleepy.

Like we said before, there's a lot of overlap in the symptoms of different emotions.

If you monitor the heart rate, breathing, and perspiration of a group of people who

are watching three different movies, you probably couldn't tell who was watching the grisly

horror movie, an angry fight, or a hot sex scene.

Fear, anger, and sexual arousal often deliver some of the same biological signals.

But those emotions certainly feel different to the people experiencing them, just as they

usually look different to others observing their expressions.

And though differences in emotion can appear subtle, or even undetectable on brain scans,

many of them do show distinctive patterns.

For most people, positive feelings tend to show more activity in the left frontal lobe,

while negative ones show up more in the right frontal lobe.

And someone who's very afraid will show increased activity in the amygdala, our more primal

emotional center.

Emotions are fascinating things that drive us to do all sorts of brilliant and weird

stuff.

Understanding them and being able to read them both in yourself and others is vital

if you wanna make it through even an average day.

But misreading your emotions or someone else's can be confusing - even dangerous - and it's

just one of the things that we'll be looking at next week.

Today, you learned about what emotions are, how they work, and why we need them.

We talked about the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter & Singer, and Zajonc theories, and

we also looked at the relationship between cognition and emotion, and how the autonomic

nervous system mobilizes emotion.

Thanks for watching, especially to all of our Subbable subscribers who make Crash Course

possible - to find out how you can become a supporter, just go to Subbable.com.

This episode was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant

is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat.

Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins, the script supervisor is Michael Aranda, who

is also the sound designer, and the graphics team is Thought Café.