2-22 Emotional States, Experience, Attachment

Suzanne Ardanowski

2-22-08

Feeling Brain

 

 

            The Lewis article raised some questions for me. To think this through, let me put down on paper his ideas on emotional states first.  Emotional states are “particular constellations of changes in somatic and/or neurophysiological activity” (267).  Changes in body, face, voice, hormones occur which one may or may not be able to perceive.  He sites Elkman and says that while some have argued for correspondence between internal states and emotion, proof of specific states tied to specific emotions is lacking, with the exception of some bodily and facial expression (p.268).    There are then the cognitive nonstate theorists, who believe emotions are a result of thinking. The fear response is given as an example of a specific state, elicited by a certain stimulus. Shame is an example of cognitive processing resulting in an emotion. My first question is then when he says “cognitive” does he necessarily mean conscious?  Lewis states, “it may be quite possible to have a specific emotional state but to be unaware of it, ignore it, or even deny it” (p.268).  In saying this is he saying unconscious emotions only occur in emotional states, and not cognitively?  The cognitive emotions seem to be more complex-such as shame, guilt, embarrassment, envy, pride. Is he suggesting these “cognitive emotions” can never be unconscious? Psychoanalytic theory would say otherwise.

He does address psychoanalytic theory, discussing unconscious functions, and how conscious perceptions of experiences can be unavailable.  However, this is dependent on the experience of an internal state (p.273).  Is the unconscious therefore linked to neurophysiological activity?  Freud had wanted to prove this. Cognitively speaking, states are really cognitive constructions of experience, past history, and the responses of others. While I believe in the power of cognition, I have a hard time separating unconscious influences from cognitive experience. Though I did think the passage on the spinal injury patients was fascinating. Without access to a neurophysiological state they were able to have a sexual experience-giving strength to the argument of cognition and the ability of the human brain to use past knowledge to construct an experience. But is sexual experience the same as emotional? They could overlap, but not necessarily….I guess it depends on your definition of emotional experience.

            The experience of emotion is said to “require that the organism posses some fundamental cognitive abilities, including the ability to perceive and discriminate, recall, associate, and compare. Emotional experiences also require a particular cognitive ability-that is the development of a concept of self” (p.273). So, does that mean that animals and babies do not have emotional experiences? It is stated that prior to 7 or 8 months of age infants are not capable of experiencing emotions. This I cannot agree with.  I don’t see how the definition of emotional experience needs to be tied to the cognitive ability of attending to the self, and in fact how are we measuring a sense of self?  Infants have a state of oneness with their mother (in Western culture at least), but does that mean you cannot have an emotional experience in this state? There has been plenty of infant research, including studies on attachment, which give much argument to the emotional life of infants, including newborns and even prenatal.  Lewis goes on to say that infants maybe can “be in a particular emotional state and yet not experience it” (p.274). The argument for this is the comparison to the woman whose tire blows and does not experience her emotional state of fear. This is comparing apples to oranges. To me, the woman is unconsciously utilizing her defense mechanisms (in this case perhaps depnial of fear) for survival.  She also may feel the fear after she gets out of the car, when she is no longer in danger. I think it is too narrow a definition to say that an emotional state must be accompanied by self-awareness, but I can see why one would suggest this. However, the exclusion of young infants and animals does not seem right. How can we truly know whether someone has a sense of self? 15 months is given as the age of being able to “make reference to the self as having that state” (p.274). So before this infants are unaware of what they are experiencing? What about in cultures where self awareness is not valued? Is this part of their definition of experiencing emotion?

            The Hofer article addresses the attachment bond between a mother and child, which to me is an emotional experience, despite the symbiotic relationship. It is argued in psychoanalytical theory to have lasting (even lifetime) effects on behavior, personality, and experience.  The regulatory process of the mother-infant interaction and the impact of this interaction on later play and social interactions is something we have also been leaning about in the Play and Culture class. The Harris article states that as soon as children are able to talk, they begin to project feelings onto nonhuman objects, which is also a huge component of play and one of the foundations of play therapy.  Narratives as Harris suggests are also essential for understanding emotion for children, and for adults, which give credit to the powerful effects of talk therapy.

The social evaluations of the infants in the Hamlin et al article, who had “a liking for those who act cooperatively to facilitate the goals of others” (p.558) parallels the relationship between an infant and his/her mother.  A child’s appraisal of a situation is also discussed in the Harris article. I think subtle cues are essential to a child’s appraisal. I remember once I was having a heavy discussion with my brother in front of my five year old niece. We were both remaining calm but there must have been a tone to our voices that my niece picked up on because she kept running back and forth between me and my brother, giving us each hugs. I didn’t realize she was even doing that until later on, and I realized how comprehension is not always essential to appraising a situation. I also thought it was interesting in the Lewis article how he notes that we are more likely to believe as adults that certain expressions are tied to certain emotions depending on the context.  He gives the example of saying a child is expressing fear when a stranger approaches, yet if a child expresses the same face when sitting next to his/her mother we will call the expression something else given the context. We see what we want to see.

             

                  

            

Language and Emotion

The role of named emotional concepts in emotional experience is really interesting. I agree with James' argument that "People describe their emotions in the language they know, and the categories of their culture undoubtedly influence the emotions they feel" (Yamaguchi, p.21). I feel that culturally unique emotions (Amae, Fago, Iajya, etc.) are in fact experienced by all cultures whether or not they are defined in language. The fact that the Japanese experience Amae positively while Americans find Amae-situations offensive (and only positive in that they have control) does not seem to be a difference in Japanese/American emotions themselves but a difference in cultural responses to a given situation. The role of language in the recognition of emotional experience seems almost deceptive because these same Americans, had Japanese been their first language/culture (and here we get into the "bilingual minds" theory), would test positively when faced with Amae-situations because their cultural responses (and not their emotional capacities) are activated/inhibited by different situations than an American from the US.

Week 5 Blog: Language, Culture, and Gender

Sylviane

The article on Amae in Japan seemed to clarify a number of the issues brought up in other readings concerning cross-cultural psychology. I was immediately intrigued after reading the description of what Amae is, for it is an emotion that I feel I can relate to and understand the meaning of despite the fact that I do not know of a word in English that conveys this feeling. I was surprised, though, that it is suggested that the provider of the help “feels good about granting the favor, either by feeling close to the requester or by gaining a sense of power.” The ladder reward was particularly unusual to me, not only because it is something I cannot relate to, but it seems to contradict the sentiments that I understood Amae to include. The section explaining the definition of Amae noted that approximate English translations of the word all have fairly negative connotations and that in Japan, Amae does not typically imply disapproval. Thus, I was fairly surprised that gaining a sense of control would be a component of the emotion. As I read further and considered the highly independent nature of culture in the United States, I felt that this may be a culturally unique aspect of the emotion. While I do not feel that certain emotions can only be experienced by individuals in certain cultures, it does seem likely that they can vary slightly simply because what is “appropriate” can vary from culture to culture.

Culture, Gender, Language

Lily Thom
Matsumoto defines culture as a sociopsychological construct that encompasses not only nationality or ethnicity but also gender and language experiences. Thus, we can look at all the articles from this week as studies in cross-cultural psychology. Barrett et al’s work from last week can provide an interesting backdrop for examining cross-cultural studies on emotion. Barrett’s concept of emotional granularity could be extended to consider cultural, or gendered granularity of emotion. In the variety of studies on language and gender what Barrett saw as mental representations of emotion may also be cultural representations. People of difference cultures, using different languages experience different emotional states or emotional intensity. This goes beyond just display rules. We see differences in brain activation, electrodermal reactions, language for emotions, and differences in expression and recognition.
Both Wager and Matsumoto approach gender as a cultural difference. The Wager study shows that men have greater brain activation in response to violence and aggression and points to enculturation as a main reason. It is interesting to compare this study to some of the many studies Matsumoto cites on cultures with varying differences in individualism, masculinity and power distance. Within cultures, these dimensions may apply very differently to men and women. For example, American culture may encourage women to sacrifice individual goals more than men. Matsumoto shows that individualism is positively correlated with intensity ratings of anger and fear. I wonder if there is a connection between this outcome and that from Wager’s study in terms of how gender and culture interconnect.
Harris et al examine language learning as both a cognitive and emotional process and introduce the “emotional context of learning” theory to explain why first languages are often more emotional than second languages. Harris et al’s work can be considered in the context of Barrett’s work on the role of memory in emotional processing. Language is deeply connected with emotional memory and context in evoking emotions. Harris et al examine the ideas that early language learning is more closely related to emotional or visceral meaning making. First languages develop simultaneous to emotional regulation systems, contributing to a deeply emotional context. However, a striking counter example is that of parents who raise children and have deeply interpersonal interactions using their second language. In such cases, this emotional context overrides the emotional context of early language.
Considering cultural or mental representations of emotion lead me again to wonder about the function of emotion, something we have only touched upon in class. Niiya et al show that humans have the capacity to experience emotions that may not be named or recognized in their own culture. Yes still we see an astounding variability in emotional experience, both within and across cultures. Niiya et al recognize that emphasizing Amae in one cultural environment serves to reinforce and strengthen the culture. Whereas in a more invidualistic culture Amae does not have a socializing function and, therefore, is not emphasized. What biological purposes do such variability and flexibility provide? How do cultural or language barriers limit this emotional range and why? What biological purpose might there be to these limitations?

I should have read the Matsumoto reading first. I read it last and then I felt the need to revisit the other articles with his work in mind. His writing made me hyperaware of the importance of cultural contextualization in emotion research and although I’ve been vigilant to certain “American” science biases, I found that my revisits--under the scope of his perspective--cast the other research in a vitally new light. I agree with his suggestion for the revision of mainstream psychology and the need to integrate it with cross cultural studies (Matsumoto p.15). I also agree with Matsumoto that a basic emotions theory that transcends culture is a good working theory even if it’s not completely articulated (yet). There are only so many hormones, based on only so many amino acids, encoded by only so many DNA bases. Certainly, some of these chemicals play a bigger, more primary function than others in the processing and expression of emotion but by like token, they can be mixed in a diversity of chemical cocktails. If an emotion is recognized and expressed across a spectrum of radically different “sociopsychological constructs,” then the likelihood of its universality seems reliably validated (Matsumoto, p.2). The on-going question, as we have repeatedly discussed in class, is if these basic emotions exist, what are they? Matsumoto is convinced by Ekman’s super “six”—anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, and adds his own “contempt.” He believes these are universal in a cross-culturally acceptable way and re-emphasizes that if we don’t accommodate for a cultural context in our search for them, we may wrongly asses their globalization.

Still, scientists do not always recognize their own bias. In the “Sex Differences…” article, Wager, et al. do not bother to contextualize the sociopsychological constructs influencing the research. Who are the subjects? What kind of culture do they live in? Are they Americans? French? Sudanese? Gay? They briefly touch on the possibility that discrepancies in their findings might suggest “regulation of expression” based on “self-presentation biases” and “beliefs about emotions, including cultural stereotypes” but they continue to generalize using the terms “men” and “women” as if all men and women are alike (and perhaps all men and all women are alike in some ways, but without context, how can we be sure the research is not universalizing the responses of particular men and particular women?) Would their findings be different if they studied men and women from a more matriarchal society or from more diverse sexual orientations? What images are they using to arouse emotion? Did they research whether or not these images were cross-culturally emotionally arousing?


The “Amae” article is far more contextualized. I really enjoyed the idea that “emotions named by a language may act as magnets for emotional experience (Niiya and Ellsworth, p. 293).” It suggests that the larger our emotional vocabulary, the more expansive our palette of “feeling.” As I read it, I was reminded of Barrett’s metaphor of the color wheel to describe basic emotions and the idea that more complex emotions are derivative of these basic tones. In the following days, I found myself referencing Amae in my own relationship anecdotes when other feelings felt less specific. It’s like learning the word for “violet” after previously trying to describe the color as either red or blue or a combination of the two. The feeling/color takes on its own significance and becomes more easily seen, utilized, communicated and in the end, felt. According to Matsumoto’s research, we can not only learn to “see” new feelings, but we can be taught not to see them, as in the case of the Asians rating facial posers as having less intense emotions than Caucasions out of “politeness or ignorance” (Matsumoto, p. 7).

I was struck but the fact that Amae was hard to categorize as an emotion because it did not have a corresponding facial expression or particular physiology (Niiya et al. p.280). Have scientists researched the physiology of Amae? And is facial expression the only behavior that can qualify an emotion? The writers also stated Amae would be “oversimplified” if deemed an emotion because it is relational and involves beliefs, etc. (Niiya et al. p. 281). I wonder what Matsumoto would think of this.

The “First Language” excerpt seems in alignment with Matsumoto’s approach. It is abundantly contextualized while aware of its cultural limitations--such as the idea that Turks might be more reactionary to violent words than Americans who are more removed from war (Harris, et al. p. 269). The use of SCR helps curb the biases of expression regulation, a problem in the research on sex differences, and the historical biases of linguistics have been re-examined and eliminated (Harris, et al. p. 273). It was interesting that childhood reprimands scored the highest on emotional reactivity supporting the theory that in childhood, we are building the emotional systems that dictate our emotional sensitivity as adults (Harris, et al. p. 262). I don’t know much about the child development side of this but perhaps someone in class can shed more light on the relationship between the emotional receptiveness of childhood and the development of adult preference and personality. Even if a second language can be more emotional given the emotional context of learning it, perhaps the wiring for emotional sensitivity, in general, takes place at a much earlier age.