Understanding Our Emotions

Earlier this week I decided to listen to James Fodor’s podcast, “The Science of Everything,” and the episode, “The Science of Emotion” caught my attention. I was hooked when I heard about the distinctions among feelings, emotions, and moods. Until then, I had considered these terms synonymous, but from the episode, I learned about the essential components of emotions that distinguish them from feelings and moods.

In short, emotions are a combination of 5 key elements: Cognitive appraisal, facial expressions, behavioural tendencies, and subjective experience (feelings). Feelings are solely subjective experiences like hunger and itchiness. The difference between emotions and moods lies in the duration and intensity of the experiences; moods tend to last longer and are generally more intense. The most notable difference between moods and emotions is in how emotions usually have specific stimuli, like memories, in contrast to moods which slowly develop over time. For example, a grumpy mood accumulates over time - perhaps you didn't have time to eat and got into a disagreement with a coworker. In instances like these, identifying the exact stimuli that caused your grumpiness is challenging, unlike when you reflect on an embarrassing moment and feel the emotion of embarrassment.

James then transitioned into the different aspects of emotions which he labeled as “parameters that can vary”. This segment was important in introducing the factors that contribute to the diversity of emotions, with four key parameters identified as intensity, valence, priority, and persistence. He mentioned how different theories, such as discrete and dimensional, classify emotions. Discrete theory states that there are a fixed number of emotions distinguished by facial expressions and innate biological processes that exist similarly cross-culturally. In contrast, dimensional theory categorizes emotions using dimensions. The dimensions mentioned included valence, arousal, and dominance. An example of how dimensional theory works is between fear and anger. Both of these emotions are negatively valenced and have a high arousal. The addition of a third dimension, dominance, allows differentiation between the two emotions. Fear is characterized as an avoidance emotion while anger is viewed as an approach emotion. When scared, one tends to avoid the triggering factor, whereas anger prompts an approach to address the source of irritation. I found the example of anger and sadness to be interesting. Anger and sadness both result from the obstruction of a goal. The difference between these two is found in the belief associated with why the goal was not achieved. If the failure is unexpected, sudden, or not easily understandable, it usually results in an approach (anger). Contrarily, if the failure was due to external factors and somewhat expected, it typically leads to avoidance (sadness). After hearing this, my thoughts about my own emotions have changed. When I become angry I will question whether the factor was internal, within my control, and created by my laziness or lack of self-control. While reflecting, two situations came to mind - becoming angry about my performance on tests and getting angry when someone says something provocative in a conversation.

Obtaining a low score on a test is often attributed to internal factors like deciding not to study, whereas identifying an internal factor as the cause in the other situation is more challenging

While the provocative words said are external, our internal interpretation fuels the reaction. We must understand that our response to anger is within our control.

Researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences conducted a systematic review to explore effective methods for reducing anger problems in adolescents. Many methods were tested, including anger education. Studies that used education on anger showed that education was effective in the reduction of anger (Anjanappa, 2020).

Personally, learning about the science of my emotions has made me more confident in my response to anger. A line from James that stuck with me was, that while emotions serve a function, they don't always cause the exact right reaction. Emotions are satisfiers meaning they use the most convenient solution to get the job done. Rage to many is recognized as the most simple and the most intense emotion. I assume that since it’s the most simple emotion it must also be the most accessible solution. It reminds me of the common situation where the hero is overwhelmed by confusion and resorts to anger. While with his new strength, he may have killed the villain, the hero also broke his vow never to murder. I believe that understanding the science of emotions is important to building patience and understanding when your response to emotions is valid. Sometimes acting on your anger is necessary to not get stepped on but I believe that we should consider our actions before acting.

Despite my research revealing that damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is uncommon (Beadle, 2018), I still believe that it serves as an example of why we should exercise patience with others. The frontal cortex provides inhibitory signals to the hypothalamus, to inhibit rage. Damage to this area leads to defects in emotional responses, like reduced shame, guilt, compassion, and poor regulation of frustration (Schneider, 2017). Additionally, social cues, interpreting other's emotions, and reward processing (the ability to predict events) are affected (Schneider, 2017). Brain trauma has been a popular topic, especially in contact sports like the NFL. These leagues have seen the importance of protecting their athlete's minds and have begun taking measures.

Addressing patience may seem like a topic for children, but I feel that we as adults are not much slower to retaliate. Sometimes the response generated by anger is necessary to not get taken advantage of but we should reinforce the tactic we learned as children; taking a deep breath and gathering a second thought before acting. Rushing leads to mistakes. Before I learned about the science of emotions I thought that discussing emotions was just a subjective topic. Now I’ve realized how important it is to understand the science behind our emotions to not only protect ourselves, but others. 

References

Anjanappa, S., Govindan, R., & Munivenkatappa, M. (2020). Anger management in adolescents: A systematic review. Indian Journal of Psychiatric Nursing, 17(1), 51. https://doi.org/10.4103/iopn.iopn_37_19 

Beadle, J. N., Paradiso, S., & Tranel, D. (2018). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is critical for helping others who are suffering. Frontiers in Neurology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2018.00288 

Fodor, J. (Host). (2023, March 31). The Science of Everything [Audio podcast]. PodBean. https://www.thescienceofeverything.net/e/episode-135-the-science-of-emotion/ 

Schneider, B., & Koenigs, M. (2017). Human lesion studies of ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychologia, 107, 84–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.09.035