Emotions: Defining and Measuring - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW: EMOTIONS Literature Review: Emotions of the of Introduction Broadly speaking, emotions are the feelings that humans exert through behavior which can be positive or negative. For some people, it is easy to find out their emotional state, whereas some people find difficulty in measuring their emotional state. Emotions carry different feelings and expressions which are exerted by individuals through different means. Or it can be said that emotions are the irresistible forces which have an influence on an individual’s behavior. Some people exert higher level of control in dealing with their emotions; however others are unable to control their emotions. Individuals are able to control virtually each aspect of emotional processing which includes cognitive appraisals, ability to draw attention through emotions and its physiological consequences (Koole, 2008). Besides understanding emotions and its dimensions, it is also important to understand the psychological, experimental and behavioral responses by an individual in an emotional state. These are measured through different means where the most common method to gauge emotional state is the facial and vocal expression and bodily behavior. These expressions and behaviors vary depending upon the event which can be of positive and negative. This paper reviews different articles and journals on emotions and measurements to conclude how an emotion differs in individual emotional state to what extent the researches are successful in measuring them. Emotions defined There are many definitions that define emotions; however, in simple words emotion is a response which involves expressive behaviors, physical arousal and conscious experience. In other words, emotions are defined as the bodily feelings that are associated with personality, mood, disposition, temperament and motivation. Dr. Bradley Nelson (n.d.) in “The emotions code” describes list of emotions associated with people such as anxiety, frustration, jealousy, anger, nervousness, guilt, lust, headache/ heartache, confusion, hatred, conflict, insecurity, crying, panic, despair, sadness, hopelessness, depression and many others. While defining emotion, it is important to distinguish emotions from feelings, moods and affects. Feelings are the subjective way of expressing an emotion which is private and personal to the individual who is experiencing it, whereas moods can be stated as diffused emotional states which is for a longer durations than emotions. However, affect is a term which is used to describe feelings, moods and emotion together. Emotions are exerted through three forces i.e. emotional behaviors that are observable (such as words or facial expressions), arousal and verbal explanations related to emotional state. Among all, the facial expressions are the clearest way to express an emotion and through which it can be easily gauged. Moreover, A review by Mauss and Robinson (2009) analyzes a model of emotions based on psychological, experimental and behavioral responses to meaningful stimulus. Their review discusses how the different forms of emotion-evocative stimuli are linked with invariant and discrete patterns of responses in each response system. The review suggests that the measurement of emotional responding can be structured along dimensions (for example arousal, valence, etc) slightly than discrete emotional state (for example anger, fear, sadness, etc). Moreover, the paper gives a brief overview of the response systems, its measurement and the sensitivity analysis of emotional state. Their study explained that psychological, experiential and behavioral response systems are connected with different and distinctive sources of variance that limits the magnitude of junction across the measures of response system. Various measures of emotions such as Self-report, Autonomic nervous system measures, EEG, PET, Facial behavior, whole body behavior, and whole body behavior are also discussed. Under self-reported emotional state and Autonomic Nervous System measure, the variance such as arousal and valence has the largest share. Similarly in startle response Valence and high levels of arousal is found. However under Electroencephalography (EEG), MRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and PET (positron emission tomography) avoidance and approach were found. Finally vocal characteristic with arousal, facial behavior and Electromyography (EMG) with valence and whole body behavior was found with some emotion specificity. The study concluded the fact that there is no specific measure of emotional responding. To a certain extent psychological, behavioral and experiential measures are closely linked to the understanding of emotions but however, they cannot be assumed to be identical. Similarly, a study by Klaus R. Scherer (2005) was conducted to find out the different measurement responses of emotions. In this research, Design features such as event focus, transactional appraisal, Intrinsic appraisal, rapidity of change, Synchronization, intensity, Behavioral impact and duration was measured with the type of affects such as moods, preferences, attitudes, Affect dispositions, Aesthetic emotions, interpersonal stances and Utilitarian emotions. Moreover, the research also compared the Physiological symptoms, feelings, Action tendencies and motor expressions with different elicit events. Furthermore, the research clearly states that both physiological indicators and nonverbal behavior such as vocal and facial expression can be used to find out the emotional state of any individual and no objective method is disclosed to measure the subjective experience an individual during an emotional state. Among different measures to find out emotional state of a person, one of the most reliable, cost effective and nonintrusive measurements of emotional response is eye tracking which has gained importance in the last few years by many researchers and psychologist. This type of measurement is used to evaluate human memory, behavior and decision making through eye tracking where respondents’ visual attention and emotional response is captured in one measurement. The eye tracker software is used which collects and analyzes the changes incurred within the respondent’s pupil change characteristics, eye blink characteristics and eye gaze characteristic to determine the emotional state of the individual. Moreover, the emotion measurement system or the software is also used to measure emotional reactions and pleasantness from individuals while they are looking at the images. This measurement system has successfully spotted emotions of individuals correctly for more than 80% of the time. Thus, the emotional measurement through eye tracking data is an easy and efficient way to measure the uncontrollable and unconscious responses before they are perceived, understood and biased by human mind (Lemos, Sadeghnia, Olafsdottir & Jensen, 2009). In a study concerning the positive emotions, it has been proposed that the presented "emotion-general" emotion models based upon the perception of particular action tendencies offer an appropriate description of the function and form of few negative emotions although they failed in providing description for most of the positive emotions. Because of such reasons, positive emotions have remained understudied, under theorized and underappreciated. To remove this disparity, a new model for conceptualizing the function and form of a positive emotion subset comprising of interest, joy, love and contentment has been developed. Particularly in the model it has been emphasized that the positive emotions enhance a person’s thought action collection, with joy leading to the creation of a desire to play, interest leading to the development of a need to explore, contentment leading to the creation of desire to integrate and savor and love leading to the urge to repeating the cycles of each of these desires. As a consequence, these expanded thought-action repertoires, may usually have an incidental effect of developing the personal resources of an individual, including intellectual, social and physical resources. This model has been referred as ‘the broaden-and-build model’ and has been suggested to explain the reason for the evolution of tendency to experience positive emotions has been an omnipresent attribute of human nature along with the way positive emotions might have been stroked in contemporary society to promote collective and individual health and well-being. This model has been assumed to promote further investigation of positive emotions and connected affective phenomena (Fredrickson, 1998). While emotional recognition dysfunction is sometimes noticeable with aging, and is often marked in Alzheimer's disease, it is uncertain whether persons having high threat of developing dementia display demonstrable changes. For this purpose a systematic review regarding the slight cognitive mutilation was performed to detect the degree to which emotion recognition dysfunctions are obvious in the late life period. The results showed that the capability to exactly recognize facial expressions was compromised in the selected period of life. Investigation in this area is not yet reached its developmental stage however; further understanding of this phenomenon is needed as it disrupts daily functioning, interpersonal relationships, quality of life and psychological well being of individuals. (McCade, Savage, and Naismith, 2011). A study by Nair (2008) tried to explore the connection of conflict related literature and emotions. The main argument presented was that the emotions have been ignored in conflict literature and similarly conflicts have been ignored in the literature on emotions. Utilizing the literature reviews on the aspects under consideration, new areas of investigation have been proposed to researchers. The main intent behind the study was to pinpoint the gap in linking the two areas and development of more understanding in the role of emotions in conflict. The results of this study showed that little attention has been paid towards the linkage between emotions and conflict. However it has been proposed that specific emotions might play a varied role in a conflicting situation. It has been proposed that continual life stressors like anxiety, depression, anger and hostility may play a part in increasing the risk of coronary heart infection by causing impairment in the endothelial functioning. Even though coronary heart disease may have a linkage with satisfied positive emotions as depicted by reduced humor, but little information regarding the perspective impact on vascular reactivity of positive emotions is available. Cinematic presentation induces a series of emotions both positive and negative; a study by Miller (2006) tried to compare the impact of laughter versus mental stress on endothelial functioning. A sample of 20 young healthy adults was selected for this purpose and it was found that the flow of blood improved on watching a hilarious movie. The circulation boost was found to be similar to that observed in aerobic exercise. However, the exact cause of such impact of laughter on circulation was uncertain but various propositions were made like laughter might have countered the stress hormonal effect on vascular functioning. It was also proposed that laughter may perhaps prompts the production of nitric oxide in body that in turns dilates the blood vessels. The study included healthy males and females to perform tests using various noninvasive blood blow measurements in the brachial artery. The pre test and post test procedure was utilized and the test involved watching a distressing and a comedy video clip. The results showed that on average, the dilation of participants blood vessels after watching a comedy clip was more than 50% as compared to after that after watching the sad film. The negative emotions have been associated to health disorders due to continuous raised levels of stress hormones. An unsympathetic early family setting provided to children is directly associated to their physical and mental health on attaining maturity. Thus a significant question develops as to investigate the ways in which the early childhood family environment links to the development of psychological and physical malfunctions in the later years. This question has been attempted to be explored using a model connecting these variables. The main hypothesis involved low social capability and pessimistic emotional states may arbitrate connections between an unfriendly, cruel family environment provided to children and the physiological (neuroendocrine) reactions to stress, and the long-term physical health outcomes. It’s been reported that the model portrays cortical reactions to stress, self-rated health and elevated cardiovascular levels in males only. It has been evidenced from research that family violence and abuses are injurious or detrimental for both the physical and mental upbringing of children. Despite that each year, a huge number of children are disabled or murdered through family violence, and those who survive suffer from dys-regulations in response to stress (prominently HPA-axis) throughout their life. Although, the dose-response associations determined between a family violence experience and the mental and physical outcomes propose a need to consider the prospective adverse effects of daily normal family pathology. There is no such thing as an ideal family and even the children belonging to the best families may also be exposed to certain dangerous family characteristics. Studies suggest that the subclinical sources of such family dysfunction may lead to the development of damage associated to extreme abuses but of slight intensity. The mental and physical problems developed by those exposed to extreme family violence are severe and include cancers, liver disorders and coronary heart infection. The psychological impact of such exposure leads to the increase in number of homicides and suicides reported for children. Moreover an increased level of Emotional problems like anxiety and depression is also reported in such children. Focusing on emotion-regulation expertise and social capabilities may be beneficial in helping the parents to avoid such actions leading to the creation of violence within the family (Taylor et al., 2004). Conclusion Emotional experiences are attributed to impact positively or negatively the health and well beings of individuals. These are categorized on the basis of their proposed impact into positive and negative. This review incorporated various studies involving the measurements of emotions, their positive and negative impact on mental and physical well being and the impact of sociological discrepancies like family violence on the development of negative emotional problems. Therefore it can be concluded that emotions do play an important part in our lives and their role can’t be ignored. References Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What Good Are Positive Emotions? Review of General Psychology, Vol. 2, No. 3, 300-319. Koole, S. L. (2009). The Psychology of Emotion Regulation: An Integrative Review. Cognition & Emotion, Volume, 23 (1), pp. 4 - 41 Lemos, J. E., Sadeghnia, G. R., Olafsdottir, I., & Jensen, O. (2008). Measuring emotions using eye tracking. Research and Technology Department, iMotions - Emotion Technology A/S, Copenhagen. Denmark. Mauss, I. B., & Robinson, M. D. (2009). Measures of emotion: A review. Psychology Press. Cognition and Emotion, 23 (2), 209-237 McCade, D., Savage, G., Naismith, S. L. (2011). Review of emotion recognition in mild cognitive impairment. PubMed, 32(4):257-66. Miller, M., Mangano, C., Park, Y., Goel, R., Plotnick, G. D., & Vogel, R. A. (2006). Impact of cinematic viewing on endothelial function Heart. 92. pp. 261-62 Nair, N. (2008). Towards understanding the role of emotions in conflict: a review and future directions. International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 19 Iss: 4, pp.359 - 381 Nelson, B. (n.d.). The Emotion Code: Definitions of Emotions. Printed. Scherer, K. R. (2005). What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Social Science Information. SAGE Publications. 44(4), pp. 695–729. Taylor, S. E., Lerner, J. S., Sage, R. M, Lehman, B., & Seeman, T. (2004). Early environment, emotions, responses to stress, and health. Journal of Personality, 72, 1365-1393. Read More