Exploring Emotion Psychosocially - Essay Example

Exploring Emotion Psychosocially This paper presents a summary and integration of various emotional aspects based on a neurological viewpoint. The paper begins with an emotional personal experience, and further explores the mechanisms and structure of human emotion through physiology, pathology, and psychology. The paper integrates facts from cognitive and social sciences and neuroscience. In addition, the paper draws inference upon the theories of emotions. Introduction Emotions are an integral part of human lives: from patients with emotional disorder following a stroke, to the physician who has spent their whole night working and now has to deal with difficult and stubborn relatives of a patient. The emotional reactions of humans are diverse, variant, and seem to occur automatically, whether to patients, attitudes of colleagues, to seminar or lecture, ward condition, the weather, our way of work, or the traffic (Ahmed, 2004:37). It is common to find people saying that they do not want to fell upset, but they just cannot help it. The harder we seek for logical and rational explanations to such feelings and their subsequent actions, the more elusive they appear. Experts in the East refer to this as karma or kismet, an Indian expression showing a sense of resignation to a possibly hopeless situation. In other situations, it is jokingly used as a way rationalizing or explaining a knotty personal situation. However, it is undoubtedly an emotional response (Evans, 2001:9). There are various emotional theories, including the James Lange theory, the Cannon Bard theory, and the Schachter Singer theory, which all seek to elaborate what emotions are drawing upon physiological, neurological, and cognitive concepts respectively (Greco and Stenner, 2008:76). This paper seeks to offer an in-depth exploration of emotions from a neurological and psychosocial perspective. To understand the concept of emotions let us first consider Mr. Spock, a character from the popular movie and television series “Star Trek.” Spock is half-alien and half man (Vulcan). He has a stoic temperament, and his deeds and words primarily based on pure logic. To follow logic, one must suppress emotions, as they hinder tranquillity and order (Oatley, 2010:103). Mr. Spock has some human background, thus he struggle to suppress his personal emotions. However, his Vulcan side is in control, thus, he manages to find rational and logical explanations for all situations. In contrast, let us consider “2001: A Space Odyssey.” An onboard computer, HAL9000 interacts on an emotional level with the crew. At one point, Dr. Poole says that the computer acts as if it has genuine emotions. The computer recognizes the emotional states of the people onboard and adapts to their behaviour and language accordingly. Unfortunately, HAL malfunctions and kills the crew. HAL is, of course, a mimic result of the artificial intelligence research. This two are simple illustrations of how emotions are both desirable and undesirable (Turner, 2007:137). However, emotions are not as simple as depicted in these examples. Personal Experience A few years ago, I paid my aunt a visit during the school vacation. My aunt, Mitchell is 62 years old. Unfortunately, she fell seek and we accompanied her to the outpatient department for a check-up. According to the medical reports, she has a diagnosis of recurrent ischemic infarct with hypertension disorder and bulbar palsy. Apparently, she has a history of transient ischemic attack on the left-side hemilplegia about three years ago, but she managed to recover from it without any residual deficits. Prior to the illness, Mitchell’s speech had become shuttered and quite difficult to understand, and was not able to swallow drinks or food (Eich et al., 2000:301). Upon examination by the physicians, Mitchell has brisk jaw jerk and right facial palsy. However, her palatal reflexes seem normal. During the examination, Mitchell begins to cry uncontrollably and suddenly without any particular reason. According to her husband, earlier at the house she had suddenly burst into laughter without any particular reason, lasting several minutes. In sharp contrast to emotional ability, this is a case of striking incongruity between voluntary muscles movements and preservation of the same in spasmodic crying and laughing (Clarke and Hoggett, 2009:76). Mitchell has what experts refer to as pseudo bulbar palsy, with signs of lack of inhibition of emotional expression referred to as forced or pathologic crying and laughing. Neuropathology of Emotion The above case is an example of the various presentations of emotional disturbances. The impacts of emotional disorders are devastating for those affected in relating to the outside world (Treacher et al., 2007:137). Mitchell has pathological emotions. Patients suffering from this condition display intermittently emotional behaviours in crying, laughing, or both while responding to trivial environmental stimuli. However, these stimuli may not necessarily have any emotional significance (Harding and Pribram, 2009:79). The emotional behaviours are indeed involuntary and real. They have what experts refer to as a ‘none or all’ quality. Interestingly, their emotional behaviour is not what their actual internal feelings. Patients with the condition, like Mitchell, often complain about their inability to control these emotions. Majority of them end up distressed by the exaggeration and social embarrassment they cause. Pseudo bulbar palsy is commonly present in patients with bilateral lesions in the bulbar region, near the neo-cortex motor system, or other descending connections. However, pathological emotion patients without the pseudo bulbar palsy have different mechanism. In this case, bilateral or unilateral lesions, or rarely epileptic activity occur in the basal forehead, diencephalons, brainstem tegmentum, or medial temporal lobe (Fineman, 2007:167). There is also another category of patients with pathological emotion but without lesions in the above areas. Majority of these patients have weak left-sided upper motor neuron or weakness in the arm or face. In addition, they show signs of major depressive disorder. However, these patients acknowledge that their emotional behaviours do not reflect their actual inner feelings and that they cause social embarrassment. This condition may improve using antidepressant treatment prior to the depression lifts. According to experts, these patients have unilateral lesions predominant in the right frontal operculum (Goldie, 2009:241). The posterior hypothalamus is a very important region for the organization of primary emotional behaviours of specific species. Furthermore, the above syndromes involved with specific brain lesions indicate that the cortex may impose a direct control on behaviours (Lane and Nadel, 2000:204). In addition, the rules of emotional display shows that control involves cognition and that people learn them through socializing process of children and infants. Prefrontal cortex lesions result to behavioural disturbances involving executive self-awareness and function. These may result to various critical syndromes, including social graces, facetiousness, puerility, euphoria, stimulus, and environmental dependency, Gnostic, perceptual and language functions (Kagan, 2007:57). Neuropsychology of Emotion Emotion is essentially an expression of a basic mechanism that regulates life, developed in evolution and indispensable for survival. On other words, emotion is communication to others and to oneself. Emotion consists of physiologic changes, subjective experiences, and behaviours evoked by external events or thoughts, especially those deemed important. According to the James Lange theory of emotion, organisms experience emotion when they become aware of somatic and visceral changes resulting from some event (Scalter et al., 2009:93). The theory further states that a specific combination of these visceral changes produces a different emotion. However, Cannon, Bard, and others challenged this view. The thalamic theory of Cannon and Bard proposes that emotions emanate from concurrent cortical and brainstem events. According to them, the cortex normally inhibits the thalamus. However, events that produce emotions remove this inhibition, thus releasing impulses to the automatic nervous system, producing emotional behaviour. The theory of emotion by Schachter and Singer suggests that emotional behaviours and emotions are products of information from two primary systems: the internal state regulated by the limbic system and the hypothalamus, and the external context or environment where the internal state occurs (Rolls, 2007:76). Upon injection of adrenaline to humans, they report feeling hostile or elated depending on the environmental stimuli. A study involving three groups: misinformed, uniformed, and informed individuals, the informed group did not show any significant change to hostile or pleasant environment. However, the other two groups showed some significant changes. One of the most important methods of evaluating emotional and emotions disorders is observation. These observable emotional behaviours are the emotional indicators. They include changes in sweating, breathing, heart rate, capillary circulation, pupil size, arousal, endocrine secretion, sphincter control, freezing-flight-fight reactions, behavioural display and specific vocalizations varying from species to species, and prosodic and verbal aspects of language in humans. These indicators are organized in the somatic and automatic nervous system and the endocrine system (Tiedens and Leach, 2004:164). Cognition, both knowledge and thinking, plays an integral part in emotional experience and its modifications. Nurturing the Brain Emotion tends to direct the flow of energy – the activation of specific brain circuits – as the appraisal/arousal system concentrates on the cognitive processes on the elements of external and internal environments. The de-energizing and energizing body responses occur as somatic markers in the brain (Gross, 2006:67). These markers enable the brain to identify what an individual feels about a particular experience. Therefore, these somatic markers may have future use in emotional assessment, intuition, or gut feelings to a particular experience. Implicated in the somatic markers processing is the orbit frontal cortex. This has an important role in the self-organization and self-regulatory functions in early development with primary social and emotional functioning. The early experience with primary caregivers is integral in the maturity of these areas. An analysis of the early problem mechanisms shows how deficits in social and emotional competencies form the basis of psychiatric and social problems. Therefore, there is need for early understanding and identification of socio-emotional deficits. It is from such identification that application of well-aimed preventive and corrective measures can take place to ensure that children are more resilient, and thus have a healthy future. Nurturing the brain is a new research field that integrates chid education and care, brain science, and child neuropsychiatry and neurology. According to this emerging field, brain development from infancy, childhood to adolescence is parallel to maturity and growth of the mind (Pennebaker, 2002:267). The underlying neurological mechanisms in the theory of mind, mirror neutrons, cognitive control, emotional intelligence, internal model, and cognitive emotion regulation are very important themes in understanding the mind and the brain. Since prevention is better than cure, it is important to equip children with emotional competence such that they have emotional resilience to face difficult and challenging situations. Some of the skills that seem to make a difference include self-awareness, delaying gratification, impulse control, handling anxiety and stress effectively, assertiveness training, expressing, identifying, and managing feelings, building self-confidence and self-esteem, and developing interpersonal skills such as listening, reading emotional and social cues, resisting negative influence, understanding acceptable behaviour, and taking the perspectives of others (LeDoux, 2002:154). These are skills, thus they are teachable and learnable. This involves trained teachers who are competent in these skills. Parents may be mentors. However, mere learning and teaching is not sufficient. They need regular practise. Conclusion Emotions, despite their desirability or undesirability, remain an integral part of all organisms. The paper begins by highlighting two examples of television and movie characters to gain a better understanding of emotions. The paper then provides a personal emotional experience, elaborating the subsequent emotional behaviour following the principles of emotional physiology, psychology, and pathology. The paper also explores the three theories of emotion: James Lange theory, the Schachter Singer theory, and the Cannon Bard theory. Furthermore, the ‘nurturing the brain’ section offers a preventive plan for children that may enhance their emotional management. From the above literature, it is evidence that social and psychological events are central to emotions and emotional behaviours, thus the need for emotional maturation from the primary caregivers to adolescence. The knowledge on emotion is important as it equips individuals with the understanding of emotions of themselves and others, as well as the power of emotions (Massumi, 2002:42). Perhaps this will enhance how individuals manage themselves and conduct themselves responsibly. Bibliography Ahmed, S. 2004. The cultural politics of emotion. 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