The Psychology of Emotion

What are emotions? Why do we have them? Are they innate, or are they learned? These are much more complicated questions than one might think. A number of theories regarding emotion have been developed over the years to relate subjective experience, physiological response, and behavioral response, so let's see what psychologists have to say on the matter. Let's also learn about emotion in the context of evolutionary biology, and whether emotions are universal across cultures.

Script by Caitlyn Finton

Check out "Is This Wi-Fi Organic?", my book on disarming pseudoscience!

[thomasnaas]

Every choice or decision we make has an emotional component. We think we temper those emotions through rational thought, but history shows how often we fail.

[Ryantravisaol]

can we talk about the example at 6:55 That is not the face of happiness, that is surely an expression of surprise. surprise often also has a hint of fear in it, because being surprised can make a person feel vulnerable. that's what I see here. happiness never has a hint of fear.

[epifloyd]

Some cultures teach much more performative emotions than others - its not just a matter of feeling disgust, you must also make it clear to those around you that you feel disgusted - even when there is no one watching, this sort of behaviour becomes codified into the experience of feeling disgusted. I really need to go back through my old reading to find sources but this came up in my research into paralanguage and nonverbal communications for my BA dissertation, 7 years ago.

[Aisatsana]

How strange…I have felt so incredibly sad today, so sad that I straight up didn’t bother going to work or university. I just feel this deep pit of despair in my chest and stomach and the reason is out of my awareness.

Then this video comes out. Huh.

[glennpearson]

Great take on the psychology of emotions, Professor Dave. Thanks for continuing this series. There's so much more nuance here than simple "fight or flight." Your explanation leaves me wondering how someone with Asperger or Down Syndrome, or autism, is different from someone who doesn't, particularly when it comes to behavioral response and how humans with such conditions process emotions?

[Little_Toy_Soldier]

Thanks Professor Dave! You know I found your channel completely and utterly by accident, because I like to watch the tell-tale atheist and one of your videos popped up after one of his videos so I decided to give it a chance, I think it was your flat Earth video when they insulted you or try to insult you. None the less, ever since then I have watched every video I can get my hands on that you have done, please keep up the good work. I love learning about different things from you because you make it simplified and easy-to-understand!

[cygnustsp]

My crazy paranoid ex was borderline and had PTSD. Any little annoyance or irritation would set her off on an angry meltdown. Eventually it became my fault and my problem. She'd direct the anger at me and accuse me of all kinds of terrible things. When I'd try to reason with her that such behavior wasn't helping she'd exclaim YOURE TELLING ME IM NOT ALLOWED TO GET ANGRY. No, dear, you can't help your feelings and emotions. Brains do what brains do. But how you react and respond is what matters. She couldn't understand that and after being accused of cheating on her, doing drugs, and spending thousands on myself daily I had to go. I really liked the distinction between emotions and moods. I can find myself in a great mood but have terrible emotions. I will be perfectly happy at work or home reading, but it seems like every half hour my brain will make me recall an unhappy memory, or an embarrassing moment or a feeling of regret about something. It takes about 10 seconds to tell myself to STFU and then the emotion goes away and my mood stays the same.

[UrielOfStyx]

Good stuff as usual Dave, keen on seeing the different aspects of psychology disseminated for lay-people.

As a side note, I'm in the process of writing a book ( a hobby of mine ), and I can confidently say that your material really helps me remember the minute details of science ( and human interaction in this case, I can get quite 'autistic' when it comes to that, heh ) hopefully it will allow me to make dialogue and emotional expression in the story seem far more plausible and consistent, so thank you for that buddy!

[twelfthhausjones]

Phenomena & emotion are inextricably linked. Our accustomation to seeing certain behavioral patterns (shaking, smiling, crying) creates the interpretation of emotion. But emotion is a subjective experience linked to an action.

You can be angry & smile. If enough people over a long enough period of time start smiling as a response to anger, the definition for anger will be changed based on the most common, traceable occurrence.

That's why you can say "the water angrily thrashed" or "the tower collapsed lazily." We attribute language to patterns. The language of emotions is like French, Chinese, etc. Behavioral patterns picked up over time & assimilated to create the best possible outcome for the individual. Which is why I can be angry & be polite...

[rudyleotardo]

From a person such myself who run in high and low emotions all the time I find it very interesting I wanna learn more about my mental health and chemical imbalances that always be shifting which has a great effect in my interpersonal relationships.

[shimaasalah]

You helped me in highschool and know in college
Thanks alot

[Bcklm]

Be careful when using phrasing like "complex emotions ARE mixtures of basic emotions". That CAN be a way to describe them, but that's not what they "are".

[youtubevillain]

Wait... the editing at 6:46 is just a bit confusing, right? That's... that's not an expression of happiness... ...right?

[ilyas_elouchihi]

The relationship between emotions and cognition is very fascinating and so much to talk about.
Great video as always Mr. Dave

[aadyasinha]

Thankyou for the research citations. Very informative video.

[jursamaj]

A couple of my co-workers have taken to wondering if I'm really human. Sometimes they'll be sitting at the same table with me, laughing their heads off, while I just go on reading my book.

A separate thing is that I basically never sneeze or yawn in front of them. I don't tell them this, but that's basically a conscious decision. I got tired of them getting annoying about me not saying 'thank you' in response to their 'bless you'.

[AdrenalineCrew]

I literally came up with the James Lang theory in the shower today. Told my friend about it any point of me at this video I am about to go down a crazy rabbit hole I imagine.

[markoi]

You are the best teacher ever and please continue, I genuinely believe that you can make anything easy to learn, thank you so much

[arielhidalgo]

Thanks for taking your time to make this video

[PanacaCat]

You saved me a lot of research, thank you!