Ethics and Emotions

The connection between morals and emotions is surprisingly strong. As Joshua Greene wrote in his article, “How (and where) Does Moral Judgment Work?”, emotion is a significant aspect in moral judgment. There is now neuro-imaging and fMRI testing that can support the correlation and studies on pre-frontal cortex damage in children and adults is also discovering the connection between morality and emotions. Antonio Damasio continues his exploration into prefrontal damage by defining acquired sociopathy. Damasio talks about how when there is damage in the prefrontal cortex, there is also emotional disturbance on multiple levels: decreased emotional reactions, compromising of social emotions, poor planning of everyday activities, and poor management o human relationships. There is no disorder in perception, movement, conventional memory, language, and general reasoning ability, only within the social emotional behavior. Why is it that there is this onset of sociopath-like behavior? A section of the prefrontal cortices is meant for making social and moral decisions and also plays a part in acquiring knowledge to create morals. So, morals and ethics have a foundation in the neurological functions that are connected to the genesis of emotions. Like when Damasio was discussing Phineas Gage in his book, Descartes’ Error, Greene also discusses how people suffering from prefrontal damage have social knowledge intact, but are unable to use it within real-life situations. Their basic decision making skills become based on a logic that lacks emotional reasoning.

The amount of damage done on one’s emotional and moral connections also depends on whether or not the prefrontal damage was done during childhood or adulthood. Early prefrontal damage is far more serious than in adult prefrontal damage because children never learn the social and moral rules that they are violating whereas adults do have that knowledge. Adults are able to create emotional signals that can guide the decision-making process based on past successful experiences. Children do not have these memories to rely on, but both children and adults modify the settings of the network as a result of new experiences. Their social behavior becomes impaired because of their lack of moral analysis within social settings because the knowledge of moral norms is completely deficient within children with prefrontal damage.

As Greene says, moral reasoning matters within social contexts and findings within the world of social psychology support that. People evaluate others and apply stereotypes to others automatically based on moral reasoning. When someone is motivated to maintain a relationship and defend their ideas these will bias one’s judgments and help to motivate future reasoning. People are also willing to sacrifice material interests, time and physical integrity in order to defend their societal causes, principles and ideologies. Morality has the ability to promote cooperation and helping but is also capable of creating hostility among individuals and social groups. People are constantly challenging others’ values and ideologies to defend their own moral reasoning in life.

When looking at how those with prefrontal damage are unable to achieve moral or emotional competence within social situations, there is understanding to why they cannot succeed at life. If emotions and morality are connected and influenced by one another, then one cannot succeed in society without them. Morals have to have an emotional connection because we live so strongly by them and morals are created from experiences that we analyze with our emotions. The judgment that takes place within social settings is largely based on what “feels right” or not. How can that be recreated for someone with prefrontal damage? How can someone who has had prefrontal damage since childhood achieve a moral lifestyle? Is there any way to help their memories relearn moral cues if we cannot recreate emotions to support the moral judgments?

Moral cognition and neuroethics

This week’s readings focused on moral cognition and neuroethics. I thought that Greene and Haidt’s article “How (and where) does Moral Judgment Work?” approached the endless and repetitive questions of moral psychology from a clear and progressive prospective. They recognize that the historical view of analyzing moral judgments juxtaposed emotion and reason, and that this is unproductive. Greene and Haidt are continuing to advance the new field of neuroethics, suggesting that both reason and emotion are involved with moral decision-making, but that perhaps emotions engage in a more dominant role, which is opposite of traditional theories. They compare Damasio’s studies of Phineas Gage with more recent studies of similar brain damaged patients, referring to their inability to effectively use ‘somatic markers.’ Although these patients were able to pass regular IQ tests and showed knowledge of social/moral circumstances, they failed at playing the Iowa Gambling Test and their real-life actions proved disastrous. This shows what we have already learned (especially from Damasio): to know is not to KNOW (or act upon), information is not instinct. Green and Haidt write: “Their affective deficits render them unable to feel their way through life, which suggests that normal decision making is more emotional and less reasoned than may have believed” (518).

They also discussed patients with early childhood prefrontal damage who exhibited strong signs of egocentric, immoral behavior. They tested the same as adults except that their knowledge of moral norms was undeveloped because they weren’t old enough to learn and store that knowledge. Were the children’s actions more immoral than the adult patients? If so, does this have to do with the amount of stored moral and social knowledge? If it does, how does that work if the adults with prefrontal damage have the knowledge stored but do not use it—does just having the knowledge make them somehow less outwardly immoral—do remnants of their ‘old personalities’ seep into their everyday decisions even after brain damage occurs? This also raising questions for me concerning sociopaths. I’m assuming Green and Haidt are referring to children who literally had damage done to their brain like Gage, but what about strictly environmentally produced prefrontal damage—is this possible? Assuming that ‘true’ sociopaths come to be from environmental circumstances, do they develop prefrontal damage over time? What circumstances produce this outcome, opposed to other possible diseases and mental illnesses? Greene ad Haidt touch on this when they note that case studies of people who have exhibited violent criminal behavior have been abused as children and/or also have frontal damage. Damasio also touches on this in his article “Neuroscience and Ethics: Intersections.” He refers to adults with brain damage has having ‘acquired sociopathy,’ while early onset patients also have ‘acquired sociopathy,’ but combined with a developmental factor.

An important point that Hauser makes in his article “The Liver and the Moral Organ” is about language. We cannot forget the relationship between culture, environment, reason, emotion, and language. Hauser writes: “We are endowed with a moral faculty that operates over the casual-intentional properties of actions and events as they connect to particular consequences. We posit a theory of universal moral grammar which consists of the principles and parameters that are a part and parcel of this biological endowment. Our universal moral grammar provides a toolkit for building possible moral systems. Which particular moral system emerges reflects details of the local environment or culture, and a process of environmental pruning whereby particular parameters are selected and set early in development” (2). We must also keep in mingd that language itself has divided emotion and reason and morality, but it seems like what we are finally coming to realize, is that these three words and meanings are intrinsicly linked together.

Stress, control and well-being

This week’s readings focus primarily on the degree of impact environment has on both mental and physical illnesses/dysfunctions. To what degree can our emotional and physical well-being be influenced by self-control and environment? And to what degree is it predetermined?
Gross speaks of emotion-regulation and of how people manage their emotions. He is saying that we have the ability to regulate our emotions, to choose our ‘emotional battles’ for what’s better in the long run, and to modulate emotion to “optimize human functioning.” While I agree with him to a certain degree, ideally, I agree with Adler and co. in stating that emotional well-being is largely determined by our perception of control and resources available to us to alleviate our concerns.
Adler and co. believe that well-being is heavily shaped by environmental factors. Socio-economics have an alarming influence on wellbeing. It has been shown that people of lower socioeconomic standing and lower hierarchal positions demonstrate more “mortality and morbidity,” and often have less control and opportunity in ameliorating their situation. Education, living conditions, access to health care, levels of stress and mobility all have an influence on physical and mental health. Thus, poverty and social standing (which is more often than not determined at birth) can strongly determine a person’s predispositions.
It is not to say, that do not have different levels of emotions. Some of us, like Kabbaj’s rats, are HR while others are LH. However, he stresses, “Behavior depends on the environmental conditions, the stressor severity and the animal’s coping mechanisms,” (1010). In turn, our behavior often reflects and is exemplified by neurological blueprints for our behavior, in this case: differing levels of 5-HT, glutocorticoid receptors, decreased D2 receptors and increased D1 receptors.
Just as neurological activity reflects behavior in rats, they do so also in humans. The inability for autistic kids to rely on their intuition and their engagement in slow deliberation may be reflective of neurological structures. In Allman & co’s article, they found that VENS might be partially responsible for the defective intuition that autistic kids often have. They are found mostly in the right hemisphere and may be related to the right-hemisphere dominant social-emotion localization. Here, behavior reflects neurological patterns too the connections of ACC and FI might be irregular in autism).
In the Lerner article, facial displays of emotions (James, Ekman), subjective accounts, and physiological response to stressors are measured. Those who displayed fear had higher cardiovascular and cortisol stress responses, whereas those with disgust/anger did not. Control of the situation and level of certainty affected the subjects’ states (as in autistic kids and socioeconomic discussion). It is, "healthier" to be angry than fearful... (perhaps because one exhibits more perception of control than the other and many disorders are anxiety-based). Who knows.
Kandel discusses how psychiatry, since WWII, has been a “therapeutic art,” and has had little focus on biology. Our gene expression (not template) is highly influenced by life’s forces. Kandel stresses that all psychiatry is biological, resulting in neurological/synaptical changes in the brain’s structure. Thus, contrary to popular belief, genes and brain activity can be ‘learned’, be modified, and be susceptible to social and behavioral influences. Psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacology, together, change the patterns of action and level of neurological activity in our brains. Therefore, the marriage of brain science, psychology and sociology show promising advances in each respective field.
From anxiety to anger to autism to schizophrenia and depression, all behavioral demonstrations have a neurological and structural basis. We need not always rely on drugs, however, because conversation and other stimulating activity changes the nature of the neurological pathways. All articles reflect James’ idea of emotion in one way or another and explain the adaptive, biological drive for emotion and its regulation. Our ‘higher-order’ processes and (i.e. VENS) have developed in relatively recent years and have late emergence in phylogeny and ontology. These neurological developments shape our emotions and are shaped by our emotions.

Emotions, Stress, and Health

The topic of stress, emotions, and their impact on health could not have been more timely. As the end of the semester quickly approaches, stressors are unusually high and many may be finding their emotional thresholds to be wearing thin. However, if you have been able to overcome this emotion/stressed induced paralysis enough to process this weeks readings, you may find yourself armed with a useful understanding of how psychological and social factors affect the way we perceive things and ultimately our health.

Stressors that are for the most part universal are not necessarily interpreted in a universal manner. A specific stressor can induce different types of negative emotions from fear to anger to disgust. The study described in the article “Facial Expressions of Emoition Reveal Neuroendocrine and Cardiovascular Stress Responses” demonstrated that a stressor can evoke different physiological changes depending on how the stressor is perceived. Subjects in this experiment were given stress-inducing tasks. Their facial behavior (expression of emotion) was recorded and assessed using the EMFACS Facial Action Coding System. In order to test for physiological correlates of the stress induced emotions, data regarding the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis (by measuring cortisol levels in saliva) and cardiovascular activity were collected. As the authors predicted, the greater the individual’s facial response was of fear, the greater was the HPA axis and cardiovascular activity. Conversely (this is the part that may be of particular use this time of the year), HPA axis and cardiovascular activity decreased in the individuals that expressed anger or disgust in response to the stressors. In their discussion the authors suggested a future study investigating a possible relationship between facial muscles and the stress response system.

Although through a different approach, the article on facial feedback and race bias (which happened to be published around the same time) actually considers the relationship between facial muscle activation/motor processes and the way on evaluates a stimulus. The researchers sought to understand if different physical conditions could effect one’s evaluation of a stimulus. A very creative and impressive approach was taken to test their hypothesis. Throughout the process, subjects held a pencil between their teeth without letting their lips touch the pencil. Unknowingly to the subjects, holding the pencil in this way forced a smile. Using the concept of ‘the spreading attitude affect’ the subjects were indirectly conditioned. Ultimately, this study demonstrated that certain motor process associated with emotion and affect (i.e. smiling) can influence the way an individual will evaluate a stimulus. I am unsure why they researchers chose to use racial bias to show that we can be indirectly conditioned to assign new meaning on a categorical level. Are they suggesting that we should condition people to overcome racial bias?

The article on socioeconomic status (SES) and health provides another perspective on the relationship between physical state, stress, and health. There is a strong correlation between SES and health throughout the entire spectrum. The authors discuss factors that seem to influence this gradient. In this regard, I found the article to be a bit outdated. (The most recent article in their bibliography was from 1993 and I think our understanding of that factors are a bit different now.) The studies they used to identify a relationship between SES and health considered level of education and level of occupation, but did not take into account lifestyle variables that may accompany occupation (stress, time demands of job, effort reward imbalance, high demands and low control, adverse psychosocial environments –it is understandable how such conditions could induce a state of chronic stress and ultimately take a toll on ones mental/physical health). A number of issues that seem to be critically influential factors in this gradient were not mentioned, or only mentioned as suggestions for the future.

As the article on facial expression and emotion demonstrated a stressor can be perceived in multiple ways, and some ways may be healthier than others. I have spent this semester fixated on the concept of emotion regulation (or controlling one’s emotions). It can be very difficult to maintain a sense of reason when the stressors pile up, so remember, control your anger (and by control I mean make sure you respond with anger, not fear) it is healthier for you…

Response 4.22.07

This week our readings have shed light on human’s ability to regulate their own emotions, and also on the different connections between emotions and health, both physical and psychological. The first article about emotion regulation by James Gross was titled an “Integrative Review” because the author used the pages to stress the importance of the fact that emotion regulation spans many domains and is multi-faceted. First of all, Gross explains the distinction between emotions, emotion episodes, and moods. An emotion, in his view, is a fleeting feeling, generated by an emotional cue, evaluated, evokes an emotion response tendency, gets modulated, and becomes an emotion response. An emotion episode, however, includes “plots”, and “scripts”, and occurs over a generally longer period of time. They include all the events that unfold that contribute to an “emotional scene”. A mood, then, is a seemingly more relaxed, general state, subject to fluctuation. Gross describes moods as being “diffuse”, biasing “cognition more than they bias action”.

Because people spend most of their adult lives regulating their emotions, curtailing them to different social and professional scenes, Gross believes it’s imperative that we understand the intricacies of emotion regulation. Within the psychoanalytic tradition, there are two modes of emotion regulation: “problem-focused” coping, which is aimed at solving the problem, and “emotion-focused” coping, with the goal of decreasing the experience of negative emotion. Both the experience of emotion and their expression may be regulated, and both positive and negative emotions can be regulated. The process can be either automatic or controlled, for instance when someone has learned that in certain social situations or with certain people different displays of emotion are appropriate and others are not, and therefore don’t have to think about regulating them, but it comes automatically, perhaps through conditioned social cues. Gross describes in details the processes of regulation, which occur at different stages during an event. They are: situation selection, situation modulation, attention deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation.

These processes work to change the way people think about their emotional state, and also alter their expression of the emotions they feel. I think it’s important to observe that although we may regulate our expression of emotion, it does not necessarily change our experience of emotion. A lot of cases of depression and anxiety are due to the misalignment of emotion experience and emotion expression.

The Intuition and Autism article by Allman et al described the Von Economo neurons (VENs) which develop in a person between the ages of one to four years old which are involved in our early judgment/intuitive feelings of people and situations. The right hemisphere is specialized for social situations, and it is in this hemisphere where VENs are found. The authors of this article were specifically looking at the effect of a lack of VENs in autistic individuals, whose difficulties include impaired ability to interact in social situations. They believe that VEN development is impaired in autistic children, especially owing to early development period of the neurons.

Eric Kandel’s article “A New Intellectual Framework for Psychiatry” described the evolution of psychoanalysis up until the present, and the different stages and influences it has had since. Psychoanalysis used to have an aversion to neuro science because neuro science was considered to be faulty, and therefore a merger wasn’t considered to be a necessary step. The 1960’s were a turning point for psychoanalysis, however, with the use of pharmacological drugs in conjunction with psychiatric intervention. Kendal’s main point in the paper is to stress the importance of the union between psychiatry and biology, stating that he hopes that in the near future biological and psychiatric practice will so heavily intertwined that psychiatrists will be almost as knowledgeable about the biology of the brain as neurologists. He hopes for a “rapprochement”, where people will realize more fully that “all functions of the mind reflect functions of the brain”, and that there are critical biological explanations and underpinnings for all social actions. He also points to the misuse of scientific/biological information, which is also a very important thing to note.

The Alder et al article about socioeconomic status and health described the overlooked intricacies of SES, and delineated its multi-faceted nature. They described it as a major risk factor, especially when all its factors are taken into consideration. One of the main points made about SES and health was the influence of years of education on health later in life. “The more years of education, the lower is the ratio of observed to expected deaths”. Education is also a factor in the rates of disease. One possible explanation is the “drift hypothesis”, where illness influences SES, rather than SES on illness. This could be an explanation because when someone has a debilitating illness, it may hinder his or her ability to work, which in turn makes it harder to pay for proper health care. Another explanation is that SES affects biological processes that, in turn, influence health status. Along these lines, individual health behaviors also play a role, such as smoking, physical inactivity, poor diet, and substance abuse. The authors also took into consideration the impact of stress on SES and health, noting that generally people with a higher SES encounter less negative events that would generate stress, and also they have more outlets and means of dealing with whatever stress comes about. People with a lower SES generally have less access to social and psychological resources to cope with stressful events, and “thus are more susceptible to subjective experience of stress”.

Lerner et al also discussed the issue of stress in their article “Facial Expressions of Emotion Reveal Neuroendocrine and Cardiovascular Stress Response”. Looking specifically at fear responses and anger/disgust responses, they found that fear displays were related to elevated cortisol (a stress hormone) levels. In anger/disgust displays, however, there were lower levels of cortisol present. When an individual displayed anger/disgust when subjected to a stressful situation, the researchers assumed that the lower levels of cortisol, and lower stress level, were due to the fact that anger and disgust responses are typically associated with asserting control over the situation, thereby reducing the amount of stress felt. In fear, however, the stress level is higher because the individual displaying fear feels out of control of the situation, and therefore holds a pessimistic view of the outcome. In anger/disgust display individuals, the foreseen controllability and/or predictability of the situation reveals a more optimistic outlook.

Emotions and Health

This week’s readings addressed how social and cultural meanings interact with physiology and effect health.

The Neurobiological Bases of Individual Differences in Emotional and Stress Responsiveness tried to understand how the neurochemical substrates of stress effect behavior and temperament in rats. Rats were characterized as either high locomotor response (HR) or low locomotor response (LR) based on their behavior when encountering a novel environment. HR rats generally display more curiosity in new environments and are more likely to self administer drugs than LR. Although HR rats appear less anxious in new situations, they actually release high levels of glucocortocoids during these times. I wondered how the levels of glucocortocoids differed between the HR and LR rats, since it wasn’t made clear in the paper. Interestingly, after being socially isolated for a week HR rats behaved like LR rats in anxiety experiments, illustrating the profound effect of social support on stressful experiences. In general, I was very confused about the role of glucocortocoids in the differences in anxious behavior between the LR and HR. Do glucocortocoids directly regulate anxious behavior?

Socioeconomic Status and Health: The Challenge of the Gradient presented a correlation between socioeconomic status and health. Socioeconomic satus influences nearly every aspect of life, including physical and social environment, education, and health behaviors, which, in turn, affect the biological functions that determine health. Adler et al. also note that the SES gradient is highly correlated with the amount of psychological stress in an individual’s life. Individuals of lower socioeconomic status tend to have greater exposure to more negative experiences and also have less access to coping resources, and are therefore more susceptible to the subjective experience of stress. “Poverty, and the poor health of the poor, is about much more than simply not having enough money…it is also about your psychological interactions with society at large and how readily society registers your existence.” (Robert Sapolsky 1998; 307).

The Feeling of Feeling in Control and its Health Benefits

The overarching theme of the readings for this week is the body/mind connection. Eric Kandel discusses how social experiences influence our gene expression and the very concrete biological results of our gene expression dictate our behavior. James Gross describes the way that emotion regulation is not a top down process but rather a bi-directional process where a well-functioning body and mind fine-tune in response to one another, in the service of meeting an individual’s goals.

One issue touched on in a few of the readings that really caught my attention is the idea of “feeling” in control. This is a feeling we haven’t talked about much so far but the Lerner et al reading suggests that it may play a very important role in how we experience stress psychologically and physically. The Adler et. al. reading proposes that it may be a large factor in the SES gradient, influence our health outcomes. James Gross discusses the concept of emotional regulation, a mechanism for maintaining control of one’s organism.

Individual, interpersonal and cultural/societal dimensions of feeling in control are highlighted by three different readings: 1. The internal feeling for an individual of having an experience of a stimuli and a response to it involves processing responses effectively and being able to respond with her goals and intentions in mind rather than being distracted by her physical or emotional state (as discussed in the James Gross reading;) 2. the feeling in a social sense of being in control as in feeling like one is not afraid of someone pressuring them, that one is not at risk and has choices (Lerner et al;) 3. the feeling of control in a meta-social sense, in the sense of social status--being dominant in one’s social group and having all the necessary resources to see out one’s choices (Adler et. al). [I don’t know if these categories really work but certainly there are different aspects of feeling in control.]

Feeling in control may be key in reducing psychological and physiological response to a stressful situation, keeping in check the toll stress takes on an individual’s body and emotional resources. In “Facial Expressions of Emotion Reveal Neuroendocrine and Cardiovascular Stress Responses,” the authors look at differences in stress reactivity and find that stress is a negative experience that elicits different responses in different people, manifesting different physiological responses. They argue that stress may be more specifically characterized by sub-emotions--in this experiment, fear or anger and disgust. Those subjects who responded with fear were experiencing, they say, a sense of greater risk and of low control and showed more physiological signs of stress, higher levels of cortisol, high heart rates and stronger facial expression than those experiencing anger or indignation. As LeDoux points out, during stressful experiences “weak conditioned fear responses” may become stronger. People who have experienced fears in the past may find that, though unrelated to the current situation, these fears resurface when they are in a stressful situation. On the other hand, subjects who expressed anger and indignation assessed the situation as involving less risk, felt more in control, and demonstrated less intense physiological signs of stress. The authors of this study cite other studies where anger and indignation are correlated with appraisals of certainty and control. Feeling certain and in control in response to a stressful stimuli leads subjects to feel like they are experiencing less risk and so they exhibit less intense biological stress responses. For example, in situations where rats can control when a stressor occurs, they exhibit fewer biological stress responses. As LeDoux describes, the problem with experiencing the stronger stress response is that eventually having high levels of cortisol in one’s system takes a toll and lowers one’s threshold for anxiety disorders and perhaps other conditions. This is an example of Kandel’s idea that our experiences ultimately shape us biologically. In conclusion, the authors suggest future study into how an individual’s pessimistic versus optimistic evaluation may influence affective disorders and health outcomes. This ties these findings to the positive psychology idea of trying to identify what is helpful coping and understand how people can cultivate it.

In “Socioeconomic Status and Health,” Adler’s et. al. discuss the factors that may be behind what they call the SES gradient, the way that higher SES status is associated with better health outcomes. After thoroughly discussing the variables that should be considered and ruling out many, they theorize that “a broader underlying dimension of social stratification or social ordering is the potent factor (p. 1095.)” In the section, “Discussing Effects of Social Ordering, ” they discuss studies of animals in which biological factors that correlate to social status have health implications. They cite studies by Sapolsky, 1989 in which subordinate wild baboons were found to have decreased levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, which is a protective factor in coronary heart disease. Sapolsky has also found correlations between social rank and cortisol levels, gonadal steroids and immune function and other scientists studying an African fish have found similarly different biological development in submissive males. The authors conjecture that responses to hierarchical position may be genetically encoded and “hierarchical position may also have direct effects on physiological processes and neuroanatomic structures which may in turn influence an individual’s biologic vulnerability to agents of disease (p.1103.)” This fits with Kandel’s point that social interactions shape the brain, as social interactions may well be part of what determines genetic expression of traits associated with dominance/submissiveness.

Social status seems in some ways to be a very primal assessment and it appears that some of us care about it more than others. Is status assessed consciously and/or unconsciously? What are the mechanisms of how we make and weigh these assessments and how do they affect us biologically?

Adler’s et. al end their article by pointing out the complexity of intertwined factors involved but write” The concept of individual control over existing life circumstances, for example, might be a higher order variable that synthesizes or renders coherent a number of the factors reviewed here (p. 1006.)” They then conjecture that individuals higher on the socio-economic scale may have “more opportunity to influence the events that affect their lives’ (p. 1106) compared with people at lower levels.

I wonder about all the internal and external factors that contribute to these feelings of control in human beings. Do we feel in control so long as we can get what we want? Does decreasing our experience of “wanting” correlate at all to feeling “in control” ? This idea of being able to tolerate wanting so that in the end we can get what we want involves self-regulation, the way that kids who are able to regulate better are better able to wait for delayed rewards—two marshmallows tomorrow instead of one right now. Do we need to actually be in control in order to feel less stressed? Maybe we can experience the same benefits from thinking that we are in control? Are there things that we can do to enhance our sense of being in control?

Heider Simmel Demonstration

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Narrative/heider-simmel-demo.swf

Pain Pain Pain

The readings for this week focused on pain as well as social cognition. I found one of the most interesting topics is the relationship between what is occurring on an internal level, as well as a social one. For example, pain has been proved to be hugely subjective, affected largely by cognition. Within “Why rejection hurts: a common neural alarm system for physical and social pain,” researchers discovered that the presence of social support increases an individual’s tolerance of electric shock stimulation. We will expand upon this during our presentation this week, but Carolyn and I read an article on this topic, which found that positive expectations during a painful experience actually decreased the level of pain experienced. It seems that our psychological approach to a situation actually does have an internal effect on our bodies. At several points during the semester, we have discussed the power of the mind on the rest of the body. This concept of pain as subjective seems to be another good example of that.

I was particularly intrigued by the article, “How we predict what other people are going to do” by Chris and Uta Frith. They found that “amygdala activation has been consistently shown as a sign of fear that is elicited unconsciously by viewing a face from another race. When white Americans were shown the faces of unknown black Americans, activity was elicited in the amygdala… The amygdala response to black faces was reduced when the faces were presented for 525 ms rather than 30 ms, and, associated with this reduction, there was increased activity in areas of frontal cortex concerned with control and regulation.” (Page 2) It appears that the patients tried to shift their immediate reaction, thus leading to the reduced amygdala activity. This relationship between their primary reaction and an attempt at mental control was striking for me.

Further, during their discussion of our ability to predict the actions of others, they noted that the process is not selective to a biological target (Page 4). My conference work is about emotional responses to music and I came upon a similar finding. Research has noted that learning music is about making predictions. We can guess the course of a song without ever having heard it, because of a natural understanding of pattern and structure. Additionally, we make predictions based on our prior experience with songs. Thus, when the Friths noted that we are able to make judgments about non-biological targets, I was reminded of my own research. I liked all of the readings for this week, but was continuously struck by the interplay between what is occurring internally and how that is affected by external, social situations.

Pain and Empathy

The sensation of both fear and physical pain are built into our defenses to warn us of danger, these feelings developed by our progenitor species’ in order to survive. The sensation of emotional and social pain have been developed evolutionarily within our species, not for our survival against the bigger, stronger and better predator in the wild, but for our social survival. This week’s readings focused on pain as well as one’s ability to empathize with another’s pain. The authors write about humans as social creatures, separate from our ancestors with our developed social structure and ability to attribute the mind states of others. Particular attention is paid to the idea of other minds and one’s ability to ‘mind read’ or mentalise another’s feelings.
This week’s readings struck a particular chord with me, due to the nature of my conference work regarding autism. Chris and Uta Frith’s report, “How we predict what other people are going to do” briefly overviewed our ability to infer things about others as well as applying this information to ourselves. We can watch someone encounter a certain stimulus and from their reactions to that stimulus, we can infer that that stimulus may elicit a similar response in ourselves. The particular part of this research overview that I found the most interesting was the topic of shared experiences or shared feelings. In this section they referred to the mirror neuron system, which seems to be responsible for our involuntary tendency to share another person’s experience. In the fairly disjointed reading specifically devoted to mirror neurons, the author seemed to imply that mirror neurons were a good deal of the basis for interactions between creatures with a highly developed social structure. Mirror neurons seem to have some connection to the learning process, specifically how we learn from others. Uta and Chris Frith connect this research to the “theory of mind,” which is a term I’ve found extensively in my research on autism. “The theory of mind,” without going into much depth, refers to our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others, regardless of what we know to be true or what we feel. Inferring the mental states of others is not just that, it helps extensively in our communication with them. In attributing other states we are able to sympathize and therefore empathize with others. This is a social ability, not a defense mechanism. This ability to empathize provides no protection to our physical well being, however it can protect our social status and social well being in our society. Has our social well being evolved to be just as important to us as our physical well being? In becoming a complex society have we added to our burdens in adding the burden of the importance of social interaction? Or has this only replaced the decreased need for protection from wild creatures that are less of a threat to us than they were to our progenitors?
“Why rejection hurts” talks about the growing importance and similarities between social pain and physical pain. The authors found that both social pain and physical pain share the same neural mechanisms for processing that pain. In this article they define physical pain as ‘unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage and emotion pain as when a social relationship is threatened, damaged or lost. We seem to have become incredibly dependent on social interaction from the very beginning. Our attachment to our parents seems to be incredibly important to our physical/brain developmental as well as our social development. The article implies that this type of social attachment is unique to mammals. When I was younger I used to be fascinated with sharks and their ability to live on their own from birth (regardless of whether they are hatched from eggs or not,) what makes sharks not need that social interaction with their parents as to say, dolphins who stay in schools and care for each other their entire lives? Do all mammals do this? What causes the variation in mammals and whether or not they stay in groups? In this article they also refer to a relative over exposure to social pain as infants. We experience social pain when we are apart from our mother. We are also a species of societies in which we rely to varying degrees on others to get about our daily life. Have we developed in a way that has cancelled out the need for other defense mechanisms? How will this effect the evolution of our species?

pain & social neuroscience

When we contrast the pain felt from the attack of a blunt or sharp object with that of lost love, it may be difficult to draw any comparison other than that they both hurt. However, research indicates that physical and social pain do have commonalities at the neurological level. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been shown to activate with the conscious, aversive experience of both kinds of pain.
Anyone with an intact somatosensory cortex, posterior insula, and nociceptors (among other things) has the biological tools to process the sensory component of physically painful stimuli, but people with lesioned ACCs do not feel it as unpleasant or distressing. Dorsal ACC activity is correlated with self-reports of perceived unpleasantness as a result of painful stimuli, as well as upsetting social situations, as revealed by Eisenberger’s (2003) experiment that showed increasing dACC corresponding with increasing self-reports of distress in subjects who were excluded in a virtual game of catch. Additional evidence of the relatedness between social and physical pain comes from the fact that opiates and strong social support relieve both. There have also been numerous findings that the frequent experience of one type of pain predicts a heightened sensitivity to the other.
As with anything else, an evolutionary explanation for the origin of the ACC’s role as a neural alarm for pain might serve best: in any species, pain is a powerful motivator to escape pain because it threatens survival. Because mammalian infants require long periods of maternal care to survive, the pain of separation from the mother would be an adaptive way to prevent such an occurrence.
A final note on the implications of the anterior cingulate cortex and the perception of pain is that one doesn’t need to be the person receiving the painful stimulus to feel it. The ACC is also activated when a person watches his/her significant other receive an electric shock. This would not be possible without one of evolution’s most ingenious creations—mirror neurons.
Mirror neurons, which are found in different areas of human and primate brains, are activated when a person (or primate) performs an action and also when one observes another performing the same action. Mirror neurons are largely responsible for humans’ ability to accurately predict other people’s mental states and future behavior. They make it easy by producing the same neural representations that would exist if we were the ones experiencing the state, and in that sense we are experiencing it (to an extent.) The above example concerning pain is just one among many of these occurrences. Mirror neurons also explain why smiles, laughter, yawning, crying, etc. are contagious, why seeing a facial expression of disgust activates the same brain regions that smelling something disgusting would, and why seeing someone being touched activates the somatosensory cortex. Without mirror neurons, we could not feel what others are feeling, and the malfunction or lack of mirror neurons in autistic individuals may give evidence to the nature of their deficit in this respect.
The skill endowed upon us by mirror neurons is often referred to as "empathy," but this is a misnomer in my understanding. If a person tells a story of how some experience elicited feelings of sadness and the listener feels sad herself, she is sympathizing or identifying rather than empathizing. The same goes for the sharing of cognitive appraisals (as opposed to emotional response). If empathy is thinking or believing what another thinks or believes, it would be necessary for the empathizer to agree with that thought or belief, thus implying sympathy or identification. But empathy does not require the sharing of thoughts or feelings. It is rather understanding someone in his/her own terms. It’s appreciating another person point of view, regardless of how they differ from our own, which the Friths refer to as "mentalizing." Good empathizers can empathize with an ideology that completely conflicts with their own simply by giving the impression that the other person’s perspective as that person knows it is understood.

Mirror Neurons and Mentalizing

This week’s set of readings focused on mental states in human beings and our ability to recognize these states in ourselves and in others. Two concepts were discussed in depth throughout the readings; mirror neurons and mentalizing. The two concepts are both related to social abilities found in humans. Mirror neurons are involved in physiological states and emotional expression whereas mentalizing is the process of attributing mental states (desires, intentions, and beliefs) to oneself and others.

Mirror neurons were discovered in the ventral premotor area in monkeys. These neurons fired in response to motor activity performed by the monkey itself and also when the monkey was observing the same motor activity being performed by another monkey. The discovery of mirror neurons brings truth to the saying ‘monkey see, monkey do’. Mirror neurons are also in humans. They allow us to share and understand another person’s experiences. For example, “seeing a painful stimulus being applied to someone’s body activates the same areas (AI and ACC) as having the same pain applied to oneself” (Frith & Frith pg 5). The ability to recognize and imitate another’s behavior is fundamental for social interaction. It reduces the risk of being socially rejected, it protects a person from danger, and it helps in the formation of group identity.

Mentalizing is the ability to recognize and take another person’s point of view. It could be argued that mentalizing builds off of the mirror neuron system. It is a higher form of imitation. Studies measuring brain activity during mentalizing found activation in the anterior paracingulate sulcus (part of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex) as well as the temporo-parietal junction. These areas of the brain were activated during mentalizing other people’s mental states as well as their own mental states. Mentalizing is not an innate process. Some components are linked to neural processes and others are learned and developed during childhood. It is a process that requires nature and nurturing.

Research on autism has led to the observation that mentalizing; being able to attribute mental states to self and others is faulty in individuals with autism. They are unable to recognize the mental states of other people. Is it possible for autistic people to learn the process of mentalizing? Ralph Adolphs in “The Social Brain” conducted an experiment with an amygdala damaged patient. She had trouble recognizing the emotion fear because she did not pay attention to the eyes of the face (the facial feature that expressed fear the most). When the experiments told her to pay attention to the eyes, she was able to identify the emotion accurately. Adolphs is currently conducting a similar experiment with autistic people. He hopes to intervene in a similar way with the autistic individuals as he did with the patient with amygdala damage. If a similar type of intervention is possible, is there a way of teaching people with autism the process of mentalizing? This would be extremely beneficial to their social interactions.

Pain and Empathy

I was assured after reading the review article “Social Cognitive Neuroscience: where are we headed?” as in the last few weeks I have become disenchanted with the preoccupation of brain imaging in neuroscience. They ask why is the field of neuroimaging important in understanding how the brain and in turn the mind works? By understanding what regions and networks are responsible in mental processes we can begin to understand what happens in the mind and in the brain that is responsible for specific behaviors. For example, there may be elements to the process of fear that would involve regions of the brain that we could not deduce through behavioral observation or could not be described by the participant because it is below the level of consciousness. There may also be areas of brain activation that overlap in mental processes that can explain the complexity behind emotions. In the study of empathy and pain they had couples perform a task where one partner suffered an electric shock and the other partners brain was scanned as they anticipated their partners pain. They found that not only were brain regions activated by the expectation of another’s pain but was overlapped by the activation of areas that signifies the experience of going through pain for ones self. Only through neuroimaging can they better explain then mental processes that occur during an empathetic episode.

I wonder then how one could define empathy with the information from modern brain imaging techniques. Does empathy exist when only one can experience someone else’s pain or pleasure? Are those who are more empathetic hold a greater mental capacity to actually experience someone else’s emotions? The article may be leaning towards a yes as it explains the role that mirror neurons play in social behavior and how there is an area in the brain that allows us to “mind-read”. Evolutionarily empathy makes perfect sense as it is a tool that helps weed out the cheats at the poker table and it becomes advantageous to be in someone’s mind while in the process of bargaining. On page 219 of the review they state, “There is some evidence that untrustworthy people might have more memorable faces than trustworthy faces”. There is a reoccurring theme of the importance of face reading in the study of empathy and I was wondering what Paul Ekman would say in regards to empathy being a skill that one can learn.

The second article I would like to address is “ Why rejection hurts” as it illustrates how neurological systems overlap in an unusual and unexpected way. They explain why rejection hurts by starting with the definition of social pain, which is the “distressing experience arising from the perception of actual or potential psychological distance from close others or a social group.” This simplistic definition gives rise to the importance of companionship for humans and other social animals and they link this to self esteem as it can be an indicator to social acceptance and integration. They focus on the anterior cingulated cortex (ACC) and specifically its dorsal subdivision (dACC) to explain how the brain reacts to physical and emotional pain. The dACC experiences neighboring and sometimes overlapping activation during the experience of physical pain and when there is a conflict or a discrepancy between two opposing facts. I wish they illustrated what they meant by “discrepancy detection” better and what type of experiments led to the detection of activation in this area. I am battling with the relationship between discrepancy detection and how that relates to social rejection. But to get to their point, they illustrate the overlap in the two systems by comparing it to an alarm system. The sensor is the discrepancy detector and pain distress is the alarm bell sounding and the overlap of these two areas may be a complementary “neural alarm system”. What is the most striking to me is how people that are in chronic pain are more likely to be preoccupied with relationship status and worried about rejection. Those too who are rejection sensitive report more stress while watching a video depicting physical pain. This reminds me of our focus on empathy and what constitutes an empathetic person in regards to their psychological make up and their brain chemistry. There is sometimes a striking difference in people’s empathetic abilities and I wonder exactly what are the neurological differences in these people against a standard norm (if this is even possible).

On a side note I was wondering how endorphins and dopamine work as I know they complement each other, but I am not sure how. I was reminded in our last class how my dad had to quite smoking and he has been smoking two packs for about thirty years (that was my spring vacation). He actually took it well, mostly because he was on some new, fancy neurotransmitter blocker. But one night he was grinding up fresh horseradish for dinner and I caught him sniffing the stuff like he was at Studio 54. I guess it made him feel better but I was trying to understand why it was helping with his cravings and anxiety brought on from his nicotine addiction.

Positive Psychology or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

This week’s readings situate two very different theoretical positions against each other. At first glance, it seems that hedonics and pleasure would be related to the idea of positive psychology, but I soon discovered that they could not be further separated.

Positive psychology seeks to ameliorate the human condition. It is outward-looking, philanthropic in nature, and in my opinion is a refreshing breath of fresh air. When I last studied psychology, in the 1970s, much of the body of work that we are reading in this class had yet to be created. A great deal of it has been rather difficult for me to assimilate, coming as I do from a viewpoint that tends more to the humanistic and traditional.

Even so, much of the work we have read in this class is instructive and fascinating. My most salient criticism of some of the newer work I have encountered in this class, however, is that the studies and papers I find most problematic seem, if not exclusively, then disturbingly, self-referential. Some researchers appear to treat the theory at hand as the most important element of the equation, and the humans and animals involved in the research are but puzzles to be taken apart and fitted back together in the image of the researcher’s ideology. Often the clinical trials and studies appear biased and to have been designed to prove the researchers’ ideas, and are written up less than clearly, without adequate details.

Worse, the logic involved often seems convoluted and not really based on . . . well . . . logic.

Take, for example, Gilbert et al. on The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad. Their main premise is based on a so-called paradox in which the authors ponder how odd it is that a person using a faster mode of transportation will arrive at his or her destination, though it is further from their origin, than another person using a slower mode of transport but traveling a shorter distance.

They attempt to associate this “paradox” with the rebound effect they describe whereby some more severe harms or illnesses are healed more quickly by more intense medical attention and treatment than some less severe ailments. From here, they jump to the thought that this effect can be reproduced psychologically, again trying to associate this idea with the more rapid healing of illnesses by more intense treatment. The thing that isn’t lining up for me is that I don’t think you can just use any old paradox (which this isn't, by the way) to illustrate or prove another. It's an entirely different situation, and may be ironic to some degree but none of these are really a paradox, if the mechanisms work as the authors say they do. It is not counter-intuitive or even difficult to believe that certain illnesses, treated aggressively, could respond more quickly than less intense illness or injury left untreated. This model also leaves out the many severe illnesses and injuries that no treatment can heal.

As to the travel "paradox", a commuter may choose different modes of transport for reasons other than travel time. The walk or bike ride may be good exercise, and the individual may be able to spare the half hour or whatever the shorter trip may take by the slower method, but not be able to spare an entire day to travel to a neighboring city by the same slow mode of travel. As for degree of counter-intuitiveness, neither intuition nor counter-intuition are needed to know that it could take much longer for a much shorter trip using a slower mode of travel, and that you may easily be able to get to the next town quicker by car than you could walk to your local market. I just might not have all day to go to the next town, but could spare half an hour to walk to the market, and perhaps even save time as I might not have to go to the gym that day.

The New York to London trip vs. traveling to Boston is similar in content and intuitiveness. Plane rides to London do not offer an opportunity to interact with the scenery along the way as slower modes of travel might. Thus, had one the time, one might choose to drive from New York to Boston in order to enjoy the scenery and stop in one's favorite seaside towns along the way, rather than taking the Metroliner, which is faster and cheaper but not as rewarding in both tangible and intangible ways. Likewise the same individual might choose not to take a cruise to London, although that also offers rewarding interaction with interesting scenery but may take much longer than the time one has available. I see no real paradox here, unless every contrasting choice one could make in life constitutes a paradox.

If you want a paradox, you need to look at either a duck-billed platytpus, or something apparently based on logic but actually not possible, or at quantum mechanics where measuring one particle changes properties in another at some distance but where the first can not possibly communicate with the second in any traditional way. What these people are calling a paradox is actually a kind of situational irony.

Additionally, the authors use an example of a wife rationalizing her husband’s infidelity but not getting over leaving dirty dishes in the sink. This is yet another bad example, and causes me to further question the thinking of these researchers. They completely ignore one obvious facet of their premise; the fact that one relationship causes more pain than another when serious problems arise implies that there is more at stake in that relationship, and more serious transgressions may go unchallenged for a number of reasons. A person might accept his or her partner's having an affair rather than lose that person for any number of reasons. The reason the affair has taken place must have included at least some element of the dynamic of the relationship. The cuckolded partner might actively drive the other away, either consciously or unconsciously, yet be unwilling to let them go entirely. Or the philandering partner may be more dominant and know that their more submissive other will put up with their behavior from fear of being alone (or any of many possible psychic hurts.) Whatever the reason for the affair, it may be less threatening to either or both partners to squabble over the dishes in the sink than to deal with the myriad implications and consequences of an affair, even in the best possible relationship (under the circumstances.)

Furthermore, and more to the point that I am trying to make, these authors have set everything up around a negative, dysfunctional model, seemingly to make the point that people are better off managing their expectations by choosing the very worst of several unappealing options, on the theory that in the end they will feel better about (for example) losing an entire office than a file cabinet. The disease model here seems itself diseased!

On the other hand, Positive Psychology has a purpose outside itself. It seeks, in a lovely and utopian way, to improve the entire world. This might seem unrealistic, but why? Perhaps because of the disease model that has dominated psychology since the end of the second world war, a time when paranoia ruled the world and children were told to hide under their desks in case of a nuclear attack.

Several years ago, I read a book entitled Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves, about how the world was changed forever by the first world war – how an innocence was lost and men on battlefields attacked each other not with swords and “glory” but with cowardice and poison gas. I found it depressing, raised as I was by a father who was born the year the war ended, who was himself raised by parents who grew up before this terrible war that changed the entire world. He was taught, and taught me, that there is something sublime about life and about the world, even when things are really, really rough. When it becomes hard to see any transcendent quality to alleviate the harsher side of things, life becomes more onerous.

Graves’ book seemed to explain a great deal; it all seemed to fit together with the overwhelmingly prevalent disease model in medicine coupled with increasing poor health of most citizens of developed nations, the crumbling social systems of our own country and much of the world, pollution and global warming increasing out of control, an observable decline in all sorts of social standards, and so much more that adds up to an apparent emptiness in so much of modern life.

This is why I am so elated to have read the articles on Positive Psychology. That a group of psychological authorities has created such a body of work emphasizing the best of the human spirit comes as a delightful surprise. That they see the value of prevention in mental illness is stunningly wonderful. These scientists seek not to gloss over reality with platitudes and pretty ideas lacking substance, but to build a new psychology based on what is best in the creatures it studies. These people are not “new age” dreamers, but experienced and seasoned researchers who know the difference between reality and ideological dreams, even when those dreams are nightmares. Their work gives me new hope, which I believe is an essential element in a healthy psyche. It was a pleasure to read these articles, and I will definitely seek out more information on Positive Psychology.

Emotions Below Our Radar

This weeks readings touched on the differences between conscious and unconscious emotional stimuli/experiences, ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’, and the importance of optimism. The topics addressed seemed to have value beyond improving our understanding of human behavior, they seemed to reveal information that could be useful to the development of techniques for improving health and overall quality of life. Although I was not thoroughly sold on all of the papers, they each succeeded to alter my perception and spark new questions.

Berridge challenged my theory of emotions in his article on unconscious emotions. Up until these readings I had been formulating a theory based on a notion that we have a significant amount of control over our emotions, and in denying this control we are shirking off some of our responsibility for our actions. While one may indeed act on behalf of an emotional impulse, the lack of control or awareness is due to conditioned responses, laziness, or pathological conditions (it is not our fault though, we are taught to be this way). Berridge and colleagues experimentally demonstrated an unconscious emotional response (that did not have any negative connotations). Using subliminal images and an open juice bar they were able identify what they considered to be emotional responses based on the subjects behavior (beverage consumption). While these responses were apparent to the trained eye, the subjects were reportedly unaware of their emotional displays. Although I do not quite understand the beverage consumption model, I trust that they had good reason.

Berridge and colleagues raised another issue that challenged my current understandings. They distinguish between ‘wanting’ ( which they also refer to as sensitized incentive salience, “an underlying implicit and subjective process”) and ‘liking’ (“an objective affective reaction”). With this distinction in mind, they attempted to investigate the differences between wanting and liking on a neurological level. They acknowledge that this concept may seem counterintuitive, and suggest that the differences in experience may be discrete and thus fall below our radar. They further suggest that irrational desires, desire for things that are not particularly pleasant, may be provoked by the wanting system and falsely interpreted as liking. The authors describe a case in which a certain factor (B-19) evoked a desire for further stimulation and sexual arousal, but did not evoke an orgasm or statements to the effect of “that feels good”. Thus, the desire for further stimulation was not due to the pleasantness/liking, but rather brain activity that causes irrational ‘wanting’.

Despite their observation of different neurological pathways that evoke distinct responses, I have trouble accepting their distinction between wanting and liking. Is there not some pleasure in the act of wanting? I do not see how you could want something in the absence of a foreseeable reward. In that case does the motivation for the ‘want’ not invoke a sense of pleasure in and of itself? Is sexual arousal not a pleasant feeling (even sans orgasm)? And is desire for further stimulation not indicative of an enjoyable experience, or an experience with some type of desirable reward? I understand how wanting is not always pleasurable, but can wanting occur without some foreseeable reward? We would not do something if we did not hope to get something pleasurable out of it (at least I cannot think of any examples). There must be some level of reward that seems worthwhile even in the unhealthiest of behaviors. Although I clearly remain dissatisfied by their distinction between ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’, this work does shed light on possible neurological underpinnings of drug addiction, eating disorders, obsession, and depression, and may be useful in developing methods for treating these disorders.

positive psychology

Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi’s introduction to the “Positive Psychology” issue of American Psychologist emphasizes the need to develop the study of a “positive psychology” that would discuss the effects of optimism on overall health, wisdom, talent, and creativity in individuals, yet more importantly, how this could be productive within a social/political future. In the first paragraph of their introduction, they write,
“Entering a new millennium, Americans face a historical choice. Left alone on the pinnacle of economic and political leadership, the United Sates can continue to increase its material wealth while ignoring the human needs of its people and those of the rest of the planet. Such a course is likely to lead to increasing selfishness, to alienation between the more and the less fortunate, and eventually to chaos and despair...Psychology should be able to help document what kinds of families result in children who flourish, what work settings support the greatest satisfaction among workers, what policies result in the strongest civic engagement, and how people’s lives can be most worth living.”
It is fascinating to me that this article was written in January 2000, just before the 2000 presidential election. It seems like this article was almost intended to convey a need for optimism that will be helpful in the future. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi’s article stresses the importance of working towards a discourse on positive psychology that would benefit our society in the long run, in terms of community, family, education, and so forth. This need stems from the past and current focus on pathology and “damaged” brains instead of putting attention towards the need to develop the positive aspects of our psychological cognitive and unconscious abilities.
On reading this paper, one personal event came to mind. Last weekend I went to Providence for Passover where my aunt lives. One day we took the whole family (all 25 of us) to see these mosaic installations that my aunt did as community projects in my cousin Sophie’s old elementary school (she has done one every year for the past ten years). She works with classes (usually 5th graders) to create mosaic murals based on a general theme and the children’s’ own drawings. For example, one mural showed all the kids favorite places in Providence. Another was about family heirlooms (each student designed their own plaque based on a family heirloom which was incorporated around the mosaic). As I walked through the school (which was otherwise sterile and depressing, aside from the mosaics) my cousin informed me that in the time since she left the school no longer had funding for math, science and music. After hearing this sad news, I thought about how effective the mosaics were for my own positive psychology, walking through this otherwise dismal environment, and how, for these kids, these collaborative, creative projects must be so beneficial for their own positive psychology, to be able to walk through the halls and see something bright, colorful and imaginative that they contributed to. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi’s article, therefore, seemed almost like a plea for this sort of influence in communities, schools, families, etc., in that a study of the aspects of positive psychology, in the long run, may benefit our society on a much broader spectrum than we realize.
One study by Kent Berridge et al. focusing on positive psychology investigated “unconscious emotions” in a positive framework. They believed that the cognitive “unconscious” is similar to implicit memory/perception (Kihlstrom) as related to unconscious affective reactions. In the study they showed a series of faces (with the participants given the task of identifying the gender as a means of distraction) with positive, negative, or neutral facial expressions. They tested the subliminal effect by providing the participants with a fruity drink and seeing how much they consumed or wanted to consume. In this test they aimed to determine how unconscious core affective processes are developed, and if they exist at all. What they discovered is that unconscious core effective processes are similar in many ways to conscious core affective processes in that they require a stimulus for elicitation, a reaction direction (positive, negative, or neutral), and they must persist and be expressed later. Unlike conscious core affective processes, however, they are not subjective in reports. They also are caused by an unconscious event. All of these factors are related and applied to what Berridge et al. call a “value-laden event”. This also relates to the distinction made between wanting versus “liking”, and pleasure versus enjoyment. An unconscious emotion can be elicited by applying this “liking” factor to an event, and therefore subliminally attaching the notion that something good is about to happen. In the same sense as “free floating anxiety” (in stressful cases, seen in Ledoux’s studies) a free floating “goodness” also exists, what Berridge calls “the pleasure gloss”.
In general I found this study to be one of the most entertaining we’ve looked at so far, and very insightful. I’m not sure if I understand exactly how the consumption method was effective in measuring the unconscious emotion, especially when thirst is taken into account, but I did find it interesting how something subtle can subconsciously affect your mood. In context to the Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi article, I think this development of the emotional unconscious can be useful in treating cases like depression. It’s exciting to think that sans medication we can be capable of controlling our optimism at all times.

Reading Response

Hedonics/Reward

This week’s reading focuses on the mental processes of happiness, core affect of “liking” or “wanting”. Both of these were linked with the question of unconscious or conscious emotion. My main concern was with idea of an unconscious emotion, which I thought was hard to define and the experience of happiness.

The question of unconscious emotion was very striking to me. First of all it appears as though all emotions at one point can become conscious. Indeed because of the importance of feedback in the experience of emotion, it seems impossible for an emotion to be entirely unconscious; it always comes to consciousness some way or another. The only way it could stay unconscious is with subliminal images, which the article uses. In that case, I can understand how the emotion is unconscious and has a result (which is conscious) on one’s emotional experience. How can this translate in life experience? Can we talk about unconscious emotion without using subliminal images? What are some examples of unconscious emotion in everyday experience? How could it be studied? Can

The two positive psychology articles claimed that the positive aspect of our lives and psychology are often neglected or at least are not considered as important as the negative. In other words, we tend to pay more attention to what is not going right than to what is going well. Why do we have trouble seeing the good in things? What would our lives be without happiness? In general it seems as thought people more easily fall into seeing only the negative aspects of things. Why is that? How is it helpful? The author introduces an evolutionary explanation. It is good for us because we can protect ourselves, once again, it is associated with survival but isn’t happiness also good and essential for our survival? In general human beings tend to observe the negative aspects more frequently and easily. What does this question say about our society? Are we scared of what might be positive? Is it because it is easier to complain and find excuses than actually try and be happy? Another concern is that we obviously know what it is like to be too unhappy but can we talk about someone being too happy? And what are the consequences of such a phenomenon? The fact that usually being happy and realistic is opposed also says something about the way we view our lives and society. My next question concerns therapy, and positive psychology. A lot of my friends I have talked to about therapy usually see it as a waist of time and money. The article from positive psychology progress “Empirical Validation of Interventions” seems to think that therapy and psychology should not only be concerned with pathology but also with the positive aspects of our lives and mental health. “… our message is to remind our field that psychology is not just the study of pathology, weakness, and damage; it is also the study of strength and virtue” (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, p7).Can therapy be helpful for everyone? Could it prevent unhappiness or depression rather than just curing it?

In the next article “The Peculiar longevity of Things Not So Bad”, the authors talk about an interesting paradox. This paradox concerns the fact the affect of something not so bad will last longer than something very bad. The affect of something very bad will be stronger but we are able to deal with it in a better way and therefore it won’t stay as long as a strongly negative emotion. Something “not so bad” has a softer direct affect but it lasts longer, we can’t get ride of it as easily. The experiences presented in the article were done with people not knowing each other. I wondered if or how the results would change if something bad happened to someone we knew (and liked) or if someone we knew (and liked) did something to us? Will the fact that we car more influence the strength of the affect and the way one might deal with his or her feelings?

Positive Psychology and Hedonics
Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt

Hedonics, the please system, and positive psychology was the focus of his week’s reading. From careful distinctions between ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’, to the more general studies of positive psychology, subjectivity and the processes of the unconscious mind were explored in great depth. Through investigating hedonics and the pleasure system in humans, primates, and rats, research has proven that ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ are different; simple pleasures are indeed not that simply understood. By examining the differences both physically (in the brain) and behaviorally (in actions) ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ are used to more carefully unravel key questions about the subjective unconscious, unconscious emotions (what they really are) and their influence on behavior.
In the article ‘Praising Rewards’, Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson investigate the difference between wanting and liking. The terms are often seen as two side of the same psychological coin. They are viewed as interchangeable and connected words: if you like something than you should want it; if you want it you should like it, however, this isn’t always the case; each term can be analyses on its own. Berridge and Robinson pull apart the process of wanting verses liking by analyzing the components involved in the reward system. The neurobiology of reward is insightful when confronting pathological issues such as addictive behaviors, drug abuse, obsession, and depression. Their article highlights that wanting and liking involve different components of the reward system. The components of wanting are described as incentive salience (a term coined by Berridge and Robinson) motivation, and goal directed plans, verses liking: explicit hedonic feelings— core hedonic impacts—and their implicit affects.
The difference between the two is more clearly contrasted when looking at dopamine’s effect on the pleasure system. Liking is an objective affective reaction. An example of this provided by Berridge and Robinson is that of the liking of taste; “liking for taste involves activity in a distributed neural network that also has been implicated in drug reward. Microinjections of opiod agonists into the accumben shell causes increased facial ‘liking’ reactions to sweetness [the protrusion of the tongue]” (Berridge and Robinson, 2003). A bitter taste provokes it’s own physical reaction, a gaping, opened mouth. The neurotransmitter dopamine, (when either activated or suppressed) does not affect the expression of liking, however it can enhance the sensation of wanting. In humans, “activation of accumbens-striatal dopaminergic systems by amphetamine” correlates with greater subjective wanting. Dopamine manipulation can elicit an increase in wanting of a particular food or drug reward without affecting the subjective ratings of pleasure or liking. As Berridge states in his second article, ‘Simple Pleasures’, “Dopamine systems seem unable to cause a pleasure gloss. Liking reactions to sweetness persist unchanged and normal, no matter what brain dopamine systems are doing” (Berridge, 2004).
To make a more clear distinction between wanting and liking, Berridge describes a case study where the incentive salience wanting is stimulated without hedonic ‘liking’. This is a case described under ‘False Pleasure Electrodes’, where a female patient was implanted with an electrode that stimulates the pleasure system. This patient claimed that the electrode stimulated a strong desire for liquids; it stimulated erotic feelings (sexual stimulation without an orgasm), and the desire to stimulate the electrode again, and again. When stimulated, she drank “copiously”, recorded hot and cold sensations and levels of high anxiety. She began to stimulate the electrode throughout the day at home often neglecting her own hygiene and social engagements (Berridge, 2004). This case illustrates a desire to self-stimulate even though no desirable or pleasurable sensations were occurring. Berridge showed that this patient experienced the incentive salience of ‘wanting’ (to self-stimulate) without hedonic ‘liking’ of the feeling produced by the stimulus itself. In this case, stimulation became an addiction in and of itself.
From this fascinating distinction, Berridge and his collogue Piotr Winkielman examine the possible effects of unconscious ‘liking’ in our emotional states and in our behavior. In their article, ‘What is an unconscious emotion?’ they argue that subconscious ‘liking’ can influence emotional states and behavioral decisions. Their article describes an experiment in which subliminal images unconsciously changed either the participant’s preferences for an image or their consumption of fruit juice offered throughout the experiment. In this study individuals were shown images of Chinese ideographs followed by subliminal exposures of a happy, neutral, or angry facial expression. There was also a second layer to this experiment, participants were able to pour themselves and consume glasses of sweet juice throughout the experiment. Their finding showed that subliminal facial stimuli significantly affected the participants. Negative subliminal images resulted in less beverage consumption, and/or affected the participant’s conscious emotional states. Berridge and Winkielman demonstrated that both positive affect as well as negative affect could unconsciously influence the behavior and/or emotional state of individual participants.
This study gives a new meaning to the notion of unconscious emotional experiences, arguing that “In normal adults under some conditions, core ‘liking’ reactions may influence a person’s consumption behavior later, without a person being able to report subjective awareness of the affective reaction at the moment it was caused. When the brain generates an affective response of which the mind is unaware, as we have described here, there exists a truly unconscious emotion” (Berridge and Winkielman, 2003). The subtle distinctions made in these articles (liking verses wanting, and the influence of unconscious stimuli on emotion) reiterate the role that feelings play in our behavioral preferences and decisions. Simple feelings are actually very complex, and our conscious decisions can be influenced by truly unconscious preferences. The subjective assessment of our emotional states is a conscious process that can be affected by unconsciously perceived stimuli.
The next issue that this week’s reading focused on was that of subjective experience and subjective emotional processing. Positive psychology is a field that focuses on channeling individual strength and enhancing the feeling of worth and happiness. The scope of the two articles focusing on positive emotions, ‘Positive Psychology: An Introduction’ and Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interviews’ were large: suggesting that individual changes and increased happiness on an individual level could change the collective state of our future as a nation. However large the scope, they might be right. Positive psychology looks to the average, ‘normal’ person with the intention of bettering one’s emotional well-being. One of the most fascinating aspects of these articles was their definition of subjective. Martin Seligman, Nansook Park, and Christopher Peterson argue that the individual defines a subjective emotion. Happiness, for example, is what one defines it as. A central issue in this work is how a person’s “values and goals mediate between external events and the quality of experience.” Positive psychologists look to enhance one’s ability to cope, to find joy, and ultimately to mediate and define their own happiness.
These articles argue that an individual can consciously shape their sense of well-being, and with time, enhance their own sense of fulfillment. Because subjectivity exists on an individual level, I found these article practically interesting. They focus not on what’s gone wrong, but what can be strengthened in everyone.
Another interesting point in Seligman, Park, and Peterson’s work, was that of optimism. They suggest that an optimistic attitude towards daily activities and even in severe illnesses such as AIDS, can lead to better health, and even slow the symptoms of disease. Though the articles were a bit on the idealistic side, they prove a significant point: individuals can, to some extent, cognitively transform their subjective states, and can consciously work to enhance well-being.
Our emotional states are complex, they can be influenced by unconsciously perceived stimuli, and they can are subjectively represented. This week’s reading emphasized that the feeling brain has many layers, including processes that we are not aware of and processes that are conscious and cognitively processed. Emotions are three dimensional, and all of these factors influence even the most basic of feelings.

The [In]Existence? of Unconscious Emotions

This week’s readings discussed the definition, neural processes and various brain structures involved with hedonics/reward. Additionally, the papers attempted to differentiate between conscious and unconscious emotions.

In any scientific field, but especially psychology, members often become so transfixed by popular schools of thought or the latest controversial ideas that they can forget the actual purpose of the discipline: to help people. This made Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi’s description of “positive psychology," the study of positive emotions, characters and institutions, especially refreshing. It forced me to focus not only on how the concepts discussed in class affect people, but how to utilize recently acquired findings to improve people’s psychical and psychological health and overall quality of life. The articles also noted people’s tendency, which is all too apparent in the popular subjects of current psychological research, to focus almost exclusively on negative ideas. The authors predictably assumed the evolutionary perspective noting that our tendency to focus more on potential problems stems from our innate need for self-preservation, which is much more likely to be affected by something negative, like a hungry predator or violent competitor for resources.

In “The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad,” the authors noted how the effect of mildly negative stimuli is actually worse than that of severely negative ones. We know that our brains are specially programmed to process tragedies, but this article explained that milder tragedies or “things not so bad” are not processed the same way, which explains why the effects of supposedly milder negative stimuli can potentially last so much longer.

But the most interesting and contentious articles this week concerned the potential existence of unconscious emotions. I admit that after weeks of attempting to accept that emotions are, for the most part, predictable responses and therefore largely controllable, I initially found Berridge’s various articles refreshing. However, I was ultimately unconvinced of the existence of unconscious emotions.

In “What is an unconscious emotions?: (The case for unconscious ‘liking’),” Berridge and Winkielman attempt to modify William Jame’s classic definition of emotion as “the conscious experience or subjective feeling of emotion” to include those experienced on an unconscious level. (Berridge & Winkielman 2003, 181–182) I agree that both positive and negative emotions can be elicited by subliminal (i.e. unconsciously recognized) stimuli, for example, the negligible exposure to various facial expressions. I also agree that this unconscious recognition can dramatically influence an individual’s behavior, decisions and opinions, as proven by the subjects’ consequentially influenced appraisal and consumption of the beverage. However, I feel that both the unconscious recognition of emotionally charged stimuli and the resulting influence on behavior are the result of previously proven existent unconscious cognitive processes, like implicit memory and implicit perception, rather than an unconscious emotional experience. (Berridge & Winkielman 2003, 184) I agree with Clore who argues that, “ . . . it is not possible to have an unconscious emotion because emotion involves an experience, and one cannot have an experience that is not experienced . . . emotions cannot be unconscious because they must be felt, and feelings are by definition conscious. (Berridge & Winkielman 2003, 183)

I felt that Berridge et al largely missed the point in their attempt to define and prove, or at least provide evidence for, the existence of unconscious emotion. Firstly, their definition for unconscious or “’implicit emotion refers to the changes in experience, thought or action that are attributed to one’s emotional state, independent of his or her conscious awareness of that state” is significantly flawed. (Berridge & Winkielman 2003, 184) Unconscious emotion refers only to a change in experience. Any resulting “changes in thought or action” are merely effects of this presumed emotional state, but not the state itself. A smile is not happiness itself, only the result of it. They elaborate further by citing “inaccurate labeling of the exact nature of one’s emotion, as when one angrily denies that one is angry” in addition to “errors of attention, as when one realizes only later that one has been gripped by an emotional experience at an earlier time.” (Berridge & Winkielman 2003, 184) However, the authors are forced to admit that individuals in such cases are still “fully conscious of the events that cause the emotion, and one may be conscious of the many effects of emotion. Moreover, the actual emotional state is presumed capable of being made conscious if only the person’s full attention is directed to the emotional experience, and the right label is provided. (Berridge & Winkielman 2003, 184) They admit that the unconscious emotional experience or “truly implicit affect would require the demonstration of an affective reaction of which one was simply not aware, even upon introspection.” (Berridge & Winkielman 2003, 184) As such, the existence of implicit emotions is ultimately impossible to prove, regardless of what may be construed as supporting evidence from observed behavioral responses. To conclude, the initial stimulus or reason behind an emotional experience can be unconscious, however, the actual emotional experience, not to be confused with any resulting changes in thought or behavior, is a subjective feeling or experiences and therefore intrinsically conscious.

Decision-Making and Neuroeconomics

This week’s readings all involve decision-making. In his last chapter, Damasio discusses Descartes’ error and the meaning of the book's title. He states that beings were beings long before humanity emerged; therefore an organism must first exist and “be” before it can think. As Damasio says, “We are, and then we think, and we think only inasmuch as we are, since thinking is indeed caused by structures and operations of being,” (248). Furthermore, the body and the mind, emotion and reason, are not necessarily separate entities and are integrated processes. Thus, in decision-making, the body and the mind, from emotion to reason, to neural/cell biology, are all interconnected.
Damasio discusses the differences in decision-making in frontal-lobe damage individuals, brain damage patients with lesions other than the frontal lobe, and “normals”.‘Normals’ and patients with brain damage that did not affect the frontal lobe, demonstrated high skin conductance responses to the high-arousal slides, whereas frontal lobe patients showed no skin conductance responses. When asked to debrief, frontal lobe patients had the ability to articulate the high-emotional content of the picture and when the picture was shown. In other words, they knew that the “in spite of realizing their content ought to be disturbing, he himself was not disturbed…the patients could evoke factual knowledge internally but could not produce a somatic state” (211). They knew how they were supposed to feel, but could not feel the appropriate reaction.
The next way that they tested the somatic-marker hypothesis were through gambling experiments, in which they tested frontal lobe patients and ‘normals’ in decision-making drills with real-life uncertainty and circumstances. The objective of the experiment was to lose as little as possible and gain as much as possible. Inherit human biases we have are preference of reward over punishment, gain over loss, and low-risk over high-risk. All ‘normal’ patients were generally picked from decks C and D after ‘learning’ that A and B were risky. Despite smaller gains, these players assumed that Decks C and D would reap higher benefits in the long run. In the cases of Elliot, even though they considered themselves ‘low-risk’, they were bankrupt midway through the game, thus demonstrating the biases and inaccuracy of verbal accounts. Although there was concrete evidence that decks A and B were ‘dangerous,’ and ‘disadvantageous,’ frontal-lobe damage patients continuously became bankrupt because they were insensitive to the long-term affects and acted out of immediate gratification. While ‘normals’ sought out patterns to predict a bad outcome, the neural underpinnings that determined what was wise to avoid/prefer were malfunctioning in frontal lobe patients. ‘Normals’ “place a disappropriate weight on losses relative to gains of similar absolute value,” (Neuroeconomics, 112).
A field called Neuroeconomics has emerged in recent years, combining psychological, neurological and economic studies to more accurately and predictably determine how people make and value choices and decisions. In attempting to understand human (consumer) behavior, economists and neuroscientists alike have assessed that “behavior can be interpreted as choosing alternatives with the goal of maximizing utility,” (Neuroeconomics, 108).
Numerous hormones, neurotransmitters and brain areas are involved in decision-making.The ACC not only responds to positive rewards, but to negative rewards and utility as well, taking into account errors, negative response, pain and penalty. In making decisions, neural systems involved are sensitive to relative gains and loses. Frontal lobe patients, however, are not sensitive to these relative gains and loses.
In Demasio’s experiments, frontal lobe patients were unable to make advantageous decisions for the future because of a lack of working memory and attention and a neural inability to determine a pattern of losses vs. gains. Out of myopia for the future, these patients acted for the ‘now’ rather than the future. Frontal lobe patients did not have the basic skill of planning for future prospects rather than immediate gains. This may be a result of poor working memory or attention, or somatic-markers, whereby future scenarios are not taken into consideration. With failure of the somatic-marker, it is impossible to develop ‘theory-of-mind’ or other such processes important in guiding for the future. How they acted in this game was in direct proportion to how they acted in real life, and their inability to plan ahead.
Dopamine also plays a large role in reward. It “plays a crucial role in value assessment by signaling errors in reward prediction, which are used to augment reward-producing behaviors both by generating learning signals and by adaptively updating goal states and attentional focus in working memory,” (Neuroeconomics, 110).
In the Ultimatum Game, individuals were asked to either accept or reject a sum of money from another player. In typical economic models, individuals would have taken money every time in the Ultimatum Game, since humans prefer inherently rewards. However, half of the unfair offers were rejected. In unfair offers, the dlPFC and the anterior insula lit up when participants were faced with an unfair offer. These areas are associated with deliberative and emotional processes, “if the insular activation was greater than the dlPFC activation, participants tended to reject the offer, if the dlPFC activation was greater, they tended to accept the offer.” Unfair choices elicited disgust and pain. Participants tended to act with trust and under the ‘norm’. These actions were chosen because they elicit social rewards when acted out in the real world. The dlPFC is also involved in “perceptual evidence for decision-making,” (Rorie & Newsome, 42). Sensory evidence is more active when the pictures were clearer and the task easier. Likewise, attention is more required in the more difficult tasks. Like Damasio points out, visual representations and attention are crucial in decision making.
As Grimes and all of the readings commonly state, our brains, evolutionarily, have been made to suit co-habitation with others. He says, while we may have “Machiavellian interests,” we benefit by our biological urges to be cooperative and trustful. Social interactions, love, sex, and many other things trigger the production of oxytocin, a necessary hormone that acts through the parasympathetic nervous system. This hormone goes through parts of the brain associated with memory, the limbic system, prefrontal cortex, memory and decision-making sections. Oxytocin, amongst many other things, has a large role in trustworthiness. Trusting is socially advantageous. Thus, the economic viewpoint that assumes we are only interested in maximizing personal gains is not advantageous. Zak suggests that social cooperation is a ‘primitive’ impulse, whereas greed is only evident in more newly-evolved brain parts. Cooperation involves sophisticated processes such as ‘theory of mind,’ ‘delayed gratification’ ‘attention,’ that frontal lobe patients often lack. Trust, however, does not just entail controlled responses, but involves emotional response. In any case, those who opted to trust usually came out better in the long run.
As Lehrer assesses, “In the real world, losing out in the short term could mean getting a social benefit in the long term,” (502). Although there are specific brain areas involved in mechanism for decision-making, all the readings suggest that there is no one single brain area that determines decision-making. Instead, there are multiple neural processes involved in decision-making. Reward-based decisions are complex, usually come in different modalities, and are time-dependant. When thinking about a future reward, McClure states, brain areas associated with rationality are activated, whereas when it is an immediate reward, emotional circuits become activated. Activity in the brain was directly reflective of what the participants chose.
Damasio and Sanfey and co. say, controlled and automatic processes are not two distinct processes, but rather are a continuum. Although automatic processes jump in to make decision at first, controlled processes then mitigate it when the consequences of using solely the automatic processes becomes too large. Though these systems cooperate, they, at times, compete and do have distinguishable brain lateralization. Just as Damasio states, Sanfey says, automatic/emotional processes are usually hard-wired and involve evolutionarily ‘older’ parts of the brain (posterior cortical structures & subcortical systems, limbic system), whereas controlled processes involve ‘newer’ parts of the brain (anterior and dorsolateral regions of prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex), and are flexible and do not rely on specific mechanisms. Those with frontal lobe damage often lack the basic planning skills because areas involved with higher thinking, problem-solving and planning are localized in the ‘controlled’ processes systems, thereby allowing the ‘automatic’ system take over each time.
Economists have now attempted to integrate the dual-process model. However, Camerer (from Lehrer’s article) says that it remains controversial: too dichotomizing for neuroscientists and too complicated for economists. Neuroeconomics however attempts to bridge the gap. More often than not, Lehrer says, new do not make decisions advantageous to our future, which is why “US consumers currently have a savings rate close to zero…” arguing that, “understanding how we make such decisions will help us develop better economic policies,” (504).
The fact is, economics and marketing do not have our savings rates in mind. In fact, their goal is to bankrupt us and to make us dependant on loans and buy more products. It is advantageous to marketers for consumers to put the future on the backburner and to bank on the present. In an ideal society for the marketer, we would all be Elliots, without the ability to plan for the future. If we always thought about our retirement or savings, brand names would go bankrupt. Labels are ingrained in our minds and influence our every day decisions, as is evident in the Pepsi-taste test, where brand always trumped taste. When drinking a cola with a Coke label, the hippocampus and the midbrain were lit up, just like when we see other brands.
The field of neuromarketing, more so than looking out for our best interest, will use psychological/neurological studies in order to better understand how to manipulate our decisions and enable us to buy their products more predictably. Advertisers are now banking on fMRI scans (rather than outdated methods of verbal accounts) to determine consumer choice and behavior, as in FKF with the Super bowl ads. For an advertisement to be successful, reward sections of the brain must be activated. The merging of these fields is very exciting, but highly manipulative.