10.1 Defining Emotion and Mood

Let’s begin by defining our terms—a particularly important task in the psychology of emotion and mood. Fortunately, the task is easy. We won’t need strange new technical terms. Words you already use to discuss your feelings will prove useful (see Hacker, 2004).

He’s emotional Emotions have three components. You can see them here on the face of Australian tennis star Lleyton Hewitt: (1) feeling (Hewitt obviously feels angry; you can tell from the expression on his face); (2) thought (he is angry about something—probably the officiating), and (3) bodily arousal (the muscular tension in his face and neck indicates that he is not in a relaxed bodily state).

Emotion

Preview Question

Question

What are the four key components of an emotion?

What is “emotion”? Let’s see how people use the term. In English, “emotion” describes psychological experiences with three components: (1) a feeling (if you say that you’re experiencing an emotion, you’re inevitably feeling good or bad), (2) a thought (when experiencing an emotion, such as sadness or anger, you usually are thinking about the person or event that caused the emotional reaction to occur), and (3) bodily arousal (your physiological state is different than it was before the emotion occurred; Wierzbicka, 1999). Here’s an example. Suppose a driver cuts you off in traffic and you experience an emotion: anger. The emotion includes the three components:

  1. Feeling: Once your anger kicks in, you feel different than you did moments earlier.

  2. Thought: You’re thinking about the other driver; you’re angry at him because he almost got you into an accident.

  3. Bodily arousal: You’re more aroused, physiologically, when angry. People may describe the physiology of anger with phrases such as “I was steamed” or “He got my blood boiling.”

If one of these components were missing, you would not say that you were experiencing an emotion. For example, suppose #3, bodily arousal, had been absent; perhaps you responded calmly, merely uttering soft-spoken words such as “It is unfortunate how many poor drivers populate our roadways.” Thanks to the calm state of your body, you would not say that you had “gotten emotional” (i.e., had experienced an emotion) when cut off.

In addition to these three key components—thought, feeling, bodily arousal—most emotions have a fourth component: facial expression (Ekman, 2003). You often can tell at a glance not only that a person is emotionally aroused, but also what emotion he or she is feeling (Figure 10.1).

figure 10.1 What is she feeling? Can you match the faces to these emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise? Sure you can. Each of these emotions is associated with a distinctive facial expression.

If someone were to see your face right now, what emotion would they detect?

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Not all languages of the world use the word “emotion” in exactly the same way (Wierzbicka, 1999). Yet, for our purposes here, the way you naturally use “emotion” in English suffices to define the term. An emotion is a psychological state that combines feelings, thoughts, and bodily arousal and that often has a distinctive accompanying facial expression.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW?…

Question 1

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You would need to ask, “Did I experience bodily arousal?”

Mood

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Question

How do moods differ from emotions?

You already know that moods differ from emotions—your everyday use of the words reveals your knowledge. If a relationship broke up and you started crying, you’d say that you “got emotional” not that you “became moody.” If you’ve been feeling grouchy and depressed all day, you would say you are “in a bad mood.” “Emotion” and “mood” refer to different psychological states. Let’s look at some differences.

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Mood can thus be defined as a prolonged, consistent feeling state, whether that state is positive (a “good mood”) or negative (a “bad mood”).

How has your mood been lately?

With these definitions in place, let’s now look in detail at the psychology of emotion.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW?…

Question 2

Mood or emotion? Specify whether each of the following statements best describes a mood or an emotion.

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  • KJmAL2XnkmkBdmH9FhX/y+o0zr/ZZ7at+39k2Dqvm9OAFksXTdRho6ptO6u0UqIIlXGZqQwTzn9ZabepP4a834WHTRsOcLqlA6eFKh/qoNpRKG/aUI6HLTJ8rIaoEY/OPbkjpiY4OuK3ecXLEE4YGLESfGZqXc5DFVUZamDA90bF5ny0Of9hQCryy0VHnNKME0ivv5bJIgpoy9f3SSFDg0hB7FYck5Rvi5zAXQ==
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