Psychology in the News - Nichols...

AUSTIN, TX, February 18, 2010. A software engineerwho was angry with the Internal Revenue Servicelaunched a suicide attack on the agency Thursday bycrashing his small plane into a seven-story office build-ing housing nearly 200 IRS employees, setting off a rag-ing fire that sent workers fleeing for their lives. Inaddition to the attacker, two employees died in theblaze and two others were seriously burned.

The pilot has been identified as Andrew Joseph(Joe) Stack III, 53, of Austin, who posted a furious, six-page antigovernment farewell note on the Web beforegetting into his plane for his suicidal flight. Stack citedrun-ins with the IRS and ranted about taxes, govern-ment bailouts, and corporate America’s “thugs andplunderers.” “I have had all I can stand,” he wrote.“Well, Mr. Big Brother I.R.S. man, let’s trysomething different, take my pound offlesh and sleep well.”

Officials almost immediately ruled outthe possibility that Stack was connectedto terrorist groups. Friends described himas an easygoing man, a talented amateurmusician, a husband with marital trou-bles, and a citizen with a grudge againstthe tax authorities. Although he was only53, they said, he felt pushed “over thebrink” because financial setbacks had re-quired him to postpone his retirementdreams.

Stack also set fire to his house, whichwas about six miles from the crash site,before embarking on the suicide flight.His wife and her young daughter hadescaped the night before.

Stack married Sheryl Housh aboutthree years ago. He never spoke of histroubles with the IRS to her family, who

Psychology in the News

thought he seemed fine when they gathered at Christ-mas. But recently his wife complained to her motherand stepfather, Jack Cook, of an increasingly frighteninganger in her husband, which she said was causing terri-ble problems in the marriage. Worried about her hus-band’s rage, Sheryl Stack took her 12-year-old daughterto a hotel to get away from her husband. They returnedon Thursday morning to find their house ablaze and allof their belongings destroyed. Officials said the housefire was deliberately set, with Stack as the primarysuspect.

“This is a shock to me that he would do somethinglike this,” Cook said. “But you get your anger up, you doit.”

Fire inspectors assess the damage to the office building destroyed by a man whowas angry at the IRS and upset about recent financial setbacks. Two workers died inthe blaze.

Man Crashes Plane Into Austin, Texas, I.R.S. Office

The Nature of Emotion

Emotion and Culture

The Nature of Stress

Stress and Emotion

Coping with Stress

Psychology in the News,Revisited

Taking Psychology with You:The Dilemma of Anger: “LetIt Out” or “Bottle It Up”?

C H A P T E R

Emotion, Stress, and Health

Almost everyone can understand Joe Stack’s feelings of frustration, un-

happiness, and anger, if not about their specific target. Fortunately,

most people do not act on them the way Stack did. Why do some peo-

ple give in to their emotions, whereas others are able to keep rage and other

unpleasant feelings from turning into violent or self-destructive actions? Why are

some people able to cope with the stresses of life—financial worries, broken

expectations, marital conflicts, job loss—whereas others are completely over-

whelmed and give up?

People often curse their emotions, wishing to be freed from anger, jealousy,

shame, guilt, and grief. Yet imagine a life without emotions. You would be

unmoved by the magic of music. You would never care about losing someone you

love, not only because you would not know sadness but also because you would

not know love. You would never laugh because nothing would strike you as funny.

And you would be a social isolate because you would not be able to know what

other people were feeling.

People often wish for a life without stress, too. Yet try to imagine a life without

any stress whatsoever. You would live like a clam. You might have no difficulties,

but nothing would surprise, delight, or challenge you either. You would never

change, discover new frontiers, or be required to master skills you never imagined

possible.

In this chapter, we will examine the physiology and psychology of emotions

and stress. Prolonged negative emotions like anger can certainly be stressful, and

stress can certainly produce negative emotions. Both of these processes, however,

are shaped by how we interpret the events that happen to us, by the demands of

the situation we are in, and by the rules of our culture.

433

secondary emotionsEmotions that are specificto certain cultures.

primary emotionsEmotions that are consid-ered to be universal andbiologically based.

emotion A state ofarousal involving facialand bodily changes, brainactivation, cognitive ap-praisals, subjective feel-ings, and tendenciestoward action.

434 CHAPTER 13 Emotion, Stress, and Health

YOU are about to learn...• which facial expressions of emotion most people

recognize the world over.

• which parts of the brain are involved with differentaspects of emotion.

• how mirror neurons generate empathy, mood contagion,and synchrony.

• which two hormones provide the energy and excitementof emotion.

• how thoughts create emotions—and why an infant can’tfeel shame or guilt.

The Nature of EmotionEmotions evolved to help people meet the chal-lenges of life: They bind people together, motivatethem to achieve their goals, and help them make de-cisions and plans (Nesse & Ellsworth, 2009). Whenyou are faced with a decision between two appealingand justifiable career alternatives, your sense ofwhich one “feels right” emotionally may help youmake the better choice. Disgust, which no one en-joys feeling, evolved as a useful mechanism that pro-tects infants and adults from eating tainted orpoisonous food (Oaten, Stevenson, & Case, 2009).

Even embarrassment and blushing, so painful toan individual, serve important functions: appeasingothers when you feel you have made a fool of your-self, broken a moral rule, or violated a social norm(Dijk, de Jong, & Peters, 2009; Keltner & Ander-son, 2000). And the positive emotions of joy, love,laughter, and playfulness do not appear to be simply“selfish” feelings of pleasure; their adaptive functionmay be to help increase mental flexibility andresilience, build bonds with others, stimulate cre-ativity, and reduce stress (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad,2008; Kok, Catalino, & Frederickson, 2008).

In defining emotion, psychologists focus onthree major components: physiological changes in theface, brain, and body; cognitive processes such as in-terpretations of events; and cultural influences thatshape the experience and expression of emotion. Ifwe compare human emotions to a tree, the biologi-cal capacity for emotion is the trunk and root sys-tem; thoughts and explanations create the manybranches; and culture is the gardener that shapes thetree and prunes it, cutting off some limbs and culti-vating others. Let’s begin with the trunk.

Emotion and the BodyResearch on the physiological aspects of emotionsuggests that people everywhere are born with

certain basic or primary emotions, which typicallyinclude fear, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, disgust,and contempt (Izard, 2007). These emotions havedistinctive physiological patterns and correspon-ding facial expressions, and the situations thatevoke them are the same all over the world: Every-where, sadness follows perception of loss, fearfollows perception of threat and bodily harm, angerfollows perception of insult or injustice, and soforth (Scherer, 1997). In contrast, secondary emo-tions include all the variations and blends of emo-tion that vary from one culture to another or thatdepend on cognitive complexity.

Neuroscientists and other researchers arestudying the biological aspects of emotions: facialexpressions, brain regions and circuits, and the au-tonomic nervous system.

The Face of Emotion The most obvious placeto look for emotion is on the face, where emotionsare often visibly expressed. In 1872, CharlesDarwin argued that human facial expressions—thesmile, the frown, the grimace, the glare—are asinnate as the wing flutter of a frightened bird, thepurr of a contented cat, and the snarl of a threat-ened wolf. Such expressions evolved, he said,because they allowed our forebears to tell at aglance the difference between a friendly strangerand a hostile one.

Modern psychologists have supported Darwin’sideas about the evolutionary functions of emotion(Hess & Thibault, 2009). In particular, Paul Ekmanand his colleagues have gathered abundant evidencefor the universality of seven basic facial expressionsof emotion, which correspond to the list of emo-tions usually identified as primary: anger, happiness,fear, surprise, disgust, sadness, and contempt(Ekman, 2003; Ekman et al., 1987). In every culturethey have studied—in Brazil, Chile, Estonia,Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, NewGuinea, Scotland, Sumatra, Turkey, and the UnitedStates—a large majority of people recognize theemotional expressions portrayed by those in othercultures (see Figure 13.1). Even most members ofisolated tribes who have never watched a movie orread People magazine, such as the Foré of NewGuinea or the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, canrecognize the emotions expressed in pictures ofpeople who are entirely foreign to them, and we canrecognize theirs.

Lately, some researchers have argued thatpride is also a basic human emotion; its adaptivefunction is to motivate people to achieve and excel,and thereby to increase their attractiveness toothers and to their groups (Williams & DeSteno,

facial feedback Theprocess by which thefacial muscles sendmessages to the brainabout the basic emotionbeing expressed.

CHAPTER 13 Emotion, Stress, and Health 435

FIGURE 13.1Some Universal ExpressionsCan you tell what feelings are being conveyed here? Most people around the world can readily identify expressions ofsurprise, disgust, happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and contempt, no matter what the age, culture, sex, or historical eraof the person conveying the emotion. Some researchers think that pride might also be a universal emotion. Can you findthe face of pride in this group?

2009). Children as young as 4 years old, and peoplefrom an isolated culture in Africa, can reliably iden-tify facial and bodily expressions of pride. Blindpeople who have just won an athletic competitionwill spontaneously throw their arms in the air in aV-for-victory symbol of triumph, though they havenever seen anyone do it (Tracy & Robins, 2007,2008).

Ekman and his associates developed a specialcoding system to analyze and identify each of thenearly 80 muscles of the face and the combinationsof muscles associated with each emotion (Ekman,2003). They learned that people generally use dif-ferent groups of muscles when they are trying toconvey a false emotion than when the expression isauthentic. Thus, when people try to pretend thatthey feel sad, only 15 percent manage to get theeyebrows, eyelids, and forehead wrinkle exactly the

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way that true grief is expressed spontaneously. Au-thentic smiles last only two seconds; false smilesmay last ten seconds or more (Ekman, Friesen, &O’Sullivan, 1988).

The Functions of Facial ExpressionsInterestingly, facial expressions not only reflect ourinternal feelings; they also influence them. In theprocess of facial feedback, the facial muscles sendmessages to the brain about the basic emotionbeing expressed: A smile tells us that we’re happy, afrown that we’re angry or perplexed (Izard, 1990).When people are told to smile and look pleased orhappy, their positive feelings increase; when theyare told to look angry, displeased, or disgusted,positive feelings decrease (Kleinke, Peterson, &Rutledge, 1998). If you put on an “angry” face,your heart rate will rise faster than if you put on a

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Great moms have alwaysunderstood the impor-tance of facial feedback.

“happy” face (Levenson, Ekman,& Friesen, 1990). The next timeyou are feeling sad or afraid, trypurposely smiling, even if no one isaround. Keep smiling. Does facialfeedback work for you?

As Darwin suggested, facial ex-pressions also probably evolved tohelp us communicate our emo-tional states to others and provokea response from them—“Comehelp me!” “Get away!” (Fridlund,1994). This signaling function be-gins in infancy. A baby’s expressionsof misery, angry frustration, or dis-gust are apparent to most parents,who respond by soothing an un-comfortable baby, feeding agrumpy one, or removing unap-pealing food from a disgusted one(Izard, 1994b; Stenberg & Campos,

1990). And an infant’s smile of joy usually melts theheart of the weariest parent, provoking a happycuddle. Babies seem primed to respond to adults’expressions, too. Newborns will suck longer on apacifier if it produces a happy face than if it pro-duces a face with a neutral or negative expression(Walker-Andrews, 1997). (If you become a parent,remember this.)

Starting at the end of their first year, babiesbegin to alter their own behavior in reaction to theirparents’ facial expressions of emotion, and this abil-ity, too, has survival value. Do you recall the “visualcliff” studies described in Chapter 6? These studieswere originally designed to test for depth percep-tion, which emerges early in infancy. But in one ex-periment, 1-year-old babies were put on a moreambiguous visual cliff that did not drop off sharplyand thus did not automatically evoke fear, as theoriginal cliff did. In this case, the babies’ behaviordepended on their mothers’ expressions: 74 percentcrossed the cliff when their mothers put on a happy,reassuring expression, but not a single infant crossedwhen the mother showed an expression of fear(Sorce et al., 1985). If you have ever watched a tod-dler take a tumble and then look at his or her parentbefore deciding whether to cry or to forget it, youwill understand the influence of parental facial ex-pressions. And you can see why they have had suchsurvival value for babies: An infant needs to be ableto read the parent’s facial signals of alarm or safetybecause young children do not yet have the experi-ence necessary for judging danger.

However, there are cultural and social limits tothe universal readability of facial expressions. For

one thing, people are better at identifying emotionsexpressed by others in their own ethnic, national, orregional group than they are at recognizing theemotions of foreigners (Elfenbein & Ambady,2003). Second, within a culture, facial expressionscan have different meanings depending on the situ-ation; a smile can mean “I’m happy!” or “I don’twant to make you angry while I tell you this.” Like-wise, people will interpret identical facial expres-sions—even of “basic” emotions such as disgust,sadness, and anger—in very different ways, depend-ing on what else they are observing in the socialcontext (Barrett & Kensinger, 2010). Thus, almosteveryone recognizes the facial expression of disgust,if that’s all they see. But when they see a picture ofthe same disgusted expression on a man with hisarm raised as if to strike, they will say the expressionis anger (Aviezer et al., 2008).

Finally, of course, facial expressions are onlypart of the emotional picture. People can feel sad,anxious, or angry without letting it show—and,conversely, they can use facial expressions to lieabout their feelings. In Shakespeare’s play HenryVI, the villain who will become the evil KingRichard III says:

Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile;And cry content to that which grieves my heart;And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,And frame my face to all occasions.

Emotion and the Brain Various parts of thebrain are involved in the different components ofemotional experience: recognizing another person’semotion, feeling a specific emotion, expressing anemotion, and acting on an emotion. For example,people who have a stroke that affects brain areas in-volved in disgust are often unable to feel disgusted.One young man with stroke damage in theseregions had little or no emotional response toimages and ideas that would be disgusting to mostpeople, such as feces-shaped chocolate (Calder etal., 2000). Are you making a disgusted expression asyou read that? He couldn’t.

Most emotions motivate a response of somesort: to embrace or approach the person who in-stills joy in you, attack a person who makes youangry, withdraw from a food that disgusts you, orflee from a person or situation that frightens you.The prefrontal regions of the brain are involved inthese impulses to approach or withdraw. Regionsof the right prefrontal region are specialized forthe impulse to withdraw or escape (as in disgustand fear). Regions of the left prefrontal cortex are

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specialized for the motivation to approach others(as in happiness, a positive emotion, and anger, anegative one) (Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009;Harmon-Jones, Peterson, & Harris, 2009). Peoplewho have greater-than-average activation of theleft areas, compared with the right, have morepositive feelings, a quicker ability to recoverfrom negative emotions, and a greater ability tosuppress negative emotions (Urry et al., 2004).People with damage to this area often lose thecapacity for joy.

Parts of the prefrontal cortex are also involvedin the regulation of emotion, helping us modify andcontrol our feelings, keeping us on an even keel,and allowing us to respond appropriately to others(Jackson et al., 2003). When disease or head injurydestroys cells in those areas of the frontal lobes, aperson may become unable to respond to the emo-tions of others, understand why they and others feelas they do, and adjust their own emotional re-sponses appropriately: A loving mother becomesindifferent to her child’s injury; a businessman doesembarrassing things and doesn’t notice the reactionof others (Levenson & Miller, 2007).

The amygdala, a small structure in the brain’slimbic system, plays a key role in emotion, espe-cially anger and fear. The amygdala is responsiblefor evaluating sensory information, determining itsemotional importance, and making the initial deci-sion to approach or withdraw from a person or sit-uation (LeDoux, 1996). The amygdala instantlyassesses danger or threat, which is a good thing,because otherwise you could be standing in thestreet asking, “Is it wise to cross now, while thatvery large truck is coming toward me?” Theamygdala’s initial response may then be overriddenby a more accurate appraisal from the cortex.

This is why you jump with fear whenyou suddenly feel a hand on your backin a dark alley, and why your fear evap-orates when the cortex registers thatthe hand belongs to a friend whoselousy idea of humor is to scare you in adark alley. If either the amygdala orcritical areas of the cortex are damaged,abnormalities result in the ability toprocess fear. People with damage in theamygdala often have difficulty recog-nizing fear in others, and people withdamage in the cortex may have diffi-culty “turning off” their own fearresponses.

Mirror, Mirror, in the Brain: Neurons forImitation and Empathy Some years ago, ateam of Italian neuroscientists made an accidental,astonishing discovery. They had implanted wires inthe brains of macaque monkeys, in regions involvedin planning and carrying out movement. Everytime a monkey moved and grasped an object, thecells fired and the monitor registered the brainactivity. Then one day, a graduate student heard themonitor go off when the monkey was simplyobserving him eating an ice cream cone.

The neuroscientists looked more closely, andfound that certain neurons in the monkeys’ brainswere firing not only when the monkeys were pick-ing up peanuts and eating them but also when themonkeys were merely observing their human care-takers doing exactly the same thing (Ferrari, Rozzi,& Fogassi, 2005). Moreover, these neurons re-sponded only to very specific actions: A neuron thatfired when a monkey grasped a peanut would also

Get Involved! Turn On Your Right Hemisphere

These faces have expressions of happiness onone side and sadness on the other. Look atthe nose of each face; which face looks hap-pier? Which face looks sadder?

You are likely to see face b as the happierone and face a as the sadder one. The likelyreason is that in most people the left side of apicture is processed by the right side of thebrain, where recognition of emotional expres-sion primarily occurs (Oatley & Jenkins,1996).

2. The cerebral cortex generatesa more complete picture; it can override signals sent by the amygdala (“It’s only Mike in a down coat”).

1. The amygdala scrutinizes information for its emotional importance (“It’s a bear! Be afraid! Run!”).

(a) (b)

mirror neurons Braincells that fire when aperson or animal observesothers carrying out anaction; they are involvedin empathy, imitation, andreading emotions.


fire when the scientist grasped a peanut but notwhen the scientist grasped something else. Thescientists called these cells mirror neurons.

In human beings, mirror neurons enable us toidentify with what others are feeling, understandother people’s intentions, and imitate their actionsand gestures (Iacoboni, 2008; Fogassi & Ferrari,2007; Molnar-Szakacs et al., 2005). When you seeanother person in pain, one reason you feel a jolt ofempathy is that mirror neurons involved in painare firing. When you watch a spider crawl upsomeone’s leg, one reason you have a creepy sensa-tion is that your mirror neurons are firing—thesame ones that would fire if the spider were crawl-ing up your own leg. And when you see another

person’s facial expression, your own facial muscleswill often subtly mimic it, activating a similar emo-tional state (Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed,2000).

Mirror neurons thus appear to be the underly-ing mechanism for human empathy, nonverbalrapport, and mood contagion, the spreading of anemotion from one person to another. Have youever been in a cheerful mood, had lunch with adepressed friend, and come away feeling vaguelydepressed yourself? Have you ever stopped to havea chat with a friend who was nervous about an up-coming exam and ended up feeling edgy yourself?That’s mood contagion at work.

When two people feel rapport with one an-other’s positive emotions, nonverbal signals, andposture, however, the more synchronized their ges-tures become, the more cooperatively they will be-have with each other, and the more cheerful theywill feel (Wiltermuth & Heath, 2009). This phe-nomenon may be the reason that synchronizedhuman activities—marches, bands, dancing—aresocially and emotionally beneficial. And it meansthat our friends and neighbors may have morepower over our moods than we realize. In aprospective study that followed nearly 5,000 peoplefor 20 years, people who were in a “happy net-work”—whose partners, siblings, and neighborsliving within a mile became happier over time—were more likely to become happier themselves(Fowler & Christakis, 2008). Conversely, thosewho had lonely friends were more likely to becomemore lonely themselves over time (Cacioppo,Fowler, & Christakis, 2009).

Mirror neurons are clearly at work in this conversation.

Talk about “mirror neurons”! These volunteers, videotaped in a study of conversational synchrony, are obviously in sync with each other, eventhough they have just met. The degree to which two people’s gestures and expressions are synchronized affects the rapport they feel with oneanother. Such synchrony can also create a contagion of moods (Grahe & Bernieri, 1999).


The Energy of Emotion Once the brain areasassociated with emotion are activated, the next stageof the emotional relay is the release of hormones toenable you to respond quickly. When you are understress or feeling an intense emotion, the sympa-thetic division of the autonomic nervous systemspurs the adrenal glands to send out epinephrine andnorepinephrine (see Chapter 4). These chemical mes-sengers produce arousal and alertness. The pupilsdilate, widening to allow in more light; the heartbeats faster; blood pressure increases; breathingspeeds up; and blood sugar rises. These changesprovide the body with the energy needed to take ac-tion, whether you are happy and want to get close tosomeone you love, or are scared and want to escapea person who is frightening you (Löw et al., 2008).

Epinephrine in particular provides the energyof an emotion, that familiar tingle of excitement. Athigh levels, it can create the sensation of being“seized” or “flooded” by an emotion that is out ofyour control. In a sense, you are out of control, be-cause you cannot consciously alter your heart rateand blood pressure. However, you can learn to con-trol your actions when you are under the sway of anemotion, even intense anger, as we discuss in “Tak-ing Psychology with You.” As arousal subsides,anger may pale into annoyance, ecstasy into con-tentment, fear into suspicion, past emotional whirl-winds into calm breezes.

Although epinephrine and norepinephrine arereleased during many emotional states, emotionsalso differ from one another physiologically: Fear,disgust, anger, sadness, surprise, and happiness areassociated with different patterns of brain activityand autonomic nervous system activity, as measuredby heart rate, electrical conductivity of the skin, andfinger temperature (Damasio et al., 2000; Leven-son, 1992). These distinctive patterns may explainwhy people all over the world use similar terms todescribe the primary emotions, saying they feel“hot and bothered” when they are angry or “coldand clammy” when they are afraid. Thesemetaphors capture what is going on in their bodies.

In sum, the physiology of emotion involvescharacteristic facial expressions; activity in specificparts of the brain, notably the amygdala, specializedparts of the prefrontal cortex, and mirror neurons;and sympathetic nervous system activity that pre-pares the body for action.

Biology and Deception: Can Lies Be De-tected in the Brain and Body? For cen-turies, people have tried to determine when aperson is lying by detecting physiological responsesthat cannot be controlled consciously. This is the

idea behind the polygraph machine (lie detector),which is based on the assumption that a lie gener-ates emotional arousal.A person who is guiltyand fearful of beingfound out will there-fore have increased ac-tivity in the autonomic nervous system whileresponding to incriminating questions: a fasterheart rate, increased respiration rate, and increasedelectrical conductance of the skin.

Law-enforcement officers are still enthusiasticabout the polygraph, but most psychological scien-tists regard polygraph tests as invalid because nophysiological patterns of autonomic arousal arespecific to lying (Leo, 2008; Lykken, 1998).Machines cannot tell whether you are feelingguilty, angry, nervous, amused, or revved up froman exciting day. Innocent people may be tense andnervous about the whole procedure. They mayreact to the word bank, not because they robbed abank but because they recently bounced a check; ineither case, the machine will record a lie. The re-verse mistake is also common: People who are mo-tivated to escape detection can often beat themachine by tensing muscles or thinking about anexciting experience during neutral questions.

The polygraph will correctly catch many liarsand guilty people. The main problem is that it alsofalsely identifies many innocent people as havinglied (Saxe, 1994). (See Figure 13.2.) For this reason,

Thinking Criticallyabout “Lie Detectors”

Per

cent

age

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Guiltypeople judged

innocent

Innocentpeople judged

guilty

FIGURE 13.2Misjudging the InnocentThis graph shows the average percentages across threestudies of incorrect classifications by lie detectors. Nearlyhalf of the innocent people were classified as guilty, and asignificant number of guilty people were classified as in-nocent. The suspect’s guilt or innocence had been inde-pendently confirmed by other means, such as confessionsof other suspects (Iacono & Lykken, 1997).


about half of the states inthe United States haveruled that polygraph re-sults are inadmissible incourt. But some govern-ment agencies and mostpolice departments con-tinue to use them, not fortheir accuracy but be-cause they hope to scarepeople into telling thetruth and induce suspectsto confess—by tellingthem that they failed thetest (Leo, 2008).

Because of the unreliability of the polygraph,researchers are trying to find other ways of measur-ing physiological signs of lying. The ComputerVoice Stress Analyzer is based on the assumptionthat the human voice contains telltale signals thatbetray a speaker’s emotional state and intent to de-ceive. Its promoters claim high degrees of accuracy,but research has yielded negative or inconclusivefindings (Leo, 2008). Like the polygraph, the voiceanalyzer detects physiological changes that may

indicate fear, anger, or other signs of stress ratherthan lying.

The hottest new effort at lie detection is brainimaging. Some researchers are trying to find “brainfingerprints” by using fMRIs of brain activity to seewhether they can infer whether a person possessesguilty knowledge of a crime and is lying about it.Two companies are already advertising that theycan predict with better than 90 percent certainty ifsomeone is telling the truth (Stix, 2008). Don’t buyit. Areas of the brain that light up on an MRI whenpeople are allegedly lying are also those involvedwith many other cognitive functions, includingmemory, self-awareness, and self-monitoring(Greely & Illes, 2007). And because of the normalvariability among people in their autonomic andbrain reactivity, innocent but highly reactive peopleare still likely to be mislabeled guilty by these tests(Stix, 2008).

To date, efforts to find physiological markers oflying have produced unreliable results because theyrest on a faulty assumption: that there are in-evitable, universally identifiable biological signsthat reveal with high accuracy when a person islying. We’re telling the truth!

1.the amygdala2.the left3.facial feedback: smiling and laughing communicate to her brain that she is happy4.mirror neurons5.epinephrine and norepinephrine

Quick QuizWe hope that a little surge of hormonal energy will help you answer these questions.

1. Three-year-old Olivia sees her dad dressed as a gorilla and runs away in fear. What brain structure is proba-bly involved in her emotional reaction?

2. Ana Maria is watching an old Laurel and Hardy film, which makes her chuckle and want to see more funnymovies. Which side of her prefrontal cortex is likely to be most active?

3. Ana Maria is in a surly, grumpy mood but her friends make her come with them to a hilarious Laurel andHardy film. She can’t help laughing, and soon she finds that her grumpy mood is gone. What physiologicalmechanism might be the reason?

4. Casey is watching Horrible Hatchet Homicides in the Haunted House. What cells in his brain are makinghim wince when the hero is being attacked?

5. Casey is watching Horrible Hatchet Homicides in the Haunted House II. What hormones are causing hisheart to pound and his palms to sweat when the murderer is stalking an unsuspecting victim?

Answers:

Emotion and the MindTwo friends of ours returned from a mountain-climbing trip to Nepal. One said, “I was ecstatic!The crystal-clear skies, the millions of stars, thefriendly people, the majestic mountains, the har-mony of the universe!” The other said, “I was mis-erable! The bedbugs and fleas, the lack of toilets,

the yak-butter tea, the awful food, the unforgivingmountains!” Same trip, two different emotional re-actions to it. Why?

In the first century A.D., the Stoic philosopherssuggested an answer: People do not become angry orsad or ecstatic because of actual events, but becauseof their explanations of those events. Modern

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psychologists have verified the Stoics’ ideas experi-mentally. They have found that emotions are oftencreated or influenced by beliefs, perceptions of thesituation, expectations, and attributions—the explana-tions that people make of their own and other peo-ple’s behavior (see Chapter 10) (Fairholme et al.,2009; Lindquist & Barrett, 2008). Human beings,after all, are the only species that can say, “The more Ithought about it, the madder I got.” In fact, we oftendo think ourselves into an emotional state, and some-times we can think ourselves out of it.

Psychologists have studied the role of cogni-tions in all kinds of emotions, from joy to sadness.Imagine that you get an A on your psychologymidterm; how will you feel? Or perhaps you get aD on that midterm; how will you feel then? Mostpeople assume that success brings happiness andfailure brings unhappiness, but the emotions youfeel will depend more on how you explain yourgrade than on what you actually get. Do you attrib-ute your grade to your own efforts or to theteacher, fate, or luck? In a series of experiments,students who believed they did well because oftheir own efforts tended to feel proud, competent,and satisfied. Those who believed they did wellbecause of a lucky fluke tended to feel gratitude,surprise, or guilt (“I don’t deserve this”). Thosewho believed their failures were their own faulttended to feel regretful, guilty, or resigned. Andthose who blamed others tended to feel angry(Weiner, 1986).

Here is a more surprising example of howthoughts affect emotions. Of two Olympic final-ists, one who wins a second-place silver medal andone who wins a third-place bronze medal, who willfeel happier? Won’t it be the silver medalist?Nope. In a study of athletes’ reactions to placingsecond and third in the 1992 Olympics and the1994 Empire State Games, the bronze medalistswere happier than the silver medalists (Medvec,Madey, & Gilovich, 1995). Apparently, the athleteswere comparing their performance to what mighthave been. The second-place winners, comparingthemselves to the gold medalists, were unhappythat they didn’t get the gold. But the third-placewinners, comparing themselves to those who didworse than they, were happy that they earned amedal at all!

Cognitions and physiology are inextricablylinked in the experience of emotion. Thoughts af-fect emotions, and emotional states influencethoughts (Fairholme et al., 2009). Blaming othersfor your woes can make you feel angry, but onceyou are angry you may be more inclined to thinkthe worst of other people’s motives. The

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complicated mix of emotions that people feel whenthey have “disappointing wins” (outcomes thatwere not as good as they had expected) or “reliev-ing losses” (bad outcomes that could have beenworse) shows how powerfully thoughts affect emo-tional responses.

Some emotions require only minimal, sim-ple cognitions or are primitive feelings thatoccur beneath awareness (Ruys & Stapel, 2008). A conditioned sentimental response to a patri-otic symbol or a warm, fuzzy feeling toward a fa-miliar souvenir involves simple, nonconsciousreactions (Izard, 1994a; Murphy, Monahan, &Zajonc, 1995). An infant’s primitive emotions donot have much mental sophistication: “Hey, I’mmad because no one is feeding me!” As a child’scerebral cortex matures, however, cognitions be-come more complex, as do emotions: “Hey, I’mmad because this situation is entirely unfair!”Some emotions depend completely on the matu-ration of higher cognitive capacities. Shame andguilt, for example, do not occur until a child is 2or 3 years old. These self-conscious emotions re-quire the emergence of a sense of self and theability to perceive that you have behaved badlyor let down another person (Baumeister, Still-well, & Heatherton, 1994; Tangney et al., 1996).

Most people assume that second-place winners feel happier about their performancethan third-place winners do. Yet when psychologists questioned this assumption, theyfound that the opposite is true. Certainly, Olympic fencing bronze medalist Jean-MichelHenry of France (left) looks happier than silver medalist Pavel Kolobkov of the UnifiedTeam (right). (Eric Strecki, center, won the gold for France.)

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Today, almost all theories of emotion hold thatattributions, beliefs, and the meanings people giveto events are essential to the creation of most emo-tions. But where do these attributions, beliefs, andmeanings come from? When people decide that itis shameful for a man to dance on a table with alampshade on his head, or for a woman to walkdown a street with her arms and legs uncovered,where do their ideas about shame originate? If youare a person who loudly curses others when you areangry, where did you learn that cursing is accept-able? To answer these questions, we turn to thethird major aspect of emotional experience: the roleof culture.

YOU are about to learn...• why people from different cultures disagree on what

makes them angry, jealous, or disgusted.

• why psychologists debate whether there are primaryand secondary emotions.

• how cultural rules affect the way people display orsuppress their emotions.

• why people often do “emotion work” to conveyemotions they do not feel.

• whether women are really more “emotional” than men.

Emotion and CultureA young wife leaves her house one morning to drawwater from the local well as her husband watchesfrom the porch. On her way back from the well, amale stranger stops her and asks for some water.She gives him a cupful and then invites him home

to dinner. He accepts. The husband, wife, and guesthave a pleasant meal together. In a gesture of hospi-tality, the husband invites the guest to spend thenight with his wife. The guest accepts. In themorning, the husband leaves early to bring homebreakfast. When he returns, he finds his wife againin bed with the visitor.

At what point in this story will the husband feelangry? The answer depends on his culture (Hupka,1981, 1991). A North American husband would feelrather angry at a wife who had an extramaritalaffair, and a wife would feel rather angry at beingoffered to a guest as if she were a lamb chop. But aPawnee husband of the nineteenth century wouldbe enraged at any man who dared ask his wife forwater. An Ammassalik Inuit husband finds it per-fectly honorable to offer his wife to a stranger, butonly once; he would be angry to find his wife andthe guest having a second encounter. And a centuryago, a Toda husband in India would not be angry at

1.Dara was probably expecting a lower grade and is attributing her B to her own efforts; Dinah was probably expecting a higher gradeand is attributing her B to the instructor’s unfairness, bad luck, or other external reasons.2.Possible thoughts causing jealousy are“My date finds other people more attractive,” “That person is trying to steal my date,” or “My date’s behavior is humiliating me.” Butyou could be thinking, “It’s a compliment to me that other people find my date attractive” or “It pleases me that my date is getting suchdeserved attention.”

Quick QuizHow are your thoughts affecting your feelings about this quiz?

1. Dara and Dinah get Bs on their psychology midterm, but Dara is ecstatic and proud, and Dinah is furious.What expectations and attributions are probably affecting their emotional reactions?

2. At a party, you see a stranger flirting with your date. You are flooded with jealousy. What cognitions mightbe causing this emotion? Be specific. What alternative thoughts might reduce your jealous feelings?

Answers:

Children need to be oldenough to have a sense ofself before they can feelthe moral emotions ofshame, guilt, or remorse.


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all because the Todas allowed both husband andwife to take lovers. Both spouses might feel angrythough if one of them had a sneaky affair, withoutannouncing it publicly.

In most cultures, people feel angry in responseto insult and the violation of social rules, but as thisstory shows, they often disagree about what an in-sult is or what the correct rule should be. In thissection, we will explore how culture influences theemotions we feel and the ways in which we expressthem.

How Culture Shapes EmotionsAre some emotions specific to particular culturesand not found elsewhere? What does it mean thatsome languages have words for subtle emotionalstates that other languages lack? The Germanshave schadenfreude, a feeling of joy at another’s mis-fortune. The Japanese speak of hagaii, helpless an-guish tinged with frustration. And Tahitians havemehameha, a trembling sensation that Tahitians feelwhen ordinary categories of perception are sus-pended—at twilight, in the brush, watching firesglow without heat (Levy, 1984). Do these interest-ing linguistic differences mean that Germans aremore likely than others to actually feel schadenfreude,the Japanese to feel hagaii, and the Tahitians to feelmehameha? Or are they just more willing to givethese subtle emotions a single name?

Many psychologists would say that all humanbeings are capable of feeling the primary, hardwiredemotions, the ones that have distinctive physiologi-cal hallmarks in the brain, face, and nervous system.But individuals might indeed differ in their abilitiesto experience secondary emotions, including varia-tions such as schadenfreude, hagaii, or mehameha.

The difference between primary emotions andmore complex cultural variations is reflected in lan-guage all over the world. In Chapter 7, we notedthat a prototype is a typical representative of a classof things. People everywhere consider the primaryemotions to be prototypical examples of the con-cept emotion: Most people will say that anger andsadness are more representative of an emotion thanirritability and nostalgia are. Prototypical emotionsare reflected in the emotion words that young chil-dren learn first: happy, sad, mad, and scared. As chil-dren develop, they begin to draw emotionaldistinctions that are less prototypical and more spe-cific to their language and culture, such as ecstatic,depressed, hostile, or anxious (Hupka, Lenton, &Hutchison, 1999; Shaver, Wu, & Schwartz, 1992).In this way, they come to experience the nuances ofemotional feeling that their cultures emphasize.

Other psychologists, however, don’t thinkmuch of the primary–secondary distinction be-cause, for them, there is no aspect of any emotionthat is not influenced by culture or context or thateven clearly separates one emotion from another(Barrett, 2006; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2003). Angermay be universal, but the way it is experienced willvary from culture toculture—whether itfeels good or bad, use-ful or destructive. Cul-ture even affects whichemotions are defined as basic or primary. Anger isregarded as a primary emotion by Western psy-chologists, but in Asian cultures shame and loss offace are more central emotions (Kitayama &Markus, 1994). And on the Micronesian atoll ofIfaluk, everyone would say that fago is the most fun-damental emotion. Fago, translated as “compas-sion/love/sadness,” reflects the sad feeling one haswhen a loved one is absent or in need, and thepleasurable sense of compassion in being able tocare and help (Lutz, 1988).

Everyone agrees, however, that cultures deter-mine much of what people feel emotional about. Forexample, disgust is universal, but the content of whatproduces disgust changes as an infant matures, and itvaries across cultures (Rozin, Lowery, & Ebert,1994). People in some cultures learn to become dis-gusted by bugs (which other people find beautiful ortasty), unfamiliar sexual practices, dirt, death, “con-tamination” by a handshake with a stranger, or par-ticular foods (e.g., meat, if they are vegetarian; pork,if they are Muslims or Orthodox Jews).

Communicating EmotionsSuppose that someone who was dear to you died.Would you cry, and if so, would you do it alone orin public? Your answer will depend in part on your

Anger is considered aprimary emotion inWestern societies. But insome cultures, such asthe Inuit, anger is nottolerated because itthreatens the community’sneed for closeness. Inuitmothers like this one oftencalmly ignore an angrybaby, conveying themessage that complainingis not welcome. Whatemotions might beprimary to the Inuit?

Thinking Criticallyabout “Basic”Emotions


culture’s display rules for emotion (Ekman et al.,1987; Gross, 1998). In some cultures, grief isexpressed by weeping; in others, by tearless resig-nation; and in still others by dance, drink, and song.Once you feel an emotion, how you express it israrely a matter of “I say what I feel.” You may beobliged to disguise what you feel. You may wish youcould feel what you say.

Even the smile, which seems a straightforwardsignal of friendliness, has many meanings and usesthat are not universal. Americans smile more fre-quently than Germans, not because Americans areinherently friendlier but because they differ in theirnotions of when a smile is appropriate. After aGerman–American business meeting, the Americansoften complain that the Germans were cold andaloof, and the Germans often complain that theAmericans were excessively cheerful, hiding theirreal feelings under the mask of a smile (Hall &Hall, 1990). The Japanese smile even more thanAmericans do, to disguise embarrassment, anger, orother negative emotions whose public display is con-sidered rude and incorrect.

Display rules also govern body language, non-verbal signals of body movement, posture, gesture,and gaze (Birdwhistell, 1970). Many aspects ofbody language are specific to particular languagesand cultures, which makes even the simplest ges-ture subject to misunderstanding and offense. The

sign of the University of Texas football team, theLonghorns, is to extend the index finger and thepinkie. In Italy and other parts of Europe, it meansyou’re saying a man’s wife has been unfaithful tohim—a serious insult.

Display rules tell us not only what to do whenwe are feeling an emotion, but also how and whento show an emotion we do not feel. Most people areexpected to demonstrate sadness at funerals, happi-ness at weddings, and affection toward relatives.What if we don’t actually feel sad, happy, or affec-tionate? Acting out an emotion we do not reallyfeel because we believe it is socially appropriate iscalled emotion work. It is part of our efforts to regu-late our emotions when we are with others (Gross,1998). Sometimes emotion work is a job require-ment. Flight attendants, waiters, and customer-service representatives must put on a happy face toconvey cheerfulness, even if they are privatelyangry about a rude or drunken customer. Bill col-lectors must put on a stern face to convey threat,even if they feel sorry for the person they are col-lecting money from (Hochschild, 2003).

Gender and Emotion“Women are too emotional,” men often complain.“Men are too uptight,” women often reply. This is afamiliar gender stereo-type. But what does“too emotional” mean?We need to define ourterms and examine ourassumptions. And we need to consider the largerculture in which men and women live, whichshapes the rules and norms that govern how thesexes are supposed to behave.

Although women are more likely than men tosuffer from clinical depression (see Chapter 11),there is little evidence that one sex feels any of theeveryday emotions more often than the other,whether the emotion is anger, worry, embarrass-ment, anxiety, jealousy, love, or grief (Archer, 2004;Deffenbacher et al., 2003; Fischer et al., 1993; Har-ris, 2003; Kring & Gordon, 1998; Shields, 2005).The major difference between the sexes has less todo with whether they feel emotions than with howand when their emotions are expressed, and howthey are perceived by others.

Consider anger. In Western cultures, bothsexes unconsciously associate “angry” with maleand “happy” with female. When researchersshowed students a series of computer-generated,fairly sex-neutral faces with a range of expressionsmorphing from angry to happy, the students

display rules Social andcultural rules that regulatewhen, how, and where aperson may express (orsuppress) emotions.

Around the world, the cultural rules for expressing emotions differ. The display rule for aformal Japanese wedding portrait is “no direct expressions of emotion,” but not everymember of this family has learned that rule yet.

emotion workExpression of an emotion,often because of a rolerequirement, that a persondoes not really feel.

Thinking Criticallyabout Gender Stereo-types and Emotion


consistently rated the angry faces as being mascu-line and the happy faces as feminine (Becker et al.,2007). This stereotyped link between gender andemotion may explain why a man who expressesanger in a professional context is considered “highstatus,” but a professional woman who does exactlythe same thing loses status. She is considered to bean angry person, someone “out of control”(Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2008). Powerful women thusoften face a dilemma: express anger when a subor-dinate or adversary has done something illegal orincompetent (and risk being thought “overemo-tional”) or behave calmly (and risk being seen as“cold and unemotional”).

Conversely, women who don’t smile when oth-ers expect them to are often disliked, even if theyare actually smiling as often as men would. Thismay be why North American women, on average,smile more than men do, gaze at their listenersmore, have more emotionally expressive faces, usemore expressive hand and body movements, andtouch others more (DePaulo, 1992; Kring & Gor-don, 1998). Women smile more than men to pacifyothers, convey deference to someone of higher sta-tus, or smooth over conflicts (Hess, Adams, &Kleck, 2005; Shields, 2005).

Women also talk about their emotions morethan men do. They are far more likely to cry and toacknowledge emotions that reveal vulnerability andweakness, such as “hurt feelings,” fear, sadness,loneliness, shame, and guilt (Grossman & Wood,1993; Timmers, Fischer, & Manstead, 1998). Incontrast, most North American men express onlyone emotion more freely than women: anger to-ward strangers, especially other men. Otherwise,men are expected to control and mask negative

feelings. When they are worried or afraid, they aremore likely than women to use vague terms, sayingthat they feel moody, frustrated, or on edge (Fehr et al., 1999).

However, the influence of a particular situationoften overrides gender rules (LaFrance, Hecht, &Paluck, 2003). You won’t find many gender differ-ences in emotional expressiveness at a footballgame or the World Series! Another important situ-ational constraint on emotional expression is thestatus of the participants (Snodgrass, 1992). A manis as likely as a woman to control his temper whenthe target of anger is someone with higher status orpower; few people will readily sound off at a profes-sor, police officer, or employer. And the sexes dosimilar emotion work when the situation or job re-quires it. A male flight attendant has to smile withpassengers as much as a female attendant does, anda female FBI agent has to be as emotionally strongand controlled as a male agent does.

Even where gender differences exist, they arenot universal. Italian, French, Spanish, and MiddleEastern men and women can have entire conversa-tions using highly expressive hand gestures and fa-cial expressions. In contrast, in Asian cultures, bothsexes are taught to control emotional expression(Matsumoto, 1996; Mesquita & Frijda, 1992). Israeliand Italian men are more likely than women tomask feelings of sadness, but British, Spanish,Swiss, and German men are less likely than theirfemale counterparts to inhibit this emotion(Wallbott, Ricci-Bitti, & Bänninger-Huber, 1986).

In sum, the answer to “Which sex is more emo-tional?” is: sometimes men, sometimes women, andsometimes neither, depending on the circum-stances and their culture.

Both sexes feel emotionally attached to friends, but often they express their affections differently. From childhood on,girls tend to prefer “face-to-face” friendships based on shared feelings; boys tend to prefer “side-by-side” friendshipsbased on shared activities.


YOU are about to learn...• how your body responds to physical, emotional, and

environmental stressors.

• why being “stressed out” increases the risk of illness insome people but not others.

• how psychological factors affect the immune system.

• when having a sense of control over events is beneficialand when it is not.

The Nature of StressThe emotion “tree,” as we have seen, can takemany shapes, depending on physiology, cognitiveprocesses, and cultural rules. These same threefactors can help us understand those difficult situa-tions in which negative emotions become chronicallystressful, and in which chronic stress can createnegative emotions.

When people say they are under stress, theymean all sorts of things: having recurring conflictswith a parent, feeling frustrated about their lives,fighting with a partner, feeling overwhelmed withcaring for a sick child or keeping up with work ob-ligations, or having just lost a job. Are these stres-sors linked to illness—to migraines, stomachaches,flu, or more life-threatening diseases such as can-cer? And do they affect everyone in the same way?

Stress and the BodyThe modern era of stress research began in 1956,when physician Hans Selye published The Stress of

Life. Environmental stressors such as heat, cold,toxins, and danger, Selye wrote, disrupt the body’sequilibrium. The body then mobilizes its resourcesto fight off these stressors and restore normal func-tioning. Selye described the body’s response tostressors of all kinds as a general adaptationsyndrome, a set of physiological reactions that occurin three phases:

1The alarm phase, in which the body mobilizesthe sympathetic nervous system to meet the

immediate threat. The threat could be anythingfrom taking a test you haven’t studied for to runningfrom a rabid dog. As we saw earlier, the release of ad-renal hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine,occurs with any intense emotion. It boosts energy,tenses muscles, reduces sensitivity to pain, shutsdown digestion (so that blood will flow more effi-ciently to the brain, muscles, and skin), and increasesblood pressure. Decades before Selye, psychologistWalter Cannon (1929) described these changes asthe “fight or flight” response, a phrase still in use.

2The resistance phase, in which your bodyattempts to resist or cope with a stressor that can-

not be avoided. During this phase, the physiological

1.primary, secondary2.emotion work3.display rules4.false

Quick QuizPlease do not display anger if you miss a question.

1. In Western theories of emotion, anger would be called a emotion, whereas fago would becalled a emotion.

2. Maureen is working in a fast-food restaurant and is becoming irritated with a customer who isn’t orderingfast enough. She is supposed to be pleasant to all customers, but instead she snaps, “Hey, whaddaya wantto order, slowpoke?” To keep her job and her temper, Maureen needs practice in .

3. In a class discussion, a student says something that embarrasses a student from another culture. Thesecond student smiles to disguise his discomfort; the first student, thinking he is not being taken seriously,gets angry. This misunderstanding reflects the students’ different for the expression ofembarrassment and anger.

4. True or false: Throughout the world, women are more emotionally expressive than men.

Answers:

general adaptationsyndrome According toHans Selye, a series ofphysiological reactions tostress occurring in threephases: alarm, resistance,and exhaustion.

Stress hormoneselevated

Digestionslows

Musclestense

Heart ratespeeds up

Blood flowincreases


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the inner part (medulla) of the adrenal glands. Inaddition, the hypothalamus initiates activity alongthe HPA axis (HPA stands for hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal cortex): The hypothalamus re-leases chemical messengers that communicate withthe pituitary gland, which in turn sends messages tothe outer part (cortex) of the adrenal glands. Theadrenal cortex secretes cortisol and other hormonesthat elevate blood sugar and protect the body’s tis-sues from inflammation in case of injury.

One result of HPA axis activation is increasedenergy, which is crucial for short-term responses to stress (Kemeny, 2003). But if cortisol and otherstress hormones stay high too long, they can lead tohypertension, immune disorders, other physical ail-ments, and possibly emotional problems. Elevated

Most people think stress is something “out there” thatjust happens to them. However, there is another way oflooking at stress: as something in you, something thatdepends on your thoughts and emotions. Do you see yourwork as an endless set of assignments you will never com-plete or as challenging tasks to master? The answer willaffect how stressed you are.

responses of the alarm phase continue, but thesevery responses make the body more vulnerable toother stressors. That is why, when your body hasmobilized to deal with a heat wave or pain from abroken leg, you may find you are more easilyannoyed by minor frustrations. In most cases, thebody will eventually adapt to the stressor and returnto normal.

3The exhaustion phase, in which persistentstress depletes the body of energy, thereby in-

creasing vulnerability to physical problems and ill-ness. The same reactions that allow the body torespond effectively in the alarm and resistancephases are unhealthy as long-range responses.Tense muscles can cause headache and neck pain.Increased blood pressure can become chronichypertension. If normal digestive processes are in-terrupted or shut down for too long, digestive dis-orders may result.

Selye did not believe that people should aimfor a stress-free life. Some stress, he said, is positiveand productive, even if it also requires the body toproduce short-term energy: competing in an ath-letic event, falling in love, working hard on a proj-ect you enjoy. And some negative stress is simplyunavoidable; it’s called life!

Current Approaches One of Selye’s most im-portant observations was that the very biologicalchanges that are adaptive in the short run, becausethey permit the body to respond quickly to danger,can become hazardous in the long run (McEwen,1998, 2007). Modern researchers are learning ex-actly how this happens.

When you are under stress, your brain’s hypo-thalamus sends messages to the endocrine glandsalong two major pathways. One, as Selye observed,activates the sympathetic division of the autonomicnervous system for “fight or flight,” producing therelease of epinephrine and norepinephrine from

Alas, the same stress hormones that help in the short run can have unwanted long-term consequences.

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levels of cortisol also motivate animals (and pre-sumably humans, too) to seek out rich comfortfoods and store the extra calories as abdominal fat.

An understanding of the cumulative effects ofexternal sources of stress may partly explain whypeople at the lower rungs of the socioeconomic lad-der have worse health and higher mortality ratesfor almost every disease and medical condition thando those at the top (Adler & Snibbe, 2003). In addi-tion to their lack of access to good medical care andfrequent reliance on diets that lead to obesity anddiabetes, low-income people often live with contin-uous environmental stressors—higher crime rates,discrimination, fewer community services, run-down housing, and greater exposure to hazardssuch as chemical contamination (Gallo &Matthews, 2003). These conditions affect urbanblacks disproportionately and may help account fortheir higher incidence of hypertension (high bloodpressure), which can lead to kidney disease, strokes,and heart attacks (Clark et al., 1999).

Children are particularly vulnerable to thestressors associated with poverty: The more yearsthey are exposed to family disruption, chaos, andinstability, the higher their cortisol levels and thegreater the snowballing negative effect on theirphysical health, mental health, and cognitive abili-ties (such as memory) in adolescence and adulthood(Chen, Cohen, & Miller, 2010; Evans & Kim,2007; Evans & Schamberg, 2009).

Because work is central in most people’s lives,the effects of persistent unemployment canthreaten health for people at all income levels, even

increasing their vulnerability to the common cold.In one study, heroic volunteers were given eitherordinary nose drops or nose drops containing acold virus, and then were quarantined for five days.The people most likely to get a cold’s miserablesymptoms were those who had been underem-ployed or unemployed for at least a month. As youcan see in Figure 13.3, the longer the work prob-lems lasted, the greater the likelihood of illness(Cohen et al., 1998).

Nonetheless, the physiological changes causedby stress do not occur to the same extent in every-one. People’s responses to stress vary according totheir learning history, gender, preexisting medicalconditions, and genetic predisposition for highblood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, orother health problems (Belsky & Pluess, 2009b;McEwen, 2000, 2007; Røysamb et al., 2003). Thisis why some people respond to the same stressorwith much greater increases in blood pressure,heart rate, and hormone levels than other individu-als do, and their physical changes take longer to re-turn to normal. These hyperresponsive individualsmay be the ones most at risk for eventual illness.

The Immune System: PNI Researchers inthe growing field of health psychology (and its med-ical relative, behavioral medicine) investigate allaspects of how mind and body affect each other to preserve wellness or cause illness. Some haveformed an interdisciplinary specialty with the cum-bersome name psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI forshort. The “psycho” part stands for psychological

Less than 1 month

Chronic stress by duration

Routine stress

Chronic stress by type(at least a month)

Relative risk of a cold

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

Interpersonal

1 to 6 months

6 months to 2 years

More than 2 years

Work (unemploymentor underemployment)

FIGURE 13.3Stress and the Common ColdChronic stress lasting a month or more boosts the risk of catching a cold. The risk is increased among people under-going problems with their friends or loved ones; it is highest among people who are out of work (Based on data fromCohen et al., 1998).

psychoneuroimmunol-ogy (PNI) The study ofthe relationships amongpsychology, the nervousand endocrine systems,and the immune system.


processes such as emotions and perceptions;“neuro” for the nervous and endocrine systems; and“immunology” for the immune system, which en-ables the body to fight disease and infection.

PNI researchers are especially interested in thewhite blood cells of the immune system, which aredesigned to recognize foreign or harmful sub-stances (antigens), such as flu viruses and bacteria,and then destroy or deactivate them. The immunesystem deploys different kinds of white blood cellsas weapons, depending on the nature of the enemy.Natural killer cells are important in tumor detec-tion and rejection, and are involved in protectionagainst the spread of cancer cells and viruses.Helper T cells enhance and regulate the immuneresponse; they are the primary target of the HIVvirus that causes AIDS. Chemicals produced by theimmune cells are sent to the brain, and the brain inturn sends chemical signals to stimulate or restrainthe immune system. Anything that disrupts thiscommunication loop, whether drugs, surgery, orchronic stress, can weaken or suppress the immunesystem (Segerstrom & Miller, 2004).

Some PNI researchers have gotten right downto the level of cell damage to see how stress can leadto illness, aging, and even premature death. At theend of every chromosome is a protein complexcalled a telomere that, in essence, tells the cell howlong it has to live. Every time a cell divides, en-

zymes whittle away a tiny piece of the telomere;when it is reduced to almost nothing, the cell stopsdividing and dies. Chronic stress, especially if it be-gins in childhood, appears to shorten the telomeres(Epel, 2009). One team of researchers comparedtwo groups of healthy women between the ages of20 and 50: 19 who had healthy children and 39 whowere primary caregivers of a child chronically illwith a serious disease, such as cerebral palsy. Ofcourse, the mothers of the sick children felt thatthey were under stress, but they also had signifi-cantly greater cell damage than did the mothers ofhealthy children. In fact, the cells of the highlystressed women looked like those of women at leastten years older, and their telomeres were muchshorter (Epel et al., 2004).

Stress and the MindBefore you try to persuade your instructors that thestress of constant studying is bad for your health,consider this mystery: The large majority of indi-viduals who are living with stressors, even seriousones such as loss of a job or the death of a lovedone, do not get sick (Bonanno, 2004; Taylor,Repetti, & Seeman, 1997). What protects them?

Optimism and Pessimism When somethingbad happens to you, what is your first reaction? Doyou tell yourself that you will somehow comethrough it okay, or do you gloomily mutter, “Moreproof that if something can go wrong for me, itwill”? In a fundamental way, optimism—the gen-eral expectation that things will go well in spite ofoccasional setbacks—makes life possible. If peopleare in a jam but believe things will get better

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eventually, they will keep striving to make that pre-diction come true. Even despondent fans of theChicago Cubs, who have not won the World Seriesin living memory, maintain a lunatic optimism that“there’s always next year.”

In general, optimism is better for your healthand well-being than pessimism is (Carver & Scheier,2002; Geers, Wellman, & Lassiter, 2009). This doesnot mean that an optimistic outlook will always pro-long the life of a person who already has a seriousillness: A team of Australian researchers who fol-lowed 179 patients with lung cancer over a period ofeight years found that optimism made no differencein who lived or in how long they lived (Schofield et al., 2004). But optimism does seem to producegood health and even improved immune function inpeople without life-threatening illnesses, whereasthe “catastrophizing” style of pessimists is associatedwith untimely death (Maruta et al., 2000; Petersonet al., 1998; Segerstrom & Sephton, 2010).

One reason is that optimists simply take bettercare of themselves. They do not deny their prob-lems or avoid facing bad news; rather, they regardthe problems and bad news as difficulties they canovercome. They are more likely than pessimists tobe active problem solvers, get support from friends,and seek information that can help them (Brissette,Scheier, & Carver, 2002; Chang, 1998; Geers,Wellman, & Lassiter, 2009). They keep their sensesof humor, plan for the future, and reinterpret thesituation in a positive light. Pessimists, in contrast,often do self-destructive things: They drink toomuch, smoke, fail to wear seat belts, drive too fast,and refuse to take medication for illness (Petersonet al., 1998).

Pessimists naturally accuse optimists of beingunrealistic, and often that is true. Yet health andwell-being often depend on having some “positiveillusions” about yourself, your abilities, and yourcircumstances (Taylor et al., 2000a). Can pessimistsbe cured of their gloomy outlook? Optimists thinkso! One way is by teaching pessimists to follow theoldest advice in the world: to count their blessingsinstead of their burdens. Even among people withserious illnesses, such as a neuromuscular disease, afocus on the positive aspects of life increases well-being and reduces the number of physical symp-toms they report (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

A Sense of Control Optimism is related to an-other important cognitive ingredient in health,locus of control, which refers to your general expec-tation about whether you can control the thingsthat happen to you (Rotter, 1990). People who havean internal locus of control (“internals”) tend to be-lieve that they are responsible for what happens tothem. Those who have an external locus of control(“externals”) tend to believe that their lives are con-trolled by luck, fate, or other people. Having an in-ternal locus of control is associated with goodhealth, academic achievement, political activism,and emotional well-being (Lang & Heckhausen,2001; Strickland, 1989).

Most people can tolerate all kinds of stressors if they feel able to predict or control them. Takecrowding. Mice get really nasty when they’recrowded, but many people love crowds, voluntarilygetting squashed in New York’s Times Square onNew Year’s Eve or at a rock concert. Human beingsshow signs of stress not when they are actually

Who has more stress: corporate managers in highly competitive jobs or assembly-line workers in routine and predictablejobs? People who are bossed suffer more from job stress than their bosses do, especially if the employees cannot controlmany aspects of their work (Karasek & Theorell, 1990).

locus of control Ageneral expectation aboutwhether the results of youractions are under yourown control (internallocus) or beyond yourcontrol (external locus).


crowded but when they feel crowded (Evans, Lep-ore, & Allen, 2000). Cortisol is also elevated whenpeople feel that they are being judged negatively byothers or have no control over the task at hand(Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004; Miller, Chen, &Zhou, 2007). People who have the greatest controlover their work pace and activities, such as execu-tives and managers, have fewer illnesses and stresssymptoms than do employees who have little con-trol, who feel trapped doing repetitive tasks, andwho have a low chance of promotion (Karasek &Theorell, 1990). The greatest threat to health andwell-being occurs when people feel caught in a sit-uation they cannot escape, one that goes on with-out a foreseeable end.

Feeling in control affects the immune system,which may be why it helps to speed up recoveryfrom surgery and some diseases (E. Skinner, 1996).People who have an internal locus of control arebetter able than externals to resist infection by coldviruses and even the health-impairing effects ofpoverty and discrimination (Cohen, Tyrrell, &Smith, 1993; Krieger & Sidney, 1996; Lachman &Weaver, 1998). As with optimism, feeling incontrol also makes people more likely to take ac-tion to improve their health when necessary. In agroup of patients recovering from heart attacks,those who believed the heart attack occurred be-cause they smoked, didn’t exercise, or had a stress-ful job were more likely to change their bad habitsand recover quickly. In contrast, those whothought their illness was due to bad luck or fate—factors outside their control—were less likely togenerate plans for recovery and more likely toresume their old unhealthy habits (Affleck et al.,1987; Ewart, 1995).

Overall, a sense of control is a good thing, butcritical thinkers might want to ask: Control overwhat? It is surely not beneficial for people tobelieve they can control absolutely every aspect of

their lives; some things,such as death, taxes, orbeing a random victimof a crime, are out ofanyone’s control. Health

and well-being are not enhanced by self-blame(“Whatever goes wrong with my health is myfault”) or the belief that all disease can be preventedby doing the right thing (“If I take vitamins andhold the right positive attitude, I’ll never get sick”).

Culture and Control Eastern and Western cul-tures tend to hold different attitudes toward theability and desirability of controlling one’s own life. In general, Western cultures celebrate primary

control, in which people try to influence events bytrying to exert direct control over them: If you are in a bad situation, you change it, fix it, or fightit. The Eastern approach emphasizes secondarycontrol, in which people try to accommodate to abad situation by changing their own aspirations ordesires: If you have a problem, you live with it oract in spite of it (Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder,1982).

A Japanese psychologist once offered some ex-amples of Japanese proverbs that teach the benefitsof yielding to the inevitable (Azuma, 1984): To lose isto win (giving in, to protect the harmony of a rela-tionship, demonstrates the superior trait of gen-erosity); willow trees do not get broken by piled-up snow(no matter how many problems pile up in your life,flexibility will help you survive them); and the truetolerance is to tolerate the intolerable (some “intolera-ble” situations are facts of life that no amount ofprotest will change). You can imagine how long “Tolose is to win” would survive on an American foot-ball field, or how long most Americans would beprepared to tolerate the intolerable! Yet an impor-tant part of coping, for any of us, is learning toaccept limited resources, irrevocable losses, andcircumstances over which we have little or no directinfluence—all aspects of secondary control (E.Skinner, 2007).

People who are ill or under stress can reap thebenefits of both Western and Eastern forms ofcontrol by avoiding either–or thinking: taking responsibility for future actions while not blamingthemselves unduly for past ones. Among collegefreshmen who are doing poorly in their classes, fu-ture success depends on maintaining enough pri-mary control to keep working hard and learning tostudy better, and on the ability to come to termswith the fact that success is not going to drop intotheir laps without effort (Hall et al., 2006). Amongwomen who are recovering from sexual assault orcoping with cancer, adjustment is related to awoman’s belief that she is not to blame for beingraped or for getting sick but that she is in charge oftaking care of herself from now on (Frazier, 2003;Taylor, Lichtman, & Wood, 1984). “I felt that I hadlost control of my body somehow,” said one cancersurvivor, “and the way for me to get back some con-trol was to find out as much as I could.” This way ofthinking allows people to avoid guilt and self-blamewhile retaining a belief that they can take steps toget better.

Many problems require us to decide what wecan change and to accept what we cannot; perhapsthe secret of healthy control lies in knowing the dif-ference.

Thinking Criticallyabout Control andHealth

secondary control Aneffort to accept reality bychanging your own atti-tudes, goals, or emotions;a “learn to live with it”philosophy.

primary control Aneffort to modify reality bychanging other people,the situation, or events;a “fighting back”philosophy.


YOU are about to learn...• which emotion may be most hazardous to your heart.

• whether chronic depression leads to physical illness.

• why confession is often as healthy for the body as it isfor the soul.

Stress and EmotionPerhaps you have heard people say things such as“She was so depressed, it’s no wonder she got sick”or “He’s always so angry, he’s going to give himselfa heart attack one day.” Are negative emotions, es-pecially anger and depression, hazardous to yourhealth?

First, we can eliminate the popular belief thatthere is a “cancer-prone” personality. (This notionwas initially promoted by the tobacco industry todraw attention away from smoking as a leadingcause of cancer.) Research has thoroughly discred-ited this belief; studies of thousands of peoplearound the world, from Japan to Finland, havefound no link between personality traits and risk ofcancer (Nakaya et al., 2003).

Second, we need to separate the effects of neg-ative emotions on healthy people from the effectsof such emotions on people who are ill. Once a per-son is already sick, negative emotions such asanxiety and helplessness can affect the speed ofrecovery (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1998). People whobecome depressed after a heart attack are signifi-cantly more likely to die from cardiac causes in thesucceeding year, even controlling for severity of thedisease and other risk factors (Frasure-Smith et al.,1999). But can anger and depression be causes ofillness on their own?

Hostility and Depression:Do They Hurt?One of the first modern efforts to link emotionsand illness occurred in the 1970s, with research onthe “Type A” personality, a set of qualities thoughtto be associated with heart disease: ambitiousness,impatience, anger, working hard, and having highstandards for oneself. Later work ruled out all ofthese factors except one: The toxic ingredient inthe Type A personality turned out to be hostility(Myrtek, 2007).

1.alarm2.a, because Maria has less control than her boss does over every aspect of her work3.internal; external4.secondary;primary5.First, you would want to define your terms: What does “control” mean, and what kind of control is the supposed expertreferring to? People can control some things, such as how much they exercise and whether they smoke, and they can control some as-pects of treatment once they become ill, but they cannot control everything that happens to them. Second, you would examine the as-sumption that control is always a good thing; the belief that we have total control over our lives could lead to depression andunwarranted self-blame when illness strikes.

We hope these questions are not sources of stress for you.

1. Steve is unexpectedly called on in class to discuss a question. He hasn’t the faintest idea of the answer,and he feels his heart pound and his palms sweat. According to Selye, Steve is in the phaseof his stress response.

2. Maria has worked as a file clerk for 17 years in a job that is closely supervised and boring. Her boss mustmake many rapid-fire decisions every day and is always complaining of the pressures of responsibility.Which of them probably has the more stressful job? (a) Maria, (b) the boss, (c) both equally, (d) neither jobis stressful (Bonus: Why?)

3. Anika usually takes credit for doing well on her work assignments and blames her failures on lack of effort.Benecia attributes her successes to luck and blames her failures on the fact that she is an indecisiveGemini. Anika has an locus of control whereas Benecia has an locus.

4. Adapting to the reality that you have a chronic medical condition is an example of (primary/secondary) con-trol; joining a protest to make a local company clean up its hazardous wastes is an example of (primary/secondary) control.

5. On television, a self-described health expert explains that “no one gets sick if they don’t want to be sick,”because we can all control our bodies. As a critical thinker, how should you assess this claim?

Answers:

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By “hostility” we do not mean the irritability oranger that everyone feels on occasion, but cynicalor antagonistic hostility, which characterizes peoplewho are mistrustful of others and always ready toprovoke mean, furious arguments. In a classic studyof male physicians who had been interviewed asmedical students 25 years earlier, those who werechronically angry and resentful were five times aslikely as nonhostile men to get heart disease, evenwhen other risk factors such as smoking and a poordiet were taken into account (Ewart & Kolodner,1994; Williams, Barefoot, & Shekelle, 1985) (seeFigure 13.4). These findings have been replicatedin other large-scale studies, with African Americans

and whites, and with women as well as men (Krantzet al., 2006; Williams et al., 2000). Proneness toanger is a significant risk factor all on its own forimpairments of the immune system, elevated bloodpressure, heart disease, and even a slower healing ofwounds (Chida & Hamer, 2008; Gouin et al., 2008;Suinn, 2001).

Clinical depression, too, is linked to at least adoubled risk of later heart attack and cardiovasculardisease (Frasure-Smith & Lespérance, 2005; Schulzet al., 2000). But what accounts for that link? Oneprospective study of more than 1,000 men foundthat the answer was exercise: The depressed menwho had further episodes were less physically activethan men who exercised regularly (Whooley et al.,2008). But another large prospective study foundno differences in physical activity between de-pressed and nondepressed older adults. Instead,they found that depressed people were more likelyto accumulate fat in the belly and midriff (perhapsbecause of the elevated cortisol that often occurswith depression), where it is more likely to increasethe risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease(Vogelzangs et al., 2008). Either way, you can seethat the reason depression might lead to heart diseaseover time is not depression itself, but more likelythe lethargy and overeating that depression canproduce in some of its sufferers.

For some time, researchers thought that de-pression might also lead to cancer, but now it looksas though cancer can cause depression, and not justbecause the diagnosis is “depressing.” Canceroustumors, as well as the immune system that is fight-ing them, produce high levels of a chemical that cancause the emotional and behavioral symptoms ofdepression. A study of rats, which after all are notaware of having cancer, found that the animalswould float passively in water instead of swimmingfor safety, and show other signs of anxiety and apa-thy (Pyter et al., 2009).

Positive Emotions: Do They Help?Just as negative emotions can be unhealthful, posi-tive emotions seem to be healthful (Fredricksonet al., 2003). Consider the findings from a study of180 Catholic nuns. Researchers examined autobi-ographies composed by the nuns when the womenwere about 22 years old, to see whether the qualityof their writing predicted the onset of Alzheimer’sdisease later in life. (It did.) When other re-searchers scored the writings for their emotionalcontent, they found a strong association betweenthe frequency of positive emotions described—such

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FIGURE 13.4Hostility and Heart DiseaseAnger is more hazardous to health than a heavy work-load. Men who had the highest hostility scores as youngmedical students were the most likely to have coronaryheart disease 25 years later (Williams, Barefoot, &Shekelle, 1985).


as happiness, love, hope, gratitude, contentment,amusement—and longevity six decades later (Dan-ner, Snowdon, & Friesen, 2001). The nuns whoselife stories contained the most words describingpositive emotions lived, on average, nine yearslonger than nuns who reported the fewest positivefeelings. These differences in longevity could nothave been due to the stress of poverty, raising chil-dren, or particular experiences. The women all hadthe same experiences and standard of living, at leastafter they entered the convent.

Psychologists are trying to find out just what itis about feeling happy, cheerful, and hopeful thatcould protect a person from getting sick. Of course,perhaps the cheerfulness of the long-lived nunssimply reflected an easygoing temperament orother genetic influences that promote long life. Butpositive emotions could also be physically benefi-cial because they soften or counteract the higharousal caused by negative emotions or chronicstressors. They may dispose people to think morecreatively about their opportunities and choicesand to take action to achieve their goals (Kok,Catalino, & Frederickson, 2008). People who ex-press positive feelings are also more likely to attractfriends and supporters than are people who are al-ways bitter and brooding, and, as we will see, socialsupport contributes to good health (Pressman &Cohen, 2005).

If you don’t feel bouncy and happy all the time,don’t worry; everyone feels grumpy, irritable, andunhappy on occasion. But according to one study inwhich college students kept a daily diary of theirpositive and negative emotions for 28 days, the stu-dents who had the greatest emotional well-being

had a ratio of positive to negative emotions of atleast 3 to 1 (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). Youmight want to keep track of your own positive-to-negative emotion ratio for the next month to seewhere yours falls, and whether it seems related toany colds, flu, or other physical symptoms youmight be having. Are positive emotions more typi-cal of your emotional life than negative ones, or is itthe other way around?

Emotional Inhibitionand ExpressionWell, then, if positive emotions are beneficial andnegative emotions are risky, you might assume thatthe safest thing to do when you feel angry, de-pressed, or worried is to try to suppress those feel-ings. But anyone who has tried to banish anunwelcome thought, a bitter memory, or pangs oflonging for an ex-lover knows how hard it can be todo this. When you are trying to avoid a thought,you are in fact processing the thought more fre-quently; you are rehearsing it. That is why, whenyou are obsessed with someone you were once ro-mantically involved with, trying not to think of theperson actually prolongs your emotional respon-siveness to him or her (Wegner & Gold, 1995).

The continued inhibition of thoughts andemotions actually requires physical effort that canbe stressful to the body. People who are able to ex-press matters of great emotional importance tothem show elevated levels of disease-fighting whiteblood cells, whereas people who suppress such feel-ings tend to have decreased levels (Petrie, Booth, &Pennebaker, 1998). There is also a social cost tosuppressing important feelings. In a longitudinalstudy that followed first-year college students asthey adjusted to being in a new environment, thosewho expressed their worries and fears openly withother students ended up with better relationshipsand greater satisfaction, compared to those thosewho said they preferred to keep their emotions tothemselves (Srivastava et al., 2009).

The Benefits of Confession Given the find-ings on the harmful effects of feeling negative emo-tions and also the difficulty and costs of suppressingthem, what is a person supposed to do with them?One way to reduce the wear and tear of negativeemotions comes from research on the benefits ofconfession: divulging (even if only to yourself) pri-vate thoughts and feelings that make you ashamed,worried, or sad (Pennebaker, 2002). Freshmen whowrote about their “deepest thoughts and feelings”in a private journal reported greater short-term

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Hostility is hazardous, but humor is healthful!

Everyone has secrets andprivate moments of sadreflection, but when youfeel sad or fearful for toolong, keeping your feel-ings to yourself mayincrease your stress.

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homesickness and anxiety, compared to studentswho wrote about trivial topics. But by the end ofthe school year, they had had fewer bouts of flu andfewer visits to the infirmary than the control groupdid (Pennebaker, Colder, & Sharp, 1990).

This method is especially powerful when peo-ple write about traumatic experiences. When agroup of college students was asked to write about apersonal, traumatic experience for 20 minutes a dayfor four days, many told stories of sexual coercion,physical beatings, humiliation, or parental aban-donment. Yet most had never discussed these expe-riences with anyone. The researchers collected dataon the students’ physical symptoms, white bloodcell counts, emotions, and visits to the health cen-ter. On every measure, the students who wroteabout traumatic experiences were better off thanthose who wrote only about neutral topics (Pen-nebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988). Express-ing and working through memories of traumaticevents head on are more beneficial than trying tosuppress intrusive, troubling thoughts (Dalgleish,Hauer, & Kuyken, 2008).

The benefits of this method occur primarilywhen the revelation produces insight and under-standing, thereby ending the stressful repetition ofobsessive thoughts and unresolved feelings(Kennedy-Moore & Watson, 2001; Lepore, Ragan,& Jones, 2000). One young woman, who had beenmolested at the age of 9 by a boy a year older, atfirst wrote about her feelings of embarrassment andguilt. By the third day, she was writing about howangry she felt at the boy. By the last day, she hadbegun to see the whole event differently; he was achild too, after all. When the study was over, shesaid, “Before, when I thought about it, I’d lie tomyself. . . . Now, I don’t feel like I even have tothink about it because I got it off my chest. I finallyadmitted that it happened.”

The Benefits of Letting Grievances GoAnother way of letting go of negative emotions is to

give up the thoughts that produce them and adopt aperspective that might lead to forgiveness. Whenpeople rehearse their grievances and hold on to theirgrudges, their blood pressure, heart rate, and skinconductance rise. Forgiving thoughts (as in the pre-ceding example, “He was a child too”) reduce thesesigns of physiological arousal and restore feelings ofcontrol (Witvliet, Ludwig, & Vander Laan, 2001).(See Figure 13.5.) Forgiveness, like confession whenit works, helps people see events in a new light. Itpromotes empathy, the ability to see the situationfrom another person’s perspective. It strengthensand repairs relationships (Karremans et al., 2003).

Forgiveness does not mean that the offendedperson denies, ignores, or excuses the offense,which might be serious. It does mean that thevictim is able, finally, to come to terms with theinjustice and let go of obsessive feelings of hurt,rage, and vengefulness. As the Chinese proverbsays, “He who pursues revenge should dig twograves.”

Get Involved! True Confessions

To see whether the research on confession will benefit you, take a moment to wrote down your deepestthoughts and feelings about being in college, your past, a secret, your future . . . anything you have nevertold anyone. Do this again tomorrow and then again for a few days in a row. Note your feelings after writ-ing. Are you upset, troubled, sad, or relieved? Does your account change over time? Research suggeststhat if you do this exercise now, you may have fewer colds, headaches, and trips to the doctor over thenext few months (Pennebaker, Colder, & Sharp, 1990).

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FIGURE 13.5Heartfelt ForgivenessParticipants in this study were asked to think of someonewho they felt had offended or hurt them. Then they wereasked to imagine unforgiving reactions (rehearsing thehurt and harboring a grudge) and forgiving reactions(feeling empathy, forgiving). People’s heart rates in-creased much more sharply, and took longer to return tonormal, when their thoughts were unforgiving.


YOU are about to learn...• ways of calming the body when you are feeling

stressed.

• the difference between emotion-focused and problem-focused coping.

• how to reduce stress by rethinking and reappraisingyour problems.

• the importance and limitations of social support.

Coping with StressWe have noted that most people who are understress, even those living in difficult situations, donot become ill. In addition to feeling optimistic andin control, and not wallowing around in negativeemotions, how do they manage to cope?

The most immediate way to deal with thephysiological tension of stress and negative emo-

tions is to take time outand reduce the body’sphysical arousal. Manypeople, from infants tothe old, respond benefi-cially to the soothingtouch of massage(Moyer, Rounds, &Hannum, 2004). An-other successful methodis the ancient Buddhistpractice of mindfulnessmeditation, which fos-ters emotional tranquil-ity. The goal is to learnto accept feelings ofanger, sadness, or anxi-

ety without judging them or trying to get rid ofthem (a form of secondary control) (Davidsonet al., 2003). A third effective buffer between stres-sors and illness is exercise. People who are physi-cally fit have fewer health problems than peoplewho are less fit even when they are under the samepressures. They also show lower physiologicalarousal to stressors (Vita et al., 1998). These activi-ties, along with any others that calm your body andfocus your mind—including prayer, music, danc-ing, or baking bread—are all good for health. But ifyour house has burned down or you need a seriousoperation, other coping strategies will be necessary.

Solving the ProblemYears ago, at the age of 23, a friend of ours namedSimi Linton was struck by tragedy. Linton, her newhusband, and her best friend were in a horrific caraccident. When she awoke in a hospital room, withonly a vague memory of the crash, she learned thather husband and friend had been killed and that she herself had permanent spinal injury and wouldnever walk again.

How in the world does anyone recover fromsuch a devastating event? Some people advise sur-vivors of disaster or tragedy to “get it out of yoursystem” or to “get in touch with your feelings.” Butsurvivors know they feel miserable. What shouldthey do? This question gets to the heart of the dif-ference between emotion-focused and problem-focusedcoping (Lazarus, 2000; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).Emotion-focused coping concentrates on the emo-tions the problem has caused, whether anger, anxi-ety, or grief. For a period of time after any tragedyor disaster, it is normal to give in to these emotions

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1.c2.b3.Sending tweets, or posting her feelings on her Facebook page, might make Amber momentarily feel good, but she prob-ably won’t retrieve those messages later to reread and rethink about what she wrote; and rethinking her story is the important element.

Quick QuizWe’ll never forgive you if you skip this quiz.

1. Which aspect of Type A behavior is most hazardous to the heart? (a) working hard, (b) being in a hurry,(c) cynical hostility, (d) irritability in traffic, (e) general grumpiness

2. Amber has many worries about being in college, but she is afraid to tell anyone. What might be the healthi-est solution for her? (a) trying not to think about her feelings, (b) writing down her feelings and thenrereading and rethinking what she wrote, (c) talking frequently to anyone who will listen, (d) tweeting herfriends about her moods

3. We are giving away an answer to #2, but why might answer d not be helpful to Amber?

Answers:


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These exuberantperformers know all aboutcoping—and thriving.


and feel overwhelmed by them. In this stage, peo-ple often need to talk constantly about the event,which helps them come to terms with it, makesense of it, and decide what to do about it (Lepore,Ragan, & Jones, 2000).

Eventually, most people become ready to con-centrate on solving the problem itself. The specificsteps in problem-focused coping depend on thenature of the problem: whether it is a pressing butone-time decision; a continuing difficulty, such asliving with a disability; or an anticipated event,such as having an operation. Once the problem isidentified, the coper can learn as much as possibleabout it from professionals, friends, books, andothers in the same predicament (Clarke & Evans,1998). Becoming informed increases the feeling ofcontrol and can speed recovery (Doering et al.,2000).

As for Simi Linton, she learned how to do justabout everything in her wheelchair (including danc-ing!), and she went back to school. She got a Ph.D.in psychology, remarried, and became a highly re-spected teacher, counselor, writer, and activist com-mitted to improving conditions and opportunitiesfor people with disabilities (Linton, 2006).

Rethinking the ProblemSome problems cannot be solved; these are the un-avoidable facts of life, such as an inability to havechildren, losing your job, or developing a chronicillness. Now what? Health psychologists have iden-tified three effective cognitive coping methods:

1Reappraising the situation. Although you maynot be able to get rid of a stressor, you can

choose to think about it differently, a process calledreappraisal. Reappraisal can turn anger into sympa-thy, worry into determination, and feelings of lossinto feelings of opportunity. Maybe that job youlost was dismal but you were too afraid to quit andlook for another; now you can. Reappraisal im-proves well-being, softens negative emotions, andeven lowers cortisol and other stress responses(Denson, Spanovic, & Miller, 2009; Gross & John,2003; Moskowitz et al., 2009).

2Learning from the experience. Some peopleemerge from adversity with newfound or newly

acquired skills, having been forced to learn some-thing they had not known before—say, how to copewith the medical system or how to manage a de-ceased parent’s estate. Others discover sources ofcourage and strength they did not know they had.Those who draw lessons from the inescapabletragedies of life, and find meaning in them, thrive

as a result of adversity instead of simply survivingit (Davis, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Larson, 1998;Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000).

3Making social comparisons. In a difficult situa-tion, successful copers often compare them-

selves to others who they feel are less fortunate.Even if they have fatal diseases, they find someonewho is worse off (Taylor & Lobel, 1989; Wood,Michela, & Giordano, 2000). One AIDS patientsaid in an interview, “I made a list of all the other diseases I would rather not have thanAIDS. Lou Gehrig’s disease, being in a wheelchair;rheumatoid arthritis, when you are in knots and interrible pain.” Sometimes successful copers alsocompare themselves to those who are doing betterthan they are (Collins, 1996). They might say, “Sheand I have the same kinds of problems; how comeshe’s doing so much better in school than I am?What does she know that I don’t?” Such compar-isons provide a person with information aboutways of coping, managing an illness, or improvinga stressful situation (Suls, Martin, & Wheeler,2002).

Drawing on Social SupportA final way to deal with negative emotions and stressis to reach out to others. Your health depends notonly on what is going on in your body and mind butalso on what is going on in your relationships: whatyou take from them, and what you give to them.When social groups provide individuals with a senseof meaning, purpose, and belonging, they producepositive psychological benefits for their members’health and well-being (Haslam et al., 2009).

When Friends Help You Cope . . . Think ofall the ways in which family members, friends,neighbors, and co-workers can help you. They canoffer concern and affection. They can help youevaluate problems and plan a course of action.They can offer resources and services such as lend-ing you money or a car, or taking notes in class foryou when you are sick. Most of all, they are sourcesof attachment and connection, which everyoneneeds throughout life.

Friends can even improve your health. As wesaw, work-related stress and unemployment in-crease a person’s vulnerability to the common cold,but having a lot of friends and social contacts helpsto reduce that risk (Cohen et al., 2003). Social sup-port is especially important for people who havestressful jobs that require high cardiovascular re-sponsiveness day after day, such as firefighters.


Having social support helps the heartrate and stress hormones return tonormal more quickly after a stressfulepisode (Roy, Steptoe, & Kirschbaum,1998).

People who live in a network ofclose connections actually live longerthan those who do not. In studies thatfollowed thousands of adults for tenyears, people who had many friends,connections, or memberships inchurch and other groups lived longeron average than those who had few.The importance of having social net-works was unrelated to physical healthat the time the studies began, to so-cioeconomic status, and to risk factorslike smoking (House, Landis, & Um-berson, 2003).

When social support comes from a loving part-ner, its benefits for the immune system can be quitepowerful. In one study of 16 couples, the wives hadto lie in an MRI machine, periodically receiving amild but stressful electric shock on their ankle(Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006). During theprocedure, some women received a touch on thehand from a stranger; others held hands with theirhusbands. The women’s brain images showed acti-vation in the hypothalamus and other regions in-volved with pain, physical arousal, and negativeemotions. Yet, as you can see in Figure 13.6, themoment the women felt a husband’s reassuringhand, their brain activation subsided in all the re-gions that had been revved up to cope with threatand fear. Holding hands with a stranger, while com-forting, did not produce as great a decrease in brainactivation as did a husband’s touch.

When a touch is affectionate and welcome, itcan actually elevate some “therapeutic” hormones,especially oxytocin, the hormone that induces relax-ation and is associated with mothering and attach-ment. In fact, human bodies may be designed notonly for a “fight or flight” response to stress andchallenge, but also a “tend and befriend” response—being friendly and conciliatory, seeking out a friendor loved one, taking care of others (Taylor, 2006;Taylor et al., 2000b). Animal studies find that earlynurturing by parents or other adults who “tend andbefriend” the young can affect the sensitivity of theHPA axis, making the infants more resilient to laterchronic stressors. Such findings may help explainwhy children who lack such nurturing becomephysically more vulnerable to illness (Young &Francis, 2008). Oxytocin might even be the key linkbetween hugging and lower blood pressure, in menas well as women (Grewen et al., 2005).

However, once again it is important not tooversimplify, for instance by concluding that peoplecan defeat any illness if they just have the rightamount and kind of social support. Some years ago,a psychiatrist claimed, on the basis of a preliminarystudy, that women with advanced breast cancerlived longer if they joined support groups, but thestudy has been discredited and was never replicated(Coyne et al., 2009). Therapy does not prolong sur-vival, although it often is emotionally and sociallybeneficial to individual members.

Moreover, not all cultural groups define “socialsupport” the same way or benefit from the samekind. Asians and Asian Americans are more reluc-tant than white Americans to ask for help explicitlyfrom friends, colleagues, and family and to disclosefeelings of distress. Being particularly attuned tothe harmony of their relationships, many Asians areconcerned about the potentially negative and em-barrassing effects of self-disclosure or of seekinghelp. As a result, they often feel more stressed andhave elevated stress hormones when they are re-quired to ask for help or reveal their private feelings(Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2008). But Asians do notdiffer from Anglos in their reliance on, and needfor, implicit social support—the knowledge thatsomeone will be there to help if they need it.

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FIGURE 13.6Hugs and HealthWomen had to lie in an MRI machine while receiving mildbut stressful shocks on their ankle. Those who showed thehighest activation of the hypothalamus and other regionsof the brain involved in stress and anxiety went throughthe test alone. A stranger’s calming touch reduced activa-tion somewhat and a husband’s touch reduced it evenmore. The women in “super couples,” who felt the closestto their husbands (right bar), showed the lowest signs ofstress (Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006).

Friends can be our great-est source of warmth,support, and fun . . .


. . . And Coping with Friends Needless tosay, sometimes other people aren’t helpful. Some-times they themselves are the source of unhappi-ness, stress, and anger.

In close relationships, the same person who is asource of support can also become a source ofstress, especially if the two parties are arguing allthe time. Being in an unhappy, bitter, uncommu-nicative relationship can significantly impair health.It makes the partners depressed and angry, affectstheir health habits, elevates stress hormones, andalso directly influences their cardiovascular, en-docrine, and immune systems (Kiecolt-Glaser &Newton, 2001). Married couples who argue in ahostile fashion—criticizing, interrupting, or insult-ing the other person, and becoming angry and de-fensive—show significant elevations of cortisol andpoorer immune function afterward. In fact, anywounds or blisters a hostile couple has actually healmore slowly than they do in couples who do notargue in a hostile way (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 2005).Couples who argue in a positive fashion—trying tofind common ground, compromising, listening toeach other’s concerns, and using humor to defusetension—do not show these impairments. As onestudent of ours observed, “This study gives newmeaning to the accusation ‘You make me sick!’”

In addition to being sources of conflict, friendsand relatives may be unsupportive in times of troublesimply out of ignorance or awkwardness. They mayabandon you or say something stupid and hurtful.Sometimes they actively block your efforts to changebad health habits such as binge drinking or smoking by

making fun of you orpressuring you to con-form to what “everyone”does. And sometimes, be-cause they have neverbeen in the same situa-tion and do not knowwhat to do to help, theyoffer the wrong kind ofsupport. They may try tocheer you up, saying,“Everything will be fine,”rather than let you talkabout your fears or find solutions, or they may try topress you to join a support group “for your own good,”even if you regard disclosing your feelings in groups asculturally or personally inappropriate for you.

Finally, we should not forget the benefits of giv-ing support, rather than always being on the receiv-ing end. Julius Segal (1986), a psychologist whoworked with Holocaust survivors, hostages,refugees, and other survivors of catastrophe, wrotethat a key element in their recovery was compassionfor others: “healing through helping.” Why? Theability to look outside yourself is related to all of thesuccessful coping mechanisms we have discussed. Itencourages you to solve problems instead of blamingothers or just venting your emotions, helps you reap-praise the situation by seeing it from another per-son’s perspective, fosters forgiveness, and allows youto gain perspective on your own problems (Brown etal., 2003). Healing through helping thus helps every-one to accept difficult situations that are facts of life.

. . . and also sources ofexasperation, anger, andmisery.

1.c2.a3.b4.oxytocin5.You might solve the problem by finding a compromise (e.g., cleaning the room together). You couldreappraise the seriousness of the problem (“I only have to live with this person until the end of the term”) or compare your roommateto others who are worse (“At least mine is generous and friendly”). And you might mobilize some social support, perhaps by offeringyour friends a pizza if they help you clean up.

Quick QuizCan you cope with these questions?

1. You accidentally broke your glasses. Which response is an example of cognitive reappraisal? (a) “I am sucha stupid, clumsy idiot!” (b) “I never do anything right.” (c) “What a shame, but I’ve been wanting newframes anyway.” (d) “I’ll forget about it in aerobics class.”

2. Finding out what your legal and financial resources are when you have been victimized by a crime is anexample of (a) problem-focused coping, (b) emotion-focused coping, (c) distraction, (d) reappraisal.

3. “This class drives me crazy, but I’m better off than my friends who aren’t in college” is an example of(a) distraction, (b) social comparison, (c) denial, (d) empathy.

4. What hormone is elevated when happy couples hug one another?

5. Your roommate has turned your room into a garbage dump, filled with rotten leftover food and unwashedclothes. Assuming that you don’t like living with rotting food and dirty clothes, what coping strategies de-scribed in this section might help you?

Answers:


Study and

R E V I S I T E D

Joe Stack, whose story opened this chapter, burneddown his house, with callous disregard for hiswife and young stepdaughter, and then killed him-

self and two IRS employees. In the rant he posted onthe Internet, he wrote: “Violence not only is the answer,it is the only answer.” Really? What did it accomplish?

As we saw in this chapter, when we are feelingextreme emotions or when major stressors require thebody to cope with threat, fear, or danger, the bodywhirls into action to give us the energy to respond. Justabout everyone has had the unpleasant experience of aracing heart, sweaty palms, and other emotionalsymptoms when we feel betrayed, anxious, or angry.But does that mean we have no control over our emo-tions, especially those caused by extremely stressfulexperiences?

As we also saw, biology does not give us the wholepicture. It is equally important to understand the role ofperceptions, beliefs, and expectations in generatingemotions and stress. Joe Stack blamed the IRS for hisfinancial losses, and his rage resulted from his percep-tion that he was an undeserving victim. But what if hehad been able to interpret his problems differently?What if he had been able to evaluate, calmly and per-haps with the help of a financial planner or psychother-apist, the reasons he was in trouble, and perhaps hadcome to understand and accept his own responsibilityfor his misfortunes? What beliefs made him feel entitledto retire at a relatively young age, when millions of oth-ers work hard their whole lives, through hard times aswell as boom times?

The findings on the stressful nature of bitter mari-tal relationships may also be relevant to Stack’s life.His cruel act of burning down their house certainly sug-gests he was blaming his wife for his misery as much ashe blamed the government. But marital disputes in-volve two people, and it's rare that one partner is 100percent to blame. What if he had been able to under-stand his own role in creating his unhappiness in hismarriage?

This chapter also examined the importance of hav-ing a sense of control over events, noting the helpless-ness and panic that can ensue when people lose theirfeelings of control. Westerners, particularly, tend tohave a philosophy of fighting back against unwelcomeevents rather than of accepting disappointments and

losses. Stack would ap-pear to have been an ex-treme example of thisstance toward the world:feeling helpless and un-able to control his life, hedid not know what else to do other than end it in ablaze of fury.

Yet we saw that there are better ways of copingthan by murdering your partner or employees of the in-stitution that you think is causing your stress andanger. Stack could surely have found a way to improvehis marriage and his financial situation without com-mitting murder and suicide. These include rethinkingthe problem, learning from it, comparing oneself to oth-ers less fortunate, helping others, and finding a goodsupport group. (“Taking Psychology with You” offerssuggestions for handling anger.)

In the final analysis, successful coping does notmean eliminating all sources of stress or all difficultemotions. It does not mean constant happiness or a lifewithout pain and frustration. The healthy person facesproblems, deals with them, and gets beyond them, butthe problems are necessary if the person is to acquirecoping skills that endure. To wish for a life withoutstress, or a life without emotion, would be like wishingfor a life without friends. The result might be calm, butit would be joyless. Daily hassles, chronic problems,and occasional tragedies are inescapable. How wehandle them is the test of our humanity.

Psychology in the News AUSTIN, TX, February 18, 2010. A software engineerwho was angry with the Internal Revenue Servicelaunched a suicide attack on the agency Thursday bycrashing his small plane into a seven-story office build-ing housing nearly 200 IRS employees, setting off a rag-ing fire that sent workers fleeing for their lives. Inaddition to the attacker, two employees died in theblaze and two others were seriously burned.

The pilot has been identified as Andrew Joseph(Joe) Stack III, 53, of Austin, who posted a furious, six-page antigovernment farewell note on the Web beforegetting into his plane for his suicidal flight. Stack citedrun-ins with the IRS and ranted about taxes, govern-ment bailouts, and corporate America’s “thugs andplunderers.” “I have had all I can stand,” he wrote.“Well, Mr. Big Brother I.R.S. man, let’s trysomething different, take my pound offlesh and sleep well.”

Officials almost immediately ruled outthe possibility that Stack was connectedto terrorist groups. Friends described himas an easygoing man, a talented amateurmusician, a husband with marital trou-bles, and a citizen with a grudge againstthe tax authorities. Although he was only53, they said, he felt pushed “over thebrink” because financial setbacks had re-quired him to postpone his retirementdreams.

Stack also set fire to his house, whichwas about six miles from the crash site,before embarking on the suicide flight.His wife and her young daughter hadescaped the night before.

Stack married Sheryl Housh aboutthree years ago. He never spoke of histroubles with the IRS to her family, who

Psychology in the News

thought he seemed fine when they gathered at Christ-mas. But recently his wife complained to her motherand stepfather, Jack Cook, of an increasingly frighteninganger in her husband, which she said was causing terri-ble problems in the marriage. Worried about her hus-band’s rage, Sheryl Stack took her 12-year-old daughterto a hotel to get away from her husband. They returnedon Thursday morning to find their house ablaze and allof their belongings destroyed. Officials said the housefire was deliberately set, with Stack as the primarysuspect.

“This is a shock to me that he would do somethinglike this,” Cook said. “But you get your anger up, you doit.”

Fire inspectors assess the damage to the office building destroyed by a man whowas angry at the IRS and upset about recent financial setbacks. Two workers died inthe blaze.

Man Crashes Plane Into Austin, Texas, I.R.S. Office


The ultimate example of rethinking yourproblems.

What do you do when you feel angry? Do youtend to brood and sulk, collecting your right-eous complaints like acorns for the winter, ordo you erupt, hurling your wrath upon anyoneor anything at hand? Do you discuss your feel-ings when you have calmed down? Does “let-ting anger out” get rid of it for you, or does itonly make it more intense? The answers arecrucial for how you get along with your family,neighbors, employers, and strangers.

Critical thinkers can learn to think carefullyabout how and when to express anger, andmake a calm decision on how to proceed.Chronic feelings of anger and an inability tocontrol anger can be as emotionally devastat-ing and unhealthy as chronic problems with de-pression or anxiety. Yet in contrast to muchpop-psych advice, research shows that ex-pressing anger does not always get it “out ofyour system”; often people feel worse, physi-cally and mentally, after an angry confronta-tion. When people brood and ruminate abouttheir anger, talk to others incessantly abouthow angry they are, or ventilate their feelings inhostile acts, their blood pressure shoots up,they often feel angrier, and they behave evenmore aggressively later than if they had just lettheir feelings of anger subside (Bushman et al.,2005; Tavris, 1989). Conversely, when peoplelearn to control their tempers and expressanger constructively, they usually feel better,not worse; calmer, not angrier.

When people are feeling angry, they have achoice of doing any number of things, some ofwhich will be more beneficial than others.Some people sulk, expecting everyone else toread their minds, which is hardly a way tocommunicate clearly. Many post impulsivecomments on blogs that have annoyed themor send nasty texts on the spur of the mo-ment. Some scream abuses at their friends orfamily, or strike out physically. If a particularaction soothes their feelings or gets the de-sired response from others, they are likely toacquire a habit. Soon that habit feels “natu-ral,” as if it could never be changed. Somehabits are better than others, though! Bakingbread or going for a jog is fine, whereas manypeople justify their violent tempers by saying,“I couldn’t help myself.” But they can. If you

have acquired an abusive or aggressive habit,the research in this chapter offers practicalsuggestions for learning constructive ways ofmanaging anger:

Don’t sound off in the heat of anger; let bodilyarousal cool down. Whether your arousalcomes from background stresses such as heat,crowds, or loud noise or from conflict with an-other person, take time to relax. Time allowsyou to decide whether you are really angry orjust tired and tense. This is the reason for thesage old advice to count to 10, count to 100,or sleep on it. Other cooling-off strategies in-clude taking a time-out in the middle of an ar-gument, meditating or relaxing, and calmingyourself with a distracting activity.

Don’t take it personally. If you feel that youhave been insulted, check your perception forits accuracy. Could there be another reason forthe behavior you find offensive? People whoare quick to feel anger tend to interpret otherpeople’s actions as intentional offenses. Peo-ple who are slow to anger tend to give othersthe benefit of the doubt, and they are not asfocused on their own injured pride. Empathy(“Poor guy, he’s feeling rotten”) is usually in-compatible with anger, so practice seeing thesituation from the other person’s perspective.

Beware of road rage—yours and the other per-son’s. Driving increases everyone’s level ofphysiological arousal, but not everyone be-comes a hotheaded driver. Some drivers makethemselves angry by having vengeful and re-taliatory thoughts about other drivers (whohave the nerve to change lanes or want topark! Who dare to drive at the speed limit in aschool zone!).Hotheaded drivers take morerisks while driving (rapidly switching lanes intheir impatience), behave more aggressively(swearing, giving other drivers the finger orcursing them), and have more accidents(Deffenbacher et al., 2003).

If you decide that expressing anger is appropri-ate, be sure you use the right verbal and nonver-bal language to make yourself understood.Because cultures (and families) have differ-ent display rules, be sure the recipient of your

anger understands what you are feeling andwhat complaint you are trying to convey—andwhether or not the person thinks your anger isappropriate. For example, a study comparedthe use of anger by Asian-American andAnglo-American negotiators. Expressing angerwas effective for the Anglo teams—it got moreconcessions from the other side—but wasmuch less effective for the Asian negotiators(Adam, Shirako, & Maddux, 2010).

Think carefully about how to express anger sothat you will get the results you want. What doyou want your anger to accomplish? Do youjust want to make the other person feel bad,or do you want the other person to understandyour concerns and make amends? Shouting“You moron! How could you be so stupid!”might accomplish the former goal, but it’s notlikely to get the person to apologize, let aloneto change his or her behavior. If your goal is toimprove a bad situation or achieve justice,learning how to express anger so the otherperson will listen is essential.

Of course, if you just want to blow offsteam, go right ahead; but you risk becominga hothead.

The Dilemma of Anger: “Let It Out” or “Bottle It Up”?

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The Nature of Emotion• Although negative emotions are often painful, emo-tions evolved to bind people together, motivate them toachieve their goals, and help them make decisions andplans. The experience of emotion involves physiologicalchanges in the face, brain, and autonomic nervous sys-tem; cognitive processes; and cultural norms and regu-lations. Primary emotions are thought to be universal,whereas secondary emotions are specific to cultures.

• Some basic facial expressions—anger, fear, sadness,happiness, disgust, surprise, contempt, and possiblypride—are widely recognized across cultures. They fos-ter communication with others, signal our intentions toothers, enhance infant survival, and, as studies offacial feedback show, help us to identify our own emo-tional states. An accurate reading of others’ facial ex-pressions increases among members of the sameethnicity, and depends on the social context. Also, be-cause people can and do disguise their emotions, theirexpressions do not always communicate accurately.

• Many aspects of emotion are associated with spe-cific parts of the brain. The amygdala is responsible forinitially evaluating the emotional importance of incom-ing sensory information and is especially involved infear. The cerebral cortex provides the cognitive abilityto override this initial appraisal. Emotions generally in-volve the motivation to approach or withdraw; regions ofthe left prefrontal cortex appear to be specialized forthe motivation to approach others (as with happinessand anger), whereas regions of the right prefrontal re-gion are specialized for withdrawal or escape (as withdisgust and fear).

• Mirror neurons throughout the brain are activatedwhen people observe others. These neurons are in-volved in empathy, imitation, synchrony, understandinganother person’s intentions, and mood contagion.

• During the experience of any emotion, epinephrineand norepinephrine produce a state of physiologicalarousal to prepare the body for an output of energy. Dif-ferent emotions are also associated with different pat-terns of autonomic nervous system activity.

• The most popular method of “lie detection” is thepolygraph machine, but it has low reliability and valid-ity because there are no patterns of autonomic nervoussystem activity specific to lying; it has a high rate of labeling innocent people as guilty. Other methods, such as voice analyzers or brain scans, have similardrawbacks.

• Cognitive approaches to emotion emphasize the per-ceptions and attributions that are involved in differentemotions. Thoughts and emotions operate reciprocally,

each influencing the other. Some emotions involve sim-ple, nonconscious reactions; others, such as shameand guilt, require complex cognitive capacities.

Emotion and Culture• Many psychologists believe that all human beingsshare the ability to experience primary emotions,whereas secondary emotions may be culture-specific—a view supported by research on emotion prototypes.But others believe that culture affects every aspect ofemotional experience, including which emotions areconsidered basic and what people feel emotionalabout.

• Culture strongly influences the display rules,including nonverbal body language, that regulate howand whether people express their emotions. Emotionwork is the effort a person makes to display an emotionhe or she does not feel but feels obliged to convey.

• Women and men are equally likely to feel all emo-tions, although gender rules shape differences in emo-tional expression. North American women on averageare more expressive than men, except for anger atstrangers. But both sexes are less expressive to a per-son of higher status than they, both sexes will do theemotion work their job requires, and some situationsfoster expressiveness in everybody. Gender differencesvary across cultures.

The Nature of Stress• The relationship between emotions and stress isboth physiological and psychological. Chronic negativeemotions can become chronically stressful, and chronicstress can create negative emotions.

• Hans Selye argued that environmental stressors suchas heat, pain, and danger produce a general adaptationsyndrome, in which the body responds in three stages:alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. If a stressor persists,it may overwhelm the body’s ability to cope, and illnessmay result. Modern research has added to Selye’s work.When a person is under stress or in danger, the hypo-thalamus sends messages to the endocrine glandsalong two major pathways. One activates the sympa-thetic division of the autonomic nervous system, releas-ing adrenal hormones from the inner part of the adrenalglands. In the other, the hypothalamus initiates activityalong the HPA axis. Chemical messengers travel fromthe hypothalamus to the pituitary, and in turn to theouter part (cortex) of the adrenal glands. The adrenalcortex secretes cortisol and other hormones that in-crease energy. Excess levels of cortisol can becomeharmful if they persist over time.

Summary


Listen to an audio file of your chapter on mypsychlab.com


• When the stressors of poverty and unemployment be-come chronic, they can increase people’s stress levelsand increase their chances of illness. Responses tostress differ across individuals, depending on the type ofstressor and the individual’s own genetic predispositions.

• Health psychologists and researchers in the interdis-ciplinary field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) arestudying the interaction among psychological factors,the nervous and endocrine systems, and the immunesystem (particularly the white blood cells that destroyharmful foreign bodies, called antigens). Chronic stresscan even shorten telomeres, a protein that determinescell life.

• Psychological factors affect people’s responses tostress. Feeling optimistic rather than pessimistic andhaving an internal locus of control improve immunefunction and also increase a person’s ability to toleratepain, live with ongoing problems, and recover from ill-ness. Cultures differ in the kind of control they empha-size and value: primary control, trying to change astressful situation, or secondary control, learning toaccept and accommodate to a stressful situation.

Stress and Emotion• Researchers have sought links between emotions,stress, and illness. There is no “cancer-prone personal-ity,” but chronic anger, especially in the form of cynicalor antagonistic hostility, is a strong risk factor in heartdisease. Major depression also increases the risk oflater heart disease. Positive emotions appear related towell-being, better health, and longevity.

• People who consciously suppress their emotions areat greater risk of illness than people who acknowledgeand cope with negative emotions. The effort to sup-press worries, secrets, and memories of upsetting

experiences can become stressful to the body. Two waysof letting go of negative emotions include confessionand forgiveness. The goal is to achieve insight andunderstanding, and let go of grudges.

Coping with Stress• The first step in coping with stress and negativeemotions is to reduce their physical effects, such asthrough relaxation, mindfulness meditation, and exer-cise. The second is to focus on solving the problem(problem-focused coping) rather than on venting theemotions caused by the problem (emotion-focused cop-ing). A third approach is to rethink the problem, whichinvolves reappraisal, learning from the experience, andcomparing oneself to others.

• Social support is essential in maintaining physicalhealth and emotional well-being; it even prolongs lifeand speeds recovery from illness. A touch or a hug froma supportive partner calms the alarm circuits of thebrain and raises levels of oxytocin, which may result inreduced heart rate and blood pressure. However,friends and family can also be sources of stress. Inclose relationships, couples who fight in a hostile andnegative way show impaired immune function. Givingsupport to others is also associated with health andhastens recovery from traumatic experiences.

Psychology in the News,Revisited• We may not always be able to control the physiologi-cal arousal produced by stress or intense emotions, butwe generally are able to decide how to behave when weare upset. Coping with stress does not mean trying tolive without pain or problems. It means learning how tolive with them.

emotion 434

primary emotions 434

secondary emotions 434

facial feedback 435

amygdala 437

mirror neurons 438

mood contagion 438

epinephrine 439

norepinephrine 439

attributions 441

emotion prototypes 443

display rules 444

body language 444

emotion work 444

general adaptation syndrome (Selye) 446

alarm, resistance, and exhaustionphases of stress 446, 447

HPA axis 447

cortisol 447

health psychology 448

psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) 448

antigens 449

telomere 449

internal versus external locus of control 450

primary versus secondary control 451

cynical/antagonistic hostility 453

emotional inhibition 454

mindfulness meditation 456

emotion-focused coping 456

problem-focused coping 456

reappraisal 457

social comparison 457

social support 457

oxytocin 458

Key Terms

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Emotion involves physiological changes in the face, brain, and autonomicnervous system; cognitive interpretations of events; and tendencies towardaction, all influenced by cultural norms.

• Most psychologists believe that all human be-ings share the ability to experience primaryemotions.

• Some psychologists believe that culture affectsevery aspect of emotional experience.

Emotion and the Body

• Primary emotions are biologically based andthought to be universal.

• Secondary emotions include all the variationsand blends of emotion that vary from one cul-ture to another.

Some facial expressions are recognized acrosscultures and thus seem to reflect a key set of pri-mary emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness,disgust, surprise, contempt, and possibly pride.

Emotion and the Mind

People’s perceptions, beliefs, and interpre-tations of events generate different emo-tions.• Some emotions are cognitively primitive.• As the cortex matures, cognitions be-

come more complex, permitting theemergence of more complex and self-conscious emotions such as shame andguilt.

Communicating Emotions

• Display rules regulate how and whetherpeople show emotion.

• Body language communicates emotionsnonverbally.

• Emotion work is the effort to display anemotion a person does not feel because it issocially appropriate or required.

Gender and Emotion

• The sexes do not differ in how often they feelthe range of everyday emotions.

• North American women are more verballyand nonverbally expressive than men.

• Men are more likely to express anger atstrangers.

Situations can override gender rules:• Both sexes are less expressive to a person of

higher status.• Both sexes do “emotion work” associated

with their jobs.• Some situations foster emotion in everybody.• Gender differences vary across cultures.

Brain areas associated with emotion:• The amygdala evaluates incoming emotion, especially anger and fear.

2. The cerebral cortex generatesa more complete picture; it

can override signals sent by the amygdala (“It’s only Mike in a down coat”).

1. The amygdala scrutinizes information for its emotional importance (“It’s a bear! Be afraid! Run!”).

• The left prefrontal cortex specializes in approach motivation and positive emo-tions; the right prefrontal cortex specializes in escape and negative emotions.

• Mirror neurons are brain cells that are activated when an animal or personobserves others doing a specific task; they are involved in empathy, imitation,nonverbal rapport, and mood contagion.

During experience of any emotion, two hormones produce a state of arousal:epinephrine and norepinephrine.

Emotion and Culture

Biology and Deception

• The polygraph machine is assumed to detect lies, but it isactually a measure of emotional arousal.

• Polygraphs often correctly identify liars and guilty people,but their main problem is their high rate of falsely accus-ing innocent people of lying.

• No current technology exists that can directly and reliablydetermine whether someone is telling a falsehood.

Functions of facial expressionsinclude:• Identifying our own emotions

through facial feedback• Communicating emotion• Allowing us to lie about our

true feelings

The Nature of Emotion

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Emotional factors that increase the risk of heart disease and other illness:• Cynical or antagonistic hostility• Chronic depression• Prolonged inhibition of negative emotions

Hans Selye argued that environmentalstressors produce a general adaptationsyndrome, physiological reactions thatoccur in three phases:1. Alarm2. Resistance3. Exhaustion

Physical Changes

When a person is under stress, thehypothalamus sends messages tothe endocrine glands along twomajor pathways to:1. Activate the sympathetic nerv-

ous system for “fight or flight”2. Initiate activity along the HPA

axis to release chemical mes-sengers that spur productionof cortisol and other hormonesto release energy

Chronic stressors that affectthe immune system andincrease the risk of illnessinclude:• Unemployment and work-

related problems• Poverty, powerlessness,

and low status

Psychological Factors

Two psychologicalfactors that can increasea person’s ability totolerate pain, live withongoing problems,and recover from illness:• Being optimistic• Having an internal

locus of control

Health and well-beingmay depend on a com-bination of:• Primary control,

trying to change thestressful situation

• Secondary control,learning to accept andto accommodate to thestressful situation

Stress hormoneselevated

Digestionslows

Musclestense

Heart ratespeeds up

Blood flowincreases

Two ways of letting go of negative emotions:1. Confession: revealing private thoughts and feelings2. Forgiveness: coming to terms with the injustice

1. Reducing the physical effects of negative emo-tions and stress, such as through massage, medi-tation, relaxation, and exercise

2. Relying on problem-focused coping rather thanemotion-focused coping

3. Rethinking the problem:• Reappraising the situation• Learning from the experience• Comparing yourself to others

4. Drawing on social support or giving it to otherscan speed recovery from illness, although thewrong kind of social support can be detrimental.

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Heartfelt Forgiveness

The Immune System: PNI

Researchers interested in psychoneuroimmunology study how psychological factors andphysical changes, such as different levels of immune system functioning, interact with oneanother to protect health or increase the risk of illness.

The Nature of Stress

Stress and Emotion Coping with Stress

Stress and the Body

Date post:	15-May-2019
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