EMOTION AS BEHAVIOUR
Those who take a behavioural perspective on emotion view it as something that we do rather than something that we feel. Hull and Skinner, for example, adopted three main approaches when tackling emotion (although these had petered out by the 1970s).
1. Emotionality The openfield test was used to study emotionality in rats. Levels of emotionality, [emotionality the extent to which we react emotionally – akin to a personality trait, and thought to be partly inherited.] reflected in changes in defecation and urination, increase when rats are placed in a large, brightly lit space. This is perhaps an evolutionary precursor to the reactions of many people to strange environments.
Within a few generations, rats can be bred to be either less or more emotional in this situation, showing that emotionality is at least partly under genetic control. Emotionality was also studied by observing the perseverative effects of noxious stimuli. Typically, rats were given an electric shock prior to their normal time of eating, drinking or pressing of a lever to obtain food. The perseverative emotional effects of shock were increased food and water intake but the suppression of instrumental behaviour such as lever-pressing. In more detail, the effects depended on the quality of the food and the duration of the shock. The intake of food adulterated with quinine was lowered even further, whereas the intake of food enhanced by sucrose was actually elevated. On the other hand, prolonged durations of prior shock always led to the suppression of intake.
2. The frustration effect Think of how you feel and what you do if you put money into a vending machine, press the button or pull the drawer, and nothing happens. Amsel (1958, 1962) trained rats to run down an alley to food in a goal box and, from there, along a second alley to a second goal box. When the first goal box was left empty, the rats ran faster along the second alley.
This increase in vigour is known as the frustration effect. [frustration effect an increase in the vigour of responding, following the absence of reward, in a place where reward was experienced previously] It is reasonable to regard an increase in behavioural vigour following the frustration of experiencing non-reward, where reward was previously experienced, as an indirect measure of emotion.
3. Conditioned emotional response Again using laboratory animals, the procedures that demonstrate conditioned emotional response involve a mixture of classical and instrumental conditioning.
Picture a rat in a Skinner box pressing a bar for food reinforcement. Sometimes a light comes on and is followed by an unavoidable electric shock. The rat soon learns to associate light and shock. When the light is on, it will decrease its rate of barpressing. After the shock, it will increase it again. This effect is sometimes known as conditioned anxiety and sometimes as conditioned suppression.
Much of everyday life appears to be characterized by this type of mixture of instrumental and classical conditioning. Unconditioned stimuli are frequently emotional and influence other behaviour. Millenson (1967) used these ideas to suggest a three-part behavioural model of emotion, in which all emotions are seen as deriving from various intensities and combinations of anxiety, elation and anger. As we have seen, a neutral stimulus that leads to a negative unconditioned stimulus leads in turn to anxiety. Moreover, a neutral stimulus that leads to an unconditioned positive stimulus (say, free food to a hungry rat) leads to elation, and a neutral stimulus that leads to the removal of an unconditioned positive stimulus results in anger. Variations in intensity and duration of the stimuli and the links between them are thought in the terms of this model to lead to variations in the intensity of these types of emotion.
Those who take a behavioural perspective on emotion view it as something that we do rather than something that we feel. Hull and Skinner, for example, adopted three main approaches when tackling emotion (although these had petered out by the 1970s).
1. Emotionality The openfield test was used to study emotionality in rats. Levels of emotionality, [emotionality the extent to which we react emotionally – akin to a personality trait, and thought to be partly inherited.] reflected in changes in defecation and urination, increase when rats are placed in a large, brightly lit space. This is perhaps an evolutionary precursor to the reactions of many people to strange environments.
Within a few generations, rats can be bred to be either less or more emotional in this situation, showing that emotionality is at least partly under genetic control. Emotionality was also studied by observing the perseverative effects of noxious stimuli. Typically, rats were given an electric shock prior to their normal time of eating, drinking or pressing of a lever to obtain food. The perseverative emotional effects of shock were increased food and water intake but the suppression of instrumental behaviour such as lever-pressing. In more detail, the effects depended on the quality of the food and the duration of the shock. The intake of food adulterated with quinine was lowered even further, whereas the intake of food enhanced by sucrose was actually elevated. On the other hand, prolonged durations of prior shock always led to the suppression of intake.
2. The frustration effect Think of how you feel and what you do if you put money into a vending machine, press the button or pull the drawer, and nothing happens. Amsel (1958, 1962) trained rats to run down an alley to food in a goal box and, from there, along a second alley to a second goal box. When the first goal box was left empty, the rats ran faster along the second alley.
This increase in vigour is known as the frustration effect. [frustration effect an increase in the vigour of responding, following the absence of reward, in a place where reward was experienced previously] It is reasonable to regard an increase in behavioural vigour following the frustration of experiencing non-reward, where reward was previously experienced, as an indirect measure of emotion.
3. Conditioned emotional response Again using laboratory animals, the procedures that demonstrate conditioned emotional response involve a mixture of classical and instrumental conditioning.
Picture a rat in a Skinner box pressing a bar for food reinforcement. Sometimes a light comes on and is followed by an unavoidable electric shock. The rat soon learns to associate light and shock. When the light is on, it will decrease its rate of barpressing. After the shock, it will increase it again. This effect is sometimes known as conditioned anxiety and sometimes as conditioned suppression.
Much of everyday life appears to be characterized by this type of mixture of instrumental and classical conditioning. Unconditioned stimuli are frequently emotional and influence other behaviour. Millenson (1967) used these ideas to suggest a three-part behavioural model of emotion, in which all emotions are seen as deriving from various intensities and combinations of anxiety, elation and anger. As we have seen, a neutral stimulus that leads to a negative unconditioned stimulus leads in turn to anxiety. Moreover, a neutral stimulus that leads to an unconditioned positive stimulus (say, free food to a hungry rat) leads to elation, and a neutral stimulus that leads to the removal of an unconditioned positive stimulus results in anger. Variations in intensity and duration of the stimuli and the links between them are thought in the terms of this model to lead to variations in the intensity of these types of emotion.
No comments:
Post a Comment