ChapTER 13 Emotion, Stress, and Health 451appropriately to others (Jackson et al., 2003). A
degenerative disease that destroys cells in parts
of the frontal lobes causes a profound change
in personality: Sufferers may become unable to
respond to the emotions of others, understand
why they and others feel as they do, and adjust
their own emotional responses appropriately.
A loving mother becomes indifferent to her
child’s injury; a businessman does embarrassing
things and doesn’t notice the reaction of others
(Levenson & Miller, 2007).Watch the Video James Coan: Emotion
Regulation at MyPsychLab
The amygdala plays a key role in emotion,
especially anger and fear (see Chapter 4). It is
responsible for evaluating sensory information,
determining its emotional importance, and mak
ing the initial decision to approach or withdraw
from a person or situation (LeDoux, 1996). The
amygdala instantly assesses danger or threat,
which is a good thing, because otherwise you
could be standing in the street asking, “Is it wise
to cross now, while that large truck is coming
toward me?” The amygdala’s initial response may
then be overridden by a more accurate appraisal
from the cortex. This is why you jump with fear
when you suddenly feel a hand on your back in
a dark alley, and why your fear evaporates when
the cortex registers that the hand belongs to a
friend whose lousy idea of humor is to scare you
in a dark alley.response to images and ideas that would be dis
gusting to most people, such as fecesshaped
chocolate (Calder et al., 2000). Are you mak
ing a disgusted expression as you read that? He
couldn’t.
Most emotions motivate a response (an action
tendency) of some sort: to embrace or approach
the person who instills joy in you, attack a per
son who makes you angry, withdraw from a
food that disgusts you, or flee from a person or
situation that frightens you (Frijda, Kuipers, &
ter Schure, 1989). The prefrontal regions of the
brain are involved in these impulses to approach
or withdraw. Regions of the right prefrontal
region are specialized for the impulse to with
draw or escape, as in disgust and fear. Regions of
the left prefrontal cortex are specialized for the
motivation to approach others, as in happiness
(a positive emotion) and anger (a negative one)
(Carver & HarmonJones, 2009; HarmonJones,
Peterson, & Harris, 2009). People who have
greaterthanaverage activation of the left areas,
compared with the right, have more positive
feelings, a quicker ability to recover from nega
tive emotions, and a greater ability to suppress
negative emotions (Urry et al., 2004). People
with damage to this area often lose the capacity
for joy.
Parts of the prefrontal cortex are also
involved in the regulation of emotion, helping
us modify and control our feelings, keeping us
on an even keel, and allowing us to respond
Get Involved! Turn on Your Right Hemisphere
These faces have expressions of happiness on one side and sadness on the other. Look at the nose of
each face; which face looks happier? Which face looks sadder?(a) (b)
You are likely to see face b as the happier one and face a as the sadder one. The likely reason is that
in most people the left side of a picture is processed by the right side of the brain, where recognition of
emotional expression primarily occurs (Oatley, Keltner, & Jenkins, 2006).