Motivation, Emotion, and Learning Unit 2 IP - Assignment Example

After the end of the three days, the frequency of each emotion experienced across the total reporting period and on preset times on each day (For example, anger=1, joy=2, sad=1, anxious=3, etc.) was calculated. Thereafter an analysis was made of the physiological (internal and expressive body changes) and cognitive (specific thoughts occurring during an emotion) components of emotions in the experience. The findings are reported below. There are several psychological frameworks that define and operationally emotion (e.g., Izard 1977; Mehrabian and Russell 1974; Plutchik 1980).

The present research uses Izard's framework which "assumes that separate and discrete emotions exist and that each has measurable, experiential, and motivational properties" (Izard 1972, p. 85). In his Differential Emotions Theory Izard (1972) conceptualizes ten fundamental emotions: joy, surprise, anger, disgust, contempt, shame, guilt, fear, interest, and sadness. Given the fact that the time period chosen was that of three consecutive days and observation points comprised of preset 7 vantage time periods on each day, it was inevitable that the felt emotions would source from out of major events that either preceded these days or occurred during these days.

The predominant emotions observed during the period were Anger (15), Contempt (16), Disgust (11) and Interest (12). It was observed that the first three had occurred in tandem as they were basically caused by a single event. The last interest was caused by a separate event. There were two events that had primarily originated the predominant emotions in the observation period. The event causing disgust, anger, and contempt in tandem involved a gory media reporting of a riot involving a crowd in a developing country.

The graphic images shown over media had immersed in attention span substantially and a lot of time was spent analyzing this event which explains the high frequency of the three emotions felt in tandem. Interest was evinced by another event that involved receiving a personal bursary from my distantly related uncle who was arriving from the UK to assess me for the grant of this bursary. Anger invariably resulted in racing of heart and tightening of arm muscles. A little tightening was felt in thigh muscles as well.

The eyes got a little bloodshot with bleary effect. However, despite all these effects, all senses seem to sharpen with anger. Disgust essentially produced tightening of stomach muscles. It was accompanied by eyebrow pull up and screwing of eyes. Contempt produced physical effects quite similar to those produced by anger with the difference that fists formed almost involuntarily and teeth clenched hard, as the contempt emotion traversed from one end to the other. Interest emotion was accompanied by the widening of eyes and slight outward popping of eyeballs.