Emotional Psychology Psychology Essay Research Paper

Emotional Psychology: Effect of Emotions on Memory
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Emotional Psychology: Effect of Emotions on Memory
As human beings go through the motion of life, they experience different emotions, starting from an early age. This is because human beings have different experiences at different periods of their lives which require certain responses. Emotions are strong feelings and there is no one way of defining emotions. As indicated by Tyng, Amin, Saad, and Malik (2017), emotions are “a complex set of interactions between subjective and objective variables that are mediated by neural and hormonal systems, which can (a) give rise to affective experiences of emotional valence (pleasure-displeasure) and emotional arousal (high-low activation/calming-arousing);(b) generate cognitive processes such as emotionally relevant perceptual affect, appraisals, labeling processes; (c) activate widespread psychological and physiological changes to the arousing conditions; and (d) motivate behavior that is often but not always expressive, goal-directed and adaptive.” Basically, emotions can be described as a subjective and affective state with varying intensity and are usually preceded by the occurrence of an event.
Psychologists have often linked memories to the emotional state of human beings at the time the memories were being made, more so in cases involving negative emotions. Individuals who have experienced traumatic events may forget some or all the details about the event, especially if the traumatic event happens in childhood. Tyng, Amin, Saad, and Malik (2017), indicate that in human beings, emotions have a considerable effect on the cognitive processes such as attention, reasoning, and memory, among others. The aim of the paper is to investigate how emotions affect memory and our ability to retrieve stored memories. To this end, a literature review will be conducted to establish what past studies have revealed about the relationship between emotions and the ability to create and recall memories. Then, this paper will discuss how the studies support the current hypothesis and suggest a new research direction.
Hypothesis
H0: A person’s emotional state when an event occurs does not affect their ability to memorize and/or recall the details of the event.
H1: A person’s emotional state when an event occurs affects their ability to memorize and/or recall the details of the event.
Literature Review
Understanding emotions and their effect on the memory of human beings is important to psychologists. As stated earlier, emotions affect cognitive processes. Also, when psychologists understand emotions, they are in a better position to understand human motivation and the behavior of human beings based on their different experiences throughout their life. This is why there have been multiple studies on emotions and how the processing of emotions affects cognition, motivation, and physical body changes, albeit temporary (Dalgleish, 2004). Understanding emotions as a key aspect of human behavior will also allow psychologists to guide human beings through different experiences.
In a study investigating how emotional content affects working memory capacity, Garrison and Schmeichel ...