applying psychologicalprinciples In the Community

How Emotions Are Made

Do you want to learn more about emotions and how they are made? The more you understand emotions, the more you may be able to further develop your regulation skills. The video below is a TED talk by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist and emotions researcher at Northeastern University who studies how the human brain, in conversation with the body and the world, regulates the body and creates mental events, such as episodes of emotion.

“Emotions are not made FOR you, they are made BY you.”

– Lisa Feldman Barrett

Dr. Barrett describes how understanding how emotions are created and experienced can help people regulate emotions like test anxiety – something that prevents some people from succeeding in college. Anxiety is an emotion that can often be refrained or appraised into another emotion, such as determination or excitement, and it is a learned skill. This understanding of how to reframe the interpretations of difficult emotions such as anxiety or nervousness, is another example of how we can change our lives using psychological science.

Words Matter

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett also studies how words impact our brains and our bodies. Many species regulate each others’ nervous systems through sensory channels. For example, chemicals (such as pheromones), vocalizations, touch, smell, and vision are used by insects, mammals, and primates for communication that regulates nervous systems. Humans are unique in that they can use words as well as hugs, scents, and visuals. Our words can have a powerful impact on others – they can be a calming influence, then can trigger stress or fear, or they can affect trust and distrust. This is reflected in our nervous system, and can even be seen through brain scans. Words alone can influence activity in brain regions associated with movement, vision, and other bodily functions such as heart-rate, breathing, and the immune system.

Now that we understand the effect our words can have on other people’s nervous systems, we can reflect on the power we have to impact others’ experiences^[3]. We don’t need a lot of money or expertise to use our words in an influential way in our communities daily.

For example, have you been told to always use “person-first language?” This is different from “first person.” For example, instead of referring to someone as “a homeless person,” (and thus centering homelessness), you would center the person by saying “a person experiencing homelessness.” The general recommendation is to center the humanity of a person rather than a characteristic, condition, or disability. However, it turns out that many people in the disability community, especially disability rights advocates, prefer identity first language. This is also true of many in the autistic community. Many people refer to themselves as “deaf” or “autistic,” rather than “a deaf person” or “a person with autism.”

There is no true consensus among these communities regarding person-first language, but the use of euphemisms such as “differently abled” or “special needs” that were created primarily by non-disabled people are often viewed as infantilizing or patronizing by disabled people. This is important information, because if someone insists on calling someone “special needs” and those words feel infantilizing to the person they are talking about, then that person’s nervous system will be stressed more than necessary. We can unknowingly cause distress in others with the words we choose to use. In fact, researchers have found that a positive identification with disability, across studies and populations, has been associated with better adaptation to disability (such as hope, optimism, quality of life), better engagement in care, lessened impact of ableism, and even lower depression and anxiety symptoms^[4].

Language and Disability: Relevance for the Psychology Student

So what do we do to avoid unknowingly stressing other people’s nervous systems? The best thing to do is to just ask a person how they want to be addressed and to be mindful of common phrases that are rooted in ableism and negative attitudes about disability. Language is important when it comes to attitude, and the avoidance of the word “disabled” has been seen as having negative consequences. In fact, there is a movement called #Saytheword that encourages people to add the word “disability” back into their language^[7].

Adding the word “disability” back into our language as a valued social identity can improve our communities for disabled people. We know that the extent of disability experienced by an individual is significantly influenced by their environment. Inaccessible spaces can create obstacles that make engaging in basic activities such as healthcare, education, and employment difficult. In communities where spaces and experiences are built with accessibility in mind, disabled people will both have more opportunities and feel more like they belong in that community^[8]. Accessibility ranges from physical access to spaces, (steps, ramps, elevators, wide enough doorways and walkways, seating) to digital access (text to speech, visibility of text and images, reading level, usability of websites and digital forms) and more. These considerations can change th environment so that the disability is not as much of a barrier.

Traditional education spaces are environments that are often experienced as inaccessible. Recent estimates show that at least 12-13% of college students have a disability that impacts their learning. And yet, only about 6% of students access accommodations in the college classroom. Some students say they don’t access accommodations just as extended time on tests because they feel it is cheating – as do many non-disabled students. The reasoning behind classroom accommodations, however, is to level the playing field. If it takes me an hour to do something it only takes you a half hour to do, and I am only given half an hour, then I cannot demonstrate my knowledge or learn to my full capacity. You don’t need more than 30 minutes – in fact, providing more time for students who don’t need it does not improve test scores. Next time you hear someone saying that it’s not okay to access extended time accommodations, could you speak up and try to change their mind?

If you, your family or friends, or your classmates are disabled, this conversation might seem relevant. But even if none of the above are true, the psychology student needs to pay attention to language and accessibility. The American Psychological Association has guidelines on inclusive language to be used in writing and other forms of communication in psychology, and there are basic accessibility considerations for anything you create that will be “consumed” by the general public. These should be consulted when completing assignments and projects in your classes. For example, the following list from the APA guidelines suggests terms to avoid and alternatives. Note that many of these options use person-first language; the distinction between person-first and identity-first is less important here. The focus is on traditionally used terms that should be avoided and what to use instead.

For more information on person-first and identity-first language, please refer to the APA bias-free language guidelines for writing about disability