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The complex relationship between arousal, expressive behavior, and cognition in the context of emotion. Discover the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard Thalamic, and Schachter-Singer Two-Factor theories of emotion, and learn about the role of the autonomic nervous system in emotional responses. Understand how emotions such as anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and happiness are related to physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal.
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Theories and Physiology of Emotion
41-1 Describe how arousal, expressive behavior, and cognition interact in emotion. 41-2 Explain whether we can experience emotions without consciously interpreting and labeling them. 41-3 Describe the basic emotions, and the link between emotional arousal and the autonomic nervous system. 41-4 Discuss whether different emotions activate different physiological and brain- pattern responses. 41-5 Discuss the effectiveness of polygraphs in using body states to detect lies.
In the image above, what is the physiological arousal? The expressive behavior? The conscious experience?
Emotion research considers two big questions: ! Does your bodily arousal come before or after your emotional feelings? ! How do thinking (cognition) and feeling interact? Does cognition always come before emotion? Historical emotion theories, as well as current research, have sought to answer these questions.
Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon and his graduate student Philip Bard disagreed with the James-Lange theory. They asked: “ Does a racing heart signal fear or anger or love ?” The body’s responses—heart rate, perspiration, and body temperature—are too similar, and they change too slowly, to cause the different emotions.
the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion
The Cannon-Bard theory suggests that stimulation/ arousal and emotion are a combined response to a stimulus. After exposure to a stimulus, sensory signals are transmitted to the thalamus. Once the thalamus receives the signal, it relays the information to two structures: the amygdala and the brain cortex.
The amygdala is responsible for the instantaneous emotional response (fear, rage, etc.) and the cerebral cortex directs the response. Simultaneously, the sympathetic nervous system sends signals to muscles and other parts of the body, causing them to tense or prepare for fight-flight or freeze.
The Cannon-Bard theory of emotion states that A. emotional response occurs before cognition. B. physiological response occurs before emotional response. C. emotional response occurs before physiological response. D. cognition occurs before emotional response. E. physiological response and emotion occur independently and simultaneously.
Can you think of a recent time when you noticed your body’s reactions to an emotionally charged situation, such as a difficult social setting, or perhaps even a test or game you had been worrying about in advance? Can you apply the James-Lange and Cannon-Bard thalamic theories to your experience?
Our physical reactions and our thoughts (perceptions, memories, and interpretations) together create emotion. In Schachter and Singer’s two-factor theory , emotions have two ingredients: physical arousal and cognitive appraisal. An emotional experience, they argued, requires a conscious interpretation of arousal.
Arousal spills over from one event to the next. For instance, arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger, which can descend into rioting or other violent confrontations.
Subjects began to feel their heart race, body flush, and breathing become more rapid The subjects who attributed their arousal to the drug, felt little emotion. The subjects who had been told the injection would produce no arousal, “caught” the apparent emotion of the other person in the waiting room. They became happy if the accomplice was acting euphoric, and testy if the accomplice was acting irritated.
This discovery—that a stirred-up state can be experienced as one emotion or another, depending on how we interpret and label it—has been replicated in dozens of experiments and continues to influence modern emotion research. (MacCormack & Lindquist, 2016; Reisenzein, 1983; Sinclair et al., 1994)