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Summary of problem 1. Head in the clouds
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1.1C People in Groups (31/08/20)Theme 1 – Emotion and Arousal
Emotion is a strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.
Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to
a point of perception.
The source of our emotions remains elusive. No one knows exactly where emotions come from, what
makes us feel the way we do, or whether we can fully control the way we feel. Emotion is intimately
related to cognition and culture, and it affects us physically: our bodies react to different emotional
states, and we often show emotion physically. Researchers have proposed many theories about the
source, purpose, and expression of emotion.
In many ways, our emotions define our existence—without them, most of us would not feel truly
alive. We’ve all felt fear of a lurking stranger, pride at scoring well on a test, love, sadness, and
loneliness. And between emotional extremes are the ups and downs of everyday life: frustration in a
traffic jam, contentment over a satisfying lunch, amusement at a cartoon. We have much to learn
about emotion—but we have also learned simply by being human and feeling things every day.
Theories of Emotion
Emotion is a complex, subjective experience accompanied by biological and behavioural changes.
Emotion involves feeling, thinking, activation of the nervous system, physiological changes, and
behavioural changes such as facial expressions.
Different theories exist regarding how and why people experience emotion. These include
evolutionary theories, the James-Lange Theory, the Cannon-Bard Theory, Schacter and Singer’s Two-
Factor Theory, Cognitive Appraisal and Excitation-Transfer Theory.
Evolutionary Theories
More than a century ago, in the 1870s, Charles Darwin proposed that emotions evolved because they
had adaptive value. For example, fear evolved because it helped people to act in ways that enhanced
their chances of survival. Darwin believed that facial expressions of emotion are innate (hard-wired).
He pointed out that facial expressions allow people to quickly judge someone’s hostility or
friendliness and to communicate intentions to others.
Recent evolutionary theories of emotion also consider emotions to be innate responses to stimuli.
Evolutionary theorists tend to downplay the influence of thought and learning on emotion, although
they acknowledge that both can have an effect. Evolutionary theorists believe that all human cultures
share several primary emotions, including happiness, contempt, surprise, disgust, anger, fear, and
sadness. They believe that all other emotions result from blends and different intensities of these
primary emotions. For example, terror is a more intense form of the primary emotion of fear.
The James-Lange Theory
In the 1880s, two theorists, psychologist William James and physiologist Carl Lange, independently
proposed an idea that challenged commonsense beliefs about emotion. This idea, which came to be
known as the James-Lange Theory, is that people experience emotion because they perceive their
bodies’ physiological responses to external events. According to this theory, people don’t cry because
they feel sad. Rather, people feel sad because they cry, and, likewise, they feel happy because they
smile. This theory suggests that different physiological states correspond to different experiences of
emotion.
, The Cannon-Bard Theory
The physiologist Walter Cannon disagreed with the James-Lange theory, posing three main arguments
against it:
People can experience physiological arousal without experiencing emotion, such as when they have
been running. (The racing heart in this case is not an indication of fear.)
Physiological reactions happen too slowly to cause experiences of emotion, which occur very rapidly.
For example, when someone is in a dark alley alone, a sudden sound usually provokes an immediate
experience of fear, while the physical “symptoms” of fear generally follow that feeling.
People can experience very different emotions even when they have the same pattern of physiological
arousal. For example, a person may have a racing heart and rapid breathing both when he is angry and
when he is afraid.
Cannon proposed his own theory of emotion in the 1920s, which was extended by another
physiologist, Philip Bard, in the 1930s. The resulting Cannon-Bard Theory states that the experience
of emotion happens at the same time that physiological arousal happens. Neither one causes the other.
The brain gets a message that causes the experience of emotion at the same time that the autonomic
nervous system gets a message that causes physiological arousal.
Schachter and Singer’s Two-Factor
Theory
In the 1960s, Stanley Schachter and
Jerome Singer proposed a different
theory to explain emotion. They said
that people’s experience of emotion
depends on two factors: physiological
arousal and the cognitive interpretation
of that arousal. When people perceive
physiological symptoms of arousal,
they look for an environmental
explanation of this arousal. The label
people give an emotion depends on
what they find in their environment.
Example: If a person finds herself
near an angry mob of people when she
is physiologically aroused, she might
label that arousal “anger.” On the
other hand, if she experiences the
same pattern of physiological arousal
at a music concert, she might label the
arousal “excitement.”
Schachter and Singer agree with the
James-Lange theory that people infer emotions when they experience physiological arousal. But they
also agree with the Cannon-Bard theory that the same pattern of physiological arousal can give rise to
different emotions.
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