|
|
Psychology
Emotion
Theories of Emotion
Emotion is a complex, subjective experience accompanied by biological and behavioral changes. Emotion involves feeling, thinking, activation of the nervous system, physiological changes, and behavioral 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, and cognitive appraisal.
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.
Cognitive Appraisal
The psychologist Richard Lazarus’s research has shown that
people’s experience of emotion depends on the way they appraise or evaluate the
events around them.
Example:
If Tracy is driving on a winding road by the edge of a
high cliff, she may be concerned about the danger of the road.
Her passenger, on the other hand, thinks about the beauty of the
view. Tracy will probably feel frightened, while her passenger
may feel exhilarated.
|
|
