5.2.
Emotions
5.2.1. Definition of emotion
• Emotion is a negative or positive feeling generally in
reaction to stimuli that are accompanied by
physiological arousal and related behavior
• Emotion is a complex reaction pattern, involving
experiential, behavioral, and physiological elements,
by which an individual attempts to deal with a
personally significant matter or event.
• It is the feeling aspect of our consciousness.
Emotion
Components of emotion
• Physical component – physiological arousal
(internal body state accompanying the emotion)
• Cognitive component – the way we interpret a
stimulus or a situation
• Behavioral component – outward expression of the
emotion (facial expressions gesture, body posture,
tone of voice)
.
• The physiology of emotion - when a person
experiences an emotion, there is physical arousal
created by the sympathetic nervous system. The heart
rate increases, breathing becomes more rapid, the
pupils of the eye dilate, and the moth may become dry.
• Although facial expressions do differ between various
emotional responses, emotions are difficult to
distinguish from one another based on outward bodily
reactions alone.
• The behavior of emotion - tells us how people behave in
the grip of an emotion. There are facial expressions, body
movements, and actions that indicate to others how a
person feels.
• Frowns, smiles, and sad expressions combine with hand
gestures, the turning of one‘s body, and spoken words to
produce an understanding of emotion.
• People fight, run, kiss, and yell, along with countless other
actions stemming from the emotions they feel. Facial
expressions can vary across different cultures, although
some aspects of facial expression seem to be universal.
• Subjective experience or labeling emotion is the third
component of emotion and it involves interpreting the
subjective feeling by giving it a label: anger, fear, disgust,
happiness, sadness, shame, interest, surprise and so on.
• This component is also called “cognitive component” because
the labeling process is a matter of retrieving memories of
previous similar experiences, perceiving the context of the
emotion, and coming up with a solution- a label.
• The label a person applies to a subjective feeling is at least in
part a learned response influenced by that person‘s language
and culture. Such labels may differ in people of different
cultural backgrounds.
Basic Emotions
• The revised model of basic emotions includes:
– Happiness
– Surprise
– Sadness
– Fear
– Disgust
– Anger
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Happiness
Sadness
Surprise
Theories of emotion
I. James-Lang Theory of Emotion
• In this theory, a stimulus of some sort (for example, the
large snarling dog) produces a physiological reaction.
This reaction, which is the arousal of the “fight-or-flight”
sympathetic nervous system (wanting to run), produces
bodily sensations such as increased heart rate, dry
mouth, and rapid breathing.
• James and Lang believed that physical arousal led to the
labeling of the emotion (fear).
Simply put, “I am afraid because I am aroused,”
“I am embarrassed because my face is red,” and
“I am in love because of my heart rate increases when I
look at her or him.”
.
II. Cannon-Bard theory of emotion
• Physiologists Cannon and (1927) and Bard (1934) theorized
that the emotion and the physiological arousal occur more or
less at the same time.
• For example, the fear and the bodily reactions are, therefore,
experienced at the same time-not one after the other.
“I am afraid and running and aroused!”
.
III. Schechter-Singer and Cognitive Arousal Theory
The early theories talked about the emotion and the physical
reaction, but what about the mental interpretation of those
components?
• In their cognitive arousal theory, Schachter-Singer (1962)
proposed that two things have to happen before emotion
occurs: the physical arousal and labeling of the arousal.
• These two things happen at the same time, resulting in the
labeling of the emotion.
• For example, if a person comes across a snarling dog while
taking a walk, the physical arousal (heart racing, eyes opening
wide) is accompanied by the thought (cognition) that this must
be fear. Then and only then will the person experience the fear
of emotion.
• In other words, “I am aroused in the presence of a scary dog;
therefore, I must be afraid.”
James- Stimulus
Physiological arousal
Emotion
trembling
Lange snake increased heart rate fear
theory
Physiological arousal
trembling
increased heart rate
Cannon- Stimulus Sub-cortical
bard snake brain -activity
Emotion
theory fear
Physiological arousal
trembling
increased heart rate
Schechter Stimulus Emotion
fear
- singer Cognitive interpretation
theory “I feel afraid!”
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007