What+is+emotion?

The Fear Exercise: **Write a description of fear**



**Which students gave a description based on physical characteristics?** **Which described a frightening situation?** **If the emotion is related to the situation, can persons from any culture/background understand the emotion?**

=__Some Theories of Emotion__=

=__ **The James-Lange Theory** __= According to this theory, emotions are essentially physical in nature, and bodily changes come before, and cause, emotional charges. The theory states that within human beings, as a response to experiences in the world, the autonomic nervous system creates physiological events such as muscular tension, a rise in heart rate, perspiration, and dryness of the mouth. Emotions, then, are feelings which come about as a //result// of these physiological changes, rather than being their cause.

In fact, Lange specifically stated that vasomotor changes (changes in the constriction or dilatation of blood vessels) are emotions.

**According to this theory, you are afraid because you run.**
The theory also suggests that if you mimic the appropriate physical symptoms you can generate the corresponding emotion. E.g. if you smile, you will feel happy, and if you scowl you will feel angry.

We can **empathize** with other people’s feelings by unconsciously mimicking some of the physical expressions of their mood.

Read an interesting interview with primatologist Frans de Waal on the physical basis of empathy [|here].

 * **If the physical characteristics could be removed then we would also remove the emotion. Do you accept this?**
 * **Does this translate for all emotions?**
 * **Do emotions exist only in their physical effect?**
 * **What about social emotions like guilt?**

If some of us react with fear at the sight of a harmless frog and others don’t, there must be a mental factor to emotion. It would then seem that this theory is flawed because it doesn’t take into account a cognitive element to emotion.

=__ **The Schachter-Singer Theory** __= According to this theory, emotions are interpreted and labeled physiological responses-These responses can be interpreted in different ways and different people may label the same response as a different emotion.

**According to this theory, I feel my heart beating fast because I think I'm afraid. She feels her heart beating fast because she thinks she's in love…**
= Or =


 * **Is emotion then completely relative to an individual interpretation what the stimulus means?**

= **The Cannon-Bard Theory** =

The Cannon-Bard theory of emotion states that conscious feelings of emotion and physiological changes occur as **separate but simultaneous reactions** to external emotion-arousing stimuli.

**According to this theory, you feel fear at the sight of a Gillman //and// your breathing comes fast and heavy, even before you run away from it.**



 * Homework: ** Reading: van de Lagemaat p.p. 149-155