Theories of emotion

Transcript

RyanYou're walking to your car late at night. The parking garage is quiet. Then you hear footsteps behind you, quick ones. Your heart pounds, your breath goes shallow, and you feel afraid.

SoheeAnd here's the question at the heart of the theories of emotion. Did the fear make your heart pound? Or did the pounding heart make you afraid?

RyanWelcome to EPPP Prep, the podcast. I'm Ryan.

SoheeI'm Sohee. Today, the theories of emotion. There are several, and they can blur together. The trick is to track one thing: the order of events in each theory.

RyanLet's start with what an emotion is. The OpenStax psychology textbook calls it a subjective state of being that we often describe as our feelings. And emotions combine four parts: subjective experience, expression, cognitive appraisal, and physiological responses.

SoheeThe textbook also notes the exact order of those components isn't clear, and some may happen at the same time. That uncertainty is exactly why we have competing theories. And our experiences, backgrounds and cultures inform our emotions, so different people can feel differently in similar circumstances.

RyanFirst, the James-Lange theory. Emotions arise from physiological arousal. You meet a threat, your sympathetic nervous system kicks in, your heart races, and only after that arousal do you experience the feeling of fear.

SoheeAnd James-Lange adds that different patterns of arousal go with different feelings. So arousal first, then emotion, and the arousal pattern tells you which emotion.

RyanOther theorists doubted that the arousal in different emotions is distinct enough to produce all the emotions we feel. So came the Cannon-Bard theory.

SoheeCannon-Bard says physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously, yet independently. You hear the footsteps, and you feel fear at the same moment your body mounts its fight-or-flight response. They co-occur, but neither causes the other.

RyanSo the contrast in one line. James-Lange: arousal, then emotion. Cannon-Bard: arousal and emotion at the same time, independently.

SoheeNext, the Schachter-Singer two-factor theory. Emotions have two factors, physiological and cognitive. Arousal is interpreted in context, and that interpretation produces the emotional experience.

RyanSo the same racing heart in the parking garage gets labeled as fear, because of the context. Had you labeled that same activation as joy, you would have experienced joy. That labeling is a type of cognitive appraisal.

SoheeAnd historically, a Spanish physician named Marañón studied the psychological effects of adrenaline, and his model came before Schachter's.

RyanSchachter and Singer believed arousal is very similar across emotions, so the cognitive appraisal of the situation is critical. They even thought arousal could be misattributed to an emotion if the circumstances were right. And they ran a clever experiment to test it.

SoheeMen were randomly assigned to groups. Some got injections of epinephrine, which mimics the fight-or-flight response. Only some of those men were told to expect those effects. Others were told to expect no side effects, or unrelated ones like itching feet or a headache.

RyanThen each man waited with someone he thought was another participant. Actually it was a confederate, acting out scripted euphoria or anger.

SoheeThe men who'd been told to expect arousal reported no emotional change. The men who weren't expecting it were more likely to report euphoria or anger, matching the confederate.

RyanEveryone who got epinephrine had the same arousal. Only those without an explanation used the context to interpret their arousal as emotion. That's the two factors: arousal plus a label.

SoheePause and think. A participant is given a drug that speeds his heart, but he's told it's a vitamin with no side effects. He then waits with a confederate who's laughing and joking. He reports feeling unusually happy. Which theory does this support?

RyanSchachter-Singer. Unexplained arousal, plus a happy context, gets labeled as happiness. If he'd been told to expect the racing heart, he'd likely attribute it to the drug instead.

SoheeNow appraisal theories. Magda Arnold was the first theorist to explore what appraisal means and outline how it relates to emotion. The key idea is that you have thoughts, a cognitive appraisal, before you experience an emotion, and the emotion depends on those thoughts.

RyanWhich explains how two people can feel completely different emotions about the same event. Your instructor asks you to give a lecture. If you see it as a chance to be the center of attention, you feel happy. If you dislike public speaking, you feel discomfort.

SoheeLazarus developed the cognitive-mediational theory. Our emotions are determined by our appraisal of the stimulus. That appraisal mediates between the stimulus and the emotion, and it's immediate and often unconscious.

RyanAnd here's a distinction the textbook draws carefully. In contrast to Schachter and Singer, in Lazarus's view the appraisal comes before any cognitive label. For Schachter-Singer, you label arousal after the fact. For Lazarus, you appraise first.

SoheeLazarus's appraisal idea also shapes how we understand stress. A primary appraisal judges how much potential harm or threat a stressor carries. A secondary appraisal judges the options for coping and how effective they'd be.

RyanNow two views that put less weight on cognition. Robert Zajonc held that some emotions occur separately from, or even before, our cognitive interpretation of them. Like feeling fear in response to an unexpected loud sound.

SoheeZajonc also believed in what we'd casually call a gut feeling: an instant, unexplainable like or dislike for someone or something.

RyanJoseph LeDoux likewise sees some emotions as requiring no cognition. His neuroscience research showed the amygdala's primary role in fear, and two paths a fear stimulus can take.

SoheeOne path goes from the thalamus, where the stimulus is perceived, directly to the amygdala. That's quick. The other goes from the thalamus through the cortex and then to the amygdala, which allows more processing of the details.

RyanSo in the parking garage, the quick path gets your heart going before you've worked out whether those footsteps belong to a neighbor. Then the slower path, through the cortex, catches up with the details.

SoheeThen the facial feedback hypothesis: your facial expression can actually affect your emotional experience. Research found that suppressing facial expressions lowered the intensity of some emotions.

RyanAnd in one study, Havas and colleagues used Botox injections to limit facial expressions, including frowning. Depressed people reported less depression after their frowning muscles were paralyzed.

SoheePause and think. Two students get the same grade, a B plus. One is thrilled. The other is crushed, because she expected an A. Which family of theories best explains the different emotions?

RyanAppraisal theories. Same event, different thoughts about what it means, so different emotions. Arnold described appraisal, and Lazarus's cognitive-mediational theory says the appraisal determines the emotion.

SoheeFinally, a newer and bolder view. After about three decades of interdisciplinary research, the psychologist Barrett argued that emotions aren't built into the brain at birth. They're constructed from our experiences.

RyanIn her constructivist theory, emotions are predictions that construct your experience. The same churning stomach can become hunger if your brain predicts it in a bakery, or worry if you're waiting for medical test results.

SoheeAnd the hopeful implication the textbook draws: rather than emotions being something over which you have no control, you can control and influence them.

RyanSo how might the exam test this? Usually by describing an order of events and asking which theory fits. Arousal then emotion: James-Lange. At the same time: Cannon-Bard. Arousal plus a label from context: Schachter-Singer. Appraisal first, often unconscious: Lazarus. Emotion with no cognition needed: Zajonc or LeDoux.

SoheeThe tempting wrong answer usually swaps James-Lange and Cannon-Bard, or confuses Schachter-Singer's after-the-fact label with Lazarus's up-front appraisal.

RyanLet's recap. Emotion blends subjective experience, expression, appraisal and physiological response.

SoheeJames-Lange: arousal first, then emotion, with distinct arousal patterns. Cannon-Bard: arousal and emotion simultaneous but independent.

RyanSchachter-Singer: two factors, arousal plus a cognitive label. The epinephrine study showed unexplained arousal takes on the emotion of the context.

SoheeArnold and Lazarus: appraisal comes first and determines the emotion. Zajonc and LeDoux: some emotions need no cognition, and LeDoux traced a fast path from the thalamus straight to the amygdala.

RyanFacial feedback: expressions shape feelings. Barrett: emotions are constructed predictions, which means we have some influence over them.

SoheeAnd here's an appraisal worth trying on yourself. Exam nerves can be read as threat, or as energy for a challenge. Same racing heart. How you read it matters. That's appraisal theory, working for you instead of against you.

RyanTry a few practice questions, and we'll see you next time on EPPP Prep, where we'll look at emotion in the brain and on the face.

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