According to the two-factor theory, proposed by Schachter and Singer, the stimulus leads to the arousal that is labeled using the cognition that leads to the emotion. The sound of a gunshot, for example, leads to physiological responses like rapid heart rate and trembling that are interpreted as fear by subjective experience.
According to the cognitive-mediational theory, proposed by Lazarus, the stimulus leads to a personal meaning derived from cognition, leading to both arousal and the emotion. The sound of a gunshot, for example, is interpreted as something potentially dangerous and leads to both physiological responses , like a rapid heart rate and trembling, and the subjective experience of fear. Finally, according to facial feedback theory, emotion is the experience of changes in our facial muscles.
In other words, when we smile , we then experience pleasure, or happiness. When we frown, we then experience sadness. It is the changes in our facial muscles that cue our brains and provide the basis of our emotions. Just as there are an unlimited number of muscle configurations in our face, so too are there a seemingly unlimited number of emotions.
For example, the sound of a gunshot, causes your eyes to widen and your teeth to clench, and your brain interprets these facial changes as the expression of fear. Therefore, you experience the emotion of fear. By breaking them down in this way, one can already notice the differences and similarities between the different theories, as one can clearly identify the components that exist in each theory and the order in which they occur. As can be seen from the above, the James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories are fundamentally similar in that they both involve the same three components, but they are different in how they handle the timing of when arousal and emotion occur.
They both differ from the two cognitive theories in that they do not explicitly acknowledge any role of cognition. Regarding the similarities, the sequence of the three components in both the James-Lange and two-factor theories, as well as in both the Cannon-Bard and cognitive-mediational theories, is the same. Although emotions might seem to you to be more frivolous or less important in comparison to our more rational cognitive processes, both emotions and cognitions can help us make effective decisions.
In some cases we take action after rationally processing the costs and benefits of different choices, but in other cases we rely on our emotions. Emotions become particularly important in guiding decisions when the alternatives between many complex and conflicting alternatives present us with a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity, making a complete cognitive analysis difficult.
Recall for a moment a situation in which you have experienced an intense emotional response. Perhaps you woke up in the middle of the night in a panic because you heard a noise that made you think that someone had broken into your house or apartment. Or maybe you were calmly cruising down a street in your neighbourhood when another car suddenly pulled out in front of you, forcing you to slam on your brakes to avoid an accident. Perhaps you remember being flushed, your heart pounding, feeling sick to your stomach, or having trouble breathing.
If you think back to a strong emotional experience, you might wonder about the order of the events that occurred. Certainly you experienced arousal, but did the arousal come before, after, or along with the experience of the emotion? Psychologists have proposed three different theories of emotion, which differ in terms of the hypothesized role of arousal in emotion Figure According to the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion , the experience of an emotion is accompanied by physiological arousal.
Thus, according to this model of emotion, as we become aware of danger, our heart rate also increases. Although the idea that the experience of an emotion occurs alongside the accompanying arousal seems intuitive to our everyday experiences, the psychologists William James and Carl Lange had another idea about the role of arousal.
According to the James-Lange theory of emotion , our experience of an emotion is the result of the arousal that we experience. This approach proposes that the arousal and the emotion are not independent, but rather that the emotion depends on the arousal. The fear does not occur along with the racing heart but occurs because of the racing heart.
A fundamental aspect of the James-Lange theory is that different patterns of arousal may create different emotional experiences. There is research evidence to support each of these theories. The operation of the fast emotional pathway Figure The emotional circuits in the limbic system are activated when an emotional stimulus is experienced, and these circuits quickly create corresponding physical reactions LeDoux, The process happens so quickly that it may feel to us as if emotion is simultaneous with our physical arousal.
On the other hand, and as predicted by the James-Lange theory, our experiences of emotion are weaker without arousal. Patients who have spinal injuries that reduce their experience of arousal also report decreases in emotional responses Hohmann, There is also at least some support for the idea that different emotions are produced by different patterns of arousal.
People who view fearful faces show more amygdala activation than those who watch angry or joyful faces Whalen et al. Whereas the James-Lange theory proposes that each emotion has a different pattern of arousal, the two-factor theory of emotion takes the opposite approach, arguing that the arousal that we experience is basically the same in every emotion, and that all emotions including the basic emotions are differentiated only by our cognitive appraisal of the source of the arousal.
The two-factor theory of emotion asserts that the experience of emotion is determined by the intensity of the arousal we are experiencing, but that the cognitive appraisal of the situation determines what the emotion will be.
In some cases it may be difficult for a person who is experiencing a high level of arousal to accurately determine which emotion he or she is experiencing. That is, the person may be certain that he or she is feeling arousal, but the meaning of the arousal the cognitive factor may be less clear.
Some romantic relationships, for instance, have a very high level of arousal, and the partners alternatively experience extreme highs and lows in the relationship. One day they are madly in love with each other and the next they are in a huge fight.
In situations that are accompanied by high arousal, people may be unsure what emotion they are experiencing. In the high arousal relationship, for instance, the partners may be uncertain whether the emotion they are feeling is love, hate, or both at the same time.
The tendency for people to incorrectly label the source of the arousal that they are experiencing is known as the misattribution of arousal. In one interesting field study by Dutton and Aron , an attractive young woman approached individual young men as they crossed a wobbly, long suspension walkway hanging more than feet above a river in British Columbia Figure The woman asked each man to help her fill out a class questionnaire.
When he had finished, she wrote her name and phone number on a piece of paper, and invited him to call if he wanted to hear more about the project. More than half of the men who had been interviewed on the bridge later called the woman.
In contrast, men approached by the same woman on a low, solid bridge, or who were interviewed on the suspension bridge by men, called significantly less frequently. The idea of misattribution of arousal can explain this result — the men were feeling arousal from the height of the bridge, but they misattributed it as romantic or sexual attraction to the woman, making them more likely to call her.
If you think a bit about your own experiences of different emotions, and if you consider the equation that suggests that emotions are represented by both arousal and cognition, you might start to wonder how much was determined by each. That is, do we know what emotion we are experiencing by monitoring our feelings arousal or by monitoring our thoughts cognition? The bridge study you just read about might begin to provide you with an answer: The men seemed to be more influenced by their perceptions of how they should be feeling their cognition rather than by how they actually were feeling their arousal.
Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer directly tested this prediction of the two-factor theory of emotion in a well-known experiment. Schachter and Singer believed that the cognitive part of the emotion was critical — in fact, they believed that the arousal that we experience could be interpreted as any emotion, provided we had the right label for it.
On the other hand, they argued that people who already have a clear label for their arousal would have no need to search for a relevant label, and therefore should not experience an emotion. In the research, male participants were told that they would be participating in a study on the effects of a new drug, called suproxin, on vision. On the basis of this cover story, the men were injected with a shot of the neurotransmitter epinephrine, a drug that normally creates feelings of tremors, flushing, and accelerated breathing in people.
The idea was to give all the participants the experience of arousal. Then, according to random assignment to conditions, the men were told that the drug would make them feel certain ways. The men in the epinephrine informed condition were told the truth about the effects of the drug — that they would likely experience tremors, their hands would start to shake, their hearts would start to pound, and their faces might get warm and flushed.
The participants in the epinephrine-uninformed condition, however, were told something untrue — that their feet would feel numb, they would have an itching sensation over parts of their body, and they might get a slight headache. The idea was to make some of the men think that the arousal they were experiencing was caused by the drug the informed condition , whereas others would be unsure where the arousal came from the uninformed condition.
Then the men were left alone with a confederate who they thought had received the same injection. He wadded up spitballs, flew paper airplanes, and played with a hula-hoop. He kept trying to get the participant to join in with his games. Then right before the vision experiment was to begin, the participants were asked to indicate their current emotional states on a number of scales.
One of the emotions they were asked about was euphoria. If you are following the story, you will realize what was expected: The men who had a label for their arousal the informed group would not be experiencing much emotion because they already had a label available for their arousal. The men in the misinformed group, on the other hand, were expected to be unsure about the source of the arousal.
They needed to find an explanation for their arousal, and the confederate provided one. As you can see in Figure The participants in the misinformed condition were more likely to experience euphoria as measured by their behavioural responses with the confederate than were those in the informed condition. Then Schachter and Singer conducted another part of the study, using new participants.
Everything was exactly the same except for the behaviour of the confederate. Rather than being euphoric, he acted angry. He complained about having to complete the questionnaire he had been asked to do, indicating that the questions were stupid and too personal. Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Fama R, Sullivan EV. Thalamic structures and associated cognitive functions: Relations with age and aging. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. Sullivan LE.
Cannon-Bard theory. The limbic system conception and its historical evolution. Laird JD, Lacasse K. Emotion Review. Cannon, W. American Journal of Psychology, 39 , Your Privacy Rights.
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