School of Education Social Science Resources

Emotion

It could be said that one definition of emotions is that they are states of feeling that affect the way we behave. (Dwyer and Scampion 1995). But in this case why don't we call hunger an emotion? Obviously the issue is a little more complicated. A second point about this definition is that it assumes a particular relationship between behaviour and subjective state and as we shall see this is far from clear.

Despite different definitions it is generally regarded that emotions can be split into three components:

• Subjective experience
• physiological changes/arousal
• behavioural changes

The way these components are treated is the major distinguishing factor of the theories we shall consider.

THE JAMES-LANGE THEORY

According to this theory emotion provoking stimuli will cause some change in physiological state. The emotion is the cognitive interpretation of these physiological changes. In other words they are a by-product (or cognitive representation ) of automatic physiological and behavioural responses.

The implication here is that you could control emotion by controlling behaviour. I.e. Make yourself smile and you will be happy!

For a demonstration of this refer to Laird's 1974 experiment where subjects are told they are to take part in a study looking at the activity of facial muscle.

EVALUATION

As it was so counter intuitive the model came under a lot of scrutiny. Cannon criticised it saying that the viscera that was supposed to provide the feedback was slow and not sensitive enough. In response it can be argued that the sensitivity of the viscera was greatly underestimated (remember we're talking 1920's).

Ax 1953 and Schwartz 1981 provide data to support the model. They were able to demonstrate subtle differences in physiology between emotions like fear and sadness. Earlier research such as Wolf and Wolff (yes it is spelt right) 1947 failed to find any difference.

A major criticism is that deafferented animals and humans (the nerve between the viscera and the brain is cut) emotions are still displayed. In the case of animals we could say that just because an animal is displaying an emotion we cannot assume that it is experiencing it. What about a human subject with spinal injury who tells us they are experiencing emotion?

Hohmann 1966, asked such subjects to recall emotive events from before and after their injury. He concluded that there was a diminishing of emotional response after injury and that the higher up the injury the greater this was. The study has been criticised on the grounds that the methodology is prone to experimenter bias and social desirability effects.

THE CANNON - BARD THEORY

This theory holds that subjective experience and physiological changes occur simultaneously and all emotions are underlied by the same pattern of response. The key to understanding this theory is understanding the role of the thalamus.

The thalamus acts as a sensory relay station, it can send sensory information to the cortex for interpretation and simultaneously send activation signals to the rest of the body via the hypothalamus (remember the 4 F's).

So, the two processes are independent. The subjective experience neither causes or depends on bodily changes. Although this might be able to explain some of the work with deafferented subjects, the idea that physiological changes are just a 'side-effect' of subjective experience is not supported by the evidence we have already considered. Also as we shall see later, Cannon was probably wrong to ascribe a central role to the thalamus.

SCHACHTER AND SINGER'S TWO FACTOR THEORY

The starting point for this theory is that Cannon was wrong in thinking that bodily changes and emotional experience were independent. Also that the James Lange theory was wrong in thinking that physiological changes cause emotional experience.

In this theory the experience of emotion depends on two factors:

• physiological arousal of the autonomic nervous system
• cognitive appraisal of the physiological arousal

So, similar to the J-L model Schachter and Singer see arousal as preceding the subjective experience. However it is not sufficient.

Simply put, You experience some kind of physiological arousal and then look for an explanation. If that explanation is non emotive then you will not experience an emotion. But if it is you will! Also the degree of arousal will determine the intensity of the emotion.

Now study the description of Schachter and Singer's classic experiment. You should also familiarise yourself with Dutton and Aron 1974.

EVALUATION

One important problem concerns replication. Marshall and Zimbardo 1979 found no effect from arousal and cognition manipulations. Maslach 1978 found that subjects were less likely to imitate the stooge and more likely to apply negative emotional labels to their arousal whatever social situation they were placed in,

Hilgard 1989 points out some specific criticisms.

• adrenaline does not effect everyone the same way
• 5 subjects who experienced no arousal were removed from the sample. If they had been included the difference between conditions would have disappeared.
• the mood of the subjects was not assessed at the beginning of the procedure
• they failed to consider that the injection itself was an emotive experience.

Ed O'Grady, Social Science Co-tutor, Beauchamp College, Oadby

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