25th October 2023

Emotion

The emotional response

The common-sense view of emotion sees it as something internal, distinct, and recognisable that occurs as an automatic response to specific ‘triggers’. An event occurs, and this causes a rapid emotional experience, which in turn triggers a physical response. The common-sense theory of emotion describes each emotional response as having three distinct parts:

• Subjective experience of emotion.
• Physiological changes in response to emotion.
• Associated skeletal muscle actions such as smiling, crying, running, etc…

Many psychologists believe that emotions have common elements across cultures and can be observed objectively and labelled via associated bodily reactions. Evolutionary psychologists were some of the earliest people attempting to describe emotion, and they stated that emotion helped fulfil biological needs and could be described as involuntary, fast-onset physiological phenomena linked to the automatic appraisal of a situation. Classical, evolutionary, and common-sense views of emotion have many common elements, whilst the most oppositional stance of emotion to these models was the James-Lange theory of emotion.

James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories

The James-Lange theory of emotion says, ‘Emotion is not directly caused by the perception of an event, but rather by the bodily response caused by the event.’

For example – Running from a bear produces the emotion of fear secondary to the act of running away. The theory implies altering behaviour (specifically skeletal muscle behaviour) alters emotions. However, Walter Cannon, another psychologist (who developed the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion that says we experience physiological arousal and emotion simultaneously), criticised the James Lange theory of emotion by pointing out:

• Physiological arousal is often experienced without associated emotion, i.e., running causes physiological arousal but does not produce subsequent changes in emotion.
• Physiological reactions happen too slowly to cause experiences of emotion. For example, intense fear can immediately follow hearing screams, but heart rate / skeletal muscle responses can be shown to lag behind the emotional response.

Human studies where subjects were injected with adrenaline and did not experience emotional response corresponding to arousal were able to discredit the James-Lange theory and provide evidence to support the Cannon-Bard position that the experience of an emotion does not depend on input from the body but that emotions and the physiological response to emotions are simultaneous and independent of each other.

Cognitive appraisal and primary emotions

Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer are associated with the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion that says people’s experience of emotion depends on both the physiological arousal and subsequent cognitive interpretation of the arousal. They acknowledged that the emotional response is influenced by physiological responses but believed that interpretation of a person’s current context (environmental factors) and cognitive appraisal of a physical response was crucial to deciding what emotion was experienced.

This theory incorporated aspects of the James-Lange theory (people infer emotions when they experience physiological arousal) and the Cannon-Bard theory (the same pattern of physiological arousal causes different emotions). The cognitive appraisal theory stresses the importance of conscious interpretation prior to determining the emotional response.

Richard Lazarus added to cognitive appraisal theories of emotion by looking at how emotions result via interactions between the person and their environment. Lazarus described two distinct aspects of cognitive appraisal.

Primary appraisal – Is an event benign or harmful to personal well-being?

Secondary appraisal – Does a person have the resources necessary to cope with the event?

The main function of the secondary appraisal is to determine an appropriate response or coping strategy by evaluating one’s available resources. For example, coping strategies help regulate emotions or help by changing the situation causing the emotion. Lazarus’ ideas were prescient of more modern concepts of ‘emotional regulation.’

Paul Ekman theorised that emotions were developed cross-culturally and universally. He undertook research in Papua New Guinea that supported his theory that certain emotions were ‘universal’ or ‘basic’ and distinguishable by facial expressions. These were:

• Anger.
• Disgust.
• Happiness.
• Sadness.
• Fear.
• Surprise.

Ekman theorised that the above were innate to humans as a species and played an essential role in survival.

Robert Plutchik also attempted to specify a list of universally experienced emotions. He developed eight basic emotions that he synthesised into the Plutchik Model, pictorially representing emotions on a wheel.

Plutchik theorised there were eight basic emotions, with some acting as ‘opposites’:

• Joy & Sadness.
• Anticipation & Surprise.
• Disgust & Trust.
• Fear & Anger.

Robert Plutchik also developed two categories of emotions: fundamental & non-fundamental.

He classified fundamental emotions as the eight basic emotions above and said that many non-fundamental emotions combined with the basic emotions could create individual/unique experiences of emotion.

Emotions and performance

Psychologists have long studied emotions and their impact on sporting and cognitive tasks. The specific effect of an emotional response depends on the context, the nature of the task, and the emotional response in question.

‘Positive’ emotions and emotional arousal can increase performance when appropriate to the situation and at an optimal level. However, high emotional arousal can impair performance if associated with excessive autonomic arousal. Negative emotions can impair cognition, executive function, and attention, and physical symptoms of anxiety can impair performance in even simple manual tasks.

Understanding emotional responses and taking steps to modulate them can help people perform better and understand how to optimise their emotional response for any given task.