Emotions and Theories of Emotions
The Theories of Emotions
In psychology, emotions are complex feelings that cause both physical and mental changes, shaping how we think and act. Emotions are personal and include body reactions, outward behaviors, and what we are aware of feeling.
Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory
Charles Darwin suggested in 1872 that emotions developed because they helped humans and animals survive and reproduce. For example, love and affection encourage finding partners, while fear leads to fighting or escaping danger.
Recognizing the emotions of others, including animals, also helps us adapt. If we can read emotions well, we can avoid danger or make the most of good situations.
James-Lang Theory
The James–Lange theory, created by William James and Carl Lange in 1885, is one of the first emotion theories. It says that physical reactions come first and then lead to emotions, not the other way around. Each emotion has its own pattern of body responses to a stimulus.
The James–Lange theory also says that how we understand our body’s reactions shapes our emotions. For example, if you see a bear in the woods and your heart races, you feel fear because you notice your heart beating fast. So, you are not scared first; instead, you feel scared because you notice your body’s reaction.
Cannon-Bard Theory
The Cannon-Bard theory, introduced in 1930, says that body changes and emotions happen at the same time but are separate. In other words, physical arousal does not come before emotion.
Walter B. Cannon, a Harvard physiologist, and his student Philip Bard developed a theory that focused on the brain’s role in emotions and body responses. Cannon disagreed with the James-Lange theory. He pointed out that people can have body reactions, like a racing heart from exercise, without feeling emotions like fear. He also said that emotions often happen too quickly to be caused only by physical changes. For example, you might feel afraid before you notice your body’s fear reactions, such as shaking or rapid breathing.
The Cannon-Bard theory says we feel emotions and have body reactions like sweating or trembling at the same time. They believed the thalamus sends signals to the brain that cause both the physical response and the feeling of emotion at once. So, physical and emotional experiences happen together but do not cause each other.
The Two-Factor Theory
The two-factor theory, also called the Schachter-Singer Theory, says emotions come from two things: body arousal and how we label it. Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer created this theory. They believed that when we feel aroused, we look to our surroundings to figure out what emotion we are feeling. This idea combines parts of the James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories. Like James-Lange, it says emotions come from body responses, but it adds that the situation and our thoughts about it are key to labeling the emotion.
Like the Cannon-Bard theory, the two-factor theory says that the same body reactions can lead to different emotions. For example, a racing heart and sweaty palms during an exam might feel like anxiety, but the same feelings on a date could be seen as love or excitement. These differences in interpretation can cause confusion about emotions. When the brain is unsure, it uses outside clues to decide what emotion we feel. Since 1962, some people have criticized this theory.
Lazarus’s Theory
Lazarus’s theory, also called Cognitive Appraisal Theory, says that our thoughts come before emotions or body reactions. In other words, we have to think about what is happening before we feel an emotion. For example, if you are walking alone down a dark alley at night and hear footsteps, you might start to tremble and your heart beats faster. When you notice these changes, you realize it is because you are in a risky situation, so you feel afraid.
In this theory, something happens first, then you think about it, which leads to a body reaction, and finally you feel the emotion and may react with fight or flight.
Component Process Model
The Component Process Model by Klaus Rainer Scherer says emotions have five key parts. All these parts work together and must be in sync for a short time to create an emotional experience.
Cognitive Appraisal: providing an evaluation of events and objects.
Bodily Symptoms: the physiological component of emotional experience.
Action Tendencies: a motivational component for preparing and directing motor responses.
Emotional Expression: facial and vocal expressions almost always accompany an emotional state, communicating the reaction and intention behind actions.
Feeling the Emotion: the subjective experience of an emotional state once it has occurred.
Facial-Feedback Theory
The facial-feedback theory says that our facial expressions are connected to how we feel. Charles Darwin and William James noticed that body reactions can shape our emotions, not just follow them. Supporters believe that changes in our facial muscles are directly linked to emotions. For example, if you are made to smile at a social event, you may enjoy it more than if you frown or keep a neutral face. Smiling can make us feel happy, while frowning can make us feel sad. So, our facial muscles can help create our emotions.
Non-Cognitive Theories
Non-Cognitive Theories argue that emotions do not involve judgments or thinking. Instead, our emotional responses come straight from noticing something important. These theories say that thinking is logical and calm, while emotions are quick, automatic, and often hard to control.
Advocates of the non-cognitive model argue that a theory of emotions should also apply to infants and non-human animals, which presumably lack the cognitive capabilities described in cognitive appraisal theories. Paul Ekman originally developed the standard description of the non-cognitive process (1977), followed by Paul Griffiths, who incorporated some of Ekman’s ideas into his theory of emotions (1997). Taking these ideas further, Jenifer Robinson (2005) claims that any cognitive process that occurs in an emotion-causing situation is in addition to the core process, which is non-cognitive. She believed that there is a set of inbuilt affective appraisal mechanisms, which in more primitive species and neonates (newborns) are automatically tuned to stimuli, but as humans develop and learn, these mechanisms can become more complex and may include judgments or appraisals.
Robinson also said that after a non-cognitive emotional response, we might use thinking to label what we feel. For example, a non-cognitive process might cause anger, but later, our thoughts might label it as jealousy. So, someone might say they feel jealous, even though the first emotion was anger.
The Somatic Feedback Theory
The somatic feedback theory says that each emotion has its own unique set of body responses. For example, sadness, anger, and happiness each have different body changes. There is some evidence for this, especially with facial expressions, but overall the evidence is not very strong. This theory says that emotions come from the feedback the brain gets from the body.
Jesse Prinz (2004) suggested that emotions are mental states caused by bodily feedback and distinguished between what this mental state registers and what it represents. According to Prinz, emotions register physical responses, but they represent simple information about what each emotion is about; for example, fear represents danger, sadness represents the loss of something valued, and anger represents being demeaned or disgraced.
The other proponent of the somatic theory, Antonio Damasio, thought emotional processes include cognitive evaluations. He believed that a typical case might begin with thoughts and assessments about the stimulus, which triggers a bodily response, i.e., the emotion that generates its related feelings in the brain’s somatosensory cortex. He suggested that such feelings occur “in juxtaposition” to the thoughts and evaluations about the stimulus that triggered the bodily changes in the first place.
Emotions and Emotional Responses
Some of the theories above agree with each other, while others do not. Still, all of them help explain our emotional responses in different ways. Most experts divide emotions into two main types: basic and secondary emotions.
Paul Ekman identified six basic emotions (1970): anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. However, Robert Plutchik (1980) came up with eight, which he grouped into four opposite pairs: 1) joy and sadness, 2) anger and fear, 3) trust and suspicion, and 4) surprise and anticipation. The primary emotions, despite disagreement among scientists about their list, have a long history in human evolution and were developed primarily to help us make quick decisions and act rapidly (LeDoux, 2000). Primary emotions are determined mainly by one of the oldest parts of our brain, the limbic system, including the amygdala, hypothalamus, and thalamus.
People from different cultures experience and show primary emotions in similar ways (Ekman & Oster, 1987). People are also good at recognizing these emotions from facial expressions, no matter where they are from.
We use our thoughts to interpret experiences and create more complex secondary emotions. For example, the amygdala might sense fear when we are falling, but on a roller-coaster, we might see that feeling as excitement, while in a falling airplane, it would be pure fear.
The difference between primary and secondary emotions matches two brain pathways: one fast and one slow. The thalamus controls this process. For primary emotions like fear, the fast pathway through the limbic system is used. For secondary emotions, the slow pathway through the frontal lobes is involved. For example, feeling jealousy is more complex. Information goes from the thalamus to the frontal lobes for thinking, then to the amygdala to create the feeling of jealousy.
Emotions help us make decisions, whether we need to act quickly or face tough choices. We not only feel emotions inside but also show them to others. We learn about others’ emotions by watching how they react. This nonverbal communication, like tone of voice, posture, and facial expressions, is very important. The face is the most important way we show emotions.
The face has 43 muscles that let us make thousands of different expressions and show many emotions. For example, a smile uses the muscles around the mouth and eyes to show happiness, while a lowered brow and tight lips show anger. Facial expressions not only show how we feel but can also make us feel those emotions, as the Facial Feedback Theory suggests. Our actions, like smiling or standing tall, can both reflect and shape our emotions (Stepper and Strack, 1993).
Emotions, Feelings, Moods and Affects
Emotion should be distinguished from similar constructs within the field of psychology and neuroscience:
Feelings are body sensations that can come from emotions or from things like hunger, carrying something heavy, or being in extreme weather. Feelings are what we notice in our bodies, like being hot, cold, in pain, or tasting something sour. We can also feel emotions like sadness or anger, which come with their own symptoms. Not all feelings are emotions. For example, feeling angry is an emotion, but feeling hot is just a sensation.
Moods are different from emotions in three main respects.
First, moods usually last much longer than emotions. Moods can last for hours or days, while emotions often last just a few minutes.
Second, emotions are linked to something specific, like a person or event. Moods are more general and often do not have a clear cause. They are just overall feelings, not reactions to something in particular.
Third, moods are less intense than emotions. Emotions like anger, disgust, or sadness can be very strong. In contrast, a good or bad mood is a mild state of mind that shows up in how we react to different situations.
Affects are the things connected to, caused by, or influenced by emotions or moods. They are the outward signs of feelings and emotions. For example, butterflies in the stomach, sweaty palms from anxiety, tense muscles from anger, or a heavy heart and crying from grief are all affects. In short, affects are the signs we notice when we have emotions. The term 'affect' covers the ways we react to emotions or moods. An affective record lists the symptoms people show when they feel emotions. Although 'affect' is sometimes used to mean 'emotion,' they are not the same.
