EmotionLesson 2

Powerful emotions often direct and dictate our motivations. When we face challenges, emotion focuses our attention and energizes our actions.

1. Bodily arousal 2. Expressive behaviors 3. Conscious experience

Emotions are made up of 3 parts:

Our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli

“We feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike”◦Think losing control of your car, skidding, & then feeling

the wave of fear while you realize your heart rate is up

James-Lange Theory: Arousal Before Emotion

An emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers:◦ 1. physiological responses◦ 2. the subjective experience of emotion

Heart rate, perspiration & body temperature are too similar to cause different emotions – they change too slowly to trigger sudden emotions

Cannon-Bard Theory: Arousal & Emotion Happen at the Same Time

The alternative 3rd theory of Stanley Schachter & Jerome Singer

They asserted that our physical reaction and our thoughts create emotion◦ Requires a conscious interpretation of the arousal◦ Arousal fuels emotion, cognition channels it.

Schachter-Singer Two Factor Theory: Arousal + Label = Emotion

For energy, the liver offers extra sugar to the bloodstream

To burn sugar, your breathing increases to get more oxygen

Digestion slows to direct more blood from internal organs to muscles

Perspiration occurs to cool the body while running

Autonomic nervous system mobilizes the body in crisis mode

Complex = ‘high road’ by way of the thalamus to the brains cortex then after being analyzed would be sent out via the amygdala

Simple = ‘short cut’ which is a neural shortcut that bypasses the cortex (thalamus straight to amygdala lightning fast!)

Our emotional responses travel 2 ways