foreign about different theories of emotion suppose you are walking on a road and steers Nani dog your heartbeat increases rapidly you sweat and begin to tremble and then you start running and you notice you're feeling scared ever wondered is it that you are having an increased heartbeat because you are scared or you are scared because you notice your increased heartbeat according to one of the earliest theories it is assumed that feeling a particular emotion leads first to a physical reaction and then to a behavioral one this is the common sense theory of emotion which explains seeing a snarling dog in one's path causes the feeling of being scared which stimulates the body to arousal followed by behavioral Act of running that is people are aroused because they are afraid the next Theory we are going to look at is called the James Lynch theory of emotion William James who is the founder of the functionalist perspective did not agree with the common sense theory he believed that the order of the components of emotions was quite different at nearly the same time a physiologist and psychologist in Denmark Carl Blanche came up with an explanation of emotion so similar to that of James that the two names are used together to refer to the theory the James Lynch theory of emotion the central notion of this theory is that an emotional stimulus produces both visceral changes heart rate changes sweating and changes in skeletal muscles like running hitting facial expressions the theory holds that these changes are the source of the subjective experience or feeling of emotions there is no intervening cognition of emotion that precedes the bodily response the bodily response is the emotion this reverses the usual notion that we run because we are afraid or cry because we are sad or laugh because we are happy the James Lynch Theory suggests that we feel sad because we cry and happy because we laugh now look at the examples below and try to explain by James Lynch Theory the example is Smita received a gift that she really wanted Smita has anticipated this gift for a long time and she smiled and appeared genderly radiant so the answer to this is according to James Blanche Smita is happy because she smiled when Rajesh received shocking news and he started sobbing uncontrollably the James Lynch explanation is he felt sad because he sobbed what is the strength of the James Lynch Theory James Lynch was one of the earliest theories of emotion and it recognized that there was a link between emotional stimulus physical reactions and emotions what about people who have spinal cord injuries that prevent the sympathetic nervous system from functioning although James Lynch would predict that these people should show decreased emotions because the arousal that causes emotion is no longer there this does not in fact happen several studies of people with spinal cord injuries report that these people are capable of experiencing the same emotions after their injury as before sometimes even more intensely next theory is Canon bad theory of emotion the Canon bad theory was developed by Walter Cannon a physiologist at Harvard University and his PhD student Philip bad as the theory emphasizes the role of thalamic region as a coordinating Center for emotional reactions it is also referred to as the thalamic theory of emotion in 1927 Canon published a review and critique of the James Lynch Theory and advanced and alternative Theory his view has two aspects one is concerned with the Genesis of emotional experience the other with analyzing the functions of the bodily response Canon's theory is supported by his experimental observations on animal psychology the definition of Canon bar theory in Psychology is that emotional and physiological reactions occur simultaneously yet independently in other words physiological changes do not have to precede subjective feelings or vice versa they basically theorize that the emotion and the physiological arousal occurs more or less at the same time Canon an expert in sympathetic arousal mechanism did not feel that the physical changes caused by various emotions were distinct enough to allow them to be perceived as different emotions Bard expanded on this idea by stating that the sensory information that comes into the brain is sent simultaneously by the thalamus to both the cortex and the organs of the sympathetic nervous system according to the cannon bar Theory when a potential stressful event occurs the thalamus transmits a signal to the amygdala the amygdala is a part of the brain located close to the thalamus which plays an important role in emotional processing and translating possible danger to the hypothalamus the thalamus relays the message one to the cortex where it is appraised and understood and 2 to the pituitary and hypothalamus which leads to autonomic arousal and thus physiological responding such as sweating shaking or muscle tension the cannon bird theory of emotion states that stimulating events trigger feelings and physical reactions that occur at the same time for example seeing a dog might prompt both the feeling of fear which is an emotional response and a racing heartbeat which is a physical reaction the fear and the bodily reactions are therefore experienced at the same time not one after the other so for example I am afraid and running and aroused the cannon bad theory of emotion also had its critiques Lashley stated that the thalamus would have to be pretty sophisticated to make sense of all the possible human emotions and relay them to the proper areas of the cortex and body it would seem that other areas of the brain must be involved in processing emotional reactions the studies of people with spinal cord injuries which appear to suggest that emotions can be experienced without feedback from the sympathetic organs to the cortex and oversighted as a criticism of the James Lynch Theory seen at first to support the cannon bird version of emotions people do not need feedback from those organs to experience emotion however there is an alternate pathway that does provide feedback from these organs to the cortex this is the vagus nerve one of the cranial nerves the existence of this feedback pathway makes the case for Cannon bad a little less convincing so what is the difference between James Lynch Theory and Cannon bird Theory the Canon bar theory was developed as an alternative to the James Lynch Theory in contrast to the James Lynch Theory which states physiological responses initiate first and cause emotional feelings the cannon bar theory proposes the simultaneous occurrence and Independence of physiological and emotional responses now let's look at the facial feedback hypothesis smile you will feel better in his 1898 book the expression of the emotions in man and animals Charles Darwin stated that facial expressions evolved as a way of communicating intentions such as threat of fear and that these expressions are Universal within a species rather than specific to a culture he also believed as in the James Lynch theory that when such emotions are expressed freely on the face the emotion itself intensifies meaning that the more one Smiles the happier one feels psychologists propose a theory of emotion that was consistent with much of Darwin's original thinking called the facial feedback hypothesis this explanation assumes that facial expressions provide feedback to the brain concerning the emotion being expressed which in turn not only intensifies the emotion but also actually causes the emotion does that mean that I don't smile because I am happy I am happy because I smile as the old song goes put on a happy face and yes you will feel happier according to the facial feedback hypothesis one study does cast some doubt on the validity of this hypothesis however if the facial feedback hypothesis is correct then people who have facial paralysis on both the sides of the face should be unable to experience emotions in a normal way but a case study conducted on just such a person revealed that although she was unable to express emotions on her paralyzed face she could respond emotionally to slides meant to stimulate emotional reactions just as animal else could clearly the question of how much the actual facial expression determines the emotional experience has yet to be fully answered now let's look at shakta singer's two-factor Theory strong emotions are a common part of daily life but how do we tell them apart how do we know that we are angry rather than frightened sad rather than surprised one potential answer is provided by a third theory of emotion according to this view known as the shakta singer Theory or sometimes as the two-factor theory emotion provoking events produce increased arousal in response to these feelings we then search the external environment in order to identify the causes behind them the factors we then select play a key role in determining the label we place on our arousal and so in determining the emotion we experience if we feel aroused after a near missing traffic we will probably label our emotion as fear or perhaps anger If instead we feel aroused in the presence of an attractive person we may label our arousal as attraction or even love in short we perceive ourselves to be experiencing the emotion that external cues tell us we should be feeling this contrasts with the James Lynch Theory which suggests that we focus on internal physiological cues to determine whether we are experiencing an emotion and what is this emotion the shakta singer theory is a two-factor view because it considers both arousal and the cognitive appraisal we perform in our efforts to identify the causes of such arousal many studies Provide support for the shakta singer theory for example in one field study arranged the conditions so that male hikers encountered an attractive female research assistant while crossing a swaying suspension bridge high above a rocky George or while on Solid Ground later the researchers asked the men to rate their attraction to the assistant the theory predicts that those who met the assistant on the swaying Bridge would be more aroused and would to the extent that they attributed this arousal to the assistant report finding her more attractive the result showed that not only did the hikers who met her on the bridge read the assistant as more attractive they were also more likely to call her for a date now let's look at Classic studies in Psychology the angry or happy man in 1962 Stanley schachter and Jerome singer designed an experiment to test their theory that emotions are determined by an interaction between the physiological state of arousal and the label or cognitive interpretation that a person places on the arousal male student volunteers were told that they were going to answer a questionnaire about their reactions to a new vitamin called suproxen in reality they were all injected with a drug called epinephrine which causes physical arousal in the form of increased heart rate rapid breathing all responses that happen during a strong emotional reaction each student then participated in one of the two conditions in one condition a Confederate posing as one of the participants started complaining about the experimenter tearing up his questionnaire and storming out in other condition there was one man who acted more like he was very happy almost giddy and playing with some of the objects in the room the angry man and the happy man in both conditions deliberately behaved in the two different ways as part of the experiment after both conditions had played out participants in each of the two conditions were asked to describe their own emotions the participants who had been exposed to the angry man interpreted their arousal symptoms as anger whereas those exposed to the happy man interpreted their arousal as happiness in all cases the actual cause of arousal was the epinephrine and the physical symptoms of the arousal were identical the only difference between the two groups of participants was their exposure to the two different contexts shakter and singer's Theory would have predicted exactly these results physiological arousal has to be interpreted cognitively before it is experienced as a specific emotion although this classic experiment stimulated a lot of research much of that research has failed to find much support for the cognitive arousal theory of emotion but this Theory did so to draw attention to the important role that cognition plays in determining emotions the role of cognition in Emotion has been Revisited in some more modern theories of emotion Lazarus and cognitive mediational theory of emotion shakter and singers study stressed the importance of cognition and thinking in the determination of emotions one of the more modern versions of cognitive emotion theories is Lazarus cognitive mediational theory of emotion in this Theory the most important aspect of any emotional experience is how the person interprets or appraises the stimulus that causes the emotional reaction to mediate means to come between and in this Theory the cognitive appraisal mediates by coming between the stimulus and the emotional response to that stimulus for example remember the person who encountered a snarling dog while walking through the neighborhood according to Lazarus the appraisal of the situation would come before both the physical arousal and the experience of emotion if the dog is behind a sturdy fence the appraisal would be something like no threat the most likely emotion would be annoyance and the physical arousal would be minimal but if the dog is not confined the appraisal would more likely be danger threatening animal which would be followed by an increase in arousal and the emotional experience of fear in other words it's the interpretation of the arousal that results in the emotion of fear not the labeling as in the shakta singer model and the interpretation comes first not everyone agrees with this theory of course some researchers believe that the emotional reactions to situations are so fast that they are almost instantaneous which would leave little time for a cognitive appraisal to occur first others have found that the human brain can respond to a physical threat before conscious thought enters the picture and as addressed earlier the amygdala can prompt emotional reactions before we are consciously aware of what we are responding to which theory is Right human emotions are incredibly complex that it might not be out of place to say that all of the theories are correct to at least some degree in certain situations the cognitive appraisal might have time to mediate the emotion that is experienced such as Falling in Love whereas in other situations the need to act first and to think and feel later is more important and here we come to the end of this class thank you for participating