The term emotion was introduced into academic discussion as a catch-all term to passions, sentiments and affections. The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means "to stir up". ![]() Nowadays, most research into emotions in the clinical and well-being context focuses on emotion dynamics in daily life, predominantly the intensity of specific emotions and their variability, instability, inertia, and differentiation, as well as whether and how emotions augment or blunt each other over time and differences in these dynamics between people and along the lifespan. However, not all theories of emotion regard this separation as valid. Cognitive processes, like reasoning and decision-making, are often regarded as separate from emotional processes, making a division between "thinking" and "feeling". For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and the appraisal of situations and contexts. A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology. In psychology and philosophy, emotion typically includes a subjective, conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline. More recently, emotion has been said to consist of all the components. At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on. įrom a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as "a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity." Emotions are complex, involving multiple different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior. Current areas of research include the neuroscience of emotion, using tools like PET and fMRI scans to study the affective picture processes in the brain. Theorizing about the evolutionary origin and possible purpose of emotion dates back to Charles Darwin. The numerous attempts to explain the origin, function, and other aspects of emotions have fostered intense research on this topic. Research on emotion has increased over the past two decades, with many fields contributing, including psychology, medicine, history, sociology of emotions, and computer science. ![]() Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity. There is no scientific consensus on a definition. Again, this differs from James-Lange who suggested physiological and behavior changes occurred first, following by quick cognitive appraisals, and then followed by subjective feelings and slow cognitive appraisals.Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. Simultaneous means after the eliciting event occurs, all four components change at the same time. This contrasts with James-Lange who said both physiological and behavior changes determined our subjective feelings. So, an increase in heart rate doesn’t influence our subjective feelings. Separate means the presence of each component does not influence the other components. ![]() ![]() Thus, for Cannon and Bard, changes in physiology, behavior, subjective feelings, and cognitive appraisal occur separately, but simultaneously. Through their research, Cannon and Bard concluded that the body is not required to experience an emotion. Together, Cannon and Bard conducted experiments to test their theory. This means that the brain cannot use only our bodily change to identify the emotion label – something else must tell us whether we are fearful, angry, or joyful. For example, when your heart is racing you may be experiencing fear, anger, or joy. Cannon’s thesis was that for several different discrete emotions, animals and people show the same bodily changes. These findings directly contradicted James-Lange, who suggested that information about physiological and behavior changes was quickly sent to the brain for processing. In his experiments on cats and other animals, Cannon witnessed emotional responses even though the brain could no longer communicate with the body (see Bard’s sham rage findings above). He identified several problems with James-Lange Theory (Cannon, 1927 see prior section on strengths and weaknesses of James-Lange Theory). Cannon-Bard Theory began with the work of Cannon.
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