Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience that we live as a result of our interactions with the environment, in this article we will discover the main theories about emotion, that is, let’s look at the different ways in which psychology should explain these human experiences. .
From a psychology point of view, emotion is a complex state of feelings that leads to physical and psychological changes in the body that in turn influence thought and behavior.
- The ability to be displaced refers to a wide variety of psychological phenomena including temperament.
- Personality.
- Mood.
- And motivation.
According to David G. Meyers, professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, USA. Usa, and author of nearly two dozen books, human emotion involves “physiological excitement, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience. “
Among the theories about emotion, there are emotions of two valenes: positive and negative, these emotions can be related to an object, a memory, a prediction, etc. Some emotions have, according to theories, an innate physiological programming, being universal.
Universal emotions would be happiness, love, care, surprise, anger and fear, they are known as primary emotions. Secondary emotions are those we learn only through our experience, such as pride, shame, sympathy, terror, neglect, etc.
Then we’ll talk about some of the theories about emotion to understand the evolution of knowledge about emotional experience, something so human.
Emotions exert a very powerful force on behavior, but why do we feel them?What makes us feel? Researchers, philosophers and psychologists have already proposed different theories to explain how and why emotions exist.
The main theories about emotion can be grouped into three different categories:
Does the evolutionary approach focus on the historical context in which emotions developed in the human species?And also in other animals. According to the evolutionary theory of emotions, they exist because they are adaptive, that is, they increase our chances of survival in the middle.
In this way, for example, can fear motivate us to respond more quickly to environmental stimuli, which helps improve our chances of success and survival?And therefore to breed and perpetuate our genes and species.
It was Charles Darwin who suggested that emotions would have survived evolution because they are adaptable and allow humans and other animals to survive and reproduce. Feelings of love and affection, for example, lead people to seek a relationship and reproduce.
Feelings of fear lead people to fight, or also to flee, with a source of danger. Identifying and understanding the emotions of others also plays a crucial role in a person’s safety and survival.
By being able to correctly interpret the emotional manifestations of others, we can, for example, respond more accurately to sources of danger or sources of security and acceptance.
James-Lange’s theory of emotion was independently proposed by these two researchers, William James and Carl Lange. This theory suggests that emotions occur as a result of physiological reactions we have to the events that happen to us.
Thus, as we go through different situations, our nervous system generates physical reactions to these events. The emotional reaction would depend on how these physical reactions are interpreted by cognition.
Examples of such reactions would be an increase in heart rate, tremors, abdominal pain, etc. Emotional reactions, such as anger, fear, and sadness, are generated in the face of these physical reactions.
Cannon-Bard’s theory of emotion was developed by two physiologists Walter Cannon and Philip Bard. Walter Cannon disagreed with James-Lange’s theory of emotion in several respects.
Cannon suggested that people may experience physiological reactions that are usually related to emotions (how does the beating heart relate to fear?) Without really feeling that emotion.
He also suggested that emotional responses occur too quickly to simply be the product of physical states. Cannon first proposed his theory in the 1920s, and his work was later developed by physiologist Philip Bard in the 1930s.
According to Cannon and Bard’s theory of emotion, do we experience emotions and physiological reactions?How to sweat, tremble and muscle tension at the same time.
Specifically, does this theory suggest that emotions occur during the thalamus, a part of our brain that is part of the processing of emotions?, sends a message to the brain in response to a stimulus, leading to a physiological reaction.
At the same time, the brain also receives signals that activate the emotional experience. Cannon and Bard’s theory suggests that the physical and psychological experience of emotion occurs at the same time, not that one causes the other.
Schachter-Singer’s theory of emotion was developed by Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer. According to this theory, the element of reason plays an important role in how we feel emotions.
Schachter and Singer’s theory is based on both James-Lange’s theory and Cannon-Bard’s theory of emotion. As with James-Lange’s theory, Schachter and Singer’s theory suggests that people deduce emotion based on physiological responses.
So the situation is a critical factor, but people’s interpretation of it and the responses it generates in the body is even more important.
Schachter-Singer’s theory suggests that when an event generates physiological arousal, we try to find a reason for that excitement, so that we experience and label emotion.
As with Cannon-Bard’s theory, this theory also suggests that similar physiological responses can generate different emotions.
According to the theories of the evaluation of emotion, reflection must occur first, that is to say, before feeling the emotion, Richard Lazarus was a pioneer in this field of the study of emotions, that is why this theory is often known as the Lazarus Emotion Theory.
According to this theory, the sequence of events first involves a stimulus, followed by a thought, which then leads to a simultaneous experience of a physiological response and an emotion.
For example, if you encounter a bear in the forest, you can immediately begin to think you’re in danger, leading to an emotional experience of fear, and the physical reactions associated with this response are fighting or running.
Facial feedback theory states that facial movements can influence your emotional experience. Proponents of this theory suggest that emotions are directly related to changes in facial muscles.
For example, a person can improve their mood by simply smiling, just as it could make things worse by frowning, that is, the most surprising consequence of this theory is that it tells us that we can generate emotions by simply manipulating our face.
This can be done at any time voluntarily, replicating the most characteristic expressions of emotions when they occur unintendedly.
We can see that these theories do not necessarily eliminate others and can be combined. Charles Darwin was one of the first to suggest that physiological changes caused by emotion would have a direct impact on emotion, without simply a consequence of it.
Following this idea, William James proposed that, contrary to common belief, awareness of body changes triggered by a stimulus is what emotion would be.
Therefore, if we did not suffer bodily changes, there would only be intellectual thinking devoid of feeling or emotion. Was that possible?