PSYCH 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Autonomic Nervous System, Frontal Lobe, Antisocial Personality Disorder
Document Summary
Emotions are a central part of our lives and we need them to survive. If we didn"t have fear, things can kill you. But sometimes emotions do not work in our favor. Emotions are adaptive responses that support survival. Theories of emotion generally address two major questions. Experience of emotion involves awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli. You see a bear, your body will react and you will label your emotion after that. Cannon-bard theory: arousal and emotion happen at the same time. Human body responses run parallel to the cognitive response rather than causing them. Heart rate increases, breathing rapidly and shallow, this must be fear. Schachter and singer two-factor theory: arousal + label = emotion. Emotions have two ingredients: physical arousal and cognitive appraisal. Emotional experience requires a conscious interpretation of arousal. If you don"t have thoughts, you don"t have feelings. Spillover effect: spillover arousal from one event to the next--influencing a response.
