PSYCH261 Chapter 11: Module 11.1 What Is Emotion?
24 Mar 2018
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Emotion has components including cognitions, feelings, and actions. Emotional situations arouse the two branches of the autonomic nervous system the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. According to the james-lange theory, the autonomic arousal and skeletal actions come first. Ex) you feel afraid because you run away, and you feel angry because you attack. When james said that arousal and actions lead to emotions, he meant they lead to the feeling aspect of an emotion. Event appraisal (cognitive aspect) action (the behavioural aspect including physiology) emotional feeling (feeling aspect) Frightening situation fear running away, increased heart rate, etc. Frightening situation running away, increases heart rate, etc. Emotions do not depend on feedback from movement. In people with an uncommon condition called pure autonomic failure, output from the autonomic nervous system to the body fails, either completely or almost completely. Someone with this condition does not react to stressful experiences with changes in heart rate, blood pressure, or sweating.
