Theories of Emotion Processing

An emotion is made up of a series of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses to a stimulus. But how does processing emotions actually look like in your mind and body? We casually say "feel your emotions", "label your emotions". But how does that happen? How does one feel? And if lets say your client grew up with a different Native language than yours, are they feeling their emotions differently than you? Let's break it down.

James-Lange Theory of Emotion Processing

In 1800s, two researchers working independently, arrived at a similar theory. It hypothesizes that the experience of emotion is due to the perception of your physiologic responses. So what does that mean? Let's say you are petting a dog and it elicits the emotion of happiness in you. How does it do that? Well according to James-Lange theory of emotion, holding your pet dog causes the physiologic response of maybe increased heart rate. Certain neurotransmitters in your brain correspond to certain physiological changes. Perhaps you start to smiling as you're holding your pet. James-Lange theory of emotion says it's the physiological response that causes the emotion of happiness. It's not actually holding your pet per se that's making you happy. It's what the pet is doing to your body that makes you feel the way you do.

Stimulus → Physiological Arousal → Emotion

Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion Processing

Two theorists who disagreed with the James-Lange theory believed there were some major flaws in the idea that physiologic responses triggered emotion. So first they felt that a person could experience physiological arousal without feeling any particular emotion. When you are afraid your heart races but your heart also races if you just had a long run. Does that mean physiological response is enough to produce an emotion? In that same line of thought, these researchers also noticed that many different emotions had the same patterns of physiological response. So think about like your heart racing or rapid breathing, those accompany feelings of anger, as well as excitement. And those are two totally different emotions. And lastly, they felt that the physiological response system was just too slow to produce emotions that often seemed to happen almost instantly.

So for example, if you hear a loud sound, maybe you'll feel fear or surprise almost instantly. And subsequent physiologic responses of your heart racing, increased muscle tone, et cetera, they come later. And the theory they put forth was the Cannon-Bard theory. And they believed that the physiological responses and the experience of emotion both occurred simultaneously. So you have an event occurring, which causes a physiological response, as well as an emotion at the same time. So going back to the example of holding your pet, if you hold your pet, that's the event. And by holding your pet, maybe your heart rate starts to increase ever so slightly. Maybe there's some changes going on in your brain in terms of your neurotransmitters. And while that's happening, at the same time you're feeling a feeling of joy. And that's the emotion that you're experiencing. But the main point here is this theory says these two actions happen at the same time.

Stimulus → Physiological Arousal + Emotion

Schachter-Singer Theory of Emotion Processing

Now, another key theory of emotion is the Schachter-Singer theory of emotion. And in this view, physiological and cognitive responses may simultaneously form the experience of emotion. More specifically, if we become physiologically aroused, we don't feel a specific emotion until we're able to label or identify the reason for the situation. So in our previous example, we spoke about holding your pet. So the event is holding your pet, which produces a physiological response of again maybe increased heart rate or changes in your neurotransmitter levels.

But we don't necessarily feel happy until we consciously label the situation. So you identify the reason for this physiologic response. And you identify the reason for the event. So you would say to yourself, this is really nice. I like holding my pet. This makes me happy. And that's what produces the emotion of happiness, this identification and that cognitive ability to understand what's going on that causes it.

Stimulus → Physiological Arousal → Cognitive Label → Emotion

Lazarus Theory of Emotion Processing

Proposes that the experience of emotion depends on how the experience is cognitively appraised. Now, you might think that sounds very similar to the one we just discussed in the Schachter-Singer theory. So we have an event, let's say again holding your pet. In the Lazarus theory, next comes appraisal or labeling the situation. And what the Lazarus theory says, if we label the situation as bad, the emotion will be negative. And if we label the situation as good, the emotion will be positive. So one of differences here is that how we label the event is completely dependent on personal experience or cultural differences and situational factors.

And once this appraisal has occurred, then the emotion will occur simultaneously with the physiological response. And as you can see, it is a different order of things, as compared to the Schachter-Singer theory. So using our example holding a pet, if a person has held a pet before and happened to be maybe bitten by a pet or a bad experience with a dog, that individual may label the situation as scary. And the emotion that will be produced is fear. But on the other hand, if someone is a dog lover, grown up with dogs their whole life, they might label that situation of holding a dog as wonderful and feel joy. So it's all in the label.

And the way I like to think about this is in terms of hobbies. So take skydiving, for example. Some people would label the activity of jumping out of a plane as something terrifying. And they would experience the emotion of fear. Whereas someone else who's maybe a daredevil, they would label the situation as exhilarating. And they would experience happiness. But as you can see here, the event of skydiving is the same. But it's producing two very different emotions in different people, who have different appraisals on the event occurring. So that's the four theories of emotion that we're going to discuss today.

Stimulus → Cognitive Appraisal → Physiological Arousal + Emotion

Predictive Model of Emotion Processing

• The Brain Predicts: As you walk through a dense, quiet forest, your brain uses your past knowledge and context to calculate possibilities. It predicts: "There could be a predator here."

  
  

• Allostasis (Budgets the Body): Before you even physically lay eyes on a bear, your brain sends top-down signals to pre-emptively rev up your heart rate and release glucose. It is preparing your physical systems for an expected demand. 

• The Stimulus Arrives: You see a shape move. Your brain registers the visual input and your internal pounding chest.

• Prediction Error Correction: If the shape is a bear, your prediction is correct (low prediction error), and your brain instantly synthesizes the sensory data into the concept of "Fear" to prescribe immediate action (running). If the shape turns out to be a harmless tree stump, a prediction error occurs; your brain immediately dampens the physical response and revises its emotion construct. 

Stimulus > Perception > Sensation > Expectation