Emotion and Stress
Compare theories of emotion, physiological arousal, expressive behavior, stress appraisal, coping, and health psychology connections.
A lesson of AP Psychology, in Development, Personality, Motivation, and Emotion, about 10 minutes.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to describe the major theories of emotion, explain the physiology of stress, and analyze how psychological factors influence health.
Theories of Emotion
The James-Lange Theory: emotions are the perception of physiological changes.
Sequence: stimulus → physiological arousal → emotion (we feel afraid BECAUSE we are running, not the other way around)
The Cannon-Bard Theory: physiological arousal and the subjective experience of emotion occur simultaneously and independently. The thalamus simultaneously sends signals to both the cortex (producing conscious emotion) and the body (producing arousal).
The Two-Factor Theory (Schachter-Singer): emotion = physiological arousal + cognitive label.
Classic Schachter-Singer bridge study: people injected with adrenaline felt either euphoric or angry depending on the confederate's behavior — same arousal, different emotional labels based on context.
Misattribution of arousal: we sometimes misattribute arousal from one source to a different source. Example: people interviewed on a wobbly suspension bridge rated an interviewer as more attractive than those on a stable bridge (Dutton & Aron) — they misattributed their arousal to attraction.
Appraisal Theory (Lazarus): cognitive appraisal (interpretation of a situation) precedes and determines emotion. The same event can trigger different emotions depending on how it is interpreted.
The Biology of Emotion
The amygdala is the brain's fear/threat detection center. It processes emotional stimuli rapidly and triggers the fight-or-flight response before the cortex has processed the full situation.
Two pathways (LeDoux):
- Low road: thalamus → amygdala (fast, automatic, emotional; bypasses cortex)
- High road: thalamus → cortex → amygdala (slower, more deliberate, nuanced)
This explains "gut reactions" — why you jump at a stick that looks like a snake before consciously registering it.
Emotion and facial feedback: the facial feedback hypothesis suggests that facial expressions can influence emotional experience. Smiling may make you feel slightly happier (though recent replications show modest effects).