Theories of Emotion & Thinking, Intelligence and Creativity

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Let's take a closer look at the two groups of questions, which you can then draw on for your final response.

1. Summarize the four major theories of emotion. Identify which theory of emotion you think is the most valid. What makes this theory more valid to you than the others? Identify which theory of emotion you think is least valid. What makes this theory less valid?

The four main theories of emotion are: The James-Lange theory, The Cannon-Bard theory, The Schacter-Singer theory, and The Lazarus theory.

The James-Lange theory proposes that an event occurs first that then causes physiological arousal and also a physical response. In other words, we have experiences, and as a result, our autonomic nervous system creates physiological events such as muscular tension, heart rate increases, perspiration, dryness of the mouth, etc. For example, a person sees a bear. Her muscles tense, heart races. She feels afraid. Basically what this is saying is that the physical aspects appear before the emotions are perceived. So the bodily sensation prepares us for action, as in the Fight-or-Flight reaction. Emotions grab our attention and at least attenuate slower cognitive processing (http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/james_lange_emotion.htm).

The second theory of emotion is the Cannon-Bard theory originally proposed by Walter Cannon and later expanded by Phillip Bard. The Cannon-Bard theory proposes that you perceive the emotion-provoking stimuli through your senses and are then relayed simultaneously to the cerebral cortex, which provides the conscious mental experience of the emotion and to the sympathetic nervous system, which produces the physiological state of arousal. In other words, you experience both the physical aspect and the perception of the emotion at the same time; one does not cause the other. For example, a ...