Basics of Psychology
Emotion: approaches
1. Rationalist (Rationalism was a Philosophy of
Enlightenment): rational approach: emotion is
wrong, disturbs the thinking and behavior
Emotion: approaches
3. Physiological approach: it isn’t thinking or
behavior without emotion
EMOTION
Emotion: approaches
2. Biological perspective (Leeper): fast filtration,
reaction, adaptivity (You can react before you
understand the situation. Your racional analysis is
too slow. A person come in, and you don’t know
why, but you know: this person is dangerous to
tou. In the nature this primaeval, primitive
brainsystem, the emotions save you. This is
adaptive because contributes to survive.)
Component of Emotion
1. Cognitive appraisal
a person’s assessment of personal meaning of his or her current
circumtances
2. Subjective experience
the affective state or feeling tone that colors private experience
3. Thought and action tendencies
urges to think or act in pariticular ways
4. Internal bodily changes
phychological responses, particularly those involving the autonomic
nervous system such as changes in heart rate and sweat gland activity
5. Facial expression
muscle contractions that move facial landmarks – like cheeks, lips,
noses, and brows – into particular configuration
6. Responses to emotion
how people regulate, react to, or cope with their emotion or the
situation that triggered it
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 Theories of emotion
1. James-Lange Theory
Emotion is a feedback from body
2. Schacter-Singer’s Two-Factor Theory
(Cognitive Appraisal Theory)
Emotion is a cognitive appraisal of arousal
3. Facial Feedback Hypothesis
Emotion is a facial expression
Schacter-Singer’s Two-Factor Theory
Emotion is a cognitive appraisal of arousal
Stimulus  General psychological arousal  Cognitive
appraisal of arousal  Subjective experience of the emotion
(Emotion = Thinking, appraisal of the change of my body)
Evidence:
Lazarus: A film from an African tribe : you see an
young, bondaged boy whit wounds, and ants walk in
his body
– Explanation 1: Boy is tortured  you fear
– Explanation 2: This is a initation ceremony, rite  you are
happy
Evidences:
• You read out 2 story with more or less u-
letter
If the story contains more u-letter tou will be
more sad
• You watch a cartoon
1. Hold the pen by using your lips
2. Hold the pen by using your teeth
If you hold a pencil between your teeth, you will
be more happy than you hold it between you lips.
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James-Lange theory
Aruosal (energy level) = intensity of emotion
But what differentiates the emotions?
The perception of bodily changes is the subjective experience of
emotion.
Emotion is a feedback from body
Stimulus  Receptor  Cerebral Cortex  Viscera, Muscle 
Reafferentation (Emotion = Feeling the change of my body)
"We feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble,
and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearfull„
Cannon’s criticisms
– Too slow, and the fast emotions?
– The pattern of autonomic arousal doesn’t seem to differ
much from one emotional state to another (heart beat
faster = feer, angry or love)
– Artificial visceral changes don’t contributes to emotions
(Cantil-Hunt injecting a drug such adrenaline,
apinephrine – incraised muscle activity)
Facial Feedback Hypothesis
The facial expression, countenance itself
contributes emotions
Facial expression  Subjective experience of the emotion (Emotion
= Feeling the change of my facial expression)
Smile more, you will be happier!
Questions
• Show James-Lange theory! Which are the
Cannon’s criticisms of this theory?
• Show Schacter-Singer’s Two-Factor Theory!
Which evidences demonstrates this theory
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 Bioenergy Bioenergy
Wilheim Reich Wilheim Reich
Wilhelm Reich (24 • Body contains all unconscious emotion,
March 1897 – 3 emotional memory, traumas
November 1957) was an • The forme is the "muscular armour"
Austrian psychoanalyst, • These "muscular armour" protect me from
a member of the second emotions, but separate me from the world
generation of analysts
after Sigmund Freud. Alexander Lowen
Divisive personality • Relation between body and soul
1920 Freud • Unlock of childhood traumas with physical
exercises, breathing exercises