Emotion and its Meaning
Emotion refers to individuals' complex psychological experience due to their interactions with the environment. Emotions tend to insert substantial force on the behavior of individuals. Strong emotions can make an individual engage in activities that they may not perform under normal conditions. Similarly, emotions can make individuals to avoid situations that they enjoy. It is believed that emotion entails feeling, having thoughts, triggering of the nervous system, and bodily changes alongside behavioral modifications. However, it is sometimes difficult to describe various emotions. As such, various psychologists have attempted to examine emotion with the aim of ascertaining its meaning and elements. In this regard, James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories are theoretical psychological perspectives that are important in the description of emotion and its elements.
James-Lange Theory
The James-Lange theory is among the major theoretical perspectives contributing to the understanding of emotion. Two psychologists, including Carl Lange and William James, proposed the theory. It suggests that emotions arise due to physiological reactions to various events. According to the theory, when one interacts with a particular external stimulus, it induces a bodily reaction (Friedman, 2010). However, the emotional reaction is dependent on the manner one interprets the physical reactions. When an individual experiences various events, his/her nervous system induces physical reactions to such events. The reactions include shaking and increased heartbeats among others. These physical reactions contribute to the creation of emotional reactions such as fear or anger. The two psychologists believed that as far as it is possible for one to imagine of experiencing an emotion, the imagined version of the emotion is a copy of the real emotion. This is because the physical reactions must be present for one to experience real emotion. Therefore, as per this theory, physiological responses arise first, and are then perceived as emotions, and eventually a reaction is triggered.
Cannon-Bard Theory
Cannon-Bard theory is another significant theoretical psychological perspective on emotion. Walter Cannon first proposed the theory in the 1920s and was later affirmed by Philip Bard in the 1930s (Dror, 2014). As opposed to James-Lange theory, this theory notes that one can experience emotions without feeling them. For instance, an individual's heart can increase the beats because of exercises and not by being afraid. Cannon-Bard theory mainly suggests that the subjective emotional feeling and the physiological changes in response to a particular stimulus are independent as well as separate. This is to say that arousal is not necessary for one to experience an emotion. According to this theoretical perspective, individuals experience physiological reactions and feel emotions simultaneously (Dror, 2014). Therefore, the major element of this theory is that during thalamic discharge, the emotional changes, and bodily changes take place at the same time in a separate and independent manner. According to the two psychologists, the thalamus part of the brain is the one with the role of stimulating the necessary emotional response to a given experienced stimulus.
Conclusion
Overall, the two theoretical psychological perspectives are critical in the understanding of emotion. While James-Lange theory asserts that emotions arise due to physiological reactions to various events, Cannon-Bard theory notes that, a particular stimulus triggers both emotional and physiological responses simultaneously, making it difficult for one to induce another. As far as the two theories may differ in terms of how physiological changes and emotions relate and take place, they both note that emotions occur as a reaction to a given stimulus.
References
Dror, O. E. (2014). The Cannon–Bard thalamic theory of emotions: A brief genealogy and reappraisal. Emotion Review, 6(1), 13-20.
Friedman, B. H. (2010). Feelings and the body: The Jamesian perspective on autonomic specificity of emotion. Biological psychology, 84(3), 383-393.
