5) Emotion 1

Question 1

What does common sense theory outline for the process of an emotional response

Answer 1

Stimuli > brain perceives stimuli > emotional experience/brain signals to body > bodily changes

Question 2

In short, what does the James-Lange Theory outline?

Answer 2

Physiological arousal causes an emotional response

Question 3

So in accordance with James-Lange Theory what would the revised process of an emotional response be?

Answer 3

stimuli > brain perceives stimuli > brain signals to body > bodily changes occur > brain perceives changes > emotional experience

Question 4

Name the 2 kinds of body changes that occur according to James-Lange?

Answer 4

James= somatic (physiological changes) system
Lange= vasomotor changes (muscle changes that control constriction/dilation of blood vessels

Question 5

What 4 categories were used in the Spinal Cord Injury study’s structured interviews ?

Answer 5

Sexual excitement, fear, anger, grief. And later ‘sentiment’ got added

Question 6

Outline the key findings from the Spinal Cord Injury study

Answer 6

Significant decrease in feelings of anger, sexual excitement, fear, but an increase in sentimentality.
The greater the spinal cord injury, the greater the decrease in emotional experience

Question 7

Outline the other emotions that changed in the spinal cord patients study

Answer 7

Fear reduced in those with one particular lesion, but reduced in another.
Anger reduced after spinal injury
Grief saw no significant change, patients found it difficult to compare feelings of grief before/after their injury
In all, the more extensive the disruption to the ANS, the greater the decrease in emotional feelings

Question 8

Give some critique to the Hoffman spinal cord injury study

Answer 8

experimenter bias, unique sample (unrep), lack of control group, self report data questionable?

Question 9

What conclusions were drawn in a second study by Chwalisz (1988) that attempted to give evidence for JL theory

Answer 9

Evidence from automatic arousal feedback and emotional experience (longitudinal) found that:

1) spinal cord injury isn’t a perfect measure of level of automatic feedback.
2) automatic feedback of bodily arousal is not essential for emotional experience
3) Automatic arousal feedback MAY amplify the intensity of experienced emotion

Question 10

What conclusions did Maranon (1924) make about her adrenaline injections psychphysiological study?

Answer 10

Emotional arousal was experienced by 30% of p’s after given adrenaline injection. Supports JL theory, since bodily changes influenced emotion.