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If either case is possible, is something “missing” when motivation lacks emotion?
What is missing, and does it matter?
3. Think about emotion in an evolutionary sense. What functions does it serve? What functions has it
served in the past? Is emotion still a necessary phenomenon for us, living as we do, in our locked
homes and automobiles?
4. Living with stress on a long-term basis is a part of the lives of many people, and that stress can be
acute (Honey, I just wrecked the car!) or chronic (if one more fool cuts in front of me on the freeway
... ). Consider the physiological and psychological impacts of having severe, chronic respiratory
allergies; what issues would this bring to mind in terms of coping and attempting to live an
unencumbered lifestyle?
5. Discuss coping styles in terms of Type A, Type B, and Type C personalities. Which personality type
is most likely to use which coping style? Have students determine why a particular personality
type responds with a given coping style.
6. Discuss learned helplessness from the perspective of controllable versus uncontrollable stressors.
7. Can students give any examples of how one person’s eustress might be another person’s distress?
(What about the obvious examples of watching horror movies, riding on roller coasters, being in
certain occupations, or even studying for a final exam?)
8. Have the class name some ways in which they could reduce the stress in their lives. As they listen
to others name their stress-reducing strategies, do they (or do you) hear any that could reduce
yours? Do you also hear some ideas that would only make your stress worse?
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CHAPTER 13: EMOTION, STRESS, AND HEALTH
SUPPLEMENTAL LECTURE MATERIAL
Theories of Emotion
Emotion, as a concept, seems to imply that a person is “changed” or “moved” from one state to another, as
from happy to sad or angry. Emotion consists of several components. They are:
1. The affective component is observed in the reaction of the body. Reactions may take the form of
sweating, trembling, and turning white. This component is a function of the activity of the
autonomic nervous system, preparing your body for action, if action becomes necessary.
2. The cognitive component consists of the thoughts and beliefs that accompany any given emotion.
This component provides a label for what your body is expressing.
3. The facial expression is the look on your face.
4. The reactions to the emotion, such as running from a menacing bear.
These varied components imply that emotion is a multifaceted construct. There are three dominant
traditions or perspectives from which to study emotion. They are, in order of historical appearance:
biological, learning, and cognitive.
Biological/Psychophysical Tradition
This approach is based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, and proposes that the ways in which organisms
express emotion have had survival value in the past. This would imply that dogs snarl when they feel
threatened because snarling itself has been interpreted by other dogs and animals as threatening behavior.
Snarling helped drive off threats and avoid fights. As Darwin proposed, this form of emotional response
has (or had) survival value.
Learning Tradition
This approach is a drive theory perspective. Kenneth Spence divided the study of emotion into motivational
events, and proposed two categories of events. They are:
. Appetitive states, such as hunger and thirst, involve situations that lead to approach behavior
. Aversive states involve situations that lead the organism to withdraw or flee the situation. Pain is the
most well known aversive stimuli, and the most frequently studied.
Spence argued that the drive that activates aversive states was a result of the development of an internal,
emotional response in the organism, that the organism’s emotionality was aroused by an aversive stimulus
(pain, fear, and electric shock). Spence’s basic premise was that organisms learn from experience which
situations have aversive potential, and then strive to avoid those situations.
Cognitive Tradition
This approach stresses the importance of cognitive appraisal of a situation. Richard Lazarus felt that bodily
(affective) changes were not sufficient for the experience of a true emotional feeling, that we must assess a
situation as emotion producing before we can experience emotion. The first model to posit this idea was that
proposed by the Lazarus–Schachter theory of appraisal.
We now have a foundation for the study of emotion, so let us discuss theories that have been popular at
different times throughout the years.
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PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE
The James–Lange Theory
James and Lange proposed that feelings of emotion did not occur immediately after the perception of an
event in the environment, but because of our bodily responses to the event or object. In a diagram form, the
chain of events looks like this:
PERCEPTION T BODILY CHANGES T EMOTION T BEHAVIOR
As an example of how this might look in real life, imagine meeting an angry bear in the woods:
SNARLING BEAR T INCREASED HEART RATE, T FEAR!