Chapter 8B notes
I. Theories of Emotion
a. Emotion - a response of the whole organism involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience.
b. Catharsis – emotional release. They catharsis hypothesis maintains that releasing aggressive energy through action or fantasy relieves aggressive urges.

c. Emotions = physiological arousal + expressive behaviors + conscious experience
d. Controversies: order of arousal, conscious experience and cognition
e. James-Lange theory (William James, Carl Lange) 

i. Experience of emotion = our awareness of physiological arousal to arousing stimulus 
 ii. Stimulus > physiological arousal > awareness of emotion
f. Cannon-Bard theory (Walter Cannon, Philip Bard) 

i. Emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers ii. Physiological responses iii. Subjective experience of emotion
g. Two-Factor Theory (Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer)
i. Physiological arousal + Cognitive Label = Emotion ii. To experience emotion, must be physiologically aroused and cognitively label it
II. Embodied Emotion
a. Emotions and the Autonomic Nervous System

i. Sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (calming) ii. Arousal and Performance 

1. Yerkes-Dodson Law
2. Moderate arousal is usually best, but it depends on the task

a. Easy/well-learned tasks – High arousal > optimal performance
b. Difficult/unrehearsed tasks – low arousal > optimal performance
b. Physiological Similarities Among Specific Emotions
c. Physiological Differences Among Specific Emotions
i. Brain circuits
1. Fear – amygdala
2. Disgust - Right prefrontal cortex
3. Depression – Right prefrontal cortex
4. Positive mood – Left frontal lobe
5. Frontal lobe > nucleus accumbens (pleasure center) > smile, laugh, euphoria ii. + J-L subtle physiological distinctions among various emotions iii. + J-L Severed spinal cord evidence iv. + S-S Most researchers agree that cognition (interpretation of situation) is involved
d. Cognition and Emotion

i. Cognition Can Define Emotion (spillover effect, Schachter & Singer, 1962)
1. Arousal can be interpreted as different emotions, depending on interpretation.
2. Arousal fuels emotion, cognition channels it (but, arousal is not as undifferentiated as S & S thought) ii. Cognition Does Not Always Precede Emotion
1. (Robert Zajonc, 1980, 84), Richard Lazarus (1991, 98) we have many emotional experiences apart from or before our interpretation of the stimulus; some emotions don’t require conscious thinking
2. “Speedy low road” – neural pathway bypasses thinking/cortex (thalamus- amygdala); simple emotions (likes, dislikes, fears)
3. “Thinking high road” – (thalamus-sensory cortex-prefrontal cortex-amygdala); more complex emotions (depression, love, hatred); may be more changeable by changing thoughts
e. Lie Detection
III. Expressed Emotion
a. Nonverbal Communication

i. Threats –