Emotions

Emotions

According to the text from this week, emotions are described by each of the theorists as follows.

Darwin's Theory-Was the Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals was the first major event

of the biological bases of emotion. He believed emotions evolved from behaviors that indicated

what an animal would do next in a given situation; that when these behaviors were advantageous

to the animal (Pinel, 2009).

The James-Lange Theory- was the first attempt to explain the physiological bases of emotion'

suggests that emotion-inducing stimuli are received and interpreted by the brain, which trigger

visceral changes, organ changes in the thorax or abdomen, that subsequently trigger the

experience of emotion. With this emotion is the result of one's perception of their reaction or

bodily changes (Pinel, 2009).

Canon-Baird Theory- is an alternative theory based on the idea that emotional stimuli evoke

visceral and emotional responses that are independent of one another. It suggest that there is no

mechanism to emotion (Pinel, 2009).

Shortly after Bard worked on the hypothalamic function theory, Papez proposed a limbic system

that controlled the expression of emotions by connections with the hypothalamus and mediated

the perception of emotions by connections with the cortex (Pinel, 2009).

In conclusion there are so many different theories that aim to try and understand how

people think and react to different situations, which is great, but at the same time no one can

really understand truly what someone is feeling other than that individual. I found that the

reading on emotions was extremely informational and it is really interesting to see how many

different theories have come into play over the years, and are still in action to this day as

something for us to looks back on and reference to.

References

Pinel, J. P. (2009). Biopsychology. Boston MA: Pearson.