The Theories of Emotions

You overslept. "Oh, no!" you think. "I'm going to be late for school." You get dressed quickly, grab your keys, and begin to drive to school. You're driving so fast that you hear sirens, and you immediately begin to react fearfully. Fortunately, the sirens pass you, and you don't have to worry about the police. So what exactly made you react the way you did? We covered three of them in class. The first one is the James-Lange Theory. This theory suggests that the stimulus (here, the police siren) causes your body to react (i.e. your heart begins to pump faster), which then causes you to react emotionally (you squeal in fright). It makes sense, and it explains what literally causes the emotion, but there's no cognitive element involved, a major flaw in this theory. The second theory we covered is the Canon-Bard Theory. This one suggests that once the stimulus appears, the body and emotions work with each other to react. In other words, once you hear the police sirens, if your heart doesn't pump faster, you won't feel scared. Though experiments (remember the "Confederates") shows that this could be true, in general this doesn't show any cognitive element and it doesn't explain what actually causes the emotion and the bodily reaction. The third theory is the Schachter-Singer Theory. This theory suggests that, since the body can act in similar ways for different emotions, there must be a cognitive element (an awareness that you are afraid) that appears at the same time as the body's reaction, which then causes the emotion. This theory makes the most sense, but its biggest problem is that it focuses too much on the process of the autonomic nervous system and not the central nervous system, which carries a heavy amount of importance. We decided in class that none of these theories makes 100% complete sense, and it seems stupid for the AP to include them as topics on the exam. However, it helps to remember that if you're ever freaking out when you see a question about one of these three theories, just think about what you're experiencing, and it may help you remember what each theory suggests.