A subjective sensation experienced as a type of psycho-physiological arousal. It reflects a stirred up state.

It consists of 3 components

Physiological arousal (heart rate, blood pressure,

perspiration) Expressive behaviours Conscious experience

As you become happy your heart starts beating faster. First comes conscious awareness then comes physiological activity.

Determines personal viability Prepares us for action Shapes our behaviour (emotions are reinforcing) Regulates social interaction Facilitates communication nonverbally Facilitates adult-child relations and thus development Make life worth living by adding value to experience Allow us to respond flexibly to our environment (approaching good, avoiding bad)

Does your heart pound because you are afraidor are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding?

 Experience

of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli

Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Pounding heart (arousal) Fear (emotion)

James-Lange Theory

Cannon-Bard Theory

Pounding heart (arousal) Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus) Fear (emotion)

Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger: physiological responses subjective experience of emotion

(Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer) To experience emotion one must:

be physically aroused cognitively label the arousal

Pounding heart (arousal)

Sight of oncoming car (perception of stimulus)

Cognitive label Im afraid

Fear (emotion= labeled arousal)

Body/Physical
blood pressure heart rate adrenaline levels muscle activity when smiling, frowning, etc. neural images posture tears, perspiration lie detector readings

Thoughts (observed indirectly through)

spoken and written words on rating scales
answers to open-ended questions on surveys and

during interviews responses to projective instruments, sentence stems, etc. self-assessments or perceptions regarding the behaviour and intentions of others other cognitive operations such as rational/logical thinking

Behavior
facial expressions
activity level alertness

screaming
laughing smiling aggression approach/avoidance attention/distraction insomnia

Emotion associated with the limbic system The brain structure most closely associated with fear is the amygdala When the emotion of fear first materializes, much of the brains processing is non-conscious

Researchers using electro-encephalographs to track mood changes have found that reductions in both anxiety and depression are associated with a shift in electrical activity from the left to the right side of the brain