The previous lecture that I attended on the 17th of August 2011 for pengurusan emosi was about two main topics, emotion and motivation and physiological, cognitive and psychoanalytic theories.
Firstly, we were taught about the definitions of emotion and motivation. Emotion is defined by its effective tone, whether it is positive or negative, and is never neutral. Motivation, on the other hand, is generally thought of as the study of the directional and energizing aspects of behaviour. There are four components of emotion, mainly a feeling state, a cognitive process, physiological changes, and associated behaviour. Therefore, emotion has a far wider meaning compared to feelings. According to Baron and Logan, 1993, emotion is not separable from motivation. Lang et al, 1992 also says that emotion is a motivation to our actions and motives can be emotional. However, not all situations have emotions as the motivator and not all motivations are based on emotions.
The James-Lange Theory says that there are three parts to emotion and motivation which is a stimulus, followed by physiological arousal and behaviour changes, leading to subjective experience of emotion. Cannon's challenge, on the other hand, says that the stimulus causes a simultaneous experience of conscious emotion and physiological arousal. Thus, a two-factor theory is formed, stating that a stimulus causes the physiological arousal plus a cognitive label for arousal leading to a conscious emotion.
Thus, emotion is a state of arousal involving facial and body changes, brain activation, cognitive appraisals, subjective feelings and tendencies towards actions, all shaped by cultural rules. Emotions also do serve as an adaptive response to events in the environment as they assist in communication our intentions to others. As we prepare for action, our emotions will arouse us to move or take action and cope with the situation.
Motivation, however, is the aspect of selection of processes, according to Bickhard,1997. Motivation, in other words is an anticipaition of what's possible, as it is what makes a person do one thing rather than another. As we were told, motivation consists of factors within and outside an organism that causes it to behave in a certain way at a certain time.
Motivation consists of two things, a drive which is an internal condition or impulse that activates behaviour to reduce a need and restore homeostasis, and incentive, which is an external goal that pulls or pushes behaviour. Drives may exist from homeostasis, as an upset in homeostasis may induce behaviour to corret the imbalance. Incentives are factors which provide a motive for a particular course of action or counts as a reason for preferring something over something else.
The theories of motivation include other concepts which are instinct, arousal, humanistic theory and unconscious motivation. Instincts, are inherent dispositions which are not learned, inherited fixed action patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli. Arousal is a physiological and psychological state of being awake, and curiousity will help us understand our environment. Humanistic theories, as suggested by Abraham Maslow, states that motives are divided into several levels from basic survival needs to psychological and self-fulfillment needs. Thus, as a conclusion to this lecture, we learnt that emotion emphasizes arousal, while motivation emphasizes action.
Next, we were thought about the physiologival and cognitive theories about emotion. The experience of emotion is based on several components namely subjective feelings, cognitive appraisal, physiological arousal, motor expression, and motivation tendencies, though the major theories that relate the experience of emotion differ in the relative importance of the various components as well as the order in which these components appear in the sequence of events that includes an emotional response. They also differ on the emphasis of the physiologial basis, role of cognition and rhe role of the unconscious, thus forming the three theories, physiological, cognitive and psychoanalytic theories.
Physiological theories emphasized that emotion is primarily a product of the brain and nervous system. Its origin is the physiological reactions to stimuli, as explained by the James-Lange Theory, the Cannon-Bard Theory and the psychobiological approaches. The James-Lang Theory is the oldest psychology theory of experience of emotion formulated by William Kames in 1884 and is supported by Carl Lange in 1884 and thus became the James-Lange Theory. Their hypothesis was that physiological reations to a stimulus triggered emotions. The Cannon-Bard Theory existed as Walter Cannon criticised the James-Lange Theory, stating that organ systems that trigger emotional reponses react very slowly to stimulation, emotional reactions should rapidly follow the stimulus and physiological responses would come too late to cause the emotional response. Thus, their theory proposed that internal or external stimuli lead to sensory impulses that are sent to the brain producing a sensation of emotion. A stimulus would simultaneously lead to both body responses and emotional sensations.
The psychobiological theory was then developed by Jack Panksepp in 1982 and 1992.He proposed that there are four basic emotions which are fear, rage, panic and expectance, which is associated with a command system in the brain, and these four basic emotions interact to produce other emotions. He also suggests that neurochemicals may be associated with the various emotional command system. However, there were criticisms on this psychobiological theory from Magda Arnold in 1960 that questions the basis for the specific locations of emotion circuits and James Averill in 1982 who says that the "hard-wired" circuits may not be flexible enough to serve as neurological basis for emotion.
Moving on to the cognitive theories, building on the physiologival theories, some modern theorists proposed that cognition or thought has a primary role in generating and guiding emotion. The proposed theories included Schacter's Cognitive Labeling Theory which states that the role of cognitive labeling determines what emotions are experienced, and misattribution which says that people often misattribute an emotion to an incorrect cause. Other theories such as the transfer of excitation which explains how excitation from one source can transfer to another as well as cognitive appraisal theories which says that thought processes are primarily responsible for triggering both emotional responses and behaviour, which are designed to cope with emotional situations.
Schachter's cognitive labeling accepts the James-Lange theory but introduces cognitive labelling as an interpretation of physiological responses are based on situational cues and past experience. The criticisms however include the assumption that general arousal contributes equally and identically to all emotions, arousals such as a pounding heart are much more likely to be negatively interpreted rather than positive emotions. The labelling of emotions is often based on past experience and memory, not just immediate situational factors, thus causing the assumptions athat all emotions involving the same neurochemical mediating processes is proven incorrect.
Finally, misattribution says that the arousal from an emotional source such as fear may be misattributed to a non-emotional source such as drugs. Misattribution can also lead to conflict and violence. The transfer of excitation as hypothesised by Dolf Zillman states that arousal from one source may influence otherwise unrelated cognition and reactions.
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