James-Lange Theory And Cannon Bard Theory

1311 Words6 Pages
Schachter and Singer were both agree with the James-Lange Theory and Cannon-Bard Theory. They agreed that people infer emotions when they experience physiological arousal and the same pattern of physiological arousal can give rise to different emotions. The last evolutionary theories were the cognitive theory. It says “several theories began to argue that cognitive activity in the form of judgments, evaluations, or thoughts were entirely necessary for an emotion to occur.” An American psychologist Richard Lazarus who contended that emotions must have some cognitive intentionality was one of the main advocator of this view. The interpretation of an emotional context of cognitive activity may be conscious or unconscious and may or may not take the form of conceptual processing. The theory of Lazarus was very influential. He states that emotion is a disturbance that occurs in cognitive appraisal, physiological changes and action. Cognitive appraisal is when the individual assesses the event cognitively, which cues the emotion. Physiological changes are when the cognitive reaction starts biological changes such as increased heart rate or pituitary adrenal response. While action is when the individual feels the emotion and chooses how to react. Here the example, “Jenny sees a snake. First, Jenny cognitively assesses the snake in her presence. Cognition allows her to understand it as a danger. Second, her brain activates Adrenaline gland which pumps Adrenaline through her blood