Cognitive Theories

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Chapter 8 Motivation and Emotion
electrical stimulation had been delivered to a certain area of their brains. The stimulation was obviously pleasurable, because when the animals were allowed to control delivery of the stimulation by pressing a lever, they pressed it until they were exhausted,
ignoring even food and water (Olds & Milner, 1954). The brain areas in which stimulation is experienced as especially pleasurable include the dopamine systems, which, as
described in the chapter on consciousness, are activated by cocaine and other psychoactive drugs (Bardo, 1998). In contrast, stimulation of other brain regions is so
unpleasant that animals will work hard to avoid it.
Presumably, part of the direct central experience of emotion involves areas of the
brain whose activity is experienced as either pleasant or aversive. In humans, these areas
have extensive connections throughout the brain (Fossati et al., 2003). As a result, the
representation of emotion in the brain probably involves activity in widely distributed
neural circuits, not just in a narrowly localized emotion “center” (Derryberry & Tucker,
1992).
Cognitive Theories
attribution The process of explaining
the cause of some event.
excitation transfer The process by
which arousal is carried over from one
experience to an independent situation.
Suppose you are about to be interviewed for your first job, or to go out on a blind date,
or to take your first ride in a hot-air balloon. In such situations, it is not always easy
to be sure of what you are feeling. Is it fear, excitement, anticipation, worry, happiness,
dread, or what? Stanley Schachter suggested that the emotions we experience every day
are shaped partly by how we interpret the arousal we feel. His cognitive theory of emotion is known as the Schachter-Singer theory in recognition of the contributions of
Jerome Singer. The theory took shape in the early 1960s, when many psychologists were
raising questions about the validity of James’s theory of emotion. Schachter argued that
the theory was essentially correct—but required a few modifications (Cornelius, 1996).
According to the Schachter-Singer theory, emotions result from a combination of
feedback from the body’s responses and our interpretation of what caused those
responses. So cognitive interpretation comes into play twice: first when you perceive
the situation that leads to bodily responses and again when you interpret those
responses as a particular emotion (see Figure 8.8). Schachter said that a given pattern
of physiological responses can be interpreted in many different ways and so might give
rise to many different emotions. According to Schachter, then, the emotion you experience when that bear approaches your campsite might be fear, excitement, astonishment, or surprise, depending on how you label your bodily reactions to seeing it
(Schachter & Singer, 1962).
Schachter also said that how we label arousal depends on attribution, the process
of identifying the cause of some event. We attribute our physiological arousal to different emotions depending on the information we have about the situation. For example, if you are watching the final seconds of a close ball game, you might attribute your
racing heart, rapid breathing, and perspiration to excitement; but you might attribute
the same physiological reactions to anxiety if you are waiting for a big exam to begin.
Schachter predicted that our emotional experiences will be less intense if we attribute
arousal to a nonemotional cause. So if you notice your heart pounding before an exam
but say to yourself, “Sure my heart’s pounding—I just drank five cups of coffee!” then
you should feel “wired” from caffeine rather than afraid or worried. This prediction has
received some support (Mezzacappa, Katkin, & Palmer, 1999; Sinclair et al., 1994), but
other aspects of Schachter’s theory have not.
Few researchers today fully accept the Schachter-Singer theory, but it did stimulate
an enormous amount of valuable research. That research includes studies of excitation transfer, a phenomenon in which physiological arousal from one experience carries over to affect emotion in an independent situation (Reisenzein, 1983; Zillmann,
1984). For example, people who have been aroused by physical exercise become angrier
when provoked and experience more intense sexual feelings around an attractive person than do people who have been less physically active (Allen et al., 1989). Arousal
from fear, like arousal from exercise, can also enhance emotions, including sexual feelings. One study of this transfer took place in Canada, near a deep river gorge. The gorge
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Schachter’s cognitive theory of emotion predicts that
these people will attribute their physiological arousal to the game they are
watching and will label their emotion
“excitement.” Further, as described in the
chapter on health, stress, and coping, the
emotions they experience will also depend partly on their cognitive interpretation of the outcome (Lazarus & Folkman,
1984). Those who see their team’s defeat
as a disaster will experience more negative emotions than those who think of it
as a challenge to improve.
LABELING AROUSAL
could be crossed either by a shaky swinging bridge or by a more stable wooden structure. A female researcher asked men who had just crossed each bridge to fill out a questionnaire that included a measure of sexual imagery. The men who met the woman
after crossing the more dangerous bridge had much higher sexual imagery scores than
the men who had crossed the stable bridge. Furthermore, they were more likely to rate
the researcher as attractive (Dutton & Aron, 1974). When the person giving out the
questionnaire was a male, however, the type of bridge crossed had no impact on sexual imagery. You might be wondering whether the men who crossed the dangerous
bridge were simply more adventurous than other men in both bridge crossing and heterosexual encounters. To check this possibility, the researcher repeated the study, but
with one change. This time, the woman approached the men farther down the trail,
long after arousal from the bridge crossing had subsided. Now the apparently adventurous men were no more likely than others to rate the woman as attractive. So it was
probably excitation transfer, not differing amounts of adventurousness, that produced
the original result.
Schachter focused on the way we interpret our bodily responses to events. Other
cognitive theorists have argued that it is our interpretation of events themselves that
are most important in shaping emotional experiences. For example, as we mentioned
earlier, a person’s emotional reaction to receiving exam results can depend partly on
whether the score is seen as a sign of improvement or as a disaster. According to Richard
Lazarus’s (1966, 1991) cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, these differing reactions
can be best explained by how we think exam scores, job interviews, blind dates, bear
sightings, and other events will affect our personal well-being. According to Lazarus,
the process of cognitive appraisal, or evaluation, begins when we decide whether or not
an event is relevant to our well-being; that is, do we even care about it? If we don’t, as
might be the case when an exam doesn’t count toward our grade, we are unlikely to
have an emotional experience when we get the results. If the event is relevant to our
well-being, we will probably have a significant emotional reaction to it. That reaction
will be positive or negative, said Lazarus, depending on whether we interpret the event
as advancing our personal goals or blocking our progress. The specific emotion we experience depends on our individual goals, needs, standards, expectations, and past experiences. As a result, a second-place finisher in a marathon race might experience bitter
disappointment at having “lost,” whereas someone at the back of the pack may be
thrilled just to have completed the race alive (Larsen et al., 2004).
“In Review: Theories of Emotion” summarizes key elements of the theories we have
discussed. Research on these theories suggests that both bodily responses (including