cognition/emotion debate

cognition/emotion debate

1. Lazarus (1982)

   • Supported cognitive appraisal theory that emotions result from cognitive processes, claims that cog. appraisal essential to experience emotion
   • Showed participants anxiety provoking films - one set with sound track one without
     • Found that participants who heard the sound track had lower physiological measurements
       • Suggests that cognitive appraisal can alter emotional repsonse
         • Doesn't prove cognition precedes emotion only that it can influence it
     • Ethical considerations

2. Zajonc (1980)

   • Disagreed with Cognitive appraisal theory that emotions result from cognitive processes
     • Similar to James -Lange - we don't need to think to feel emotion
   • emotions do not need cognitive process
   • emotion precedes cognition: we think before we feel
   • cognitive appraisal is separate to other aspects of emotion
   • "Mere exposure effect"(people prefer items that they have been exposed to over novel ones.
     • He claimed subliminal items were not processed cognitively (Disproved) and assumed that preference was therefore linked to emotion

3. Neither Zajonc or Lazarus's arguments are conclusive

   • Both agree that a minimal amount of cog process is required for emotion

4. Le Doux (1989) suggests that both may be correct

   • Using lesioned animals he showed that some brain structures were necessary to specific emotions (amygdala and thalamus - fear)
     • Lower route (associated with older evolutionary structures) takes sensory info to the thalamus and then the amydala. Fast and direct
     • Higher route (associated with newer evolutionary structures) relays info through a more complex route thalamus to sensory cortex and then the amygdala
     • The low route supports Zajonc's theory while the high route supports Lazarus's. This indicates that both theories may be correct