Emotions

Emotions, Stress, and Personality Summary Paper Our emotions are a combination of physiological activation, expressive behaviors, and conscious experiences. There are three theories associated with emotions. These include: James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and the Two-Factory Theory. James-Lange’s Theory states that the reason an emotion is triggered is because of a physiological response to an emotion-arousing stimuli. The Cannon-Bard theory states that an “emotion-stimulating stimulus and our body’s arousal occurs simultaneously”. Finally, the two-factor theory states that in order to experience emotion, you must be physically aroused and you must label the arousal. The two-factor theory created by Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer forms a connection between cognition and emotions. In addition to their theory, Zajonic and LeDoux developed the theory that emotions are instant and they come before an appraisal. The final theorist was Lazarus who claimed that the determination of something being dangerous or not, without our awareness, defines emotion. Contributing to these theories defined above were observations based on expressed emotions. We express our emotions in a variety of ways, including physical expressions, like our hearts beating faster, or something like sweating when we are nervous. The expression of emotions vary by gender, for example, it has been shown that women are more likely to express emotions than men. Another topic highlighted in this section was stress. Stress can be reduced by a method called problem-focused coping. People vary in the way they handle stress, and people who are more optimistic cope better than people who are pessimistic and they tend to live a healthier life. Factors like social support, aerobic exercise, and religion can help reduce stress and help a person live a healthier life. Just like stress, anger can be caused by a variety of reasons, including anger towards loved ones when someone commits a wrongdoing