Major Motivational and Emotional Response Theories

MAJOR MOTIVATIONAL AND EMOTIONAL RESPONSE THEORIES

Define the major motivational and emotional response theories that influence behavior.

“Emotion is a feeling state involving physiological arousal, a cognitive appraisal of situation arousing the state, and an outward expression of the state.

The James-Lange Theory “James claimed that first an event causes physiological arousal and a physical response. Only then does the individual perceive or interpret the physical response as an emotion. In other words, saying something stupid causes you to blush, and you interpret your physical response, blushing, as an emotion, embarrassment.” He went on to suggest that “we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble”

The Cannon-Bard Theory “Emotion-provoking stimuli are received by the senses and are then relayed simultaneously to the cerebral cortex, which provides the conscious mental experience of the emotion, and to the sympathetic nervous system, which produces the physiological state of arousal. In other words, your feeling of emotion (fear, for example) occurs at about the same time that you experience physiological arousal

(a pounding heart). One does not cause the other

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