Historical theories of emotion, arousal, and human motivation

Emotions as Motive

The two theories on emotion are the Cannon-Bard theory, introduced by Walter Cannon in 1927, and the Schacter Two-Factor Theory, introduced by Stanley Schacter in 1964. In the Cannon-Bard theory, it was posited that physiological arousal could occur without emotion also occurring (i.e. one could experience a racing heart and goosebumps without seeing a snake and being afraid) (Weiten, 2005). Cannon-bard was incorrect in the theory that emotion began in the thalamus, but other theorists have since agreed that emotion sits somewhere in the brain's subcortical brain structures (Weiten, 2005).

The second theory of emotion, the Schacter Two-Factor theory, introduced the idea of situational cues and decision between alternate emotions (Weiten, 2005). According to Schacter, emotions depend on two factors, the being autonomic arousal to something, and the second being an interpretation of the arousal felt (Weiten, 2005). For example, if I were to wake up tomorrow morning feeling very anxious with a knot in my stomach and maybe a slight headache, I would cognitively interpret why I felt this way. Some of these arousal emotions highly contribute to biological motives in humans, such as an aggressive motive and even a temperature motive (Weiten, 2005). However, some fallbacks to this theory that not every arousal situations calls for someone to analyze their emotions -- it is not always so cut and dry for most people. However, the theory does show wide support.

In an article by Dolan, some techniques for capturing emotions in a particular study was described. In some cases words, pictures and activities are used to facilitate emotional facial responses, such as happiness and fear (which are two emotions widely known and accepted worldwide (Weiten, 2005)). Some of the words might be threat words, or pictures of spiders or people's faces. As participants are moving through the activity pictures of them are taken at specific intervals to be analyzed later. Some other processes outlined are to study those who have had brain damage and have "nonemotional" outcomes for some of the tests. Using them, it is easier to study what the brain looks like and doesn't look like when experiencing emotion vs. experiencing nothing.