PSYC 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Coping With, Autonomic Nervous System, Egocentrism

• School: Binghamton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 111
• Professor: Maggie Parker (Ma)

Document Summary

When we face challenges, emotions focus our attention and energize our actions. The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli. Ex: we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble. Cannon-bard theory: arousal and emotion occur simultaneously. The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion. Ex: your heart begins pounding as you experience fear nervous system, causing your body"s arousal. The emotion-triggering stimulus travels to your sympathetic. At the same time, it travels to your brain"s cortex, causing your awareness of the emotion. Those with lower-spine injuries, who had lost sensation only in their legs, reported little change in their emotions" intensity. Those with high spinal cord injury, who could feel nothing below the neck, did report changes. Emotions are not just a separate mental experience.