More Appraisal Theories of Emotion
Many current theories of emotion now place the appraisal component of emotion at the forefront in defining and studying emotional experience. However, most contemporary psychologists who study emotion accept a working definition acknowledging that emotion is not just appraisal but a complex multifaceted experience with the following components:
1. Subjective feelings. The appraisal is accompanied by feelings that are good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, calm or aroused.
2. Physiological arousal. Emotions are accompanied by autonomic nervous system activity.Arousal is defined as “to rouse or stimulate to action or to physiological readiness for activity” (Merriam-Webster, 2007). According to Schachter and Singer (1962) we can have arousal without emotion, but we cannot have an emotion without arousal. Essentially, humans injected with epinephrine without knowing the actual content of the injection, feel an increase in heart rate, sweating, and nervousness, but that doesn’t elicit an affective response. When the same physiological responses are paired with a contextual pretext, winning the lottery, for example, the state of arousal is appraised to mean extreme excitement, joy, and happiness. Without a context, we feel aroused, but cannot label it as an emotional response to a stimulus. If a context is present, we can evaluate our arousal in terms of that context, and thus an emotional response is present.
3. Expressive behaviors. Emotion is communicated through facial and bodily expressions, postural and voice changes.
4. Action tendencies. Emotions carry behavioral intentions, and the readiness to act in certain ways.
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—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)