Discussion: The Emotional Response

We encounter and react to situations every day, and those responses are dictated by emotional and stress responses. Researchers have developed three main theories of emotion, and these could be summarized by saying we experience a stimulus and the associated emotions at the same time (Cannon-Bard), changes in the body cause emotions (James-Lange), or cognitive factors interact with both emotions and changes in the body (Schachter and Singer). There is research that supports and contradicts all three of these theories, and they do not have to be mutually exclusive.

For this Discussion, you will consider these theories and apply them to a recent situation in your own life. You will then describe the brain basis of an emotion. Finally, you will consider stress resilience and how an individual might become more resilient to stressors.

Note: For this Discussion, you are required to complete your initial post before you will be able to view and respond to your colleagues’ postings. Begin by clicking on the Post to Discussion Question link, and then select Create Thread to complete your initial post. Remember, once you click on Submit, you cannot delete or edit your own posts—and cannot post anonymously. Please check your post carefully before clicking on Submit.

To prepare:

• Review this week’s Learning Resources, paying particular attention to how the three models of emotion differ and how the stress response functions.
• Be prepared to use the models of emotion to analyze a personal emotional response to a stimulus.

Post a response to the following:

• Summarize the three models of emotion (James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and Schachter and Singer) and clearly differentiate between them.
• Give a personal example of an instance where you had an emotional response to a stimulus. Explain which of the three models best explains your response and why, justifying your answer with support from the literature.
• Select one of the basic emotions identified in the text and describe the brain regions associated with that emotion.
• Emotional responses often involve stress responses as well. Consider the effects of stress resiliency and give at least one example of how a person might increase their resilience to a stressful situation.
  

  Learning Resources

  Required Readings

  Breedlove, S. M., & Watson, N. V. (2019). Behavioral neuroscience (9th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

  • Chapter 15, “Emotions, Aggression, and Stress”

  Classifying subjective emotional stress response evoked by multitasking using EEG. (2017). 2017 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), 3036–3041. doi:10.1109/SMC.2017.8123091

  Goetz, S. M. M., & Weisfeld, G. E. (2013). Applying evolutionary thinking to the study of emotion. Behavioral Sciences, 3(3), 388–407. doi:10.3390/bs3030388

  Lehmann, M. L., & Herkenham, M. (2011). Environmental enrichment confers stress resiliency to social defeat through an infralimbic cortex-dependent neuroanatomical pathway. The Journal of Neuroscience, 31(16), 6159–6173. Retrieved from http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/16/6159.full.p…Environmental enrichment confers stress resiliency to social defeat through an infralimbic cortex-dependent neuroanatomical pathway by Lehmann, M., & Herkenham, M., in The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 31/Issue 16. Copyright 2011 by Society for Neuroscience. Reprinted by permission of Society for Neuroscience via the Copyright Clearance Center.

  van Oort, J., Tendolkar, I., Hermans, E. J., Mulders, P. C., Beckmann, C. F., Schene, A. H., … van Eijndhoven, P. F. (2017). How the brain connects in response to acute stress: A review at the human brain systems level. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 83, 281–297. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.10.015

  National Institute of Mental Health. (2011). Stress-defeating effects of exercise traced to emotional brain circuit. doi:10.1037/e614672011-001

  Optional Resources

  Optional Readings

  Glickstein, M. (2014). Neuroscience: A historical introduction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

  • Chapter 18, “Personality and Emotion”

  Note: You will access this resource through the Walden Library databases.

  Sapolsky, R. M. (2001). Depression, antidepressants, and the shrinking hippocampus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 98(22), 12320–12322. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11675480Note: You will access this resource through the Walden Library databases.

  Optional Media

  Brachman, R. (2016, September). Rebecca Brachman: Could a drug prevent depression and PTSD? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_brachman_could_a…Note: The length of this media is approximately 18 minutes.