Thong Phung

Discuss to what extent cognitive and biological factors interact in emotion Emotion can be defined as in many different ways. For instance, in Theory of Knowledge, emotion can be defined as a way of knowing the world and is considered to play a key role in influencing our thoughts. However, psychologists view emotions as physiological arousal, hormone, or brain activity. To the most extent, cognitive and biological factors do interact with emotion through two types of theories: Two-factor theory (TFT) and Appraisal theory (AP). One of the major problems that many psychologists had to face is the relationship between emotions and physiological level. The Two-factory theory was proposed by Schachter and Singer (1962). This theory, indeed, does support the interaction of biological factors with emotion. There are two factors that interact in order to determine specific emotions: physiological arousal and an emotional interpretation and labeling of the physiological arousal.. Furthermore, this theory stated that emotions in specific settings require the interaction between physiological arousal and an interpretation of what has caused the arousal in that setting. In other words, in order to experience a specific emotion, there must be something that can trigger the the brain that allow the physiological arousal to happen along with an interpretation of that same person about his/her emotion. To support this theory, Schachter and Singer performed an experiment. Schachter and Singers aim of this study was finding the arousal state of the participants by inject a small dose of adrenaline; participants may experience as either of two emotions, anger or elation, and also depends on how the participants interpret and labeled their arousal state. Schachter and Singer found that these participants became angrier rather than elastic. Immediately, to support the theorys strength, they measured the emotions by measuring the participants pulse rate. Indeed, once a person is angry or mad, his pulse rate will increase.

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As a result, their study was able to support its strength that the physiological arousal do determines the intensity of the emotional experience and its interpretation determines which emotion is experienced. However, Schachter and Singers study has some weakness in term of ethics and its validity. Adrenaline is a hormone that increases the flow of oxygen and blood to the brain by increasing the activity of the heart and dilating blood vessels. As a result, participants health may be harm by increase in heart rate and blood pressure or dilation of pupils in the eyes. According to Marshall and Zimbardo, 1979, they stated that the pulse rate measurement may not be accurate because the pulse rate may changes from seconds to seconds. In other words, as soon the pulse rate reaches its high point, it will decrease. Thus, Mezzacappa et al., 1999, argued that the replication of this study has failed because not everyone will react the same way with the adrenaline shot. Similar to the Two-factor theory, Appraisal theory was proposed by Lazarus (1982, 1991) and its purpose is to investigate how cognitive and biological factors do interact with emotion. Instead of the physiological arousal, Lazarus believed that cognition is an essential part of all emotional states. There are also two types of appraisal: primary appraisal and secondary appraisal. The purpose of primary appraisal is to decide whether a situation is personally relevant while the secondary is to provide information about the individuals coping options in a situation. In other words, the primary appraisal will be able to determine a specific emotion through several personal questions and secondary appraisal will be able to see the cognition of individuals depend on the emotion. In addition, Lazarus also used the term core relational theme (CRT) to determine a specific emotion. This theory is furthermore advance in term of correlation between emotions and cognition than the two-factor theory. Similar with the other theory, psychologists also performed a study to support it. Herrald and Tomaka (2002) decided to prove

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the appraisal theory. They investigated specifically the relationships between different emotions (anger, shame and pride), patterns of cognitive appraisal, and cardiovascular reactivity (biological factor). Participants were asked to share their thoughts on a variety of college-related topics. However, these questions are specifically will help the participants to express their emotions. For instance, a question about a students grade may sometimes make them feel anger or shame because not everyone has good grades. Furthermore, there was also a confederate who will try to make the participants express a specific emotion. For example, to make a student feel shameful about their work, a confederate may act disappointed. To make this study more accurate, Herrald and Tomaka also monitored participants cardiac activity and blood pressure. At the end of the investigation, both Herrald and Tomaka noticed a pattern: there are more anger and shame (negative emotions) than pride (positive emotion). Their study was able support Lazaruss theory. As for the primary appraisal, those questions along with a confederate really help the participants to express his/her emotions. For secondary appraisal, many participants change their emotions from angry to shame because they felt bad. Unlike Schatcher and Singers study, Herrald and Tomaka reliability is very high because there is no ethic consideration and it is somewhat reliable because we can apply this into our life. However, without a confederate help, participants emotions may not going to be as expected. In other words, participants emotions were under influence of the confederate. Overall, both studies (Scachter & Singer and Herrald & Tomaka) were successfully demonstrating the idea of how cognitive and biological factors do interact with emotion through two theories: Two-factor theory and appraisal theory. Although they are theories, the studies do show the correlation between the cognitive and biological with emotion.