HOW DO EMOTION AND COGNITION RELATE?

How Do Emotion and Cognition Relate? A Critical Discussion



How Do Emotion and Cognition Relate? A Critical Discussion

Introduction

Thought processes about interpersonal interaction are strongly linked with emotion (Leach & Tiedens, 2004). It has been argued, for example, that through evolution humans have developed a powerful need to belong (Leach & Tiedens, 2004). Thus, people are motivated to assess, process, and encode their interpersonal encounters in terms of whether they are being rejected or accepted (Leach & Tiedens, 2004). Perceptions of rejection can trigger powerful negative emotions, such as shame, anxiety, and sadness (Leach & Tiedens, 2004). Other motives, including desires to be respected, admired, or feared, can trigger other emotions as well (Parrott, 2000). This paper critically discusses how emotion and cognition relate to each other in a concise and comprehensive way.

How Do Emotion and Cognition Relate? A Critical Discussion

Although cognition was given a central role in Schachter's two-factor theory (Parrott, 2000), that role was distinct from the role it has in appraisal theories of emotion (Parrott, 2000). In Schachter's theory Parrott (2000) mentions, the role of cognition was to label arousal that was already present. In appraisal theory as Parrott (2000) mentions, the role of cognition is to interpret the significance and meaning of the unfolding emotional event. Imagine that you hear a strange noise coming from your ground-floor kitchen in the middle of the night (Leach & Tiedens, 2004). The sense you make of this event through a process of appraisal is regarded as determining whether and how you will react emotionally. Interpreting the noise as caused by a human intruder will give rise to a very different set of emotions than will interpreting the noise as caused by your cat or by the wind blowing something off the window sill. Another important factor, in the view of appraisal theorists, is your sense that you will be able to cope with any possible threat to your well-being (Leach & Tiedens, 2004).

A young, physically able person will experience less threat under these circumstances than will an elderly or disabled person (Leach & Tiedens, 2004). The essence of the appraisal theory view of the role played by appraisal is nicely summarized in Nico Frijda's law of situational meaning (Parrott, 2000), which states that emotions arise from the meanings people ascribe to situations and that if the meaning changes (such that your initial thought that the noise from your kitchen was made by an intruder now changes as you remember that your cat had been outside when you went to bed, and the noise is the sound of her entering the house), so too will be emotion (in this case from fear to relief) (Scherer, Schorr & Johnstone, 2001).

The singular term appraisal theory makes it seem as though there is one theory to which all appraisal theorists subscribe. In fact there are several appraisal theories, all of which share the view that emotions arise from cognitive appraisals (Parrott, ...