Cognitive Appraisal versus Bodily Perception
There is much more to emotion than just positive and negative valuation, as we see in the many
varieties of feelings, such as happiness, elation, contentedness, fear, anger, disgust, and horror.
Philosophers and psychologists have long debated the nature of the emotions, and their proposed
theories fall into two main camps: cognitive appraisal and bodily perception. According to cognitive
appraisal theories, emotions are judgments about the extent to which a perceived situation
accomplishes a person's goals. According to bodily perception theories, however, emotions are not
judgments but rather perceptions of physiological states. I will briefly review these historically
competing theories, and then offer a synthesis of them in the form of a model of how the brain
combines both cognitive appraisal and bodily perception.
When something happens to you, you naturally evaluate how it affects your life. When you get a
good job offer, it usually makes you happy because it contributes to your goals of having a successful
career and making money. According to the cognitive appraisal approach to emotions, a situation
makes you happy when it contributes to your goals, with greater contributions leading to greater
happiness. Sadness is the opposite, indicating that a situation impedes accomplishment of your goals,
as when you do not get a job you want or get a puny raise. Anger occurs when someone blocks the
accomplishment of your goals—for example, when a fellow worker keeps you from being successful
at your work. Fear arises in situations that threaten your survival goals, such as when a car cuts you
off on the freeway and almost makes you crash. Disgust is basically a violation of your eating goals
and desire for bodily integrity, as when someone tries to feed you something repulsive like fried
worms, but can also extend to noneating situations such as sexual acts you consider depraved. In all
these cases, you experience different emotions because your appraisal of the situation produces a
judgment about its relevance to your goals.
Complex social emotions such as shame and pride seem to involve a kind of cognitive appraisal
with respect to goals connected with relations to other people. If you perform an act, such as theft,
that goes against the expectations of people you care about, or that contravenes the moral code you
have been brought up with, then you will feel shame or guilt. These reactions arise in part from a
judgment that you have violated your goal of receiving the approval of others. On the other hand, if
you accomplish something like winning an award that fits with the values you share with your social
group, then you can feel pride. Gratitude is the positive feeling you have toward someone who has
helped you accomplish your own goals. Envy is the negative feeling toward someone who has
something you want. Social emotions require a recognition of your place in a social network and a
judgment about how a particular situation is affecting other people in that network.
Nevertheless, some psychologists and philosophers reject the cognitive appraisal approach in
favor of the claim that emotions consist merely of bodily perceptions. The body is undeniably an
important part of people's emotions, as is especially evident in negative emotions such as fear.
Suppose you suddenly hear that someone you care about has been in a serious car accident. Your
body will undergo dramatic changes, including increases in heartbeat, breathing rates, blood
pressure, and circulating levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Such physiological changes are sensed
by the body and communicated to brain areas such as the amygdala and the insula.
According to bodily perception theories, your emotion is your brain's response to such
physiological changes, as expressed in a famous quote from the American psychologist/philosopher
William James:
Which is right, the view that emotions are bodily perception, or the view that they are cognitive
appraisals?
We needn't choose. I think that the debate between cognitive appraisal and bodily perception
theories is similar to two other classical debates about the mind: genetic versus environmental
explanations of behavior, and top-down versus bottom-up accounts of perception. In each of these
debates, both sides are partly right, in ways that start to become clear with the development of a rich
theory of how dynamic interactions produce the full range of phenomena to be explained. I won't get
into nature versus nurture here, but I have already sketched in chapter 4 how perception involves
simultaneous, parallel processing that combines top-down knowledge with bottom-up perceptual
input. Analogously, emotions can be understood as the dynamic interactions of brain areas that
perform both bodily perception and cognitive appraisal
Cognitive Appraisal versus Bodily PerceptionThere is much more to emotion than just positive and negative valuation, as we see in the manyvarieties of feelings, such as happiness, elation, contentedness, fear, anger, disgust, and horror.Philosophers and psychologists have long debated the nature of the emotions, and their proposedtheories fall into two main camps: cognitive appraisal and bodily perception. According to cognitiveappraisal theories, emotions are judgments about the extent to which a perceived situationaccomplishes a person's goals. According to bodily perception theories, however, emotions are notjudgments but rather perceptions of physiological states. I will briefly review these historicallycompeting theories, and then offer a synthesis of them in the form of a model of how the braincombines both cognitive appraisal and bodily perception.When something happens to you, you naturally evaluate how it affects your life. When you get agood job offer, it usually makes you happy because it contributes to your goals of having a successfulcareer and making money. According to the cognitive appraisal approach to emotions, a situationmakes you happy when it contributes to your goals, with greater contributions leading to greaterhappiness. Sadness is the opposite, indicating that a situation impedes accomplishment of your goals,as when you do not get a job you want or get a puny raise. Anger occurs when someone blocks theaccomplishment of your goals—for example, when a fellow worker keeps you from being successful
at your work. Fear arises in situations that threaten your survival goals, such as when a car cuts you
off on the freeway and almost makes you crash. Disgust is basically a violation of your eating goals
and desire for bodily integrity, as when someone tries to feed you something repulsive like fried
worms, but can also extend to noneating situations such as sexual acts you consider depraved. In all
these cases, you experience different emotions because your appraisal of the situation produces a
judgment about its relevance to your goals.
Complex social emotions such as shame and pride seem to involve a kind of cognitive appraisal
with respect to goals connected with relations to other people. If you perform an act, such as theft,
that goes against the expectations of people you care about, or that contravenes the moral code you
have been brought up with, then you will feel shame or guilt. These reactions arise in part from a
judgment that you have violated your goal of receiving the approval of others. On the other hand, if
you accomplish something like winning an award that fits with the values you share with your social
group, then you can feel pride. Gratitude is the positive feeling you have toward someone who has
helped you accomplish your own goals. Envy is the negative feeling toward someone who has
something you want. Social emotions require a recognition of your place in a social network and a
judgment about how a particular situation is affecting other people in that network.
Nevertheless, some psychologists and philosophers reject the cognitive appraisal approach in
favor of the claim that emotions consist merely of bodily perceptions. The body is undeniably an
important part of people's emotions, as is especially evident in negative emotions such as fear.
Suppose you suddenly hear that someone you care about has been in a serious car accident. Your
body will undergo dramatic changes, including increases in heartbeat, breathing rates, blood
pressure, and circulating levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Such physiological changes are sensed
by the body and communicated to brain areas such as the amygdala and the insula.
According to bodily perception theories, your emotion is your brain's response to such
physiological changes, as expressed in a famous quote from the American psychologist/philosopher
William James:
Which is right, the view that emotions are bodily perception, or the view that they are cognitive
appraisals?
We needn't choose. I think that the debate between cognitive appraisal and bodily perception
theories is similar to two other classical debates about the mind: genetic versus environmental
explanations of behavior, and top-down versus bottom-up accounts of perception. In each of these
debates, both sides are partly right, in ways that start to become clear with the development of a rich
theory of how dynamic interactions produce the full range of phenomena to be explained. I won't get
into nature versus nurture here, but I have already sketched in chapter 4 how perception involves
simultaneous, parallel processing that combines top-down knowledge with bottom-up perceptual
input. Analogously, emotions can be understood as the dynamic interactions of brain areas that
perform both bodily perception and cognitive appraisal
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