Emotion, Stress, and Health
The first theory is the Schachter – Singer two-factor theory of emotion. Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer developed the theory in 1962. The Schachter – Singer theory is also referred to as the two-factor theory that tries to explain the relationship between psychological arousal and emotions. The theory argues that two things happen when someone encounters a situation that elicits an emotional response. Psychological and cognitive interventions simultaneously form the experience of emotion. The theory explains that the first physiological arousal occurs within our sympathetic nervous system. Secondly, cognitive interpretation of the arousal occurs so that the person may identify the emotion we are experiencing. Schachter -Singer theory asserts that if a person becomes physiologically aroused, there is no feeling of a specific emotion until the person can identify or label the reason for the situation (Dror, 2016). An illustration of how emotion occurs is when a person experiences a car crash. If the person tries to go and help the car crash victim, the heartbeat, and the breathing rate of the person increases. Experiencing a car crash is traumatic. The increased pulse and breathing rate are physiological responses produced by our sympathetic nervous system. The degree of physiological arousal will determine the intensity of the emotion that we experienced during cognitive interpretation. The person assesses the situation to decide which emotion is appropriate by consciously linking the arousal the person is experiencing with what is happening around the person.
Another illustration is when a person is holding a pet. Generally, holding a pet causes people to feel an emotion of happiness (Dror, 2016). However, it is not the act of holding the pet that creates happiness, but it is the effect that the pet has on the body that causes euphoria. Using the example of holding a pet, Schachter-Singer theory puts the holding of the pet as an event, which produces a physiological response of increased heart rate or changes in the neurotransmitter. However, the feeling of happiness does not come until the person holding the pet consciously labels the situation by identifying the reason for the physiological response. The identification of the cognitive ability is what causes the emotion of happiness according to Schachter-Singer theory. Because people are different, situations, and experiences are likely to affect us in different ways through the appraisal of the case. People who have had a bad experience with pets will view holding a pet as scary. Appraisal refers to the cognitive act of assessing and evaluating the potential impact an event is likely to have on the person. The primary appraisal is the initial step in appraisal, where a person asks if the situation around is a threat. If the situation is a threat, the person will experience fear.
Many scholars have spoken about the idea of the effects of psychological stress on physical health and mental health. In a journal by George Slavish, Life Stress and Health: A Review of Conceptual Issues and Recent Findings, emotions are not just a transient psychological phenomenon that occurs in our bodies. Emotions affect the body and health of any person. Certain emotions have a certain contagious quality on the feelings and the behaviors they drive. The actions and feelings affect the body and the mind of not only the person feeling the emotions but also the people around the person (Slavich, 2016). Fear, anger, and other challenging emotions and how these emotions are handled are closely related to stress. In as much as everybody opines that stress promotes diseases, the science behind how stress manages to get under the skin is still unknown. Stress reduces the ability of an immune system to function at optimum thereby increasing the chances of contracting diseases such as heart diseases.
References
Dror, O. (2016). Deconstructing the “Two Factors”: The Historical Origins of the Schachter–Singer Theory of Emotions. Emotion Review, 9(1), 7-16. doi: 10.1177/1754073916639663
Slavich, G. (2016). Life Stress and Health. Teaching Of Psychology, 43(4), 346-355. doi: 10.1177/0098628316662768