Cognitive and Social Constructivist Approach - Essay Example

Emotion Theory and Research The study of Emotion presents the core problem of having each approach a unique set of attributes. These attributes or assumptions tell us the way to construct research on the basis of each and every individual. That means every person feels and reacts to the approaches differently as every individual possess a unique set of attributes in accordance with his behaviour, to measure emotion physiology. However, the four approaches are those perspectives, which are experienced and researched by the four theorists. Cognitive Approach Vs. Social Constructivist Approach Cognitive Approach is the most dominant approach, incorporated among the other three, which states that emotions are directly related to thoughts or perceptions. As these perceptions persist in every individual, so does the emotion persist but they differ in every person. According to the basic contemporary cognitive theories, we continually assess the stimuli we encounter by making a limited number of predominantly unconscious appraisals. Appraisals are those assessments that scenarios or situations have on us as individuals. Appraisal, therefore are not limited to pessimistic or optimistic approach, however positive emotions emerge when there is appraised benefit, and negative emotions are elicited by appraised harm (Smith & Lazarus, 1993). The contemporary cognitive theorists propose that different configurations of appraisals elicit different emotional states. For example, Scherer claimed that we experience sadness when we assess an event to be unpleasant, counter to goals, and one with which we cannot cope. Scherer along with Wallbott and Summerfield (1986) focused on four emotions – joy, sadness, fear and anger. They chose these emotions because they believed to be the most basic and universal. Their interest developed and they decided to explore cultural differences in the experience of these emotions. So they planned a large-scale cross-cultural study throughout Europe. Scherer et al designed their research in order to gain comparative information across cultures in a number of areas. (Strongman, 2001, p6.34) What they were concerned lead them to the social constructivist approach with the following discoveries: They discovered that those situations, which elicit different emotions, actually are dependant upon the social settings. Different patterns of environment bring out different emotions according to one’s culture. It is the culture that is depicted in organization of emotions in a systematic manner among individuals. Emotions are generated by different cultural values that socially affect an individual, thereby expressing his concerns in the form of emotional components such as sorrow, joy, fear, arousal etc. The sociological analysis of emotion states emotion’s anthropology according to which emotions’ study reveals that emotion rests on socially constructed approach. Psychologists typically place emotion within the person. By contrast anthropologists study emotional meaning within a culture, and consider how cognition along with sociocultural processes influence it. Sticking to the same approach, many contemporary theorists of emotion aligned with either a cognitive or a social constructivist approach. Because of the reason that cognitive approach and social constructivist approach are somehow interrelated, these two approaches are often regarded as rivals, the differences between them are not as extreme as is sometimes suggested. For example, cognitivists and social constructivists both reject the historically important idea that emotion is reducible to a wholly natural and purely subjective registering of some physiological perturbation. (Hjort & Laver, 1997, p. 6) This reductive approach is targeted by Rom Harre’s contribution, which critiques a ‘biological’ point of view from the perspective favoured by social constructivists. In the work of a cognitivist, such as William Lyons, this same biological point of view is identified with a ‘feeling’ theory influenced decisively by Descartes, Hume, and William James, and with a ‘behaviorist’ theory shaped by J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. (Hjort & Laver, 1997, p. 6) According to cognitivists, attitudes generate emotions and may even provide the basis for differentiating one emotion from another. The reason behind the philosophy is simple because individuals are subjected to different scenarios and different emotional conditions. In most cognitive accounts of emotion, a crucial causal role is attributed to agents’ evaluations of relevant states of affairs. For example, a mother who learns that her child’s teacher intends to break her contract in the middle of the school year can be expected to experience certain negative emotions if she believes that the sudden change will be harmful to her child. (Hjort & Laver, 1997, p. 7) That means the cognitive approach accounts for different states of emotion and mind, here the mother is intentionally aware of the consequences that are possible to experience by her. This thinking has made her to take decision. The example proves the fact that cognitive approach serves as the basis for social constructivism. It is not necessary that cognitions occur intentionally, some cognition also occur without apparent conscious involvement. However most emotions and most cognition are very complex for adult humans. Strongman gives example in this context as for example, compare the skip of your heart at a sudden loud noise in the middle of the night and the complex mixture of thoughts and feelings one would experience if returned home to find that one’s house had been burgled and its contents trashed. As well as being conscious or unconscious, the relationship between cognitions and feelings is intricate. All we know is that emotions result from appraisals and our emotional state affects our thoughts and behaviours. (Strongman, 2001, p6.44) Social constructivism typically accepts cognitivists’ emphasis on the intentional dimensions of emotion. That is, they agree with the cognitivists that emotions exhibit a certain ‘aboutness’ that involves an agent’s attitudes being directed, in the form of beliefs and judgments, toward real or imagined states of affairs. Although social constructivists believe the cognitive approach to emotion presents a definite advance over behaviourism. What makes the cognitive approach overly thin is its alleged failure to do justice to the constitutive role that culture plays in human emotion. According to social constructivists, emotion is a phenomenon that finds its condition of possibility in local languages and moral orders. (Harre, 1986) Social constructivists favour the kind of insight yielded by particularistic descriptions of the connections between certain contexts and activities, on the one hand, and the use of emotion terms, on the other. By emphasizing the need for thick descriptions, social constructivists take issue with the idea that the phenomenon of emotion can be properly understood through an analysis of occurring emotional states. Such states, claim the social constructivists, are made possible by a complex set of conditions, which are not only psychological, but also sociocultural and political. Whereas cognitivists tend to focus on the proximal, psychological causes of emotions, social constructivists give priority to the distal, sociopolitical causes of such phenomena. Some social constructivists believe that analyses dedicated to the proximal causes of emotions can provide only an inaccurate and distorted picture of emotion. Others contend that the absence of political awareness in such accounts reflects a form of ideological collusion. (Hjort & Laver, 1997, p. 8) To understand fully the difference between certain emotions, claims the social constructivist, it is necessary to enter into a set of language games and into a whole way of life, the constitutive rules of which cannot be adequately conveyed through theoretical formulations or descriptions. So, whereas the cognitivists believes that emotions can be understood only by paying careful attention to the beliefs and attitudes of individual agents (among other things), the social constructivist considers irreducibly social categories and entities to be the essential factor. (Hjort & Laver, 1997, p. 8) To the extent that cognitive appraisal theories of emotion are valid, people arrive at emotional states through their cognitive assessments. Thus, cognitive appraisal information provides maximum information about how the sender, as a unique individual in a specific setting, came to experience a given emotional state. Since the appraisal-emotion relationships are shared by both senders and receivers, if recipients listen and accurately identify the sender’s appraisals, they should be able to accurately determine the sender’s emotional state. To the extent that receivers process the sender’s appraisals as though they were making those appraisals in the sender’s situation, they should end up sharing the sender’s emotional state. (Omdahl, 1995, p. 10) The idea that emotional arousal directs attention has been played out in another set of studies, those concerned with mood-congruity effects in cognition. The hypothesis is that people in a given emotional or mood state will give more attention to stimulus events, objects, or situations that are affectively congruent with their emotional state. In effect, these are stimuli whose typical effect is to maintain or preserve the person’s current emotional state. Thus, happy people find pleasant stimuli words, descriptions, pictures, people, music more attractive, salient, and attention provoking; as a result, such stimuli receive deeper processing and are better learned. Paradoxically, sad people seem to prefer the opposite types of stimuli serious, somber, nostalgic music, movies, or stories and such stimuli receive deeper processing when people are in a somber mood. (Christianson, 1992, p. 28) Arousal is an integral part of emotion. When we are anxious, afraid, angry, or jealous, we can feel changes to our breathing, sweating, muscle tone, pulse rate and so on. This might cause physical sensation such as the blood draining from our face or a great physical urge that puts our heart in our mouth. Even in the mildest emotional experience a small burst of arousal occurs. In the context of social constructivist approach if such physical changes that escort us to emotional extremes left uncontrolled, then these have the worst impact on social constructivist approach. These physical reactions where on one hand cause our autonomic nervous system to prepare the body for emergency situations, on the other hand are an obstruction for us in constructivism. In a sense, all emotions are about dealing with sudden changes in our environment, changes that have significance for our survival irrespective of being physical or social. William James (1884), seminal theory of emotions first established the importance of physiological mechanisms, one of the important quotes from James theory is: “The bodily changes follow directly the perception of the existing fact and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion.” (Strongman, 2001, p6.54) This theory not only drew attention to the body, but also suggested that the common sense idea of emotions that we perceive something, which causes the emotion cognition in turn causes us to do something, is wrong. I can relate this theory with social constructive approach in the following way: It is the emotion, which controls our cognition and in some situations it is the opposite. We humans have the tendency that despite possessing the same physical characteristics as that of animals, according to Darwinian we are able to control and identify our socially build limits and boundaries. In particular situations, when a person is under influence of emotion cognition, he is deprived of the emotional state ‘patience’ thereby he is more under the influence of ‘anger’ or ‘fear’. As he is aware of his societal limits, the social constructive approach would not let him do anything wrong, which might lead him to another state of mind. Schachter proposed a simple two-factor theory of emotion, which can be understood in terms of social constructivist theory. A necessary part of emotion is the arousal of sympathetic nervous system. These states of arousal differ from situation to situation as mentioned in the above example. We interpret them according to our beliefs and knowledge about them. Often we interpret them according to our society and cultural values. Our experience of emotion then depends on both physiological arousal and cognition. Schachter concluded that arousal can intensify emotional states like anger, fear, etc. (Strongman, 2001, p6.54) Cognitions might be involved with emotions in many ways for example; our memories have effective components that colour our present reactions. However it is the process of appraisal that lies at the heart of the emotion cognition interface. When any event occurs, we evaluate its significance for us. This is an emotional appraisal or an appraisal that leads to an emotional reaction. Such appraisals are thought to allow us to make fine distinctions between our emotional experiences and help us to determine the extent or the intensity of the emotion. (Strongman, 2001, p6.55) Conclusion Human beings are so much bounded in emotional cognition that they one way or the other have no choice than to adapt to the environment built by social constructivism. No doubt, both are an essential aspect of humans as man is social animal; consist of emotions, feelings, action and reaction. Cognitive theories where distinguish man from other creatures, constructivist theories bounds him to remain in the limits defined by society in the presence of cognitive factors like joy, sorrow, anger, anxiety and so on. Whether it is the cognitive approach or the social constructivist approach, cognitive appraisal is a common factor between them, necessary to prove emotional theories. References & Bibliography Brainerd Charles, Ornstein A. Peter, Stein L. Nancy & Tversky Barbara. (1997) Memory for Everyday and Emotional Events: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ. Christianson, (1992) The Handbook of Emotion and Memory: Research and Theory: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ. Harre Rom, (1986) An Outline of the Social Constructionist Viewpoint, in The Social Construction of Emotions Hjort Mette & Laver Sue, (1997) Emotion and the Arts: Oxford University Press: New York. Macleod C. & Mathews A., (1994) Cognitive Approaches to Emotion and Emotional Disorders. in Annual Review of Psychology. Volume: 45. Omdahl Lynn, (1995) Cognitive Appraisal, Emotion and Empathy: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ. Smith C., & Lazarus R. S. (1993). Appraisal components, core relational themes, and the emotions In Cognition and Emotion, 7, 233-269. Strongman T. Kenneth, (2001) Emotion In Psychological Science: An Introduction Read More