Essentially, emotions stem from your interpretation of your physical sensations.
For example, your heart beating wildly would lead you to realize that you are afraid.
How Does the James-Lange Theory Work?
Hugo Lin / Verywell
According to this theory, witnessing an external stimulus leads to a physiological response.
Your emotional reaction depends on how you interpret those physical reactions.
Example
Suppose you are walking in the woods, and you see a grizzly bear.
You begin to tremble, and your heart begins to race.
Therefore I am afraid.")
For another example, imagine that you are walking through a dark parking garage toward your car.
You notice a dark figure trailing behind you and your heart begins to race.
According to the James-Lange theory, you then interpret your physical reactions to the stimulus as fear.
In other words, the physical reaction needs to be present to make it actually experience real emotion.
Physical responses then occurred as a reaction to that thought.
While influential, however, not everyone agreed that physical responses were what led to emotions.
The German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt was one of the first to critique the theory.
He instead suggested that emotions were a primal, hard-wired sensory response.
Developing a panic disorder and specificphobiasare two examples.
Instead, the theory was largely the result ofintrospectionandcorrelational research.
Both James and Lange did present some clinical findings to support their theory.
According to both James and Lange, physiological responses should be necessary to truly experience emotion.
A person may have the exact same physiological response to a stimulus, yet experience an entirely different emotion.
Studies also suggest that the perception of internal physical states plays a role in how people experience emotions.
Final Thoughts
Researchers have devoted a great deal of time and effort toward understanding emotional responses.
The James-Lange theory of emotion represents one of the earliest theories.
Although the theory has been criticized and altered considerably over the years, it still exerts influence today.
Competingtheories of emotionsuch as Cannon-Bard theory of emotion and Schacter’stwo-factor theoryof emotion have also been introduced.
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