The James-Lange Theory
Thursday, November 01, 2007
The James-Lange Theory
Stop moaning, readers. I know those people who are taking PSY101 with me are probably groaning at the title of this entry. After all, the lot of us just went through a disgustingly difficult quiz paper in the day regarding the very same chapters this theory was born out of. You start to wonder where those theorists ever found the time to sit back, and think about which came first: Emotions or Physiological reactions. Very much like the chicken and egg question, it doesn't really change the way humans are going to think or act, to be honest. Psychology is a complexed subject to study, but thank goodness that it is incredibly interesting at the same time. The theorists in the textbook are always fighting over who is right and who is wrong, whether Freud was a delusional - and sexual - maniac or was Jung just incredibly jealous of Freud's work. Whatever it is, here's a little summary of what the James-Lange theory is.
One fine day, one of those bored psychologists sat down at the coffee table and started thinking about various philosophical questions. That was when a snake appeared out of nowhere and presented itself before the psychologists. Of course, the first thing anybody is going to do when they see a snake is to jump out of its way, and that was exactly what the psychologist did as the snake curled up into a neat pile before his feet. Thinking about his childhood trauma with snakes, the psychologist couldn't control his bladder and started pissing all over himself. Then a sudden thought struck him there and then, and he pondered over whether an emotion or a physiological reaction comes first, in the presentation of a stimuli. He wondered if it was his body that reacted to the snake first, then told his brain to release the urine in his bladder, or was it because his brain registered fear and thus, releasing the urine. The James-Lange theory believes that it is the former rather than the latter, with your body reacting to a stimuli first, then the emotion comes later. After all, he argues, you cannot feel emotion without a brain - the physical aspect of emotional interpretation.
So the argument is this. If you follow the steps mentioned in the beginning of this post, it is possible for you to feel upset or depressed because your body is conditioned to be in a certain position. At least that is true as far as the textbook is concerned, and it is possible to feel a certain way just being making yourself do certain actions that resembles the ones that you might do while feeling that emotion. This also means that emotions are dictated by the body, and therefore proves the James-Lange theory to be right. Of course, there are other rebuttals, saying that the theory is wrong, and that emotions come first rather than the physiological aspect of our body. After all, you can't make a brain feel afraid, if you are putting it in a jar and sending it plunging down from thirty-thousand feet. You need emotions to make the brain feel something - well, you get the picture. It's a complicated issue, and I am studying that right now. The horrors.
So I was just thinking about putting myself in a state of depression just by lowering my eyebrows, sighing, tugging my hands between my laps, all that stuff. It actually did work to a certain extent, and I did feel that hint of sadness crawling up in my chest. The thing about this experiment that I performed on myself that I observed though, was that it wasn't so much about the actions but the thoughts conjured while doing those actions, in a strange sort of way. Which made me wonder how sad it is to have human emotions like fear, sadness, anger, happiness, all broken down into these scientific terms and terminologies. I mean, it is interesting to know why we are feeling sad, or why we are feeling happy, what constitutes those emotions and stuff like that. However, there are times whereby I just feel that humans are delving too deeply into certain issues, so much so that we have lost that raw, natural beauty of things in this world. It is true that humans can replicate an orgasm with eight consecutive sneezes, but do we really want to know such things in reality? To me, not really.
There are things we feel inside as humans, that makes us uniquely human. Feelings and emotions separates us from animals, and that's what makes us the dominating species on this planet. That is not to say that dogs or cats do not have emotions, but they perhaps do not have such a complex emotional structure, such as the ones we observe in ourselves everyday. We meet somebody we like, and we eventually fall in love with that person. You get the feeling that you want to spend the rest of your life with that person, and you love the way her hand slides down your neck and gently squeezes your shoulders. Animals have sex because they have to have sex. That is how they survive in the world, because it is that time of the year. I suppose humans do have that instinct still embedded somewhere in our genes, but we have sex more than just such intrinsic reasons. We have sex for love, for lust, for money, and sometimes for that instant gratification that we need. I don't suppose rape cases in the animal kingdom are very common at all.
To me, there is a certain beauty in depression because you cannot fully explain depression. I suppose I am the kind of person that derives more satisfaction in viewing the picture of dying trees on a postcard, or black and white pictures in general, or depressing songs that speak of love loss and death. I don't suppose depression has a form of definition you can put your finger on. You cannot quantify, or truly ever qualify it at all. Very much like most of the human emotions, depression is that pain in your chest or that emptiness in your head at times. To say that such a complex emotion can be replicated through certain actions you do in a chair is just rather degrading. It's like saying, that if you can follow certain brush movements while holding the paintbrush in a certain way, anybody can do a Monat or a Picasso - which is not true, because there are more than such trivial technicalities involved, but rather a combination of feelings.
It must be one of the reasons why I do not approve of studying certain subjects in school, the way they take a perfect piece of art and put it on the operating table. Students are then forced to dissect the poems or the short story with imaginary knifes and blades, breaking it apart and looking into its guts. It takes away the beauty of interpreting a piece of poem yourself, and deriving at certain interpretations on your own. I guess it is the sense of absolution when you find out the politically corrent definition to a certain aspect of a poem, and the way truth is always so anti-climatic. It never lives up to our expectations, and never intriguing enough to have us hooked on the quest of finding out the answer.
Despite all the answers textbooks provide, there are certain things that have yet to be explained at all. I mean, you have a whole bunch of psychologists arguing about whether emotion or physiological reactions come first, but none of them are going to address to you why humans have certain phobias to a certain random object. Of course, some of our phobias can be rooted to other post traumatic events, but I don't suppose the people who are mortally afraid of peaches, clowns, fishes, pickles, actually had any traumatic events related to any of those. I'd like to find a textbook whereby it'd explain to me why I am afraid of mannequins and Terra-Cotta warriors. I don't suppose the word 'fear' is a goo word to describe the situation whereby I am being locked inside a room with a mannequin. Perhaps the word 'uncomfortable', or 'unsettling' may be better words. Because seriously, of all the things that the textbooks should truly dissect, this is the only subject they have yet to crack - the part that truly matters.
So the psychologists, people like William James and Carl Lange are still going to ponder over trivial matters such as the ones mentioned. I mean, I don't have a thing against pondering over absolutely ridiculous issues, in fact I am the kind of person that does such things every once in a while on incredibly long bus trips. For example, the last random thought I had was this: What if it is possible that light can travel in every direction, while sound just travels in a straight line, as oppose to how our reality is bound by fundamental, physical laws. Or how it seems easier to guess a number on the first attempt within a given range of numbers, than it is to get everything wrong until the very last attempt, though they are the same mathematically speaking. I do ponder over such things, but then I don't write a textbook on it and force it down people's throats. I suppose, there are things that are meant to be a mystery, there are things out there that are not meant to be found out or dissected by humans as study subjects.
But then again, doctors and physicians have been known in the 18th and 19th century, to dig graves just to study human anatomy. If humans are capable of dissecting each other, I don't suppose it should come as a surprise that even a simply poetry would come under the scrutiny of this insatiable species - humans. It takes away the beauty of things, strips it naked in front of a crowd. We feel better about ourselves after knowing the truth, but what next? Nothing happens after knowing the truth, and we brush it aside to make way for more truth - which eventually leads to even more emptiness to fill. Mysterious, such as emotions, should remain as they are, and not told to us that they are merely the result of neuron transmitters sending messages to one another, or how falling in love is chemically the same as eating a whole box of chocolates. Because seriously, I prefer my mysteries to remain as mysteries. I do prefer my depressions to remain as depressions and my love to remain as love. There is a certain beauty to the curves of a question mark, and I intend to keep certain things in my life, that way.
"Lower your eyebrows towards your cheeks. Sigh. Close your mouth and push your lower lip slightly upward. Sigh again. Sit back in your chair and draw your feet under the chair. Be sure you feel no tension in your legs or feet. Sigh again. Fold your hand in your lap, cupping one in the other. Drop your head, letting your rib cage fall, letting most of your body go limp, except for a little tension in the back of your neck and across your shoulder blades. Sigh again."
Stop moaning, readers. I know those people who are taking PSY101 with me are probably groaning at the title of this entry. After all, the lot of us just went through a disgustingly difficult quiz paper in the day regarding the very same chapters this theory was born out of. You start to wonder where those theorists ever found the time to sit back, and think about which came first: Emotions or Physiological reactions. Very much like the chicken and egg question, it doesn't really change the way humans are going to think or act, to be honest. Psychology is a complexed subject to study, but thank goodness that it is incredibly interesting at the same time. The theorists in the textbook are always fighting over who is right and who is wrong, whether Freud was a delusional - and sexual - maniac or was Jung just incredibly jealous of Freud's work. Whatever it is, here's a little summary of what the James-Lange theory is.
One fine day, one of those bored psychologists sat down at the coffee table and started thinking about various philosophical questions. That was when a snake appeared out of nowhere and presented itself before the psychologists. Of course, the first thing anybody is going to do when they see a snake is to jump out of its way, and that was exactly what the psychologist did as the snake curled up into a neat pile before his feet. Thinking about his childhood trauma with snakes, the psychologist couldn't control his bladder and started pissing all over himself. Then a sudden thought struck him there and then, and he pondered over whether an emotion or a physiological reaction comes first, in the presentation of a stimuli. He wondered if it was his body that reacted to the snake first, then told his brain to release the urine in his bladder, or was it because his brain registered fear and thus, releasing the urine. The James-Lange theory believes that it is the former rather than the latter, with your body reacting to a stimuli first, then the emotion comes later. After all, he argues, you cannot feel emotion without a brain - the physical aspect of emotional interpretation.
So the argument is this. If you follow the steps mentioned in the beginning of this post, it is possible for you to feel upset or depressed because your body is conditioned to be in a certain position. At least that is true as far as the textbook is concerned, and it is possible to feel a certain way just being making yourself do certain actions that resembles the ones that you might do while feeling that emotion. This also means that emotions are dictated by the body, and therefore proves the James-Lange theory to be right. Of course, there are other rebuttals, saying that the theory is wrong, and that emotions come first rather than the physiological aspect of our body. After all, you can't make a brain feel afraid, if you are putting it in a jar and sending it plunging down from thirty-thousand feet. You need emotions to make the brain feel something - well, you get the picture. It's a complicated issue, and I am studying that right now. The horrors.
So I was just thinking about putting myself in a state of depression just by lowering my eyebrows, sighing, tugging my hands between my laps, all that stuff. It actually did work to a certain extent, and I did feel that hint of sadness crawling up in my chest. The thing about this experiment that I performed on myself that I observed though, was that it wasn't so much about the actions but the thoughts conjured while doing those actions, in a strange sort of way. Which made me wonder how sad it is to have human emotions like fear, sadness, anger, happiness, all broken down into these scientific terms and terminologies. I mean, it is interesting to know why we are feeling sad, or why we are feeling happy, what constitutes those emotions and stuff like that. However, there are times whereby I just feel that humans are delving too deeply into certain issues, so much so that we have lost that raw, natural beauty of things in this world. It is true that humans can replicate an orgasm with eight consecutive sneezes, but do we really want to know such things in reality? To me, not really.
There are things we feel inside as humans, that makes us uniquely human. Feelings and emotions separates us from animals, and that's what makes us the dominating species on this planet. That is not to say that dogs or cats do not have emotions, but they perhaps do not have such a complex emotional structure, such as the ones we observe in ourselves everyday. We meet somebody we like, and we eventually fall in love with that person. You get the feeling that you want to spend the rest of your life with that person, and you love the way her hand slides down your neck and gently squeezes your shoulders. Animals have sex because they have to have sex. That is how they survive in the world, because it is that time of the year. I suppose humans do have that instinct still embedded somewhere in our genes, but we have sex more than just such intrinsic reasons. We have sex for love, for lust, for money, and sometimes for that instant gratification that we need. I don't suppose rape cases in the animal kingdom are very common at all.
To me, there is a certain beauty in depression because you cannot fully explain depression. I suppose I am the kind of person that derives more satisfaction in viewing the picture of dying trees on a postcard, or black and white pictures in general, or depressing songs that speak of love loss and death. I don't suppose depression has a form of definition you can put your finger on. You cannot quantify, or truly ever qualify it at all. Very much like most of the human emotions, depression is that pain in your chest or that emptiness in your head at times. To say that such a complex emotion can be replicated through certain actions you do in a chair is just rather degrading. It's like saying, that if you can follow certain brush movements while holding the paintbrush in a certain way, anybody can do a Monat or a Picasso - which is not true, because there are more than such trivial technicalities involved, but rather a combination of feelings.
It must be one of the reasons why I do not approve of studying certain subjects in school, the way they take a perfect piece of art and put it on the operating table. Students are then forced to dissect the poems or the short story with imaginary knifes and blades, breaking it apart and looking into its guts. It takes away the beauty of interpreting a piece of poem yourself, and deriving at certain interpretations on your own. I guess it is the sense of absolution when you find out the politically corrent definition to a certain aspect of a poem, and the way truth is always so anti-climatic. It never lives up to our expectations, and never intriguing enough to have us hooked on the quest of finding out the answer.
Despite all the answers textbooks provide, there are certain things that have yet to be explained at all. I mean, you have a whole bunch of psychologists arguing about whether emotion or physiological reactions come first, but none of them are going to address to you why humans have certain phobias to a certain random object. Of course, some of our phobias can be rooted to other post traumatic events, but I don't suppose the people who are mortally afraid of peaches, clowns, fishes, pickles, actually had any traumatic events related to any of those. I'd like to find a textbook whereby it'd explain to me why I am afraid of mannequins and Terra-Cotta warriors. I don't suppose the word 'fear' is a goo word to describe the situation whereby I am being locked inside a room with a mannequin. Perhaps the word 'uncomfortable', or 'unsettling' may be better words. Because seriously, of all the things that the textbooks should truly dissect, this is the only subject they have yet to crack - the part that truly matters.
So the psychologists, people like William James and Carl Lange are still going to ponder over trivial matters such as the ones mentioned. I mean, I don't have a thing against pondering over absolutely ridiculous issues, in fact I am the kind of person that does such things every once in a while on incredibly long bus trips. For example, the last random thought I had was this: What if it is possible that light can travel in every direction, while sound just travels in a straight line, as oppose to how our reality is bound by fundamental, physical laws. Or how it seems easier to guess a number on the first attempt within a given range of numbers, than it is to get everything wrong until the very last attempt, though they are the same mathematically speaking. I do ponder over such things, but then I don't write a textbook on it and force it down people's throats. I suppose, there are things that are meant to be a mystery, there are things out there that are not meant to be found out or dissected by humans as study subjects.
But then again, doctors and physicians have been known in the 18th and 19th century, to dig graves just to study human anatomy. If humans are capable of dissecting each other, I don't suppose it should come as a surprise that even a simply poetry would come under the scrutiny of this insatiable species - humans. It takes away the beauty of things, strips it naked in front of a crowd. We feel better about ourselves after knowing the truth, but what next? Nothing happens after knowing the truth, and we brush it aside to make way for more truth - which eventually leads to even more emptiness to fill. Mysterious, such as emotions, should remain as they are, and not told to us that they are merely the result of neuron transmitters sending messages to one another, or how falling in love is chemically the same as eating a whole box of chocolates. Because seriously, I prefer my mysteries to remain as mysteries. I do prefer my depressions to remain as depressions and my love to remain as love. There is a certain beauty to the curves of a question mark, and I intend to keep certain things in my life, that way.
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on Thursday, November 01, 2007 at 10:09 PM.
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