A report on Emotion and Arousal

Emotion classification, the means by which one may distinguish or contrast one emotion from another, is a contested issue in emotion research and in affective science.

Most dimensional models incorporate valence and arousal or intensity dimensions.

The James–Lange theory is a hypothesis on the origin and nature of emotions and is one of the earliest theories of emotion within modern psychology.

The basic premise of the theory is that physiological arousal instigates the experience of emotion.

Reversal theory is a structural, phenomenological theory of personality, motivation, and emotion in the field of psychology.

All high arousal emotions will be experienced pleasantly in the form of excitement when the individual is in the paratelic state – even the most otherwise unpleasant emotions.

Appraisal theory is the theory in psychology that emotions are extracted from our evaluations (appraisals or estimates) of events that cause specific reactions in different people.

2) Physiological arousal. Emotions are accompanied by autonomic nervous system activity. Arousal is defined as "to rouse or stimulate to action or to physiological readiness for activity" (Merriam-Webster, 2007). According to Schachter and Singer (1962) we can have arousal without emotion, but we cannot have an emotion without arousal. Essentially, humans injected with epinephrine without knowing the actual content of the injection, feel an increase in heart rate, sweating, and nervousness, but that doesn't elicit an affective response. When the same physiological responses are paired with a contextual pretext, winning the lottery, for example, the state of arousal is appraised to mean extreme excitement, joy, and happiness. Without a context, we feel aroused, but cannot label it as an emotional response to a stimulus. If a context is present, we can evaluate our arousal in terms of that context, and thus an emotional response is present.