Bodily response precedes and produces emotional feeling, rather than following from it.
Contested from Cannon onward. Modern accounts give bodily feedback a real but partial role — the arousal is necessary and the labelling does substantial work, which is Schachter and Singer's amendment.
In practice
- Contested since Cannon: a person told their racing heart is caffeine reports less anxiety than one who is not.
- A speaker who steadies their breathing before going on stage feels less afraid, which is the bodily half doing real work.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is directional: perceiving a situation triggers a bodily response, and the feeling of the emotion is the perception of that response.
- In its favour
- Bodily feedback does contribute: manipulating posture, breathing and facial muscles measurably shifts reported feeling, and people with reduced bodily signalling report altered emotional experience.
- Against it
- Cannon's objections stand in part, since the same arousal accompanies different emotions and feelings can arrive faster than the bodily change. Modern accounts treat arousal as necessary but leave much of the work to how it is labelled.
- Standing
- Contested from Cannon onward; modern accounts give bodily feedback a real but partial role.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Theories of the mind, from the lab to the bookshop