The theory of emotions by William James is a controversial concept that has been the subject of debate from different quarters. However, the traditional readings of this theory are regarded as inadequate and incomplete. These shows that his position on this subject is either distorted or only a section of it was understood. During his time, William James’ complex notions on emotion were usually underrated and ignored. It took about half a century for his oversimplified version on emotion to receive attention. The assertion was that emotions were simply the sensations of changes in the body. However, the theory’s essential feature was the interpretation of stimulus which was self-explanatory in essence. James’ advanced the idea that bodily sensations took precedence over emotional feelings and not vice versa.
This assertion has been critiqued on two fronts. Firstly, the theory does not have any empirical evidence to support its credibility. Secondly, there is a perception that James’ theory trivializes the importance of emotions. Arlie Hochschild (1983) was of the opinion that by equating emotion with bodily changes, the theory was defective since experiments by Cannon (1927) indicated that bodily changes do not alter emotional behavior. However, it is to be noted that James’ theory did not concern itself with emotional behavior but rather emotions. James regarded emotion as a condition that played a central role in nearly all sphere of mental life as well as the thought process. Most of the ideas and notion that emerged during the contemporary renaissance are based on his work. There are theorists who put much emphasis on subjective experience, bodily feedback, cognitive appraisal or how mood influences thought and memory (Barbalet, 2001).
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All these theorists base their arguments using James’ notion of emotion. Most of them have now realized that he had anticipated his own notions even though they did not receive any attention in the past. However, current theories were not totally influenced by his work. His ideas and notions are not only complex but also ambiguous and incomplete. Sometimes it becomes problematic to view his ideas as conforming to the term “theory”. This is because his main idea on emotion was quite straightforward and simple. It argued that emotion is the perception of bodily changes and nothing else. This simplified version on emotion largely hindered the study of emotions although it also generated a lot of research work. James argued that bodily sensations were important to emotional experience (Barbalet, 2001).
Even though scholars of today give him credit for originating the idea which has also generated much debate. The debate is focused on the role played by processes in the body which affect mental events. It can be traced back to the time of Descartes up to the late 18 th Century. Criticisms is found in the writings of Maine de Biran expounded by Wilhelm Wundt. They argue that perceiving an object leads to a bodiless feeling of anger or any other forms of emotion. It means, therefore, in essence that the bodily manifestations are as a result of the effects of mental emotion. It is in contrast to James’ argument which states that without bodily sensations no feeling or emotion could be felt. It means that the act of sensing bodily changes results into an emotionality that can either be neutral or an interpretation of the situation (Goodwin, 2015).
James continues further to state that the sensations of the body are just a part of the experience which creates the whole situation. The sensations of the body combine with the conscious feeling to transform an object from simply being apprehended into one that is emotionally felt. The processes of the body combine with the perception of an object to produce an emotion. The emotion theory by James’ emotion theory is similar to that of Schacter and Singer which posit that emotion combines both the mental and physical responses in an individual. However, James’ theory differs from their idea in that he did not believe that that the contribution of the body to emotion involved a uniform state of arousal but that the resultant responses were many and hardly felt. In this case, any amount of changes in feelings resulted into other changes in body sensations (Goodwin, 2015).
He provided a complete list of the types of bodily responses which led to emotion. These bodily responses included hormonal responses, autonomic responses, and muscular responses. All these responses led to a complex bodily feedback that generated emotion. In his work, “The Physical Basis of Emotion,” James clearly states that the appraisal of a particular situation initiates the process of emotion. The situation needs to be interpreted or appraised. According to Worcester and Irons (1894), many symptoms of emotions that are observed on the body, also occur in a situation devoid of emotion. These include such feelings as shivering from the cold or vomiting due to indigestion (Ellsworth, 2014).
However, James countered these argument by stating that bodily symptoms should be in line with the perception of the situation. In this case, the shivering from cold does not correspond with other bodily responses such as somatic, and facial responses which exhibit different kinds of fear. Therefore, there should be no reason for a person who finds himself in the cold to have fear. The objection is, therefore, irrelevant. Nonetheless, James poses another question and asks what would happen to the body when it is stimulated in a manner that increased symptoms of fear in the absence of a fearsome stimulus. He concludes that sometimes this form of duplication occurs and forms such emotions as objectless fear, rage or grief which should be considered as pathological. Today, objectless fear is associated with unrealistic anxiety which may be a symptom of depression. However, the notion that bodily sensations are enough to generate certain emotions has never produced a general consensus in psychology. However, the notion is still alive (Ellsworth, 2014).
Many theorists tackling the subject matter of emotions agree that the interpretation of stimulus, physiological arousal, impulses to behavior, and expressive behaviors are essential in understanding emotion. They only differ on the emphasis placed on the characteristics of each variable. Additionally, they do not also agree when they describe the timing of these variables with each having a preference over one component over the other. The concern with timing was the main thing that distinguished James’ work from that of his peers. The notion the role of bodily processes in emotion was there before James developed his ideas. However, he brought a new dimension to the idea by coming up with a new order of events which he referred to as “an idea about timing.” The commonsense theory, which was the old theory, assumed the following sequence in the order of events: Stimulus-interpretation-affect-bodily response (Southworth & Charland, 2014).
The theory can easily be associated with the common sense theory of today. It gives much emphasis on interpretation at the expense of bodily response. It is to be compared to the theories of cognitive scientists of today and appraisal theorists. In contrast, James developed a theory that reversed the order of events especially of the affect and bodily response. His order of events was: Stimulus, Interpretation, Bodily response, Affect. In his theory, interpretation took precedence over the response of the body. However, the reversal was rarely mentioned in the original statement of the theory. The most important thing was that the motor and visceral responses come after the perception of the object that creates an awareness of bodily changes. There was another reordering of the sequence of events by Zanjoc (1980). His new sequence was: Stimulus, Affect, Interpretation, Bodily response. He argued that affective was the initial response to stimulus. This means that people sense whether they like the feeling or not before they know anything else concerning the stimulus. Zanjoc’s idea was revolutionary because it put affect before interpretation (Goodwin, 2015).
All these theorist made major contributions in the study of emotion. However, in the history of the theory of emotion, James Williams stands out as one who was grossly misunderstood due to his exaggerations of simple statements. The situation had an impact in the discipline of psychology because it led to laxity in research on the subject. The causes of the oversimplified idea that emotion is nothing but physiological stimulation was defective because all that James meant was that the feedback from the body bodily was prerequisite for emotion. His statement led people to think that each emotion can be distinguished as being unique with its own symptoms. However, it was not the original idea that James had in mind. The misunderstanding affected the discipline of psychology in that it distracted researchers from exploring the simultaneous time courses which included interpretation, bodily responses, and feelings. The misrepresentation of James’s ideas prompted him to try and bring back his original ideas (Southworth & Charland, 2014).
In conclusion, James work on the theory of emotion created a big debate which slowed down research on the issue of emotion. The slowdown had a great impact in the discipline of psychology in that no new ideas about emotion were generated. However, James’s main intention in his theory was not completely understood due to its simple yet ambiguous nature. Many theorists criticized him for downplaying the importance of emotion and also of not demonstrating empirical evidence to prove his ideas. However, a clear perspective of the idea was realized after many years of debates and arguments.
References
Barbalet, J. (2001). William James’ Theory of Emotions: Filling in the Picture. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 29(3):251 – 26.
Ellsworth, P. (2014). ‘Basic Emotions and the Rocks of New Hampshire,’ Emotion Review, 6, 21-26.
Goodwin, C. J. (2015). A History of Modern Psychology (5th Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Southworth, J. & Charland, L. (2014).William James' Theory of Emotion. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2315. Retrieved from: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2315.
