Motivations, Emotion, and Personality Edition Practice Test

The idea being tested is that physiological arousal and the feeling of an emotion occur at the same time. According to Cannon-Bard theory, a stimulus triggers parallel pathways: the thalamus sends signals to the cortex to produce the emotional experience and to the autonomic nervous system to create arousal, all at once. So, seeing a snarling dog, your heart rate and your fear feel like they happen together rather than one causing the other.

In contrast, other theories place the sequence differently: James-Lange suggests you first notice bodily changes and then interpret them as a specific emotion; the two-factor theory (Schachter-Singer) says arousal must be cognitively labeled to determine the emotion; Freud’s view emphasizes unconscious conflicts shaping emotion. The simultaneous occurrence specifically points to the Cannon-Bard view.