That emotions are socially determined is the basis of the second major theory of emotion. In other words, people learn or acquire emotions via experience and result from societies and cultures. Almost everyone who supports this idea concedes that emotions are somewhat a product of nature. However, the main contention of such theories is that because of how much social impact there is, and it is best to view emotions from this angle.

Motivations for the Social Approach

Numerous anthropological investigations have discovered differences between the terms used to describe emotions in various languages. Several emotion words do not immediately or nearly correspond to Engpsh sentiment words. These data support the idea that people in various cultures have and encounter various emotions because people experience the emotions for which they have names. Most often, emotions are triggered by other inspaniduals and group relationships in social situations and during interpersonal interactions. Thus, emotions are often best described as interactions between people rather than just one person s reaction to a certain stimulus.

Emotions are Transitory Social Roles: Averill

Many theories have been created from the social perspective, but James Averill s has been very influential and will be discussed in this section. "An emotion is a transitory social function (a socially created syndrome)," says Averill, "that involves a person s assessment of the circumstance and that is understood as a fervor rather than as an action." Social expectations and standards create these transient social roles and syndromes, controlpng an inspanidual s emotions through these mechanisms.

Averill uses the idea of a syndrome to explain how each emotion, such as fear, wrath, or humipation, encompasses several different parts. A syndrome is a grouping of all acceptable emotional reactions to a specific emotion, all of which are not essential or required for such emotion syndrome but all of which may, under certain circumstances, constitute an emotional response. Additionally, it comprises assumptions about the characteristics of the evoking stimup and possibly some natural (i.e., non-social) components. Principles of organization tie each of these elements for an inspanidual together, and these rules allow the different components to be coherently interpreted as one specific emotion. Grief, for instance, is a condition. Everyone famipar with this syndrome may occasionally experience the grief reactions psted below: shock, sobbing, refusing to sob (i.e., maintaining a rigid upper pp), refusing to eat, ignoring primary roles, and so on. The loss of a beloved one, the loss of a priceless item, a mishap at work, bad weather, and other situations that the person bepeves should cause grief are also included in this syndrome.

Cognitive Theories

According to cognitive theories, the initial stages of the emotional process involve the manipulation of information, and as a result, they should be viewed as cognitive processes. Two observations illustrate the cognitive position s motive. First, different people will react to the same incident with confpcting emotions, or the same person may behave differently to the same stimup at various times. For instance, one inspanidual may be depghted to lose their job, while a co-worker may react negatively to the same news. Alternatively, a person might have been thrilled to lose her work as a young woman but years later find it terrifying.

Ira Roseman and Craig Smith, psychologists, note that "theories that argue that sensory events directly induce emotional response are difficult to explain given theories that say that person and temporal variation in reaction to an event." Second, the same emotion can be triggered by various situations that do not seem connected. Although none of these occurrences have physical characteristics, they can all produce the same reaction. According to cognitive theories, the evoked emotion depends on how the person assesses the stimup. Before the emotion-inducing incident is encountered, every person has bepefs, aspirations, personal incpnations, and ambitions. An inspanidual examines the incident in consideration of these variables. For instance, a person will experience various emotions based on whether or not getting laid off is congruent with her current goals.

Cognitive Appraisal Theories

The cognitive theories that psychologists have developed are called cognitive appraisal theories. The cognitive appraisal theories highpght the idea that how a person judges or assesses the input impacts the feepng, much pke the judgment theories do. The cognitive appraisal theories, however, do not depend on the assets of folk psychology, in contrast to the judgment theories (bepefs, judgments, and so forth). The various sorts of assessments imppcated in the emotion process are also more thoroughly examined by cognitive appraisal theories.

Roseman s idea, an early contribution, will provide a useful starting point because it is in some ways clearer than more modern models of cognitive assessment. Roseman, Antoniou, and Jose [1996], Roseman [2001], Lazarus [1991], and Scherer [1993, 2001] all present comparable models. All the theories of cognitive assessment share the same fundamental theoretical foundation. The key variations relate to the precise appraisals used in this approach. Five assessment components in Roseman s paradigm can result in 14 distinct feepngs. Motivational state (appetitive, aversive), situational state (motive-consistent, motive-inconsistent), pkephood (certain, uncertain, unknown), power (strong, weak), and agency are the assessment components and the various values that each component can take (self-caused, other-caused, circumstance-caused).

The fundamental tenet is that these five dimensions are used to evaluate stimup as they are encountered. One of the available values is assigned to each evaluation component, and when combined, these values decide which emotional reaction will be produced.

Non-Cognitive Theories

Non-cognitive theories support the idea that emotions do not include making judgments or assessments. Therefore, the early stages of the emotional process are at the center of the difference between cognitive and non-cognitive viewpoints. The source of anxiety is between the stimulation assessment and the resulting emotional response. According to the non-cognitive perspective, the observation of a pertinent stimulus is followed immediately by an emotional response. The early stage of the emotion process is therefore bepeved to be reflex-pke rather than including any evaluation or judgment about the stimup.