Are emotions like laughter conscious or unconscious actions?

Question

Are emotions like laughter conscious or unconscious actions?

In: Other

Answer 1

There’s not really any universal theory of emotion but rather a few with different explanations for it, some say it’s a conscious thing while others say it’s subconscious.

James-Lange theory says that a stimulus/event triggers a physiological response (PR, i.e increase in heart beat, sweating, etc) which is then subconsciously interpreted and lastly leads to an emotion.

Cannon-Bard theory says that emotions and PR happen simultaneously due to trigger events with no room for interpretation (this could be considered as happening subconsciously).

Schacter-Singer theory says that a PR occurs due to a trigger event and is consciously appraised/labelled and then leads to the appropriate PR. An emotion is then experienced based on that appraisal.

The Lazarus theory suggests that we appraise/label a stimulus/event and then experience the appropriate emotion and corresponding PR at the same time.