According to William James we experience (subjective) emotions because of bodily signals and not, as commonly thought, the other way around. Both expressive behaviour (like crying or laughing), facial expressions and responses of the autonomic nervous system (visceral changes including an increased heart rate) contribute to our experience of emotion. There has been critique on especially the influence of visceral changes on the experience of emotion. Cannon proposed several reasons on why the theory of William James wasn’t correct.

• He proposed that visceral changes don’t change emotional behaviour when separated from the central nervous system. Trough surgical experiments on animals during which the nerves that provided information to the feeling centre in the brain about activities from the autonomic nervous system were separated. The animals still showed normal emotional behaviour when placed in a situation that would normally elicit emotional behaviour.
  Visceral changes can occur in while experiencing different emotions and also in non-emotional states. Cannon assumed that because science failed to find different visceral changes for different emotions, there was no connection between them.

• No proper feedback can be given by the viscera because of their intensive nature.

• Because of the slow responding of the viscera they can’t be responsible for the usually quick upcoming emotional states.

• When visceral changes were induced, they were not followed by an altered emotional state.

However, bearing the critique in mind, James suggested that emotions followed on both expressive behaviour, facial expressions and responses of the autonomic nervous system. Studies mostly focused on one of these three subjects, leading to conclusions that were not in line with how James proposed his theory.

Influence of facial expressions

The studies on the influence of facial expressions on feelings tried to induce facial expression without naming the emotion. This was done by placing electrodes on the face and asking the participants to contract and relax different muscles, which caused them to make different faces. Taken several studies together, it was found that facial expressions induce the emotional feelings of happiness, anger, sadness and fear. Preventing facial expressions, which is seen in for example people who have injected Botox in their face, reduces emotional feelings.

Touching and posture

Expressive behaviours include touching and posture. Touching usually elicits a more positive mood. It was also found that an altered posture alters the emotional state. Studies have found that there was an accumulated effect for both facial expressions and posture.

Visceral changes

Studies on the effect of visceral changes has been found more difficult, because it’s hard to alter arousal levels. During initials studies, participants were injected with adrenaline, which caused the heart rate to go up and increased respiration. Most participants however didn’t report an altered emotional state. Later on, it was thought that knowledge of the effects of adrenaline or knowing there was no reason to feel an emotion would influence the effects of these earlier studies. Therefore, research was conducted with both injections of adrenaline and a neutral saline injection, and participants were being informed of misinformed on the effects. After the injection, situations that would usually elicit anger or euphoria were created. Those who received adrenaline and were informed on the effects reported the least emotional feelings, whereas others did report changes in their emotional state. Follow-up studies found that not all emotions are affected by arousal, especially not happiness. Also, nowadays science is finding more results in line with James’ claim that each emotion has a specific pattern of visceral changes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, many studies have supported James’ notion that feelings are caused by a combination of facial expressions, expressive behaviour and changes in the autonomic nervous system. This raises questions on what feeling are and what causes emotional behaviours. The self-perception theory build on James’ ideas and applies the same idea on attitudes and behaviours.