Animals are alive creatures that can feel pain, startling, freezing, and other spontaneous emotions. In general, it is assumed that animals are driven by their inborn instincts. For instance, when the sheep sees the lion, it runs away to avoid being eaten by the predator. In this case, the instinct of self-preserving is crucial for the sheep. However, there is a significant difference between animals and human beings. It is expressed in conscious feelings, such as reporting mood, happiness, sadness, or other emotions. It is essential to examine the scientific point of view to prove that animals can feel conscious emotions.
There are many points of view on this topic. Some people may report that they can trace the mood of their pets. Overall, I have noticed it while contacting my friends’ cats and dogs. This experience was fascinating because sometimes it seemed that pets could understand human speech. Moreover, it is impressive how domestic animals are happy when their hosts come home. Dogs wag their tails, jump, and bark happily.
It is interesting because some cognitive processes are happening in the consciousness of the pet. For instance, one of the animal studies suggests that animal processes include metacognition, self-recognition, and episodic-like memory (Neindre et al., 2017). Accordingly, these processes create the capacity to know and deal with their experiences and own knowledge (Neindre et al., 2017). Moreover, animals even can fall into depression after suffering unpleasant experiences. It is suggested that the animal has a specific type of consciousness, which enables it to acquire the world.
Due to many complicated actions happening in the animal brain, specific operations generate their neural pathways and allow them to feel conscious emotions. Therefore, animals can sense and respond to external factors and experience emotions generated in their neural system. It is also possible to trace the similarities between human and animal emotions and understand that pets may grasp some information equally to human beings.
The psychological theory proposed by James and Lange is an exciting approach in terms of the psychology of emotions. The theory suggests that manifestations of emotions (laughter or crying) are a cause of feeling itself rather than its consequence. Therefore, if the person cuts off the external manifestation from feeling, nothing will remain entirely. For instance, the human feels sad because he cries but does not cry because he is grieved (Giulio, 2021). It is essential to recall an example of the manifestation of the James-Lange theory in action.
This approach states that the person shapes his mood by expressing a particular emotion. For instance, it is essential to smile to provoke a good mood. In general, I would agree with this theory because an example from my life proves it. When my friend received a bad mark for her final exam, she could not stop crying as this mark would influence her graduation paper. She was distraught by receiving the low score; however, her hysteria provoked more panic. I decided to calm her down, but it did not work. Then, I told her to make an effort and smile for twenty seconds, as I saw this method on the internet. As a result, she stopped crying, and her mood was improving rapidly. It is fascinating how this method works with unstoppable hysteric crying.
Overall, the theory of James-Lange is practical, and some real-life proofs approve of its efficiency. It can be suggested that people should smile if they want to improve their mood and vice versa, their attitude spoils because of crying. This approach is interesting to examine in terms of everyday psychology, and it is possible to apply it in daily life to change the human’s attitude towards some things.
References
Giulio, P. (2021). The “Human Emotions” and the “Perrotta Human Emotions Model” (PHEM): The new theoretical model. Historical, neurobiological and clinical profiles. Archives of Depression and Anxiety, 1, 20–28. Web.
Neindre, P., Bernard, E., Boissy, A., Boivin, X., Calandreau, L., Delon, N., Deputte, B., Desmoulin‐Canselier, S., Dunier, M., Faivre, N., Giurfa, M., Guichet, J., Lansade, L., Larrère, R., Mormède, P., Prunet, P., Schaal, B., Servière, J., & Terlouw, C. (2017). Animal consciousness. EFSA Supporting Publications, 14(4), 1-165. Web.