Rethinking Emotion as Part of the Arousal Appraisal Model

The Arousal Appraisal Model (AAM) reconceptualizes emotion as one configuration within a broader regulatory control problem: calibrating physiological mobilization to momentary capacity for effective expression and integrative processing. The model specifies four graded experiential regimes along a mobilization–capacity continuum organized by appraisal: low-load contemplation, matched-load action, excess-load emotion, and overload collapse/freeze. When mobilization remains below the threshold for coordinated output, experience is characterized by quiet readiness and tentative inclinations (low-load contemplation). When mobilization approximates available capacity within a task, activation is efficiently metabolized as high throughput, supporting coherent engagement and flow-like absorption (matched-load action). When mobilization exceeds capacity, surplus activation is carried out as urgency, tension, and differentiated feeling (excess-load emotion). When exceedance persists under appraisals of constraint or low controllability, output may be restricted as protective shutdown (overload collapse/freeze). Synthesizing evidence from two-factor and misattribution paradigms, neuroimaging of arousal–appraisal coupling, and research on flow and regulatory flexibility, the AAM generates testable predictions linking physiological indices (e.g., autonomic modulation, endocrine mobilization) and throughput measures to phenomenological reports of coherence, effort, overwhelm, and numbing across regimes.