Basic Emotion Theory, or BET, has dominated the affective sciences for decades (Ekman, 1972, 1992, 1999; Ekman and Davidson, 1994; Griffiths, 2013; Scarantino and Griffiths, 2011). It has been highly influential, driving a number of empirical lines of research (e.g., in the context of facial expression detection, neuroimaging studies and evolutionary psychology). Nevertheless, BET has been criticized by philosophers, leading to calls for it to be jettisoned entirely (Colombetti, 2014; Hufendiek, 2016). This paper defuses those criticisms. In (...) addition, it shows that we have good reason to retain BET. Finally, it reviews and puts to rest worries that BET’s commitment to affect programs renders it outmoded. We propose that, with minor adjustments, BET can avoid such criticisms when conceived under a radically enactive account of emotions. Thus, rather than leaving BET behind, we show how its basic ideas can be revised, refashioned and preserved. Hence, we conclude, our new BET is still a good bet. (shrink)

According to recent literature in philosophy and psychology, there is a set of basic emotions that were preserved over the course of evolution because they serve adaptive functions. However, the empirical evidence fails to support the claim that there are basic emotions because it fails to show that emotions can be identified with specific functions. Moreover, work on basic emotions lacks the conceptual space to take emotional experience into account and so fails to amount to an adequate (...) theory of emotion: in the literature basic emotions are identified with emotional responses, but these responses — even if they did exist as characterized — are not emotions or emotional. That said, recent empirical discoveries about the brain structures responsible for emotional responses, discoveries that are often cited in the basic emotions literature, nevertheless form the foundation for a comprehensive theory of emotion — a theory that is broadly Jamesian in that an emotion is the experience and interpretation of a prior, physiological response. (shrink)

Basic Emotion theory has had a tremendous influence on the affective sciences, including music psychology, where most researchers have assumed that music expressivity is constrained to a limited set of basic emotions. Several scholars suggested that these constrains to musical expressivity are explained by the existence of a shared acoustic code to the expression of emotions in music and speech prosody. In this article we advocate for a shift from this focus on basic emotions to (...) a constructionist account. This approach proposes that the phenomenon of perception of emotions in music arises from the interaction of music’s ability to express core affects and the influence of top-down and contextual information in the listener’s mind. We start by reviewing the problems with the concept of Basic Emotions, and the inconsistent evidence that supports it. We also demonstrate how decades of developmental and cross-cultural research on music and emotional speech have failed to produce convincing findings to conclude that music expressivity is built upon a set of biologically pre-determined basic emotions. We then examine the cue-emotion consistencies between music and speech, and show how they support a parsimonious explanation, where musical expressivity is grounded on two dimensions of core affect (arousal and valence). Next, we explain how the fact that listeners reliably identify basic emotions in music does not arise from the existence of categorical boundaries in the stimuli, but from processes that facilitate categorical perception, such as using stereotyped stimuli and close-ended response formats, psychological processes of construction of mental prototypes, and contextual information. Finally, we outline our proposal of a constructionist account of perception of emotions in music, and spell out the ways in which this approach is able to make solve past conflicting findings. We conclude by providing explicit pointers about the methodological choices that will be vital to move beyond the popular Basic Emotion paradigm and start untangling the emergence of emotional experiences with music in the actual contexts in which they occur. -/- . (shrink)

The communicative theory of emotions postulates that emotions are communications both within the brain and between individuals. Basic emotions owe their evolutionary origins to social mammals, and they enable human beings to use repertoires of mental resources appropriate to recurring and distinctive kinds of events. These emotions also enable them to cooperate with other individuals, to compete with them, and to disengage from them. The human system of emotions has also grafted onto basic emotions propositional contents about (...) the cause of the emotion, the self, and other matters. Complex emotions always contain such contents, whereas basic emotions can be experienced without them. This article explains the role of basic emotions in social relationships, their effects on reasoning, and their pathology in psychological illness, such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. (shrink)

While there is ongoing debate about the existence of basic emotions and about their status as natural kinds, these debates usually carry on under the assumption that basic emotions are modular and therefore cannot account for behavioral variability in emotional situations. Moreover, both sides of the debate have assumed that these putative features of basic emotions distinguish them as products of evolution rather than products of culture and experience. I argue that these assumptions are unwarranted, that there (...) is empirical evidence against them, and that evolutionary theory itself should not lead us to expect that behavioral invariability and modularity mark the distinction between evolved emotions and higher cognitive emotions. I further suggest that claims about behavioral invariability and modularity have functioned as defeasible conjectures aimed at helping test basic emotion theory. Finally, I draw out the implications of these claims for debates about the existence of basic emotions in humans. (shrink)

Anger is probably one of the mostly debated basic emotions, owing to difficulties in detecting its appearance during development, its functional and affective meaning (is it a positive or a negative emotion?), especially in human beings. Behaviors accompanied by anger and rage serve many different purposes and the nuances of aggressive behaviors are often defined by the symbolic and cultural framework and social contexts. Nonetheless, recent advances in neuroscientific and developmental research, as well as clinical psychodynamic investigation, afford (...) a new view on the role of anger in informing and guiding many aspects of human conducts. Developmental studies have confirmed the psychophysiological, cognitive and social acquisition that hesitate in the pre-determined sequence appearance of anger and rage in the first two years of life. The so-called affective neurosciences have shown the phylogenetic origin of the two circuits underlying the emergence of anger along with its evolutionary role for promoting survival. This view has been integrated by the psychodynamic theory of motivational systems that attribute a double role to anger: on the one hand, this affect works as an inwardly directed signal concerning a pressure to overcome an obstacle or an aversive situation; on the other hand, anger is also an outwardly directed communicative signal establishing differentiation and conflict within interpersonal relationships and affective bonds. Of course, human peculiar mental functioning requires the appraisal of such signals by higher cortical functions and, there is little doubt that the meaning that orientates individual behaviors is, eventually, construed on a social and cultural level. At the same time, everyday life experiences as well as clinical insights into psychopathic, narcissistic and borderline personality pathology clearly illustrate the necessity to correctly interpret and give answers to the basic questions raised around the topic of anger as a basic emotion. (shrink)

While there is ongoing debate about the existence of basic emotions and about their status as natural kinds, these debates usually carry on under the assumption that BEs are encapsulated from cognition and that this is one of the criteria that separates the products of evolution from the products of culture and experience. I aim to show that this assumption is entirely unwarranted, that there is empirical evidence against it, and that evolutionary theory itself should not lead us (...) to expect that cognitive encapsulation marks the distinction between basic and higher cognitive emotions. Finally, I draw out the implications of these claims for debates about the existence of basic emotions in humans. (shrink)

According to the distinguished philosopher Richard Wollheim, an emotion is an extended mental episode that originates when events in the world frustrate or satisfy a pre-existing desire (Wollheim, 1999). This leads the subject to form an attitude to the world which colours their future experience, leading them to attend to one aspect of things rather than another, and to view the things they attend to in one light rather than another. The idea that emotions arise from the satisfaction or (...) frustration of desires—the ‘match-mismatch’ view of emotion aetiology—has had several earlier incarnations in the psychology of emotion. Early versions of this proposal were associated with the attempt to replace the typology of emotion found in ordinary language with a simpler theory of drives and to define new emotion types in terms of general properties such as the frustration of a drive. The match-mismatch view survived the demise of that revisionist project and is found today in theories that accept a folk-psychological-style taxonomy of emotion types based on the meaning ascribed by the subject to the stimulus situation. For example, the match-mismatch view forms part of the subtle and complex model of emotion episodes developed over many years by Nico Frijda (Frijda, 1986). According to Frijda, information about the ‘situational antecedents’ of an emotion—the stimulus in its context, including the ongoing goals of the organism—is evaluated for its relevance to the multiple concerns of the organism. Evaluation of match-mismatch—the degree of compatibility between the situation and the subject's goals—forms part of this process. (shrink)

We argue that there are three coherent, nontrivial notions of basic-ness: conceptual basic-ness, biological basic-ness, and psychological basic-ness. There is considerable evidence for conceptually basic emotion categories (e.g., “anger,” “fear”). These categories do not designate biologically basic emotions, but some forms of anger, fear, and so on that are biologically basic in a sense we will specify. Finally, two notions of psychological basic-ness are distinguished, and the evidence for them is evaluated. (...) The framework we offer acknowledges the force of some of the objections to basic emotion theory whilst demonstrating that the notion of a basic emotion, once properly reformulated, is still of scientific value. (shrink)

The two competing camps of theorists in moral psychology share one common view on the disagreement between their theories: moral foundations theory presupposes basic emotion theory, while dyadic morality theory presupposes constructionist theory of emotion. The paper challenges this common view. First, it reviews the four theories. Second, it clarifies the issue about the relation between the moral contents and emotions on which the two camps of moral-psychological theorists dispute. Third, it identifies the (...) explananda for the moral-psychological theories, and examines the two distinctive types of explanations that each of the two theories offers to them. Finally, it concludes that the deepest disagreement between the two morality theories consists in the role that the theories give to emotions in explaining moral judgments. (shrink)

This excellent book offers a clearly articulated and convincing perspective on basic disputes in the philosophy of emotions. Although it deals with complex issues, it presents them in an engaging manner. This commentary focuses on two major issues: emotional components and theories; and the role of emotions in morality. I will not discuss the many issues concerning Brady’s view which I fully embrace, but rather focus on two major issues: emotional components and theories; and the role of emotions in (...) morality. I argue that Brady’s classification of emotional components and emotional theories are problematic. I also basically agree with Brady’s view on the role of emotions in morality; but, following Spinoza, I further develop this view. (shrink)

The study of emotional concepts stands at a very interesting intersection between the theoretical debate about the nature of emotions and the debate about the nature of processing concrete concepts and abstract concepts. On the one hand, it is debated whether it is possible to differentiate basic emotions from secondary emotions and, on the other hand, whether emotional concepts differ from abstract concepts. In this regard, the prototypical perceptual aspects are considered an important factor both for the differentiation between (...) concrete and abstract concepts and for the differentiation between basic and secondary emotions (facial expressions). Thus, the objective has been to determine if (a) the presence or absence of a prototypical perceptual referent, and (b) the type of concept (referring to emotion and not referring to emotion), produce differences between concepts of basic emotions, secondary emotions and concepts not related to emotions, concrete and abstract, in the tasks of qualification of concreteness, imageability and availability of context and the task of the list of properties, that have been used in previous studies. A total of 86 university students from the suburbs of La Serena - Coquimbo (Chile), all native Spanish speakers, participated in the study. The results show that in the perception of concreteness and in the total of enumerated properties, emotional concepts presented similar results to abstract concepts not related to emotion and there was no difference between basic and secondary emotion concepts. In imageability and context availability, emotional concepts were perceived as different from and more concrete than abstract concepts. In addition, the cause-effect type attributes allowed to clearly differentiate emotional concepts from those not related to emotion and to differentiate between basic and secondary emotion concepts. These types of attributes appear almost exclusively in emotional concepts and are more frequent in basic emotions. These results are partially consistent with the predictions of Neurocultural and Conceptual Act theories about emotions. (shrink)

In the last 10 years, several authors including Griffiths and Matthen have employed classificatory principles from biology to argue for a radical revision in the way that we individuate psychological traits. Arguing that the fundamental basis for classification of traits in biology is that of ‘homology’ (similarity due to common descent) rather than ‘analogy’, or ‘shared function’, and that psychological traits are a special case of biological traits, they maintain that psychological categories should be individuated primarily by relations of homology (...) rather than in terms of shared function. This poses a direct challenge to the dominant philosophical view of how to define psychological categories, viz., ‘functionalism’. Although the implications of this position extend to all psychological traits, the debate has centered around ‘emotion’ as an example of a psychological category ripe for reinterpretation within this new framework of classification. I address arguments by Griffiths that emotions should be divided into at least two distinct classes, basic emotions and higher cognitive emotions, and that these two classes require radically different theories to explain them. Griffiths argues that while basic emotions in humans are homologous to the corresponding states in other animals, higher cognitive emotions are dependent on mental capacities unique to humans, and are therefore not homologous to basic emotions. Using the example of shame, I argue that (a) many emotions that are commonly classified as being higher cognitive emotions actually correspond to certain basic emotions, and that (b) the “higher cognitive forms” of these emotions are best seen as being homologous to their basic forms. (shrink)

Are emotions bodily feelings or evaluative cognitions? What is happiness, pain, or “being moved”? Are there basic emotions? In this chapter, I review extant empirical work concerning these and related questions in the philosophy of emotion. This will include both (1) studies investigating people’s emotional experiences and (2) studies investigating people’s use of emotion concepts in hypothetical cases. Overall, this review will show the potential of using empirical research methods to inform philosophical questions regarding emotion.

Human beings respond to their immediate environments in a variety of ways, with emotion playing a cardinal role. In evolutionary theories, emotions are thought to prepare an organism for action. The interplay of acoustic environments, emotions, and evolutionary needs are currently subject to discussion in soundscape research. Universal definitions of emotion and its nature are currently missing, but there seems to be a fundamental consensus that emotions are internal, evanescent, mostly conscious, relational, manifest in different forms, and serve (...) a purpose. Research in this area is expanding, particularly in regards to the context-related, affective, and emotional processing of environmental stimuli. A number of studies present ways to determine the nature of emotions elicited by a soundscape and to measure these reliably. Yet the crucial question—which basic and complex emotions are triggered and how they relate to affective appraisal—has still not been conclusively answered. To help frame research on this topic, an overview of the theoretical background is presented that applies emotion theory to soundscape. Two latent fundamental dimensions are often found at the center of theoretical concepts of emotion: valence and arousal. These established universal dimensions can also be applied in the context of emotions that are elicited by soundscapes. Another, and perhaps more familiar, parallel is found between emotion and music. However, acoustic environments are more subtle than musical arrangements, rarely applying the compositional and artistic considerations frequently used in music. That said, the measurement of emotion in the context of soundscape studies is only of additional value if some fundamental inquiries are sufficiently answered: To what extent does the reporting act itself alter emotional responses? Are all important affective qualities consciously accessible and directly measurable by self-reports? How can emotion related to the environment be separated from affective predisposition? By means of a conceptual analysis of relevant soundscape publications, the consensus and conflicts on these fundamental questions in the light of soundscape theory are highlighted and needed research actions are framed. The overview closes with a proposed modification to an existing, standardized framework to include the meaning of emotion in the design of soundscapes. (shrink)

While it is common to think that neuroscientists are proponents of basic emotions theory, this is not necessarily the case. My ideas, for example are more aligned with cognitive than basic emotions theories.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theories of Emotion: Expressing, Feeling, Acting by Pia CAMPEGGIANISabrina B. LittleCAMPEGGIANI, Pia. Theories of Emotion: Expressing, Feeling, Acting. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. xiv + 199 pp. Cloth, $80.89; paper, $21.60In Theories of Emotion, Pia Campeggiani provides a philosophical introduction to the emotions. The book is multidisciplinary and empirically informed. It is organized around three “groundbreaking intuitions” of emotion theory—(1) expression, (2) subjectivity, (...) and (3) action. Each section corresponds to a different thinker—Charles Darwin, William James, and John Dewey, respectively—and each section concludes with a discussion of relevant debates. This book is outstanding. It is clearly written, well organized, and impressive in its scope. In what follows, I outline key ideas and raise questions generated by each section, then conclude with general reflections on the text.Campeggiani begins with the “scandal” of emotion research: There is no agreement about what an emotion is. In part, this lack of consensus is due to the imprecise ways we employ concepts like feelings, emotions, affect, and passions in ordinary discourse. In part, it is due to empirical difficulties. For example, Campeggiani describes how implicit assumptions and a forced-choice format compromised an experiment about expression universality.Additionally, Campeggiani points out that the category “emotions” has an internal structure that lacks clear-cut boundaries. There are paradigmatic examples of emotions, such as fear and anger, but there are also ambiguous phenomena, such as respect and modesty, which we may or may not recognize as such. Throughout the text, Campeggiani introduces and evaluates numerous accounts of emotions, drawing our attention to the strengths, limitations, and empirical adequacy of each.Part 1 begins with Charles Darwin’s contributions to emotion theory—an emphasis on the biological origins of emotions and a focus on expression. This section examines emotions in connection to adaptive fitness, exploring phenomena such as blushing when we are ashamed and the biological bases of emotions. A highlight of this section is an exploration of the social or communicative character of the emotions, which Darwin described as “only a secondary effect” of expression. Campeggiani examines emotional contagion and imitation, as well as the [End Page 141] phenomenon of feeling more pain when we express pain on our faces. There is also a rich discussion about constructionism as an alternative to basic emotions theory.Part 2 opens with William James on subjective experience. Campeggiani describes the limitations of James’s position—of understanding emotions to be reducible to feelings. For starters, this position is not empirically well supported. Campeggiani cites Walter Cannon’s observation that “many of the autonomic changes that are symptomatic of a given emotion can also occur in its absence.” Additionally, James fails to “properly flesh out the link between emotions and evaluations.” Campeggiani then describes the cognitive turn in emotion theory that emerged in response to the lack of attention paid to evaluation. Cognitive accounts of emotion deemphasize the bodily dimensions of emotional experiences in favor of the intentional properties, or “aboutness,” of emotions. Emotions see things as things.From my vantage, this was the best part of the book. Campeggiani highlights Damasio’s point that decision-making depends on having a “correct affective perception of the values at stake in a given situation.” For instance, feeling outsized or misdirected fear may undermine our decision-making. Campeggiani also introduces debates about whether emotions are appraisals, and whether emotions entail judgments or make judgments more likely. In the introduction, she mentions that “decision-making processes are always and inevitably underpinned by emotions, for good and for ill.” We see what she means in this section. Emotions participate in reason, impede reason, and have cognitive content themselves.That emotions involve or participate in our judgments raises two kinds of concerns—epistemic and normative. The epistemic worry is that inaccurate appraisals may undermine our understanding of the world. This is especially worrisome for the class of emotions Campeggiani calls “recalcitrant,” or closed off to other mental states, and for the emotions she says are “heavily influenced by our needs and goals.” Emotions are imperfectly truth-tracking, as was made clear earlier, in part 1, regarding their adaptive nature. The normative worry is that certain emotional... (shrink)

Could emotions be a uniquely human phenomenon? One prominent theory in emotion science, Lisa Feldman Barrett’s “Theory of Constructed Emotion” (TCE), suggests they might be. The source of the sceptical challenge is that TCE links emotions to abstract concepts tracking socio-normative expectations, and other animals are unlikely to have such concepts. Barrett’s own response to the sceptical challenge is to relativize emotion to the perspective of an interpreter, but this is unpromising. A more promising response (...) may be to amend the theory, dropping the commitment to the abstract nature of emotion concepts and allowing that, like olfactory concepts, they have disjunctive sensory groundings. Even if other animals were emotionless, this would not imply they lack morally significant interests. Unconceptualized valenced experiences are a sufficient basis for morally significant interests, and such experiences may occur even in the absence of discrete, constructed emotions. (shrink)

Lindquist et al.'s meta-analysis focuses on adult humans; the authors' emotion model might be strengthened by considering research on infants and animals, highlighting the importance of the limbic system. Reliance on the James–Lange theory is questionable; emotions typically occur instantaneously, with dubious dependence on bodily feedback for affect. Stronger evidence for localization might be obtained using more precise emotion terms and alterative localization methods.

The subject of this article is to compare and analyze the meanings of the sentiments in Spinoza’s Ethica and sheng yi sim’s The change of humans. The problem of emotion in modern society is an important social problem. In this atmosphere, Spinoza is attracting attention. Modern society emphasizes desire and emotion rather than reason. Emotions should now be viewed from a positive perspective, not a negative view. The study of emotion in the 20th century was largely dominated (...) by cultural theory. Emotions, like languages, are culturally transmitted and learned. According to modern language philosophical insights, language constitutes experience, not reflection. If this language philosophical insight is correct, then the role of language is crucial in understanding and experiencing emotions. Language has a temporal and spatial context. Language has historicity and sociality. In order to understand the emotional aspects of what is happening in our society, we must understand the historical and social context of the emotional expressions in our language. The emotional expression in our language has our own East Asian history. In this regard, it is necessary to study our language, which is different from Western studies, in historical context. In order to understand our emotions in the historical and social context of a language other than the West, we are paying attention to sheng yi sim’s The change of human, the literature of the period of the 17th-18th century Joseon Dynasty, similar to that of Spinoza. (shrink)

Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure takes sociology in a new direction. It examines key aspects of social structure by using a fresh understanding of emotions categories. Through that synthesis emerge new perspectives on rationality, class structure, social action, conformity, basic rights, and social change. As well as giving an innovative view of social processes, J. M. Barbalet's study also reveals unappreciated aspects of emotions by considering fear, resentment, vengefulness, shame, and confidence in the context of social (...) structure. While much has been written on the social consequences of excessive or pathological emotions, this book demonstrates the centrality of emotions to routine operations of social interaction. Dr Barbalet also re-evaluates the nature of social theory, for once the importance of emotions to social processes becomes clear, the intellectual constitution of sociology, and therefore its history, must be rethought. (shrink)

In the classical view of emotion, the basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise) are assumed to be natural kinds that are perceiver-independent. Correspondingly, each is thought to possess a distinct neural and physiological signature, accompanied by an expression that is universally recognized despite differences in culture, era, and language. An alternative, the theory of constructed emotion, emphasizes that, while the underlying interoceptive sensations are biological, emotional concepts are learned, socially constructed categories, characterized by (...) many-to-many relationships among diverse brain states, physiological signs, facial movements, and their emotional meanings. This biocultural view permits a greater degree of cultural-historical specificity when interpreting the emotions of others. In this article, I consider the implications of the theory of constructed emotion for cognitive film theory, especially regarding the interpretation of depicted facial expressions of emotion as one aspect of cinematic expression. Particular attention is given to recent work revisiting the Kuleshov effect, in which the meaning of a character’s facial expression is thought to change in the context of a montage. (shrink)

Philosophical theories of emotions, and to an extent some theories of scientific psychology, represent attempts to capture the essence of emotions basically as they are conceived in common sense psychology. Although there are problems, the success of explanations of our behavior in terms of believes, desires and emotions creates a presumption that, at some level of abstraction, they reflect important elements in our psychological nature. It is incumbent on a theory of emotions to provide an account of two salient (...) facts about emotions as conceived in common sense psychology. As intentional states, emotions have representational and rational properties: emotions represent states of affairs; and they are rationally related to other mental representations, figure in rational explanations of behavior, and are open to rational assessment. Emotions also have a close relationship to a range of non-intentional phenomena: in typical cases, emotions involve physiological changes, usually associated with the activation of the autonomic nervous system, which are proprioceptively experienced; and they often involve behavioral tendencies, as well. (shrink)

In this book, Tom Cochrane develops a new control theory of the emotions and related affective states. Grounded in the basic principle of negative feedback control, his original account outlines a new fundamental kind of mental content called 'valent representation'. Upon this foundation, Cochrane constructs new models for emotions, pains and pleasures, moods, expressive behaviours, evaluative reasoning, personality traits and long-term character commitments. These various states are presented as increasingly sophisticated layers of regulative control, which together underpin the (...) architecture of the mind as a whole. Clearly structured and containing numerous diagrams and examples to illustrate the discussion, this study draws on the latest research from fields including philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, and will appeal to readers interested in the philosophy and cognitive science of emotion. (shrink)

Many argue that higher-cognitive emotions such as pride arose de novo in humans, and thus fall outside of the scope of the kinds of evolutionary explanations offered for ?basic emotions,? like fear. This approach fractures the general category of ?emotion? into two deeply distinct kinds of emotion. However, an increasing number of emotion researchers are converging on the conclusion that higher-cognitive emotions are evolutionarily rooted in simpler emotional responses found in primates. I argue that pride fits (...) this pattern, and then consider some of the possible mechanisms by which the basic forms of these emotions have been transformed, arguing that we can see this transformation in part as the progressive internalization of originally externalized processes associated with norms, selfhood, and social structure. This connects the emotion literature with the literatures on the Social/Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis and situated cognition, offering the possibility of a more unified theory of human emotions. (shrink)

Over the last century, emotion research has been beset by the problem of major disagreements with respect to the definition of the phenomenon and an abundance of different theories. Arguably, these divergences have had adverse effects on theory development, on the theoretical foundations of empirical research, and on knowledge accumulation in the study of emotion. Similar problems have been encountered in other areas of behavioural science. Increasingly, there have been calls to work towards some form of (...) class='Hi'>theory integration. In contrast, here an effort is made to show that a reasonable degree of theory convergence in the area of emotion science can be attained by adopting a design feature-based working definition of emotion and highlighting the basic agreement on the components of the dynamic emotion process. The aim is to invite constructive discussion on communalities and divergences between different theories and foster the development of more complementary theoretical frameworks to guide future empirical research. (shrink)

I describe my current thinking on two old questions—the causal role of appraisals and the relationship of appraisal theories to basic emotions theories and constructivist theories, and three (sort of) new questions—the completeness of appraisals, the role of language, and the development of automaticity in emotional responses.

Modern emotion theories emphasise the adaptive value of emotions. Emotions are by no means always helpful, however. They often must be regulated. The study of emotion regulation has its origins in the psychoanalytic and stress and coping traditions. Recently, increased interest in emotion regulation has led to crucial boundary ambiguities that now threaten progress in this domain. It is argued that distinctions need to be made between (1) regulation of emotion and regulation by emotion; (2) (...) emotion regulation in self and emotion regulation in others; and (3) conscious and nonconscious emotion regulation. Using a process model of emotion generation, this review considers promising research on basic processes and individual differences in emotion regulation and poses five theoretical challenges. (shrink)

Today appraisal theories are the foremost approach to emotions in philosophy and psychology. The general assumption underlying these theories is that evaluations (appraisals) are the most crucial factor in emotions. This assumption may imply that: (a) evaluative pattems distinguish one emotion from another; (b) evaluative pattems distinguish emotions from nonemotions; (e) emotional evaluations of the eliciting event determine emotional intensity. These claims are not necessarily related. Accepting one of them does not necessarily imply acceptance of the others. I believe (...) that whereas (b) is false, (a) and (c) are basically true. (shrink)

While the importance of social emotions is widely recognized, the question whether all emotions are social and what this would mean for the category ‘social emotions’ is yet to be addressed systematically. Emotion theorists and researchers so far have proposed different candidates for social emotions. These include non-basic emotions, self-conscious emotions, higher-cognitive emotions, and defining social emotions via their social functions. This paper looks at these different candidates for social emotions and briefly discusses their issues. Discussing the candidates (...) and their issues motivates embracing a pluralistic approach to social emotions. In a further step, the paper will look at approaches exploring how social factors impact emotions in general. This serves as a basis for explaining what it would mean to propose that all emotions are social. After reviewing different candidates for social emotions and looking at the impact of social factors on emotions in general, the paper will propose that a pluralistic understanding of social emotions is needed to embrace the different ways in which social emotions may function. Embracing a pluralistic understanding of social emotions does not mean, however, that all emotions are social emotions. (shrink)

In this article, the basic sociological approaches to theorizing human emotions are reviewed. In broad strokes, theorizing can be grouped into several schools of thought: evolutionary, symbolic interactionist, symbolic interactionist with psychoanalytic elements, interaction ritual, power and status, stratification, and exchange. All of these approaches to theorizing emotions have generated useful insights into the dynamics of emotions. There remain, however, unresolved issues in sociological approaches to emotions, including: the nature of emotions, the degree to which emotions are hard-wired neurological (...) or socially constructed, the relevance of analyzing the biology and evolution of emotions, the relationship between cognition and emotions, the number of distinctive emotional states produced by humans, and the relationship between emotions and rationality. (shrink)

The suggestion that at least some emotions are modular captures a number of our intuitions about emotions: they are generally fast responses to a stimulus, they are involuntary, and they are easily distinguished from one another; we simply know that, for example, anger feels different than fear. Candidates for modular emotions are usually the so-called “basic” emotions - anger and fear are good examples of these. Defenders of emotion theories that focus on basic emotions, such as Paul (...) Ekman in psychology and Paul Griffiths in philosophy, emphasize the advantages of theories that stress the evolutionary continuity of emotional expression and link emotions to the activity of neural circuits that are similar in human beings and other animals.In this paper, however, I will examine arguments for the discontinuity of emotions in human beings, as compared with other animals. Owing to a combination of cultural practices and neuroanatomy, both our emotional “wiring” and our emotions are unique. (shrink)

In the article the specificity of philosophy is considered as a path to spiritual-practical mastering of the world. The spiritual-practical structure of philosophy includes philosophic practice and philosophic consciousness. The latter actualizes in the forms of philosophic thinking and sensory-emotional reflection of reality. Philosophical sensuality has a wide range of manifestations, but its specificity is defined by the emotion of wonder. Wonder is a primal, basic emotion. Fear, curiosity, joy and a number of other emotions also belong (...) to the category of basic emotions. In religious studies the ’theory of fear’ attributes the origin of religion to experience of fear. In psychology of emotion the curiosity is considered as a source of cognitive interest and scientific cognition. Appropriately, it may be possible to propose the ’theory of curiosity’ and the ’theory of wonder’ to explain the origin of science and philosophy. In the context of the theories the science and the religion differ in their emotional sources from the philosophy. The status of wonder as a basic emotion defines the emotional sovereignty of philosophy, its independence from other ways of spiritual-practical mastering of the world. Author demonstrates the incapacity of interpretations of doubt and suffering as emotional origins of philosophy. Doubt as uncertainty is a derivative of faith and lacks the status of basic emotion. The suffering is an emotional tone of every sensation, a pair of the emotional tone of pleasure. It is impossible to consider the suffering as an origin of philosophy due to both the effect of twoness of pleasure and suffering and their status of emotional tones. In addition, suffering is an affect, the repetition and accumulation of which conduces to the emotional discharge, an affective explosion. Therefore, they cannot be the sources of cognitive motion. The cognitive potential of wonder is defined by its character as positive emotion allowing for accumulation of ’wonder points’. The wonder discovers cognitive dissonance and stimulates the cognition by means of expanding the subject field of philosophy and stating new questions. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Dylan Evans proposed that emotions could help solve what has been known as ‘the frame problem’. In the process, he first questioned the utility of using the frame problem as a framework. After tackling this issue, he provided an alternative terminology to the frame problem—termed ‘the search hypothesis of emotion’—in order to re-examine how emotions aid rational agents. His new terminology, however, opens itself to other critiques. While accepting the basic tenets of his analysis, (...) I question (i) whether a single search theory of emotion is adequate, and (ii) whether his theory would have been better termed ‘the search hypothesis of feeling’. Finally, I extend some of the ideas developed in Evans' paper. 1. Introduction 2. Emotion, reason and ends 3. The search hypothesis of emotion revisited 4. Conclusion. (shrink)

Two aspects about meaning and emotion are discussed in this paper. The first, which is the main focus of this paper, addresses the semantic shaping of emotions (semanticization). It will be shown how language acquisition leads to the semantic shaping of emotions. For this purpose I will first introduce the theory of language acquisition that has been developed mainly by Michael Tomasello and also by Donald Davidson. Then I will take basic emotions into account in order to (...) show that language plays a crucial role when it comes to the shaping of emotions and how we feel. The second aspect about meaning and emotion addresses the signification that an emotion might have for a person. One could also say that this aspect addresses the meaning an emotion has for a person. This issue will only play a minor part in my investigations. (shrink)

This paper offers a systematic treatment of the social and cultural context of the blush. The paper looks into how different emotion theories approach blushing and does so by differentiating between basic emotion theories, which consider contextual factors but do not make them central to understanding emotional expressions, and contextual emotion theories, which make contextual factors central to understanding emotional expressions. The paper argues that blushing might be best explained by theories that make context central to (...) understanding emotional expression. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a systematic classification of emotions which can also characterize their nature. The first challenge we address is the submission of clear criteria for a theory of emotions that determine which mental phenomena are emotions and which are not. We suggest that emotions as a subclass of mental states are determined by their functional roles. The second and main challenge is the presentation of a classification and theory of emotions that can (...) account for all existing varieties. We argue that we must classify emotions according to four developmental stages: 1. pre-emotions as unfocussed expressive emotion states, 2. basic emotions, 3. primary cognitive emotions, and 4. secondary cognitive emotions. We suggest four types of basic emotions (fear, anger, joy and sadness) which are systematically differentiated into a diversity of more complex emotions during emotional development. The classification distinguishes between basic and non-basic emotions and our multi-factorial account considers cognitive, experiential, physiological and behavioral parameters as relevant for constituting an emotion. However, each emotion type is constituted by a typical pattern according to which some features may be more significant than others. Emotions differ strongly where these patterns of features are concerned, while their essential functional roles are the same. We argue that emotions form a unified ontological category that is coherent and can be well defined by their characteristic functional roles. Our account of emotions is supported by data from developmental psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and sociology. (shrink)

William James’s theory of emotion has been controversial since its inception, and a basic analysis of Cannon’s critique is provided. Research on the impact of facial expressions, expressive behaviors, and visceral responses on emotional feelings are each reviewed. A good deal of evidence supports James’s theory that these types of bodily feedback, along with perceptions of situational cues, are each important parts of emotional feelings. Extensions to James’s theory are also reviewed, including evidence of individual (...) differences in the effect of bodily responses on emotional experience. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. This chapter presents a reconstruction of Wilhelm Wundt's (1896) three-dimensional theory of emotion from the perspective of the structuralist approach to scientific theories. Wundt's theory, a quantitative theory of the structure of emotional experience, is reconstructed as a small theory-net consisting of the basic theory-element TE(WUNDT) and specializations of this element. The main substantive axiom of TE(WUNDT) postulates that human emotions result from the fusion of a characteristic 'mixture' of six basic (...) forms of feeling: Pleasure, displeasure, excitement, inhibition (tranquillization), tension, and relaxation. A second axiom holds that the basic feeling types are organized into three bipolar dimensions, and the third axiom claims that the basic feelings experienced toward complex objects are a fusion of the corresponding basic feelings directed at the components of the complex objects. Specializations of the theory result from different possible specifications of the central fusion axiom. It appears that only one concept of the theory is T-theoretical, namely the function q which assigns characteristic proportions of basic feelings to the nonbasic emotions. The intended applications of the theory are discussed, and the reconstruction is appraised. (shrink)

Theories of emotional justification investigate the conditions under which emotions are epistemically justified or unjustified. I make three contributions to this research program. First, I show that we can generalize some familiar epistemological concepts and distinctions to emotional experiences. Second, I use these concepts and distinctions to display the limits of the ‘simple view’ of emotional justification. On this approach, the justification of emotions stems only from the contents of the mental states they are based on, also known as their (...) cognitive bases. The simple view faces the ‘gap problem’: If cognitive bases and emotions (re)present their objects and properties in different ways, then cognitive bases are not sufficient to justify emotions. Third, I offer a novel solution to the gap problem based on emotional dispositions. This solution (1) draws a line between the justification of basic and non-basic emotions, (2) preserves a broadly cognitivist view of emotions, (3) avoids a form of value skepticism that threatens inferentialist views of emotional justification, and (4) sheds new light on the structure of our epistemic access to evaluative properties. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 3-14, January 2022. Advocates for the psychological construction of emotion view themselves as articulating a non-essentialist alternative to basic emotion theory's essentialist notion of affect programs. Psychological constructionists have also argued that holding essentialist assumptions about emotions engenders misconceptions about the psychological constructionist viewpoint. If so, it is important to understand what psychological constructionists mean by “essentialism” and “non-essentialism.” To advance the debate, I take a deeper dive into (...) non-essentialism, comparing the non-essentialist views of the early empiricists with those of the psychological constructionists, focusing on the theories of James Russell and Lisa Barrett. Using Lakatos’ notion of scientific research programs, I also describe how Russell's and Barrett's views have evolved into different and potentially competing research programs under the psychological constructionist banner. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 3-14, January 2022. Advocates for the psychological construction of emotion view themselves as articulating a non-essentialist alternative to basic emotion theory's essentialist notion of affect programs. Psychological constructionists have also argued that holding essentialist assumptions about emotions engenders misconceptions about the psychological constructionist viewpoint. If so, it is important to understand what psychological constructionists mean by “essentialism” and “non-essentialism.” To advance the debate, I take a deeper dive into (...) non-essentialism, comparing the non-essentialist views of the early empiricists with those of the psychological constructionists, focusing on the theories of James Russell and Lisa Barrett. Using Lakatos’ notion of scientific research programs, I also describe how Russell's and Barrett's views have evolved into different and potentially competing research programs under the psychological constructionist banner. (shrink)

The hypothesis that some moods are emotions has been rejected in philosophy, and is an unpopular alternative in psychology. This is because there is wide agreement that moods have a number of features distinguishing them from emotions. These include: lack of an intentional object and the related notion of lack of a goal; being of long duration; having pervasive or widespread effects; and having causes rather than reasons. Leading theories of mood have tried to explain these purported features by describing (...) moods as global changes in the mind affecting such things as predispositions to holding certain beliefs or the thresholds for triggering a range of relevant behaviors. I show instead that our best understanding of emotions can show that basic emotions either have or can appear to have each of these features. Thus, a plausible hypothesis is that certain moods are emotions. This theory is more parsimonious than the global change theories, and for this reason is to be preferred as an explanation of some moods. (shrink)

Although we have gained great insight into the variety of cultural influences on emotion concept prototypes from a plethora of studies examining such cross-cultural effects, there has been relatively little academic focus on the nature of emotion concept prototypes within a cultural perspective. Our discussion of the nature of emotion concept prototypes centres on essentialist versus non-essentialist principles. We argue that at a general, decontextualised level, essentialist and non-essentialist principles predict similarity in the structure of emotion (...) concept prototypes. We further argue that context is central in assessments of the nature of emotion concept prototypes from a cultural perspective. Rather than asking how emotion concept prototypes differ as a consequence of how certain influences might vary from one culture to another, a key question is whether emotion concept prototypes vary in different contexts within and between cultures and what this might inform us about the nature of emotion concept prototypes. (shrink)