Despite its lengthy history in human thought, the nature of emotion is still
elusive. For many centuries, the approach to emotion studies have been
exclusively pursued by philosophers and psychologists, currently, however,
emotion is a topic of different branches of interdisciplinary research. This
widening of interest seems now reasonable given that emotions arise, as Oatley
(1999) noticed, with the meeting of two worlds: nature and culture. Scherer,
Wallbott, & Summerfield (1986) emphasized that emotional experiences happen
in social interactions, hence the analyzing of “pure” emotional expressions in a
nonsocial setting, such as a laboratory, might be questioned. Adolphs (2001)
claim that “the subject matter of emotion is the relation between organism and
environment, the effect that interaction of the two has on organism’s survival
and well-being. Emotions thus pertain to the value that stimuli and situation have
for the organism”.
What elicits an emotional experience? There are several theories
concerning this. Watson (1919) proposed that events themselves induce
emotions, as in stimulus-response theories. Cannon (1929/2003) argued that
psychological processes, patterns of neural activity of the brain, are the causes,
while James (1894) believed that they are evoked by the peripheral autonomic
activity. Tomkins (1962) considered that facial and other expressions induce
emotions, whereas James (1980) thought that behaviors such as attack and flight
stimulate them. Motivational processes, such as hunger, were seen by Tomkins
to bring about emotions, although Parkinson (1997) regarded the desire to
intimidate an opponent as motivational and thus the cause of emotional
reactions. Appraisal theory (Roseman, 1984; Frijda, 1986; Oatley & Johnson-
Laird, 1987; Scherer, 1992; Smith & Lazarus, 1991; Stein & Levine, 1987)
claims that emotions are reactions to evaluation (appraisals) of events and
situations.
In psychological discussions, emotions are generally set apart from
cognition and conation as well as reflexes. However, most contemporary authors
agree that emotions’ behavioral schemata are to be distinguished from other
conceptual areas based on their duration, complexity and their adaptive value.
Accordingly, on basis of their duration, emotions could be seen as short and long
lasting, referring thus to reflex reactions and affects or personality traits,
respectively. From the point view of their complexity, on the one hand, they are
regarded as very simple, primitive and hard-wired behavioral patterns, as in the
case of reflex responses and some basic survival related appetitive behaviors. On
the other hand, they are considered more complex and learned cognitive
activities. From the perspective of their adaptive value, emotions are considered
as phylogenetically advanced adaptive response patterns, based on the integrated
activity of several components and providing high survival value (Gainotti,
2001).
The emotional system can also be conceived as a set of responsive
dispositions, where each one would indicate a particular relation with the
environment. First, there are affect dispositions, producing feelings of pleasure
and pain and corresponding functional attuning. (Cacioppo, Gardner & Bentson,
1997; Russell & Barrett, 1999; Rolls, 1999) Second, there are provisions for
global motivational variations in tonic activity, effort and alertness (Pribram &
McGuinness, 1975), inhibition (Gray, 1990), as well as the attentional arousal
mechanisms, and the autonomic arousal (Bradley & Lang, 1994). Third, there
are specific motivational dispositions that, when activated, produce major
variations in action readiness – dispositions for motivation like “seeking” or
desire, self-protection, confrontation, play, or submission (Panksepp, 1998).
Their activation corresponds to different “basic emotions”. Fourth, there are
dispositions for various individual autonomic reactions – for motor responses
such as facial expressions, voice intonation, postures (Frijda, 2001).
The discrete states and variables of emotions are difficult to analyze in
laboratory, thus, for long, unobservable emotional processes have been
approached through the examination of facial expressions on which the
universality of ‘basic emotions’ is mostly based. Darwin (1965) was very
interested in studying emotions, and analyzed them from an evolutionary
perspective. Approaching people of different cultures, he determined that there is
a set of universal, “basic emotions”, each of which is distinctive in its adaptive
implication and psychological expression. Before Darwin, as he mentions in his
Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872/1998), the facial expression
of emotions had been studied by the painter Le Brun who published his
“Conferences” in 1667. “Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression” was published
by the physiologist Sir Charles Bell in 1806. In 1862, G. B. Duchenne published
his “Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine”, in which he analyzed the
movements of facial muscles. He permitted Darwin to copy from his works the
photographs he needed to use. Darwin thought that emotions and the way we
express them are products of our animal ancestry. He saw the “basic emotions”
to be biological in nature. Bowler (2005) argues that Darwin’s need to minimize
the gap between humans and animals, to convince his readers of his evolutionary
theory brought him to the study of facial expressions.
Darwin’s book begins and ends stressing on three principles, which rule
the ways animals and humans express their emotions. First, there is the principle
of serviceable associated habits that links some modes of expression to adaptive
behavior, as when fear is expressed by bodily changes designed to prepare for
fight. Second, there is the principle of antithesis emphasizing that emotion can
be expressed by behavior, which is exact opposite of that elicited automatically
by the opposite behavior. A dog exhibits affection for its owner through a
behavior that differs from the one in case of fear and anger. Third, a principle
that links expression to direct action of the nervous system, as when fear elicits
trembling. Throughout his book, Darwin never used the expression “basic
emotions”, instead he begins the second chapter by mentioning “special
expression of man ... [which are] innate or universal, and which alone deserve to
rank as true expressions”. His evidence for them universality comes out of
answers he received to 16 questions. The answers were collected by Englishmen
living or traveling in Africa, America, Australia, Borneo, China, India, Malaysia
and New Zealand.
Tomkins (1962), taking up Darwin’s work after a century of neglect, listed
a series of emotions associated with their respective facial expressions. He
considered these expressions to be inherited and under the control of subcortical
centers in the brain.
Several years later, Ekman (1973) used Darwin’s method of showing six
photographs expressing emotions and asking different people, from 21 countries,
to judge the emotions shown. Ekman studying the autonomic changes associated
with six “basic emotions” (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise)
found that each one of them was associated with specific bodily patterns. Ekman
(1994), influenced by Darwin (1872/1997) and Tomkins (1962), classified the
characteristics of basic emotions, which distinguish them from one another and
other affective phenomena.
Panksepp (1998:33) summarized four possible ways of viewing the role of
affective consciousness in the generation of adaptive behaviours in emotional
situations: (I) the “commonsense” view that emotions cause bodily responses;
(II) the possibility that the emotions and bodily responses are independently but
concurrently organized; (III) the counterintuitive James-Lange type of view that
emotions arise by the way we bodily respond in emotional situations; and (IV) a
more realistic view, which suggests that all levels of information processing in
the generation of emotional responses interact with each other.
Dana SUGU & Amita CHATTERJEE (2010). Flashback: Reshuffling Emotions International Journal on Humanistic Ideology, 3 (1), 109-133
