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In psychology and common use, emotion is an aspect of a human being's mental state, normally based in or tied to the person's internal (physical) and external (social) sensory feeling. Love, hate, courage, fear, joy, sadness, pleasure and disgust can all be described in philosophical (encompassing theological and non-physiological psychological views) and physiological terms. It is unclear whether animals or all human beings experience emotion.
Emotion is sometimes regarded as the antithesis of reason; as is suggested by phrases such as appeal to emotion or your emotions have taken over. Emotions play a role in situations that result in undesired internal states and cognitive streams to the individual feeling them, which s/he may wish to control but often cannot, or at least produce consequences or thoughts which s/he may later regret or disagree with but during the emotional state, could not control with his/her other principles. Thus one of the most distinctive and perhaps challenging facts about human beings is this potential for both opposition and entanglement between will, emotion, and reason.
Current research on the neural circuitry of emotion suggests that emotion makes up an essential part of human decision-making, including long-term planning, and that the famous distinction made by Descartes between reason and emotion is not as clear as it seems.
Some state that there is no empirical support for any generalization suggesting the antithesis between reason and emotion: indeed, anger or fear can often be thought of as a systematic response to observed facts. What can be noted, however, is that the human psyche possesses many possible reactions and perspectives in response to the internal and external world - often lying on a continuum— at one extreme lies pure intellectual logic (often called "cold"); at the other extreme is pure emotionally unresponsive to logical argument ("the heat of passion"). In any case, it is clear that the relation between logic and argument on the one hand and emotion on the other, is one which merits careful study. It has been noted by many that passion, emotion, or feeling can add backing to an argument, even one based primarily on reason - particularly regarding religion or ideology, areas of human thought which frequently demand an all-or-nothing rejection or acceptance, that is, the adoption of a comprehensive worldview partly backed by empirical argument and partly by feeling and passion. Moreover, it has been suggested by several researchers that typically there is no "pure" decision or thought, that is, no thought based "purely" on intellectual logic or "purely" on emotion - most decisions and cognitions are founded on a mixture of both.
Relation to cultural and social factors
It is not clear whether emotion is a purely human phenomenon, since animals seem to exhibit conditions which resemble emotional responses such as anger, fear or sadness, and some animals also exhibit similar neural phenomena to humans in tandem with possible emotional response.
It has been hypothesized that emotions typical of human beings have evolved and changed in many ways since the species first emerged. Nonetheless, as noted above, it may well be the case that human and non-human animal emotional responses lie on a continuum, rather than being two completely distinct categories of human and animal.
Much of what is said about emotions, as well as the history of what has been said about them, is conditioned by culture and even politics. That is to say specific emotional responses, as well as a group's interpretation of their significance, may be influenced by cultural norms of propriety. For instance, certain emotions such as love, hate, and the desire for vengeance are treated very differently in differing societies. This methodological relativity is entirely different from the question of whether emotions are universal or are culturally determined. Many researchers would agree that a vast proportion of human behavior, no matter how close to the lowest biological substrates - including sexual behavior, food consumption, feelings in response to physiological changes and responses to environmental conditions - are conditioned based on social surroundings and non-human environmental factors. Thus it is not difficult to defend the position that emotion is, to a high degree, dependent on social phenomena, expectations, norms, and conditioned behavior of the group in which an individual lives. Clearly, then, the influence of politics, religion, and socio-cultural customs can be easily traced or hypothesized, or perhaps not. Among many pertinent examples: behaviors or activities considered highly cruel in some societies may in fact provoke responses of enjoyment in others; or, sexual acts considered highly desirable in some cultures would provoke shame or disgust in others.
Contrary to this view, Paul Ekman has shown that at least some facial expressions and their corresponding emotions are universal across human cultures and are not culturally determined. These universal emotions include anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise.
Etymology
Etymologically, the word emotion is a composite formed from two Latin words. ex/out, outward + motio/movement, action, gesture. This classical formation refers to the immediate nature of emotion as experienced by humans and attributed in some cultures and ways of thinking to all living organisms, and by scientific community to any creature that exhibits complex response traits similar to what humans refer to as emotion.
Physical responses to emotion
The body frequently responds to Shame by warmth in the upper chest and face, Fear by a heightened heartbeat, increased "flinch" response, and increased muscle tension. Sadness by a feeling of tightness in the throat and eyes, and relaxation in the arms and legs. Desire can be accompanied by a dry throat and heavy breathing.
Computer Models of Emotion
A flurry of recent work in modeling emotional circuitry and recognition has come out of computer science, engineering, psychology and neuroscience (c.f. Fellous, Armony & LeDoux, 2002).
References
- Damasio AR. (1994) "Descartes' Error." Penguin Putnam, New York, New York.
- Ekman P. (1999) "Facial Expressions" in Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. Dalgleish T & Power M, Eds. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. New York, New York.
- Fellous, J.M., Armony, J.L., & LeDoux, J.E. (2002) "Emotional Circuits and Computational Neuroscience" in 'The handbook of brain theory and neural networks' Second Edition. M.A. Arbib (editor), The MIT Press. [[1]]
Emotion Researchers
See also
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