PART 1 What Are Emotions, and Why Do We Have Them? 1
CHAPTER I THE NATURE OF EMOTION 2
What Is Emotion? 3
An Attempt to Define Emotion 5
A Different Type of Definition: The Prototype Approach 7
Classic Theories of Emotion 7
James-Lange Theory 8
Cannon-Bard Theory 9
Schachter-Singer Theory 1o
Modern Theories of Emotion 15
Basic/Discrete Emotions 15
Core Affect and Psychological Construction 17
The Component Process Model 21
Which Modern Theory Is Right? 23
Research Methods: How Do We Study Emotion? 23
Inducing Emotion 24
Measuring Emotion 26
Behavioral Observations 31
Do Different Aspects of Emotion Hang Together? 32
SUMMARY 35
KEYTERMS 35
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 37
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 38
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER3
What Is an Evolutionary Perspective? 40
Basic Principles of Evolutionary Theory 40
Emotions as Adaptations 43
Functions of Emotion 46
Intra personal Functions of Emotion 46
Social Functions of Emotion 47
Roles of Evolution in Modern Theories of Emotion 49
The Signal Value of Emotional Feelings 49
Approach and Avoidance Motivation 51
Emotions as Superordinate Neural Programs 53
A Phylogeny of Emotions? 56
Methodological Considerations 57
Example: Are Physiological Aspects of Emotion Universal? 59
SUMMARY 62
KEYTERMS 62
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 63
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 64
CULTURE AND EMOTION 65
What Is Culture? 66
A Definition and Its Implications 66
Cultural Differences in Concepts of Emotion 67
Do All Cultures Have the Same "Basic" Emotions? 69
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 72
Hyper- Versus Hypocognized Emotions 73
Aspects of Culture That Predict Differences in Emotion 75
Individualism Versus Collectivism 75
Power Distance: Vertical Versus Horizontal Societies 79
Linear Versus Dialectical Epistemology 82
Methodological Considerations 83
Example: Culture of Honor and Implications for Anger 86
Integrating Evolutionary and Cultural Approaches 87
Ekman (1972): Neurocultural Theory of Emotion 88
CHAPTER4
CHAPTER 5
Russell (1991 ): Emotion Episodes as Socially Constructed Scripts 89
Keltner & Haidt (1999): Levels of Analysis 90
SUMMARY 91
KEYTERMS 92
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 93
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 94
WHAT ELICITS EMOTIONS? 95
What Is Appraisal? 96
The Speed of Emotional Appraisals 98
What Is the Content of Appraisal? 1oo
Core Relational Themes 100
Appraisal Dimensions 1oo
Which Approach Is Correct? 103
Evidence Linking Appraisal to Emotion 104
Does Appraisal Cause Emotion? 104
Universals and Cultural Differences in Emotional Appraisals 107 Is Appraisal Necessary for Emotion? 11 o
The Mere Exposure Effect 111
Example: What Elicits Anger? 113
Core Relationa I Theme Approach 113
Appraisal Dimension Approach 114
No-Cognition Approach: The Cognitive Neoassociationistic Model 115
SUMMARY 117
KEY TERMS 117
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 118
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 118
EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION IN THE FACE, POSTURE, AND VOICE 119
Historical Importance of Facial Expression Research 120
Are Facial Expressions of Emotion Universal? 125
Ekman's Cross-Cultural Studies 125
How Many Expressions Are There? 129
Culture and Emotional Expression 130
Cultural Display Rules 131
Facial Expression Dialects 134
Emotion in Posture and the Voice 135
Posture and Emotion 136
Vocal Expression of Emotion 138
Can Expression Influence Emotional Feelings? 142
SUMMARY 147
KEY TERMS 148
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 149
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 149
PART 2 How Do Emotions Affect Our Lives? 151
CHAPTER6 EMOTION AND THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
Methods to Study Emotion and the Brain 153
Brain Damage 154
Electroencephalography 155
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging 157
Neurochemistry Techniques 158
The Reverse Inference Problem 159
The Amygdala and Emotion 160
Effects of Amygdala Damage 160
Laboratory Studies of Fear Conditioning 162
Events That Activate the Human Amygdala 163
The Amygdala and Emotional Memory 165
Emotion Neuroanatomy: Important Structures 166
The Hypothalamus 166
The Nucleus Accumbens and Ventral Tegmental Area 167
The Insular Cortex 169
The Prefrontal Cortex 170
Emotion Neurochemistry: Important Neurotransmitters 173
Dopamine 173 and the Opioid Peptides 175
Serotonin 175
Oxytocin 176
x CONTENTS
152
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTERS
Theories of Emotion: Evidence from Neuroscience 177
SUMMARY 180
KEY TERMS 180
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 182
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 182
THE AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM AND HORMONES 183
The Autonomic Nervous System 184
Fight or Flight: The Sympathetic Nervous System 184
Rest and Digest: The Parasympathetic Nervous System 187
How the Sympathetic and Parasympathet ic Systems
Work Together 189
Hormones and the Endocrine System 190
Measuring Physiological Aspects of Emotion 192
Commonly Used Measures 193
Measurement Challenges 197
The Autonomic Nervous System and Emotion 197
Are Bodily Sensations Necessary for Emotional Feelings? 198
Autonomic Nervous System Specificity of Emotions 200
Culture and Emotion Physiology 203
Physiological Aspects of Positive Emotions 204
Stress and Its Health Consequences 206
Hans Selye and the Concept of Stress 207
Defining and Measuring Stress 209
How Stress Can Affect Health 211
SUMMARY 214
KEY TERMS 215
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 217
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 217
EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 218
Emotional Reactions in Infancy 219
Crying 220
Smiling and Laughing 221
Responses to Danger 222
CHAPTER 9
When Do Specific Emotions Emerge? 223
How Do Emotions Develop? 226
Physical Maturation 227
Cognitive Maturation 227
Sociallnteraction 228
Development of Emotional Communication: Perceiving, Sharing, and Talking About Emotions 228
Interpreting Facial Expressions of Emotion 230
Emotional Language 231
Socialization of Emotional Expression 232
Emotion in Adolescence 234
Emotional Development in Adulthood 236
Individual Consistency Across the Lifespan 236
Age Trends in Emotion 237
SUMMARY 240
KEY TERMS 241
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 242
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 242
EMOTION IN RELATIONSHIPS AND SOCIETY 243
Early Emotional Bonds: Infant Attachment 244
What Is the Function of Attachment? 246
Behavioral and Biological Mechanisms of Attachment 247
Types of Attachment: Secure, Anxious-Ambivalent, and Avoidant 249
Romantic Love and Marriage 251
Romantic Attraction and Falling in Love 253
Attachment in Adult Romantic Relationships 256
Marriage: Predicting Satisfaction and Stability 262
Emotions in Caring for Others 265
Sympathy, Compassion, and Nurturant Love 266
Empathy 269
Emotions in Society 270
Attachment Processes in Friendships and Groups 270
Gratitude: Find, Remind , and Bind 272
CHAPTER 10
The Appeasement Function of Embarrassment 273
Pride and Social Status 274
SUMMARY 275
KEY TERMS 276
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 277
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 278
EMOTION AND COGNITION 279
Emotions and Attention 280
Emotions and Memory 283
Emotion and Memory Encoding 284
Emotion and Consolidation 288
Emotion and Retrieval 290
Emotions and Information Processing 290
Systematic Versus Heuristic Processing 292
Mood and Systematic Versus Heuristic Cognition 292
Are Depressed People More Realistic? 294
Positive Affect and Creativity 297
Emotions and Decision Making 298
The Somatic Marker Hypothesis 299
Choices Based on Preferences and Values 301
Emotions and Moral Reasoning 302
The Downside of Relying on Emotions 305
SUMMARY 306
KEY TERMS 307
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 308
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 308
PART 3 How Can We Improve Emotional Well-Being? 311
CHAPTER 12
Anger 322
The Value of Anger 325
The Biology of Anger and Aggression 326
Individual Differences: Expression and Management 328
Disgust 329
The Biology of Disgust 331
Individual Differences: Development and Implications 332
Sadness 334
The Value of Sadness 334
The Biology of Sadness 336
Individual Differences: Aging and Loss 336
Embarrassment, Shame, and Guilt 337
The Value of Self-Conscious Negative Emotions 338
The Biology of Embarrassment 341
Individual Differences in Self-Conscious Emotions 341
SUMMARY 342
KEY TERMS 343
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 345
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 345
HAPPINESS AND THE POSITIVE EMOTIONS 347
Is Happiness an Emotion? 348
Measuring Subjective Well-Being 349
What Predicts Happiness? 350
Personality: The Top-Down Theory of Happiness 352
Life Events That Impact Happiness 353
Wealth and Happiness 354
Other Correlates of Happiness 356
The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotion 359 Are There Multiple Positive Emotions? 361
Enthusiasm : The Anticipation of Reward 361
Contentment 363
Pride 365
Love 366
Amusement and Humor 369
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
Awe 372
Hope and Optimism 373
SUMMARY 375
KEY TERMS 375
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 376
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 377
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN EMOTION 378
Gender and Emotion 379
Gender Differences in Emotional Experience and Expression 379
Gender and Emotion Regulation 383
Gender and Empathy 384
Personality and Emotion 386
Biological Mechanisms of Individual Differences in Emotion 393
Frontal Lobe Activation Asymmetry 393
Serotonin Transporter Gene Polymorphism 395
Emotional Intelligence 398
Measuring Emotional Intelligence 399
Reliability and Validity of Emotional Intelligence Tests 403
Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught? 406
SUMMARY 407
KEY TERMS 407
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 409
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 41 0
EMOTION IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Diagnosis in Clinical Psychology 412
Major Depressive Disorder 414
Multiple Types of Depression? 415 Causes of Depression 417
Treating Depression 422
Mania and Bipolar Disorder 424 Anxiety Disorders 426
Causes of Anxiety Disorders 429
Treating Anxiety Disorders 432
411
CHAPTER 15
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder 433
Antisocial Personality Disorder 434
Emotional Disturbances as Transdiagnostic Aspects of Disorder 435
SUMMARY 437
KEY TERMS 438
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 440
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 440
EMOTION REGULATION 441
Freud's Ego Defense Mechanisms: An Early Taxonomy of Coping Strategies 442
The Process Model of Emotion Regulation 444
Situation-Focused Strategies 446
Choosing Situations Wisely 446
Active Coping: Changing the Situation 447
Cognition-Focused Strategies 450
Attentional Control 450
Cognitive Reappraisal 453
Different Types of Reappraisal 455
Response-Focused Strategies 457
Escaping Emotions: Drugs, Alcohol, and Food 458
Suppressing Emotional Expression 458
Catharsis: Expressing Your Feelings 459
Exercise 461
Relaxation 462
The Neurobiology of Emotion Regulation 463
Which Emotion Regulation Strategies Are Best? 464
SUMMARY 466
KEY TERMS 467
THOUGHT/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 469
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 469
References 470
Photo Credits 527
Name Index 529
Subject Index 543
PREFACE
Can you imagine life without emotion? Give it a try. What would happen to your experience of the world if you had no capacity for emotion? How might your beliefs, judgments, and decisions change? What about your actions? What would your relationships with other people look like ifemotion were not involved? Consider the experience of music, literature, film, dance, art, and architecture without emotion. What would it feel like to be completely emotionless, all the time? It's difficult to imagine, right? For better or for worse, emotion is fundamental to being human, woven into every aspect ofour lives. Among students of psychology, many of the most pressing questions about the mind involve emotion in some way. For those most interested in clinical psychology, emotional problems are among the most common and disabling symptoms of disorder. Emotions also play important roles in cognition, social interaction, development, and personality.
Given the ubiquity of emotion in human experience, you may find it surprising that the field of affective science-the scientific study of emotion-is still young compared to other branches of psychology. During the mid-20th century, when behaviorism dominated experimental psychology, research on emotions was sparse. When laboratory research did occur, it was mostly limited to the conditioned emotional response, which researchers used to study classical conditioning, not emotion itself. Behaviorists considered emotion private, wholly subjective, unobservable, and therefore unfit for serious empirical study. In 1971, when James Kalat received his PhD, few research psychologists were interested in emotion at all.
Since then, however, research on emotion has increased dramatically in both quantity and quality. Researchers in fields ranging from social psychology to developmental psychology to neuroscience have "discovered" emotion and now have interesting stories to tell. Their results say a great deal about why we have emotions, when we have emotions, and how emotions affect our lives. Although emotion research connects with every subfield of psychology, few of these results find their way into standard texts on social psychology, cognitive psychology, and so forth. Researchers now recognize emotion as a central aspect of the human experience, and we believe that a course dedicated to emotion can be an important part of the psychology curriculum.
In the fall of 2001, Kalat contemplated how interesting and challenging it might be to write a textbook on emotion ... but he knew his knowledge ofthat field had major gaps. If only he could find the right coauthor. At just that time, his editor sent the latest batch of anonymous reviewers' comments on the sixth edition of his introductory psychology textbook-including one that was unusually insightful and well written, by someone who happened to be a specialist in emotion. A series of phone calls and emails revealed that this reviewer was Michelle "Lani" Shiota, then a
graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and that she would indeed be interested in coauthoring a text on emotion. A rich collaboration developed (at first entirely through emails and phone calls, although Jim and Lani finally met in person at a conference in 2013), and this textbook is the result-a product of two distinct perspectives and areas of expertise, brought together to fulfill a shared goal. Fifteen years later, affective science is a far more prominent branch ofpsychology than it was in 2001. Several peer-reviewed journals are devoted to emotion theory and research; a growing number of psychology departments have graduate programs in affective science; and emotion is the focus of multiple research societies and conferences. Lani uses this textbook in her own undergraduate course on emotion-now one ofmany throughout the world. We are delighted to present the third edition of this text, which has evolved along with the field itsel£ and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed writing it.
THE GOALS OF THIS TEXT
Our goal in preparing this textbook is to provide a comprehensive survey of theory and research on emotion, across the traditional areas of clinical, biological, social, personality, developmental, and cognitive psychology Although the emphasis is largely on theory and research within psychology, we also address relevant content in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, among other disciplines Students should come away from the textbook with a broad understanding of major issues in the field of affective science. We aimed this text at undergraduate students who have had an introductory psychology course and who remember the essentials about research design, classical conditioning, what a neuron is, and so forth. However, we assume no additional background, and we believe the text should be suitable for a course that enrolls undergraduate sophomores, juniors, seniors, and even students in terminal master's programs.
Although we discuss major theories of emotion extensively in the first few chapters and return to these theories throughout the text, we also strongly emphasize the value of a scientific approach to the study of emotion. Without downplaying the arts' and humanities' extremely important contributions to our understanding of what emotions are, why we have them, and how they shape our behavior, we have sought to highlight the distinct role of empirical research in addressing these questions. The behaviorists of the mid-20th century were not entirely wrong-emotion is fundamentally internal and difficult to measure-and you will find us making that point repeatedly throughout this text. We hope that readers start with a healthy skepticism that a scientific study ofemotion is even possible. Despite these challenges, however, researchers have devised new and clever ways to elicit and measure emotion in the laboratory and in the real world.
We also strongly encourage students to think critically about the theories and research they encounter in this textbook. Because affective science is so young, many
important questions remain partly answered, at be!.lt. No scientific study is perfec t, and we hope readers will co nsider the limitations as well as the strengths of each study we dis cuss . You will find studies that stem to conandict each other, previously accepted findings that are suddenly called into question, and basic principles that are still ho tly debated. Rather than presenting the science of emotio n as a comple te and tidy field, we've chosen to address its gaps and comp lexities ho nes tly, trusting that you will carefully evaluate the evidence and develop your own concl usio ns. Finally, we made a conscious decision when writing the first edi tion to kl:ep the t one informal, accessi ble, and fun , and we've maintained that style in the current edition. We play with language and ideas, we use a lot ofhumor (fans ofDouglas Adams maydetecta bit ofhis style here}, and we invite you into our lives with personal examples . We encourage you to apply the concepts and principles you learn here to your own lives. The study of emotion has the po tential to enrich students' lives in many ways. In reading this textbook, we hope that you find not only academic knowledge, but also techniques and wisdom for enhancing your own and others' well-being.
PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES
This textbook includes several pedagogical features designed to facilitate active engagement with the material, critical thinking, and application to students' own lives These include the following:
• Prl!.'ientation of major theoretical questions in initial chapters, which are then rev isited regularly throughout the text as they are addressed by empirical re· search find ings.
• Frequent detailed discussion of study methods, as well as results and co ncl usions, inviting reade rs to critique the relationship between method and interpretation.
• Exte nsive use of rea l-life examples, illustrating abstract co ncept s and processes in an engaging way
• Eac h chapter includes a series of thou ght/ discussion quest ions, intended to facilita te critical thinking abo ut and application of the material. These may be used as individual study aids, as group discussion topics, or even as essay questions for assessment.
• Each chapter also includes several suggestions for further reading In most these are popular-press books by prominent emotion researchers, written to engage a wide audience, with more extensive t reatment of major issues .
NEW FEATURES OF THE THIRD EDITION
Readers familiar with the firs t and/or seco nd editions of this text will note significant changes in the third edition . Cutting-edge research from the past few years has been added for all the original topics, and we ha-e updated the pop culture
references (do people still remember Friends?). However, the structure of the text has also changed considerably. Many of these changes reflect evolution in the way Shiota structures her own undergraduate course on emotion, in turn reflecting evolution of affective science itsel£
First, whereas the first and second editions were organized into major sections of general issues, individual (specific) emotions, and emotion research in subdisciplines of psychology, the major sections of the third edition reflect the three questions that we find are most important to students: ( 1) What are emotions, and why do we have them?; (2) How do emotions affect our lives?; and (3) How can we improve emotional well-being?
Second, instead of five chapters on specific emotions (fearI anxiety, anger/disgust, love, happiness, and self-conscious emotions), the third edition includes one chapter on the functions and properties of specific negative emotions and another on happiness and specific positive emotions. Most of the material in the original five chapters is retained, but is integrated within these new chapters or moved to other chapters on relevant topics (e g , facial expression, emotion in the body, emotions in relationships and society). New chapters have been added on the following subjects : (1) What elicits emotions?; (2) expression of emotions in the face, body, and voice; and (3) emotions in relationships and society.
At a finer-grained level, the third edition also features the following:
• Expanded discussion of psychological construction as a major theory of emotion (Chapter 1);
• Expanded treatment of appraisal theories of emotion (Chapter 4);
• Careful discussion of meta-analyses of neuroscience evidence addressing major modern theories of emotion (Chapter 6);
• Expanded discussion of hormones in emotion and the role of the hypothalamic/pituitary/adrenal axis in stress responding (Chapter 7);
• An expanded section on specific positive emotions (Chapter 12);
• Expanded discussion of gender and emotion, as well as genetic mechanisms of individual differences in emotion (Chapter 13); and
• Updating of the chapter on emotion in clinical disorders to reflect diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofMental Disorders, fifth edition, and to include discussion of the transdiagnostic perspective and the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria initiative. (Chapter 14).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are indebted to many people for their support of this project. Our heartiest thanks go to Oxford University Press and particularly our editor, Jane Potter. We're extremely grateful for Jane's expertise, encouragement, patience, and support
throughout the transition to a new publisher and the preparation of this new edition. We also appreciate the valuable efforts of Holly Haydash, Larissa Albright, and Lindsay Profenno. In addition, we greatly appreciate the insightful comments and suggestions offered by Sarah Cavanagh, Stephanie Davis, Andrea Heberlein, and Marilyn Mendolia , all of whom reviewed drafts of chapters in this textbook. We also extend many thanks to students, mentors, family, and friends who have supported us throughout our efforts on this text. Lani Shiota sends affection and gratitude to current and forme r graduate students who have wo rked with her in the trenches of affect ive science fo r the pas t decade, incl uding Samantha Neufeld, Vladas Griskevicius, Elaine Pe rea, Stephanie Moser, W•n "Elle n" Yeung, Elizabeth Osbo rne, Alex Danve rs, Claire Yee, and Makenzie O'Neil. Each of you has helped build her knowledge and shape her interests, and you'•e made our work fun. She extends deep thanks to her graduate advisor, Dacher Kel tner- a rock star in psychology who first introduced her to the rich and complex world ofaffective science and continues to support and encourage her development today. She honors her father, Norman Shiota, from whom she knows she received much of her own emotional nature. She bows to her mother, Mary Gorman, who has provided immense emotional as well as practical support for more than four decades, and who is an in· spiration for lifelong emotional growth . To Lani's husbmd, Bob Levenson - gosh, where to start ?II! You nurtured her passion for this field; you've offered decades of valuable guidance; you are a model of outstanding and wlCompromising quality in science; and you still inspire her every day. Thank you. Finally, Lani sends great warmth and gratitude to Jim, who first invited he r to embark on this adventure. It's been such a great experience; she cou ldn't ask fo r a be tter men tor and pa rtner. Thank you fo r the oppo rtunity !
James Kalat belatedly thanks Paul Roz in, his graduate schoo l advise r, fo r enco uragement and inspiratio n ove r the years. Back whe n Kalat received his PhD from the Universi ty of Pennsylvania, neither Kalat nor Ro-Lin had any particular interest in emotion, but Rozin encouraged his st ude nts to develop broad interests. By the time Kalat developed an interest in emotion, Rozin had become a key contributor to the field, especially in the field of disgust.
Finally, we both extend our gratitude to the professors who have selected this textbook for their own courses on emotion. We welcome comments from our readers, both students and faculty. We'll update this text again in a couple ofyears, and your suggestions are greatly valued. Our email addresses are lani.shiota@asu.edu and james kalat@ncsu.edu. We hope you enjoy the book!
M. N. Shiota and]. W. Kalat
What Are Emotions, and Why Do We Have Them?
• THE NATURE OF EMOTION
• THE EVOLUTION OF EMOTION
• CULTURE AND EMOTION
• WHAT ELICITS EMOTIONS?
• EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION IN THE FACE, POSTURE, AND VOICE
CHAPTER ONE THE NATURE OF EMOTION
Many textbooks begin with an explanation of why you should care about the subject. Do you need to be convinced that emotions are important and interesting? Probably not We routinely ask one another, "How are you feeling?" We care about other people's emotions, and we want them to understand our own. We seek out opportunities to experience emotions through stories told in film, literature, music, and art, as well as in our own lives We commonly explain our own and other people's behavior in terms ofemotions, and emotions guide our decisions in a variety of ways. Emotions are woven into our understanding of the world around us. & Antonio Damasio ( 1999, p. 55) has written, "Inevitably, emotions are inseparable from the idea ofgood and evil."
From a scientific standpoint, emotion is central to the field of psychology. Clinical psychologists often want to help people control their harmful or dysfunctional emotions. Cognitive psychologists consider how emotions influence people's thought processes and decisions. Social psychologists consider how emotions impact our relationships with other people and vice versa, and personality psychologists study systematic differences between people in terms of their emotions
Although the importance of emotion is intuitively obvious, emotion is also a difficult subject for scientific research We hope you are starting this book with healthy skepticism about whether the scientific study of emotion is even possible For decades, experimental psychologists virtually ignored emotion because it is so subjective, and even today, some researchers have misgivings about scientific research into private, internal experiences. Scientific progress depends on good measurement, and as we shall emphasize repeatedly throughout this book, accurate measurement is difficult to achieve for emotions. The challenge to emotion researchers, therefore, is to make the best use of measures that are currently available and to keep developing even better techniques.
In this chapter, we begin with attempts to define emotion. We then discuss three classic theories of emotion, each offering an account ofhow major aspects ofemotion, such as subjective emotional feelings, physiological responses, and behaviors, relate to each other. In the next section we introduce three modern theoretical models of the nature of emotion and the structure of emotion space: the basic/ discrete emotion model, the core affect/psychological construction model, and the component process model. Finally, we briefly review general approaches to measuring emotionmore detailed discussion will emerge in later chapters-and discuss some research on how tightly different aspects ofemotion "hang together" ... or don't.
WHAT IS EMOTION?
In 1884, William James, the founder of American psychology, wrote an influential article titled "What Is an Emotion?" More than a century later, psychologists continue to ask that same question As with several other important concepts, emotion is difficult to define with precision According to Joseph LeDoux (1996, p. 23), "one of the most significant things ever said about emotion may be that everyone knows what it is until they are asked to define it." Emotion is hardly the only important concept that is difficult to define. St Augustine (397 /1955, Book 11, Chapter 14) once wrote, "What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know." William James (1892/1961, p.19) 1 said ofconsciousness, "Its meaning we knowsolongas no one asks us to define it " However, to study some phenomenon scientifically, we need at least a tentative definition to guide our theories and methods.
Imagine you have accepted a job in your nation's space program. They send you as a psychologist/ astronaut to a newly discovered planet. Previous astronauts have learned much about the animals on this planet. Their evolutionary history is separate from ours and their body chemistry is entirely different, but their behavior resembles ours. They see, hear, and smell. They eat, drink, and reproduce. They can learn to approach one color and not another to get food, so evidently they have color vision, motivation, and learning. Now it's your job to determine whether they have emotions. What will you do?
Try to answer before you read further.
La de dah, dah de dah de dum dum dum (We're pausing while you figure out your answer.)
You have an answer? Okay, what is it?
We find that our students' most common answer is to put the animals in a situation that we consider emotional and then watch their behavior. For example, you might swing a weapon threateningly at the animals and see whether they scamper
1 A date shown with a slash indicates a publication first printed in the first year (1892) and reprinted in the second year ( 1961).
away Or you might try to steal their food and see whether they attack you Suppose they do. Could you then conclude that they have emotions?
You don't have to leave Earth to face this problem If you wave your arm at a housefly, it flies away. Do you conclude that the housefly feels fear? We don't know what a housefly feels, if anything. If you damage a beehive, the bees come at you to sting you, and they sure seem mad. But are they angry? Again, you could reasonably answer either "no" or "I don't know."
Do you have a pet? What kind? Does it love you? How do you know? Does it greet you at the door when you come home? Does it seek out opportunities to snuggle with you? Does it run to you when startled or stay close to you when you're upset or ill? Do any of these behaviors necessarily mean the pet feels love? One of us (MNS) often has this debate with people because her pet is a cat, and many people insist that cats are incapable ofloving anyone.
Let's say these animals (alien or earthly) were able to learn our language, so you could just ask them whether they have emotions. Sorry, that won't work either. How are you going to teach them the meaning of the word emotion or the meanings offear, anger, and other specific emotional states? You could explain, "Fear is what you feel when you are in danger," but that's not fair. You can't tell them they feel fear unless you already know that they feel fear, and we are trying to discover whether they feel fear! The animals may feel something when they are in danger, but neither ofyou knows whether the animal's feeling in that situation is the same as your own would be.
How did you learn the meaning ofwords likefrightened, angry, happy, and sad? At some point in your childhood you saw something scary, like a barking dog or a creepy-looking clown, and you started crying. Your parents or someone else said, "Did that scare you? Are you afraid? It won't hurt you, it's okay!" At another time, you were crying because you'd lost a beloved stuffed animal, and someone told you that you were sad. In each case, whoever gave your emotion a name inferred your feelings from the situation and from your reaction to it. Other people learned the meaning of emotion words the same way. As a result, you have the same problem in understanding other people's emotions as you do with babies and nonhuman animals, even if people can speak-there's no way to know whether their feeling in some situation is the same as yours would be, even if you use the same word.
If you were paying close attention to the last several paragraphs, you may have noted that we went back and forth between the terms "emotion" and "feeling." When talking about emotions in casual speech, we tend to use these words interchangeably. By emotion we often refer to internal feelings as well as observable behaviors, and we even assume that feelings are valid explanations for behavior ("Don't mind her, she's just cranky today"). We may also refer to physical sensations such as the feeling of icy hands and a pounding heart or to thoughts about the person or situation at which the emotion is directed ("That guy is such a jerk!") In casual conversation, this complexity in what we mean by emotion is not a problem, because at least among English-language speakers, we share a concept that is close enough.
In science, however, this ambiguity in the colloquial meaning of emotion becomes a big problem. Feeling is totally subjective and difficult to compare across people-not ideal for scientific measurement. The observable aspects ofemotioneliciting situations, behaviors, physiological changes-are not perfectly correlated with each other or with people's reports of their feelings. Which aspect ofemotion is most important? Which should be the gold standard? To return to our question about the alien animals (or your pet), does it matter whether they feel anything, or do we just need to agree that the animal's observable response to some situation fits a certain prototype well enough to call it an emotion? Different researchers have different answers to this question.
Regardless of the specific answer, one thing must be true: We can never directly observe emotions. We can only infer them.
AN ATTEMPT TO DEFINE EMOTION
People studying emotion often disagree about how to define it, and some doubt it refers to any natural category at all James Russell (2003) has suggested that the concept of emotion is just a convenient label for experiences that seem to share common ground but are really different, much as the categories art and music indude many dissimilar items. According to Russell, the border between emotion and not-emotion is as arbitrary as the border between art and not-art or music and not-music. Some languages do not have a word for emotion at all (Hupka, Lenton, & Hutchison, 1999), and in those that do, these words do not map to exactly the same meaning (Niedenthal et al., 2004)
However, many researchers have tried to define emotion, proposing that all the things we call emotions do have something meaningful in common. Let's consider one proposed definition. It is a relatively early attempt to define emotion from a psychological perspective, but it includes elements shared with several more recent, widely recognized definitions (e.g., Ekman, 1992; Frijda, 1986; Izard, 1992; Keltner & Shiota, 2003; Lazarus, 1991 ; Levenson, 1999; Tooby & Cosmides, 2008 ). It is a little long-winded, but bear with us:
(Emotion is] an inferred complex sequence of reactions to a stimulus ( including] cognitive evaluations, subjective changes, autonomic and neural arousal, impulses to action, and behavior designed to have an effect upon the stimulus that initiated the complex sequence. (Plutchik, 1982, p . 551)
We know, that's a mouthful. Let's highlight some key elements and implications of this definition.
( 1) The definition proposes that emotions are functional in the sense that they are geared toward having an effect on the world around us. That is, emotions are useful. Many philosophers, including Aristotle and Buddha, considered emotional behaviors disruptive or dangerous. Extremely emotional
behaviors-panic, for example-are undeniably disruptive However, under many circumstances, emotions guide us to quick, effective action . For example, when we feel fear, we try to escape. When someone commits an injustice against us, we strike back. When people take care of us, we stay dose to them. We shall address this point in more detail in Chapter 2.
(2) According to this definition, every emotion is a reaction to a stimulus-a specific event that takes place. Ordinarily, our experiences support this idea: we are happy about something, we are angry at something, or we are afraid of something out there in the world. This aspect of the definition distinguishes emotions from purely internal drives such as hunger and thirst. However, this aspect of the definition is controversial. Some psychologists argue that you can feel emotions that are not elicited by a specific situation (Berkowitz & Harmon-Jones, 2004; Parkinson, 2007). Perhaps you're just uncomfortable; the term hangry describes a hunger-driven experience of anger to which many people can relate. Or perhaps for some strictly physiological reason your heart starts beating faster and you breathe more heavily. You might feel frightened-even panicked-without knowing why. People with major depression feel sad or emotionally flat nearly always, regardless of current events.
(3) This definition, like many others, proposes that emotion includes four aspects: cognitive evaluation, or appraisal of what the stimulus means for our goals, concerns, and well-being; feelings ("subjective changes"); physiological changes ("autonomic and neural arousal"); and behavior. As we saw earlier, however, this aspect of the definition opens a big can of worms. The implication is that emotion is like a square: A "real" emotion has all four aspects, just as a real square has all four sides. If someone has three aspects of emotion but the other one is missing, it's not an emotion.
Is that true? Not necessarily (Russell, 2003). Imagine your professor hands back a test and you get a higher grade than you expected. You have the cognitive evaluation (this is good news), a feeling (happiness), and some physiological changes (heart rate speeds up), but suppose you don't do anything about it. You don't jump up and down and brag to the other students. You don't even smile. If there is no behavioral change, do we conclude that you don't really have an emotion?
Suppose your heart suddenly starts pounding for no apparent reason, as it does in a panic attack. You can't explain this physiological change-that is, it's not based on your cognitive appraisal of your situation-but you feel frightened, you are sweating and trembling, and you want to run away. Do we say this is not an emotion because no cognition led to it? Or do we count "I'm panicking" as the cognition? If so, it's not much of a cognition.
We shall return to this complicated issue repeatedly throughout the text. There are important theoretical reasons for assuming that cognitive appraisals,
feelings, physiological changes, and behaviors hang together in emotions, as proposed by the definition. We will discuss these reasons in more detail in Chapter 2, and we'll discuss evidence regarding the assumption later in this chapter, as well as in subsequent chapters. However, we'll also challenge this assumption in several places.
A DIFFERENT TYPE OF DEFIN ITION: THEPROTOTYPEAPPROACH
Some items can be defined precisely and others cannot. For example, we can precisely define equilateral triangle: It is a figure with three sides ofequal length. Given any object, we can say for certain whether it is or isn't an equilateral triangle. In contrast, try to define disco music You would do best to provide a few good examples and say, "music like that." Not every song is or isn't disco. Something can be a borderline case, not exactly a member or a nonmember of the category.
Perhaps the same is true for emotion. Psychologists agree that fear and anger are good examples of emotions So we might define emotion as "fear, anger, and things like that " Some researchers have proposed that we think of emotions in terms of prototypes. The definitions above describe a prototypical emotion, and other psychological states can be more or less like that prototype (Fehr & Russell, 1984; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor, 1987). Psychologists have debated whether disgust is or isn't a real emotion (Royzman & Sabini, 2001) and whether confusion, surprise, and interest count as emotions (Rozin & Cohen, 2003). Perhaps we don't need a yes or no answer-an answer of"sort of" or "in some ways" can still be helpful in advancing research. We can decide that these states are imperfect examples of emotion, just as some songs lie at the interface of disco, funk, and rock music rather than being a clear-cut example of any one style.
We do not need to settle on a final definition of emotion However, in any given discussion, we do need to state clearly what definition we are using. When people use different definitions and don't acknowledge or recognize the differences up front, confusion is likely Throughout this text, we will continue to discuss different ways of defining emotion, as well as implications of the definitions used by various researchers.
CLASSIC THEORIES OF EMOTION
We have proposed that emotional states include cognitive appraisals, feelings, physiological changes, and behaviors. Some of the most fundamental questions about emotion concern the relationships among these four aspects and how they relate to events in the environment. Do they arise separately, or does one aspect lead to the other three? Ifso, which one is primary? Let's consider the most famous classic theories.
JAMES-LANGE THEORY
The scientific approach to psychology began in Germany in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory to investigate issues ofthe mind. A few years later, the founder of North American psychology, William James (Figure 1.1 ), offered the first major theory of emotions, indeed one of the first general theories in all of psychology. The Danish psychologist Carl Lange (1885/1922) proposed a similar idea at about the same time. Although the theories differ in several ways and William James's version has been far more influential, they share enough similarities that this general approach is often referred to as the James- Lange theory. According to this theory, emotional feelings are based directly on the way the body reacts to certain situations (James, 1884, 1894). In James's words, "The bodily changes follow directly the perception ofthe exciting fact, and ... our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion" (James, 1884, p. 190). That idea contradicts the common-sense view that you feel angry and therefore you attack, or you feel frightened and therefore you try to escape. The James-Lange theory reverses the direction of cause and effect: You notice yourself attacking and therefore you feel angry. You notice yourself trying to escape and therefore you feel frightened
Common-sense view:
Event Behavior
James-Lange theory:
Event Physiological Change & Feeling
More specifically, according to James-Lange theory, sensation from the muscles and/or the internal organs is necessary for the full experience of emotion. Any decrease in this sensation decreases the emotion. One example Carl Lange (1885/1922) offered in support of this theory was the common observation that drinking wine decreases anxiety. The wine decreases your body's response to a stressor, and as you feel your body become calmer, you feel less emotion.
In addition, James (1884) proposed that every "shade of emotion" might be associated with a unique profile of changes throughout the body (p. 1 5), although he was not always consistent on this point. Thus, the difference between one emotion and another (e.g., fear versus sadness) reflects real differences in your body's instinctive responses to the eliciting situations (e.g., danger versus loss).
This theory is easily misunderstood, partly because James did not at first state it clearly enough (Ellsworth, 1994). James used the example of fear of a bear: He said that you don't run away because you are afraid of the bear; rather, the sight of the bear itselfcauses you to run away, and you feel fear because you run away Critics
pointed out that this statement is obviously wrong: You do not automatically run away from a bear. You would not run away from a caged bear, a trained bear in a circus, or a sleeping bear. True, James ( 1894) conceded: The cause of your running away is not really the bear itself, but your perception and interpretation of the situation (e.g., a dangerous animal coming toward you). Still, he argued, when you assess that situation as one calling for escape, your body prepares for escape and starts to run, and your perception of these physiological changes and behavior is your fear.
James did not clearly distinguish among all the aspects of emotion discussed earlier. In particular, he did not use the term appraisal, because this term and the associated ideas were first introduced to emotion theory in the 1960s, so we don't know whether his ideas about stimulus perceptions and interpretations map closely to the definition of appraisal offered above. Using the terminology of today, however, we would say that James's theory seeks to explain the feeling aspect of emotions. So, the proper statement of the James- Lange theory is that the feeling aspect of an emotion is the perception of the body's actions and physiological arousal:
James-Lange theory, clarified:
Event Cognition/ Physiological Changes & Feeling
CANNON-BARD THEORY
Walter Cannon, a physiologist of the early 1900s, was famous for discovering the sympathetic nervous system responsible for fight-or-flight physiological responses. He and another leading physiologist, Philip Bard, also proposed an alternative to the James-Lange theory (Bard, 1934; W B. Cannon, 1927) Cannon argued that the responses of the muscles and organs are too slow to cause the feeling aspect of emotion. According to the Cannon-Bard theory, emotional cognitions and feelings are causally independent of physiological arousal and behavior, although these aspects all occur at the same time. Restated in modern terms, the cognitive appraisal, feeling, and physiological/behavioral aspects of an emotion arise independently in response to some eliciting event:
Figure 1.1.
Wil liam james, founder of psychology in the United States. He theorized that emotional feelings are based on sensations from the muscles and internal organs, reflecting the body's automatic reaction to certain kinds of situations.
