Trends and developments: research on emotions Courants et tendances: recherche sur les émotions (original) (raw)
Related papers
What are Emotions? Structure and Function of Emotions
Studia Humana, 2016
This paper attempts to coin a stipulative definition of “emotions” to determine their functions. In this sense, “emotion” is a complex phenomenon consisting of an accurate (reliable) determination of the state of affairs in relation to the state of the subject and specific “points of adaptation”. Apart from the cognitive aspect, this phenomenon also includes behavior, physiological changes and expressions (facial expression, voice, posture), feelings, and “execution” of emotions in the nervous system. Emotions fulfill informative, calibrating, identifying, existential, and motivating functions. Emotions capture the world as either positive or negative, important or unimportant, and are used to determine and assign weightings (to set up a kind of hierarchy). They emerge automatically (involuntarily), are difficult (or hardly possible) to control and are (to some extent) influenced by culture.
A Categorized List of Emotion Definitions, with Suggestions for a Consensual Definition
A majorproblem in the field of emotion has been the wide variety of definitions that have been proposed. In an attempt to resolve the resulting ter-minological confusion, 92 definitions and 9 skeptical statements were compiled from a variety o f sources in the literature of emotion. These definitions and statements were classified into an outline of 11 categories, on the basis o f the emotional phenomena or theoretical issues emphasized. There are two traditional experiential categories of affect and cognition; three physical categories of external emotional stimuli, physiological mechanisms , and emotional~expressive behavior; definitions that emphasize disruptive or adaptive effects; definitions that emphasize the multiaspect nature of emotional phenomena, those that distinguish emotion from other processes, and those that emphasize the overlap between emotion and motivation; and skeptical or disparaging statements about the usefulness o f the concept o f emotion. The definitions are evaluated, trends are identified, and a model definition is proposed.
Trends and developments: research on emotions
2004
Although there have been decades of intensive research on different facets of emotions (for an overview of current research topics see Davidson et al., 2003; Lewis and Haviland-Jones, 2000), we do not know much about the emotional experiences people usually have in their daily lives. In particular there is a lack of knowledge about the "incidence" of emotions in ordinary daily !ife. Therefore, the research questions of Scherer and his colleagues (this issue) about the probability of the occurrence of particular emotions during an ordinary day, about potential "risk factors", 1 respective ly moderator variables and typical appraisal and reaction patterns, are of high interest. To answer these questions Scherer et al. used a population-survey methodo logy by which they were able to collect data from more than 1,000 German-and French-speaking Swiss adults. Participants were asked to report an emotional event that happened "yesterday". We t h an k lan Law for h is he1p i n improvi ng t he Eng lish of t his art icle.
What Are Emotions? – Contemporary Neuroscientific Theories
Socijalna psihijatrija, 2020
Prikazujemo četiri neurobiološko-psihološke teorije emocija kojih su autori neuroznanstvenici. Emocije su jedan od temelja ljudskog ponašanja bez kojih ne možemo zamisliti čovjeka, društvo, psihičke poremećaje ni psihoterapiju. Teško da se može naći neki psihički poremećaj da u njega nisu uključene emocije kao uzrok psihičke boli. U radu prikazujemo doprinose suvremene afektivne neuroznanosti važne za razumijevanje čovjeka i psihoterapijske prakse. / In this paper we will present four neurobiological and psychological theories of emotions proposed by neuroscientists. Emotions form the foundations of human behavior, without which we cannot imagine man, society, mental disorders, or psychotherapy. It is difficult to find a mental disorder which does not include emotions as a cause of suffering. We will present the contributions of modern affective neuroscience important for understanding both man and psychotherapy.
Author Reply: We Don’t Yet Know What Emotions Are (But Need to Develop the Methods to Find Out)
Emotion Review, 2018
Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. (a) We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus viewin this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer (henceforth "SGS") or Luiz Pessoa (henceforth "LP"). Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. (b) We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. (c) But our version of functionalism is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions.
The term emotion, stemming from the Latin emovere (to move out or agitate), broadly refers to those affective upheavals in experience that are directed at events or objects in the world and that often prompt us to act in specific ways vis-à-vis these events or objects. Since antiquity, these episodes have been branded by labels like shame, anger, fear, joy, embarrassment, or disgust, and classed into categories. Historically, Darwin's (1872) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was one of the most influential scholarly works to inform prominent understandings of emotion in many academic disciplines. Across disciplines, there is broad consensus that emotions are discrete in kind; that is, they are characterized by specific configurations of phenomenal experience, bodily changes, expressions, and action tendencies. Emotions are also widely thought to be adaptive, insofar as they are purposeful and meaningful for an individual, and reflect an evaluative engagement with the environment that helps one prepare for specific actions. Related to this capacity, emotions are generally presumed to fulfill communicative purposes, for instance through facial or vocal expressions, which is why they are deemed essential to social interaction.