This article aims to theoretically analyse so-called character friendship from the perspective of emotions. From this angle, our research enables us to distinguish different types of emotions, and we propose a conceptual model of the hierarchy of the emotions of character friendship and their influence on social behaviour. With this model in hand, the article discusses whether other-oriented emotions fully explain the emotional underpinnings of character friendship. We find other-oriented emotions to be ambiguous because they may or may not be (...) selfless. Thus we question whether these emotions can adequately explain the bonding content of character friendship. We conclude that there is a higher affective tier related to moral emotions and moral behaviour, which we have labelled the ‘bonding feeling’. This feeling is described with reference to its historical precedents (Rof Carballo’s ‘affective warp’), thus explaining its particularity. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropology aims to discover what makes us human, but it has produced accounts that exclude some members of our species. It relies often on a non-naturalistic “philosophy of consciousness” and locates humanity in the cognitive capacity to objectively represent things, to reason teleologically and use tools, to use symbols and language, or to be self-conscious and question existence. This work pursues an alternative, thoroughly naturalistic philosophical anthropology in the tradition of Arnold Gehlen. Combining Gehlen’s theory of our behaviorally-detached and (...) culturally-determined impulses with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s views on intersubjectivity, affect, sexuality, and social institutions, the present work locates the human within the unique structure of human feeling. This produces a truly inclusive account of “the human as the other” or Homo alter. The human is deeply and thoroughly dependent on affective, bodily, communicative bonds, in which others appear as sources of meaning, norms, pleasure, and approbation and disapprobation. This socio-biological account of the human makes institutionality central to our form of life but rejects any political anthropology that attempts to use human nature to prescribe a necessary form to institutions such as the home. Such a social and affective account of the human produces a novel approach to the affect of shame as the feeling of institutional rejection. Ultimately, this work uses philosophical anthropology to combat dehumanization. Our unique form of dependency on others and institutions is present, for example, in infants and the severely disabled who may not possess the forms of consciousness and cognition that traditionally are identified with being human. (shrink)

Why are there so many controversies in evolutionary psychology? Using a couple of concepts from philosophy of science, this paper argues that evolutionary psychology has not reached the stage of mature, normal science, since it does not currently have a unifying research program that guides individual scientists working in the discipline. The argument goes against claims made by certain proponents and opponents of evolutionary psychology, and it is supported by discussion of several examples. The paper notes that just because evolutionary (...) psychology has not reached the stage of normal science, the discipline is nevertheless a source of many progressive theoretical developments and interesting empirical discoveries. (shrink)

The widely accepted “continuing bonds” model of grief tells us that rather than bereavement necessitating the cessation of one’s relationship with the deceased, very often the relationship continues instead in an adapted form. However, this framework appears to conflict with philosophical approaches that treat reciprocity or mutuality of some form as central to loving relationships. Seemingly the dead cannot be active participants, rendering it puzzling how we should understand claims about continued relationships with them. In this article, we resolve this (...) tension by highlighting two fundamental aspects of paradigmatic loving relationships that can, and often do, continue in an adapted form following bereavement: love and mutual shaping of interests, choices, and self-concepts. Attention to these continuing features of relationships helps to capture and clarify the phenomenological and behavioral features of continuing bonds. However, love and mutual shaping must also change in important ways following bereavement. Love becomes unreciprocated, and although the dead continue to shape our interests, choices, and self-concepts, we predominantly shape their legacies and memories in return. These changes place important constraints upon the nature of our interpersonal connections with the dead. (shrink)

Background: There are many reports in the mass media and scientific literature about child abuse caused by parents. Medical practitioners also are concerned about child abuse and need to grapple with the prevention and early detection of child abuse when working in medical facilities. Aim: The aim of this descriptive study was to explore the relationship between maternal and child factors contributing to child abuse. Methods: A sample of 50 multiparas (mothers with more than 1 child) in a 48-bed postpartum (...) hospital unit in Okinawa prefecture were asked to fill out an anonymous questionnaire regarding the relationship between mothers and their first child in September, 2007. The questionnaire contained 30 items of physical punishment that are quoted from “The Handbook of Correspondence to Child Abuse” (Ministry of Health, Labor and welfare in Japan), 24 items relating to maternal factors and 22 items to child factors, plus items related to mothers’ satisfaction with the health guidance given in the hospital. Data were analyzed using JMP (ver. 14.2; SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, U.S.). The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: Forty-one (82%) questionnaires were analyzed. Of the 41 valid responses, 19 mothers reported abusing their children. Child factors contributing to the abuse included the first child’s regression to infantile behavior, bullying younger brothers or sisters and being rough and violent to their friends. The significant maternal factor leading to abuse was the belief that mothers were irritated by their child. Conclusion: A first child’s developmental difficulties had a significant relationship with the harsh punishment by their mothers. The mothers need to understand their child’s developmental behavior and provide a favorable environment for nurturing young children. (shrink)

Mismatch is a prominent concept in evolutionary medicine and a number of philosophers have published analyses of this concept. The word ‘mismatch’ has been used in a diversity of ways across a range of sciences, leading these authors to regard it as a vague concept in need of philosophical clarification. Here, in contrast, we concentrate on the use of mismatch in modelling and experimentation in evolutionary medicine. This reveals a rigorous theory of mismatch within which the term ‘mismatch’ is indeed (...) used in several ways, not because it is ill-defined but because different forms of mismatch are.distinguished within the theory. Contemporary evolutionary medicine has unified the idea of ‘evolutionary mismatch’, derived from the older idea of ‘adaptive lag’ in evolution, with ideas about mismatch in development and physiology derived from the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) paradigm. A number of publications in evolutionary medicine have tried to make this theoretical framework explicit. We build on these to present the theory in as simple and general a form as possible. We introduce terminology, largely drawn from the existing literature, to distinguish the different forms of mismatch. This integrative theory of mismatch captures how organisms track environments across space and time on multiple scales in order to maintain an adaptive match to the environment, and how failures of adaptive tracking lead to disease. Mismatch is a productive organising concept within this theory which helps researchers articulate how physiology, development and evolution interact with one another and with environmental change to explain health outcomes. (shrink)

This collection of articles is almost all of the psychological writings of Mark Pettinelli.

The current thesis discusses how tools for analysing power are developed predominately for adults, and thus remain underdeveloped in terms of understanding injustices related to age, ethnicity/race and gender in childhoods. The overall aim of this dissertation is to inscribe a discourse of intersecting social injustices as relevant for childhoods and child welfare, and by interlinking postcolonial, feminist, and critical childhood studies. The dissertation is set empirically within the policy and practice of Swedish child welfare, here exemplified by the assessment (...) framework Barns Behov i Centrum. It aims to explore how Swedish child welfare, as a field of knowledge, modes of knowing and knowing subjects, constitutes an arena for claims and responses to intersecting social justice issues. The material consists of BBIC primers and selected samples from, a total of 283 case reports from a Swedish social service agency. The case reports address assessments of children. This dissertation is based on four qualitative studies using discourse analysis, as well as analysis inspired by thematic and case-study methodology. Two studies focus on child welfare discourses in BBIC documents involving social problems and violence, and two studies are based on child welfare case reports. Studies I­­-II address child welfare policy and practice by analysing the conditions required for children to participate, in terms of children’s moral status and in terms of status of ‘evidencing’ needs for protection. Studies III­­-IV explore this further from the perspective of intersecting and embodied social injustices in childhoods. Together, the studies interconnect child welfare as a field of knowledge, modes of knowing and knowers with child welfare as a moral arena for claims to rights, recognition, and social justice. The synthesised findings point to child biowelfare, in which justice discourses are largely absent. Biowelfare is informed by a mode of knowing and ‘evidencing’ risks to children’s health and development, which are confined to scientific predicting-believing, seeing-believing by professionals and a moral economy of care, all of which constrain the idea that injustices are structural and intersecting. Biowelfare primarily responds to children as ‘speaking’ biological bodies, rather than as voices of justice. In this sense, injustices of an epistemological nature are interconnected with social injustices. When issues of justice are mobilised in case reports and policy, they come across as rather ‘unjust’, primarily confined to the sphere of the family home of racialised children and not connected to ‘general’ children. In addition to intersections of age, ethnicity/race and gender, class and health are fundamental to recognition and protection in biowelfare. Finally, the dissertation indicates the need for a moral economy which responds to intersecting social injustices such as racial, gender-based and ageist violence in childhoods, and violations of children’s bodily integrity. (shrink)

Loneliness is an invisible epidemic that has swept across the world and has manifested as a serious mental and societal adjustment issues, etc. The present study was designed to make a comparison between males and females on attachment styles (dimensions),Perceived Social Support (dimension) and Loneliness. The authors also examined the relationship between loneliness, attachment style, and perceived social support and Attachment Style and Perceived Social Support as Predictors of Loneliness among College Students. 256 Students studying in Jamia Millia Islamia, and (...) Delhi University were selected through purposive sampling. Measure of Attachment Style Questionnaire, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and UCLA Loneliness Scale were administered. Results of the study indicated that both Ambivalent and Avoidant attachment style emerged as a predictor of loneliness. Males experienced greater loneliness as compared to female counterparts. Our study is specific and relevant to parents, mental health professionals and educators working with college students. (shrink)

Evolutionary epistemology (Lorenz, Vollmer) and value-driven decision theory (Pugh) are used to explain the fundamental properties of consciousness. It is shown that this approach is compatible with global workspace theory (Baars) and global neuronal workspace theory (De Haene). The emotions are, however, that what drives consciousness. A hypothetical evolutionary tree of the emotions is given – intended to show that consciousness evolves and is probably qualitatively different in different groups of animals.

Chapter 1 (To know in order to survive) & Chapter 2 (A critique of evolved reason) explain human knowledge and its limits from an evolutionary point of view. Chapter 3 (Captured in our Cockpits) explains the evolution of consciousness, using value driven decision theory. Chapter 4-6 (Chapter 4 Sociobiology, Chapter 5 Culture: the Human Arena), Chapter 6, Genes, Memes, and the Environment) show that to understand culture you have at least to deal with 4 levels: genes, brains, the environment, culture. (...) Chapter 7-8 (Why some apes became humans) give a model of human evolution in which Alexander's concept of 'ecological dominace' plays a crucial role. (shrink)

To explain the evolutionary emergence of uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation, Tomasello et al. (2012, in Current Anthropology 53(6):673–92) proposed the interdependence hypothesis. The key adaptive context in this account was the obligate collaborative foraging of early human adults. Hawkes (2014, in Human Nature 25(1):28–48), following Hrdy (Mothers and Others, Harvard University Press, 2009), provided an alternative account for the emergence of uniquely human cooperative skills in which the key was early human infants’ attempts to solicit care and (...) attention from adults in a cooperative breeding context. Here we attempt to reconcile these two accounts. Our composite account accepts Hrdy’s and Hawkes’s contention that the extremely early emergence of human infants’ cooperative skills suggests an important role for cooperative breeding as adaptive context, perhaps in early Homo. But our account also insists that human cooperation goes well beyond these nascent skills to include such things as the communicative and cultural conventions, norms, and institutions created by later Homo and early modern humans to deal with adult problems of social coordination. As part of this account we hypothesize how each of the main stages of human ontogeny (infancy, childhood, adolescence) was transformed during evolution both by infants’ cooperative skills “migrating up” in age and by adults’ cooperative skills “migrating down” in age. (shrink)

Psychologists often characterize the infant’s attachment to her primary caregiver as love. Philosophical accounts of love, however, tend to speak against this possibility. Love is typically thought to require sophisticated cognitive capacities that infants do not possess. Nevertheless, there are important similarities between the infant-primary caregiver bond and mature love, and the former is commonly thought to play an important role in one’s capacity for the latter. In this work, I examine the relationship between the infant-primary caregiver bond and love. (...) I argue that while these very early attachments do not represent genuine love, a fuller understanding of them can inform extant philosophical views of love. (shrink)

It is not uncommon for philosophers to name disinterestedness, or some like feature, as an essential characteristic of love. Such theorists claim that in genuine love, one’s concern for her beloved must be non-instrumental, non-egocentric, or even selfless. These views prompt the question, “What, if any, positive role might self-interestedness play in genuine love?” In this paper, I argue that attachment, an attitude marked primarily by self-focused emotions and emotional predispositions, helps constitute the meaning and import of at least some (...) kinds of adult reciprocal love. In this way, attachment represents a type of self-interestedness that not only contributes positively to such relationships but is also essential to them. (shrink)

Despite its complex experiential structure, the phenomenon of grief following bereavement has not been a major topic of phenomenological research. The paper investigates its basic structures, elaborating as its core characteristic a conflict between a presentifying and a ‘de-presentifying’ intention: In grief, the subject experiences a fundamental ambiguity between presence and absence of the deceased, between the present and the past, indeed between two worlds he lives in. This phenomenological structure will be analyzed under several aspects: regarding bodily experience, as (...) disruption of a shared intercorporeality; as a loss of the shared world and shared habitualities, leaving the bereaved person with ubiquitous indications of absence and with a contraction of their own self; regarding temporality, as a separation of two strands of time, namely a still ongoing past and an alienated present which become more and more desynchronized; finally, as an “as-if presence” of the deceased which the bereaved continue to feel and sometimes to perceive, leading to a cognitive-affective conflict between two experienced realities. The transforming process of grief is then analyzed as a gradual adjustment to the loss, finally enabling a re-integration of the conflicting realities. This is achieved through an incorporation and identification with the deceased on the one hand, and through various forms of representation on the other hand, in particular by recollection and symbolization. (shrink)

This study examines a moderated/mediated model of ethical leadership on follower job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. We proposed that managers have the potential to be agents of virtue or vice within organizations. Specifically, through ethical leadership behavior we argued that managers can virtuously influence perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn will positively impact organizational members’ flourishing as measured by job satisfaction and affective commitment to the organization. We also hypothesized that perceptions of interactional justice would moderate the ethical (...) leadership-to-climate relationship. Our results indicate that ethical leadership has both a direct and indirect influence on follower job satisfaction and affective commitment. The indirect effect of ethical leadership involves shaping perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn, engender greater job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Furthermore, when interactional justice is perceived to be high, this strengthens the ethical leadership-to-climate relationship. (shrink)

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system? The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data. To this end, we have developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation. The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, (...) serving the 'somatic nervous system[. For this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior. The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and “low level” than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness. Passive frame theory begins to illuminate (a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function, (b) how consciousness achieves this function, and (c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes. Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is 'descriptive' (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than 'normative' (construing processes in terms of how they should function). Passive frame theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness. (shrink)

Carroll Izard’s theoretical and research contributions to the study of early socioemotional development are profiled. His studies of early emotional expression and the formulations of differential emotions theory have stimulated contemporary inquiry into the organization of early emotional life, the developmental processes by which distinct feelings and facial expressions become progressively concordant, and how the emotional expressions of others become imbued with emotion meaning. His work on emotion, attachment, and emotion–cognition relations has contributed to contemporary study of the emotional bases (...) of attachment organization and the development of the internal working models associated with attachment security. Because of Izard’s contributions, developmental emotions research is theoretically richer, and emotion has a more central place in our understanding of development and motivation. (shrink)

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder was recently moved to a full category in the DSM-5 . It also appears set for inclusion as a separate disorder in the ICD-11 . This paper argues that PMDD should not be listed in the DSM or the ICD at all, adding to the call to recognise PMDD as a socially constructed disorder. I first present the argument that PMDD pathologises understandable anger/distress and that to do so is potentially dangerous. I then present evidence that PMDD (...) is a culture-bound phenomenon, not a universal one. I also argue that even if medication produces a desired effect, there are biological correlates with premenstrual anger/distress, such anger/distress seems to occur monthly, and women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with affective disorders, none of these factors substantiates that premenstrual anger/distress is caused by a mental disorder. I argue that to assume they do is to ignore the now accepted role that one’s environment and psychology play in illness development, as well as arguments concerning the social construction of mental illness. In doing so, I do not claim that there are no women who experience premenstrual distress or that their distress is not a lived experience. My point is that such distress can be recognised and considered significant without being pathologised and that it is unethical to describe premenstrual anger/distress as a mental disorder. Further, if the credibility of women’s suffering is subject to doubt without a clinical diagnosis, then the way to address this problem is to change societal attitudes towards women’s suffering, not to label women as mentally ill. The paper concludes with some broader implications for women and society of the change in status of PMDD in the DSM-5 as well as a sketch of critical policy suggestions to address these implications. (shrink)

The goal of forming a science of intentional behavior requires a more richly detailed account of symbolic systems than is assumed by the authors. Cultural systems are not simply the equivalent in the ideational domain of culture of the purported Baldwin Effect in the genetic domain. © 2014 Cambridge University Press.

We propose two fundamentally different motives for helping: gaining pleasure and fulfilling one’s duty (‘‘pressure’’). Using the newly developed pleasure and pressure based prosocial motivation scale, we demonstrated the distinctiveness of pleasure and pressure based prosocial motivation in three studies. Although the two motives exhibited different relations to a variety of personality characteristics, they were similarly related to trans-situational helping. Of particular interest, pleasure based prosocial motivation was positively related to self-actualization, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and positive affect and negatively related (...) to negative affect. On the contrary, pressure based prosocial motivation was unrelated to self-actualization, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and positive affect but positively related to negative affect. These results qualify research showing that prosocial life goals generally increase subjective well-being. (shrink)

The ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) demands that those participating nations, adopt the aims of the convention as state responsibilities toward their child citizens. The central premise of the convention is clear: that it is the right of all children to develop to their full potential. The authors propose six basic interdependent developmental requirements if the child is to reach ‘full potential’. Without prioritising any one need, but instead concentrating on the facilitation (...) of complete care of the child, the paper aims to examine how the UNCRC may finally be realised. This is achieved by highlighting several key situations and associated factors, which contribute to deficient care. Whilst the factors leading to the creation of such situations are often culturally specific, the consequences for the child, and the implications for care providers (parents, aid agencies, and policy makers), are often very similar within and between continents. (shrink)

Davey suggests that increased resistance to extinction of CRs conditioned to fear-relevant stimuli may be due to more persistent expectancies of the UCS following these stimuli. However, this viewpoint is contradicted by existing empirical evidence that fear-relevant CRs survive an extinction trials series producing extinction of expectancies whereas CRs conditioned to non-fear-relevant CSs do not.

Davey has failed to clarify the critical evidence that could corroborate the expectancy bias hypothesis and refute preparedness theory. Such a clarification is necessary because each theory could potentially allow for multiple distal and proximal influences on selective associations. Expectancies are not the only proximal mediators. Our recent findings indicate that affective response matching may be an additional factor promoting such associations.

Guided by principles of life history strategy development, this study tested the hypothesis that sexual precocity and violence are influenced by sensitivities to local environmental conditions. Two models of strategy development were compared: The first is based on indirect perception of ecological cues through family disruption and the second is based on both direct and indirect perception of ecological stressors. Results showed a moderate correlation between rates of violence and sexual precocity (r = 0.59). Although a model incorporating direct and (...) indirect effects provided a better fit than one based on family mediation alone, significant improvements were made by linking some ecological factors directly to behavior independently of strategy development. The models support the contention that violence and teenage pregnancy are part of an ecologically determined pattern of strategy development and suggest that while the family unit is critical in affecting behavior, individuals’ direct experiences of the environment are also important. (shrink)

Since the late 1970s, disruptions and “failure” of maternal-infant bonding have been causally linked to postpartum depression. Part I of this paper examines the grounds for this connection while tracing the ramifications of bonding theory (Klaus and Kennell 1976) through obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatry, as well as in the (mis)representations of it in the popular media. This discussion resolves into a view of maternal attachment as a long-term development progressively established through intensive mother-infant interaction. The forms of this interaction are (...) phylogenetically determined, albeit culturally and personally mediated. Flowing from this premise, Part II of the paper casts postpartum depression as an adaptive response to threat (from whatever cause) to adequate mothering, and develops an argument for the evolutionary role of enacted social ties in the establishment of maternal responsiveness. (shrink)

In this presentation, I delineate five refinements that I and my associates have introduced during the last decade to the literature on religion and spirituality from an attachment-theory perspective. First, I describe the principle of social correspondence as an addition to the idea that religiousness reflects generalizing working models of attachment. Second, I focus on what we have learned from studying implicit processes and utilizing experimental designs in religion-as-attachment research. Third, I describe results from research projects that have used developmentally (...) validated attachment assessments, such as the Adult Attachment Interview. Fourth, I emphasize the need for engaging a wider developmental range in religion-as-attachment research and sum up what we have found using non-adult samples. Finally, I argue for employing a wider research perspective on the attachment-religion/spirituality connection than the central parameters of an attachment framework would suggest, by considering possible mediators between attachment and religious or spiritual outcomes. (shrink)

Both Watts and Beit-Hallahmi are enthusiastic about attachment theory as an important contribution to the psychology of religion, but they raise very different criticisms regarding other aspects of the book. I respond to Beit-Hallahmi by defending my assertion that a scientific approach to psychology of religion need not lead to the conclusion, nor rest on the premise, that the beliefs under study are ontologically false. I argue further that this "veridicality trap" has deep roots in prevailing, deeply mistaken assumptions about (...) how the mind/brain works, and show how an evolutionary approach clearly exposes such reasoning as fallacious and offers a powerful, alternative perspective on the problem. In response to Watts, I defend evolutionary psychology against the charge that it is not sufficiently empirical, and argue that the computational cognitive approach he prefers should be seen as complementary to an evolutionary approach rather than an alternative to it. (shrink)

Gossip is a subject that has been studied by researchers from an array of disciplines with various foci and methods. We measured the content of language use by members of a competitive sports team across 18 months, integrating qualitative ethnographic methods with quantitative sampling and analysis. We hypothesized that the use of gossip will vary significantly depending on whether it is used for self-serving or group-serving purposes. Our results support a model of gossip derived from multilevel selection theory that expects (...) gossip to serve group-beneficial rules when rewards are partitioned at the group level on a scale that permits mutual monitoring. We integrate our case study with earlier studies of gossip conducted by anthropologists, psychologists, and management researchers. (shrink)

, Looping Effects, the Self, Psychopathology.

The paper first introduces the concept of implicit and explicit temporality, referring to time as pre-reflectively lived vs. consciously experienced. Implicit time is based on the constitutive synthesis of inner time consciousness on the one hand, and on the conative–affective dynamics of life on the other hand. Explicit time results from an interruption or negation of implicit time and unfolds itself in the dimensions of present, past and future. It is further shown that temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity are closely connected: (...) While implicit temporality is characterised by tacit bodily functioning and by synchronisation with others, explicit temporality arises with states of desynchronisation, that is, of a retardation or acceleration of inner time in relation to external or social processes. These states often bring the body to awareness as an obstacle as well. On this basis, schizophrenia and melancholic depression are investigated as paradigm cases for a psychopathology of temporality. Major symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder, thought insertion, hallucinations or passivity experiences may be regarded as manifesting a disturbance of the constitutive synthesis of time consciousness, closely connected with a weakening of the underlying pre-reflective self-awareness or ipseity. This results in a fragmentation of the intentional arc, a loss of self-coherence and the appearance of major self-disturbances. Depression, on the other hand, is mostly triggered by a desynchronisation from the social environment and further develops into an inhibition of the conative–affective dynamics of life. As will be shown, both mental illnesses bear witness of the close connection of temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity. (shrink)

Donald Gustafson has argued that grief centres on a combination of belief and desire:The belief that the subject has suffered an irreparable loss.The desire that this should not be the case.And yet, as Gustafson points out, if the belief is true, the desire cannot be satisfied. Gustafson takes this to show that grief inevitably implies an irrational conflict between belief and desire.I offer a partial defence of grief against Gustafson's charge of irrationality. My defence rests on two elements. First, I (...) offer an alternative model of emotion, which presents emotions as complex episodes, initiated by emotional appraisals. Secondly, I appeal to John Bowlby's account of grief to argue that grief involves two forms of sadness (anguish and desolation) which Gustafson's analysis runs together. I concede that anguish does characteristically involve an element of irrationality. But the irrationality of anguish does not arise from an apparently gratuitous clash between belief and desire, but from a conflict between emotion and belief—a form of irrationality that is both familiar and easily explained. Moreover, desolation need not involve any irrationality. (shrink)