Jonna Vance and Preston Werner argue that humans’ mechanisms of perceptual attention tend to be sensitive to morally relevant properties. They dub this tendency “Attentional Moral Perception” (AMP) and argue that it can play all the explanatory roles that some theorists have hoped moral perception can play. In this article, I argue that, although AMP can indeed play some important explanatory roles, there are certain crucial things that AMP cannot do. Firstly, many theorists appeal to moral perception to explain how (...) moral knowledge is possible. I argue that AMP cannot put an agent in a position to acquire moral knowledge unless it is supplemented with some other capacity for becoming aware of moral properties. Secondly, theorists appeal to moral perception to explain “moral conversions”, i.e., cases in which an experience leads an agent to form a moral belief that conflicts with her pre-existing moral beliefs. I argue that AMP cannot explain this either. Due to these shortcomings, theorists should turn to emotions for a powerful and psychologically realistic account of virtuous agents’ sensitivity to the moral landscape. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the philosophical underpinnings of current experimental investigation into animal affect-related decision-making. Animals’ affective states are standardly operationalised by linking positively valenced states with “approach” behaviours and negatively valenced states with “avoidance” behaviours. While this operationalisation has provided a helpful starting point to investigate the ecological role of animals’ internal states, there is extensive evidence that valenced and motivational states do not always neatly align, namely, instances where “liking” does not entail “wanting” (and vice versa). To address (...) this limitation, this paper proposes the (re-)integration of dominance as a dimension of affect. In particular, I argue that dominance, construed as a measure of organisms’ self-assessed behavioural control, can provide the necessary nuance to understand animal affect-related decision-making. Thus, after addressing the theoretical and methodological challenges related to incorporating dominance into a definition of “core affect”, this paper introduces the “Valence-Arousal-Dominance” model of animal affect. This model is explored for its potential applications in two domains. Firstly, in the study of animal affect-related decision-making under predation risk, and secondly, in the study of animal wellbeing. Through these applications, this model aims to bring experimental paradigms of animal affect-related behaviour closer to ecologically relevant scenarios. (shrink)

Smooth social interaction requires interindividual coordination. This Theory Section addresses the nature of the processes involved and the potential dangers of malfunctioning coordination. In her invited article, Butler provides a general overview of the processes involved, including interpersonal synchronisation, and advocates a dynamic systems framework for further research. In their commentary, Carré and Cornejo concur in principle but highlight the importance of the meaning attributed to the spontaneous expressive movements in naturally occurring interactions and the nature of the respective social (...) situations. Suhay, in her commentary from a political science perspective, highlights the need for synergy based on social coordination for successful democratic governing. In commenting on the problem of political polarisation because of malfunctioning social coordination, introduced by Butler, Suhay adds the important role played by social identity and emotion. Of particular importance are affective reactions based on “evaluative biases” in favour of information that bolsters one's views and rejection of information that challenges them. I conclude this editorial by referring to recent data on affective polarisation, pleading for more multidisciplinary research on the phenomenon, and arguing for a more substantial contribution from the cognitive and emotion sciences. In particular, I outline the “predictive coding” framework and the potential contributions from emotion science. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the judgementalist theory of emotion against the argument from recalcitrant emotions. Judgementalism holds that a necessary condition for being in an emotional state is that an evaluative belief is formed. Recalcitrant emotions are emotions that contradict endorsed beliefs and judgements. The argument from recalcitrant emotions states that a judgementalist explanation of recalcitrant emotions results in the absurd conclusion that one would hold two contradictory beliefs. I argue that emotion involves a so-called Spinozan belief-forming process: a (...) process which automatically generates beliefs, without taking all available information into account. The generated beliefs might contradict something one already believes, as the so-called Fragmentation of Belief Hypothesis predicts. Thus the judgementalist explanation of recalcitrant emotions does not lead to an absurd conclusion and therefore the argument from recalcitrant emotions is refuted. (shrink)

The opposition between a rational and an irrational behavior or thought poses difficulties in understanding: what do we really mean by «irrational»? A behavior or a thought that adheres to emotions and does not arise from slow reflection can be considered irrational; on the other hand, can we state that emotional reactions and intuitions are «irrational»? I draw from Aristotle’s De Anima the idea of bringing emotions, sensations and intellect back to a unitary movement and placing them in a certain (...) distinction with respect to dianoetic reason; Aristotelian’s bestowal of cognitive value on emotions was then lost, in Western gnoseology, in parallel with the devaluation of the prerogatives of the intellect. An analysis of the psychological literature on emotions and a summary of the history of the relationship between intellect and reason allows us to propose a new point of view on these issues. (shrink)

This paper discusses contemporary advancements in the affective sciences that can inform the music-emotion literature. Key concepts in these theories are outlined, highlighting their points of agreement and disagreement. This summary shows the importance of appraisal within the emotion process, provides a greater emphasis upon goal-directed accounts of behavior, and a need to move away from discrete emotion “folk” concepts and toward the study of an emotional episode and its components. Consequently, three contemporary music emotion theories are examined through a (...) skeptical lens. This critique highlights the over-reliance upon categorization and a lack of acknowledgment of appraisal processes, specifically goal-directed appraisal, in examining how individual experiences of music emerge in different contexts. Based on this critique of current music-emotion models, we present our skeptically informed CODA model - Constructivistly-Organised Dimensional-Appraisal model. This model addresses skeptical limitations of existing theories, reinstates the role of goal-directed appraisal as central to what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual in different contexts and brings together different theoretical frameworks into a single model. From the development of the CODA model, several hypotheses are proposed and applied to musical contexts. These hypotheses address theoretical issues such as acknowledging individual and contextual differences in emotional intensity and valence, as well as differentiating between induced and perceived emotions, and utilitarian and aesthetic emotions. We conclude with a sections of recommendations for future research. Altogether, this theoretical critique and proposed model points toward a positive future direction for music-emotion science. One where researchers can take forward testable predictions about what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider a philosophical model of self-control recently developed by Chandra Sripada and inspired by current dual-process models in both the sciences of the mind and philosophy. Sripada argues that the mind is bifurcated into two motivational systems that correspond to Emotion and Reason and that to exercise self-control is to act in accordance with reason when it comes into conflict with emotion. I argue that Sripada’s model rests on two false assumptions, that emotions are cognitively impenetrable (...) and that self-control is always about taming our emotions. Based on these arguments, I conclude that our capacity for self-control cannot be understood in terms of a divided-mind and consider a structural model of self-control recently developed by Kentaro Fujita. (shrink)

Affective valence is increasingly thought to be the common currency underlying all forms of intuitive, non-discursive decision making, in both humans and other animals. And it is thought to constitute the good or bad (pleasant or unpleasant) aspects of all desires, emotions, and moods. This article contrasts two theories of valence. According to one, valence is an experience-directed imperative (‘more of this!’ or ‘less of this!’); according to the other, valence is a representation of adaptive value or disvalue. The latter (...) is shown to provide the better account. (shrink)

Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson have argued that to evaluate the funniness of a joke based on the consideration of whether it is morally appropriate to feel amused commits the “moralistic fallacy.” We offer a new and empirically informed reply. We argue that there is a way to take morality into consideration without committing this fallacy, that is, it is legitimate to say that for some people, witty but immoral jokes can fail to be funny because they are immoral. In (...) our account, one has an intramural moral reason not to feel amused if one focuses on the moral feature itself of a joke rather than the moral consequence implied in one’s reaction to the joke. When one judges a joke as not funny because of the intramural moral reason, one is in a negative emotional state with high arousal, for example, moral disgust or anger. This state is psychologically incompatible with amusement. That one has an intramural reason not to feel amused thus implies that one does not have a reason to feel amused. Moral consideration thus plays an indirect and appropriate role in the evaluation of the funniness of a joke. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I address the question of how to construct scientific theories of emotions that are both conceptually sound and empirically fruitful. To do this, I offer an analysis of the main challenges scientific theories of emotions face, and I propose a meta-theoretical framework to construct scientific concepts of emotions as explications of folk emotion concepts. Part I discusses the main challenges theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience encounter. The first states that a proper scientific theory of emotions (...) must explain all and only the phenomena under the vernacular term ‘emotion’ with a common set of conceptual resources and under an overarching generic concept of emotion. The second demands that each emotion category corresponds to well-coordinated sets of neural, physiological, and behavioral patterns of responses. I argue that none of the best contemporary theories of emotions in psychology and neuroscience overcomes these challenges. As a result, a new theory of emotions is required. In Part II, I develop the meta-theoretical framework to construct a theory of emotions that overcomes the challenges above. First, I propose a pluralistic account of scientific kinds based on different patterns of projection that various disciplines may take to justify inductive inferences. These are essentialist, historical, and social patterns. Each of these patterns provides a framework to construct different types of scientific concepts. I argue that among the frameworks for scientific kinds available, the one that is best suited to explicate emotion concepts is a functional framework. Consequently, I conclude by recommending scientists pursue functionalist theories of emotions over essentialist, historical, or social theories. (shrink)

Researchers have proposed that blocking facial feedback via glabellar-region botulinum toxin injections can reduce depression. Random-effects meta-analyses of studies that administered GBTX...

We call affective brainocentrism the tendency to privilege the brain over other parts of the organism when defining or explaining emotions. We distinguish two versions of this tendency. According to brain-sufficient, emotional states are entirely realized by brain processes. According to brain-master, emotional states are realized by both brain and bodily processes, but the latter are entirely driven by the brain: the brain is the master regulator of bodily processes. We argue that both these claims are problematic, and we draw (...) on physiological accounts of stress to make our main case. These accounts illustrate the existence of complex interactions between the brain and endocrine systems, the immune system, the enteric nervous system, and even gut microbiota. We argue that, because of these complex brain–body interactions, the brain cannot be isolated and identified as the basis of stress. We also mention recent evidence suggesting that complex brain–body interactions characterize the physiology of depression and anxiety. Finally, we call for an alternative dynamical, systemic, and embodied approach to the study of the physiology of emotions that does not privilege the brain, but rather aims at understanding how mutually regulating brain and bodily processes jointly realize a variety of emotional states. (shrink)

Self-disorders in depression and schizophrenia have been the focus of much recent work in phenomenological psychopathology. But little has been said about the role the material environment plays in shaping the affective character of these disorders. In this paper, we argue that enjoying reliable (i.e., trustworthy) access to the things and spaces around us — the constituents of our material environment — is crucial for our ability to stabilize and regulate our affective life on a day-today basis. These things and (...) spaces often play an ineliminable role in shaping what we feel and how we feel it; when we interact with them, they contribute ongoing feedback that " scaffolds " the character and temporal development of our affective experiences. However, in some psychopathological conditions, the ability to access to these things and spaces becomes disturbed. Individuals not only lose certain forms of access to the practical significance of the built environment but also to its ​ regulative​ significance, too — and the stability and organization of their affective life is compromised. In developing this view, we discuss core concepts like " affordance spaces " , " scaffolding " , and " incorporation ". We apply these concepts to two case studies, severe depression and schizophrenia, and we show why these cases support our main claim. We conclude by briefly considering implications of this view for developing intervention and treatment strategies. (shrink)

A family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are synchronically and diachronically “scaffolded” by external resources. I consider how these “scaffolded” approaches might inform debates in phenomenological psychopathology. I first introduce the idea of “affective scaffolding” and make some taxonomic distinctions. Next, I use schizophrenia as a case study to argue—along with others in phenomenological psychopathology—that schizophrenia is fundamentally a self-disturbance. However, I offer a subtle reconfiguration of these approaches. I argue that schizophrenia (...) is not simply a disruption of ipseity or minimal self-consciousness but rather a disruption of the scaffolded self, established and regulated via its ongoing engagement with the world and others. I conclude by considering how this scaffolded framework indicates the need to consider new forms of intervention and treatment. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to consider two of the most popular arguments offered in support of the view that emotions do not cause actions. One argument suggests that emotions come after actions and therefore cannot cause them. The other argument suggests that emotions are not necessarily followed by actions and therefore cannot cause them. I argue that neither of these two arguments is compelling. At the same time, some of the concerns of causation skeptics can help us (...) better understand what a theory of the causal connection between emotions and actions should explain. (shrink)

According to the Perceptual Analysis of Emotional Expression, behaviors express emotions by making them perceptually manifest. A smile is an expression of joy because an observer who sees a smile can see joy. A pout is an expression of grief because an observer who sees a pout can see grief. And a growl is an expression of anger because an observer who hears a growl can hear anger. The idea is not simply that expressions can enable the perception of emotion, (...) but that expressions essentially do so. In the course of defending this analysis against challenges, I develop a novel account of the relationship between language and expression. (shrink)

We argue that the main objections against two central tenets of a Jamesian account of the emotions, i.e. that (1) different types of emotions are associated with specific types of bodily feelings (Specificity), and that (2) emotions are constituted by patterns of bodily feeling (Constitution), do not succeed. In the first part, we argue that several reasons adduced against Specifity, including one inspired by Schachter and Singer’s work, are unconvincing. In the second part, we argue that Constitution, too, can withstand (...) most of the objections raised against it, including the objection that bodily feelings cannot account for the outward-looking and evaluative nature of emotions. In both sections, we argue that the kinds of felt bodily changes posited by a Jamesian account of emotions are best understood in terms of felt states of action-readiness. (shrink)

Recent thinking within philosophy of mind about the ways cognition can extend has yet to be integrated with philosophical theories of emotion, which give cognition a central role. We carve out new ground at the intersection of these areas and, in doing so, defend what we call the extended emotion thesis: the claim that some emotions can extend beyond skin and skull to parts of the external world.

In this paper we adopt Sterelny's framework of the scaffolded mind, and his related dimensional approach, to highlight the many ways in which human affectivity is environmentally supported. After discussing the relationship between the scaffolded-mind view and related frameworks, such as the extended-mind view, we illustrate the many ways in which our affective states are environmentally supported by items of material culture, other people, and their interplay. To do so, we draw on empirical evidence from various disciplines, and develop phenomenological (...) considerations to distinguish different ways in which we experience the world affectively. (shrink)

In this chapter, we first introduce the idea that emotions are evaluations. Next, we explore two approaches attempting to account for this idea in terms of attitudes that are alleged to become emotional when taking evaluative contents. According to the first approach, emotions are evaluative judgments. According to the second, emotions are perceptual experiences of evaluative properties. We explain why this theory remains unsatisfactory insofar as it shares with the evaluative judgement theory the idea that emotions are evaluations in virtue (...) of their contents. We then outline an alternative � the attitudinal theory of emotions. It parts with current theorizing about the emotions in elucidating the fact that emotions are evaluations not in terms of what they represent, but in terms of the attitude subjects take towards what they represent. We explore what sorts of attitudes emotions are and claim that they are felt bodily attitudes. (shrink)

As an alternative to using the concepts of emotion, fear, anger, and the like as scientific tools, this article advocates an approach based on the concepts of core affect and psychological construction, expanding the domain of inquiry beyond “emotion”. Core affect is a neurophysiological state that underlies simply feeling good or bad, drowsy or energised. Psychological construction is not one process but an umbrella term for the various processes that produce: (a) a particular emotional episode's “components” (such as facial movement, (...) vocal tone, peripheral nervous system change, appraisal, attribution, behaviour, subjective experience, and emotion regulation); (b) associations among the components; and (c) the categorisation of the pattern of components as a specific emotion. (shrink)

This article clarifies my current and seemingly ever-changing position on issues relating to emotions. The position derives from my differential emotions theory and it changes with new empirical findings and with insights from my own and others’ thinking and writing. The theory distinguishes between first-order emotions and emotion schemas. For example, it proposes that first-order negative emotions are attributable mainly to infants and young children in distress and to older individuals in emergency or highly challenging situations. Emotion schemas are defined (...) as emotion feelings interacting with cognition in motivating the decision making and actions of everyday life. (shrink)

Many appraisal theories claim that appraisal causes emotion. Critics have rejected this claim because they believe (a) it is incompatible with the claim that appraisal is a part of emotion, (b) it is not empirically supported, (c) it is circular and hence nonempirical, and (d) there are alternative causes. I reply that (a) the causal claim is incompatible with the part claim on some but not all interpretations of the causal claim and the part claim, (b) the lack of empirical (...) support can be remedied, (c) there may even be ways to cope with the circularity problem, and (d) it is unclear to what extent the alternative causes differ from appraisal. (shrink)

A definition of emotion common to the affective sciences is an urgent desideratum. Lack of such a definition is a constant source of numerous misunderstandings and a series of mostly fruitless debates. There is little hope that there ever will be agreement on a common definition of emotion, given the sacred traditions of the disciplines involved and the egos of the scholars working in these disciplines. Our aim here is more modest. We propose a list of elements for a working (...) definition of emotion and discuss the justification for the inclusion of elements from our respective perspectives (philosophy and psychology). This working partial definition may at least serve as a litmus test to examine theories of emotion, old and new, across disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

Lindquist et al. convincingly argue that the brain implements psychological operations that are constitutive of emotion rather than modules subserving discrete emotions. However, thenatureof such psychological operations is open to debate. I argue that considering appraisal theories may provide alternative interpretations of the neuroimaging data with respect to the psychological operations involved.

Emotions, like actions, this paper argues, are typically embodied processes that are responsive to reasons, where these reasons connect closely with the agent’s desires, intentions, or projects. If so, why are emotions, nevertheless, typically passive in a sense in which actions are not; specifically, why are emotions not cases of doing something intentionally? This paper seeks to prepare the ground for answering this question by showing that it cannot be answered within a widely influential framework in the philosophy of action (...) that has been dubbed the Standard Conception of Action, shared by such diverse theorists as G.E.M. Anscombe, Donald Davidson, Jennifer Hornsby, Michael Smith. and Michael Thompson. The Standard Conception approaches agency via the notion of someone’s doing something intentionally, and links the latter notion closely to that of doing something for a reason, so as to imply ‘Anscombe’s Thesis’ that, if someone is doing something for a reason, they are doing it intentionally. The paper shows how emotions, as reason-responsive embodied processes, counterexemplify this claim. Qua processes, they can aptly be described in the progressive, as cases of trembling with fear, exploding with anger, etc. They are a kind of ‘doing’ something, for a reason, yet not intentionally. (shrink)

The ability to focus on relevant information is central to human cognition. It is therefore hardly unsurprising that the notion of relevance appears across a range of different dis- ciplines. As well as its central role in relevance-theoretic pragmatics, for example, rele- vance is also a core concept in the affective sciences, where there is consensus that for a particular object or event to elicit an emotional state, that object or event needs to be relevant to the person in whom (...) that state is elicited. Despite this, although some affective scientists have carefully considered what emotional relevance might mean, surprisingly little research has been dedicated to providing a definition. Since, by contrast, the relevance-theoretic notion of relevance is carefully defined, our primary aim is to compare relevance as it exists in affective science and in relevance theory, A further aim is to redress what we perceive to be an imbalance: Affective scientists have made great strides in understanding the processes of emotion elicitation/responses etc., but despite the fact that among humans the communication of information about emotional states is ubiquitous, pragmatists have tended to ignore it. We conclude, therefore, that affective science and relevance theory have much to learn from each other. (shrink)

Facial expressions are one of the commonly used implicit measurements for the in-vehicle affective computing. However, the time courses and the underlying mechanism of facial expressions so far have been barely focused on. According to the Component Process Model of emotions, facial expressions are the result of an individual's appraisals, which are supposed to happen in sequence. Therefore, a multidimensional and dynamic analysis of drivers' fear by using facial expression data could profit from a consideration of these appraisals. A driving (...) simulator experiment with 37 participants was conducted, in which fear and relaxation were induced. It was found that the facial expression indicators of high novelty and low power appraisals were significantly activated after a fear event. Furthermore, after the fear event, the activation of high novelty occurred earlier than low power. These results suggest that multidimensional analysis of facial expression is suitable as an approach for the in-vehicle measurement of the drivers' emotions. Furthermore, a dynamic analysis of drivers' facial expressions considering of effects of appraisal components can add valuable information for the in-vehicle assessment of emotions. (shrink)

Studies presenting memory-facilitating effect of emotions typically focused on affective dimensions of arousal and valence. Little is known, however, about the extent to which stimulus-driven basic emotions could have distinct effects on memory. In the present paper we sought to examine the modulatory effect of disgust, fear and sadness on intentional remembering and forgetting using widely used item-method directed forgetting paradigm. Eighteen women underwent fMRI scanning during encoding phase in which they were asked either to remember (R) or to forget (...) (F) pictures. In the test phase all previously used stimuli were re-presented together with the same number of new pictures and participants had to categorize them as old or new, irrespective of the F/R instruction. On the behavioral level we found a typical directed forgetting effect, i.e. higher recognition rates for to-be-remembered (TBR) items than to-be-forgotten (TBF) ones for both neutral and emotional categories. Emotional stimuli had higher recognition rate than neutral ones, while among emotional those eliciting disgust produced highest recognition, but at the same time induced more false alarms. Therefore when false alarm corrected recognition was examined the directed forgetting effect was equally strong irrespective of emotion. Additionally, even though subjects rated disgusting pictures as more arousing and negative than other picture categories, logistic regression on the item level showed that the effect of disgust on recognition memory was stronger than the effect of arousal or valence. On the neural level, ROI analyses (with valence and arousal covariates) revealed that correctly recognized disgusting stimuli evoked the highest activity in the left amygdala compared to all other categories. This structure was also more activated for remembered vs. forgotten stimuli, but only in case of disgust or fear eliciting pictures. Our findings, despite several limitations, suggest that disgust have a special salience in memory relative to other negative emotions, which cannot be put down to differences in arousal or valence. The current results thereby support the suggestion that a purely dimensional model of emotional influences on cognition might not be adequate to account for observed effects. (shrink)

In recent years, Julien Deonna and Fabrice Teroni have proposed to understand emotions as embodied evaluative attitudes we take towards objects that figure in nonevaluative representational states. Although their account nicely explains some of the key features that emotions are widely taken to have, it runs into a version of what I call the problem of integration. In the case of the attitudinal view, the integration problem takes the form of explaining how, from the point of view of the subject, (...) the bodily responses that make up the attitude part of the emotion and the representational states that provide the particular object of the emotion come to form an intentionally structured unitary experience, that is, one in which the bodily responses are intentionally directed towards the object. I argue that what explains this integration is the way in which the experience of bodily responses and the experience of the representational states interact. This, I propose, produces what I call an experience of convergence. I also suggest that understanding emotional experience in this way not only solves the problem of the integration but also provides a more solid ground for the claim that emotionsquaembodied attitudes are evaluative. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDynamic changes in emotional expressions are a valuable source of information in social interactions. As the expressive behaviour of a person changes, the inferences drawn from the behaviour may also change. Here, we test the possibility that dynamic changes in emotional expressions affect person perception in terms of stable trait attributions. Across three experiments, we examined perceivers’ inferences about others’ personality traits from changing emotional expressions. Expressions changed from one emotion to another emotion, allowing us to disentangle potential primacy, recency, (...) and averaging effects. Drawing on three influential models of person perception, we examined perceptions of dominance and affiliation, competence and warmth, and dominance and trustworthiness. A strong recency effect was consistently found across all trait judgments, that is, the end emotion of dynamic expressions had a strong impact on t... (shrink)

Contempt is typically studied as a uniquely human moral emotion. However, this approach has yielded inconclusive results. We argue this is because the folk affect concept “contempt” has been inaccurately mapped onto basic affect systems. “Contempt” has features that are inconsistent with a basic emotion, especially its protracted duration and frequently cold phenomenology. Yet other features are inconsistent with a basic attitude. Nonetheless, the features of “contempt” functionally cohere. To account for this, we revive and reconfigure thesentimentconstruct using the notion (...) of evolved functional specialization. We develop the Attitude–Scenario–Emotion (ASE) model of sentiments, in which enduring attitudes represent others' social-relational value and moderate discrete emotions across scenarios. Sentiments are functional networks of attitudes and emotions. Distinct sentiments, includinglove,respect,like,hate, andfear, track distinct relational affordances, and each is emotionally pluripotent, thereby serving both bookkeeping and commitment functions within relationships. The sentimentcontemptis an absence ofrespect; from cues to others' low efficacy, it represents them as worthless and small, mutingcompassion,guilt, andshameand potentiatinganger,disgust, andmirth. This sentiment is ancient yet implicated in the ratcheting evolution of human ultrasocialty. The manifolds of thecontemptnetwork, differentially engaged across individuals and populations, explain the features of “contempt,” its translatability, and its variable experience as “hot” or “cold,” occurrent or enduring, and anger-like or disgust-like. This rapprochement between psychological anthropology and evolutionary psychology contributes both methodological and empirical insights, with broad implications for understanding the functional and cultural organization of social affect. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop a fresh understanding of the sense in which emotions are evaluations. We argue that we should not follow mainstream accounts in locating the emotion–value connection at the level of content and that we should instead locate it at the level of attitudes or modes. We begin by explaining the contrast between content and attitude, a contrast in the light of which we review the leading contemporary accounts of the emotions. We next offer reasons to think (...) that these accounts face substantial problems since they locate the link emotions bear to values at the level of content. This provides the incentive to pursue an alternative approach according to which emotions qualify as evaluations because they are specific types of attitudes, an approach we substantiate by appealing to felt bodily stances. We conclude by considering two reasons why this approach may be resisted; they respectively pertain to the alleged impossibility of drawing the attitude–content contrast in the case of the emotions and to the suspicion that so doing raises qualia-related worries. (shrink)

Appraisal theories of emotion have had a strong impact on the development of theory and experimental research in the domain of the affective sciences. While there is generally a high degree of convergence between theorists in this tradition, some central issues are open to debate. In this contribution three issues have been chosen for discussion: (a) varieties of relevance detection, (b) varieties of valence appraisal, and (c) sequential-cumulative effects of appraisal results. In addressing these issues, new theoretical ideas are suggested (...) and an update of recent research on the sequence of appraisal processes is provided. Special emphasis is placed on nonverbal signatures of appraisal processes. (shrink)

Taking our lead from Solomon’s emphasis on the importance of the intentional object of emotion, we review the history of repeated attempts to make this object disappear. We adduce evidence suggesting that in the case of James and Schachter, the intentional object got lost unintentionally. By contrast, modern constructivists seem quite determined to deny the centrality of the intentional object in accounting for the occurrence of emotions. Griffiths, however, downplays the role objects have in emotion noting that these do not (...) qualify as intentional. We argue that these disappearing acts, deliberate or not, generate fruitless debate and add little to the advancement of our understanding of emotion as an adaptive mechanism to cope with events that are relevant to an organism’s life. (shrink)

Construal-level theory emphasizes that representing events at greater spatial, temporal, social, or hypothetical distance results in processing information at high construal levels (more conceptual, abstract). We posit that psychological distance and construal level are somewhat separable constructs, and can have different effects on emotion, and therefore, emotion regulation. We argue that psychological distance influences emotional appraisal, such that increasing distance results in lower emotion intensity, which can be leveraged to down-regulate emotions. However, we consider construal level a mindset, which can (...) occur with either high or low psychological distance. Furthermore, we argue that compared with psychological distance, construal level has a more nuanced relationship with emotion, and changing construal level for the purpose of changing emotion also requires considering the construal level of one's emotion-regulation goals. (shrink)

It is deemed that the effectiveness of teachers is highly entangled with psycho-emotional constructs, such as critical thinking (CT), emotion regulation (ER), and immunity. Despite the potential roles of CR, ER, and immunity, their possible relationships have remained unexplored in the higher education context of Iran. To fill in this lacuna, this study explored the potential role of CT and ER in university teachers' immunity in the Iranian higher education context. For this purpose, a total of 293 English university teachers (...) were selected using a convenience sampling method. They were invited to fill out the Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form, Language Teacher Emotion Regulation Inventory, and Language Teacher Immunity Instrument. The findings of path analysis indicated that the university teachers with higher CT were more productively immunized. Moreover, the results revealed that ER could predict the university teachers' immunity. The findings of the study lead to this implication that higher order thinking skills, emotion regulatory strategies, and immune enhancement should be incorporated into educational programs of higher education. (shrink)

Verifying that conceptualisations of emotions are consistent across languages and cultures is a critical precondition for meaningful cross-cultural research on emotional experience. For achievement...

Advances in our understanding of appraisal processes and emotion regulation have been two of the most important contributions of research on cognition and emotion in recent decades. Interestingly, however, progress in these two areas has been less mutually informative than one might expect or desire. To help remedy this situation, we provide an integration of appraisal theory and the process model of emotion regulation by describing parallel, interacting and iterative systems for emotion generation and emotion regulation. Outputs of the emotion (...) generation system are perceived by the emotion regulation system, and emotion regulation strategies then modulate emotion by intervening at specific stages of the emotion generation system, ultimately changing appraisal dimensions. We hope that our unified perspective will encourage and guide future research at the interface of cognition and emotion. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe recognition of emotional facial expressions is often subject to contextual influence, particularly when the face and the context convey similar emotions. We investigated whether spontaneous, incidental affective theory of mind inferences made while reading vignettes describing social situations would produce context effects on the identification of same-valenced emotions as well as differently-valenced emotions conveyed by subsequently presented faces. Crucially, we found an effect of context on reaction times in both experiments while, in line with previous work, we found evidence (...) for a context effect on accuracy only in Experiment 1. This demonstrates that affective theory of mind inferences made at the pragmatic level of a text can automatically, contextually influence the perceptual processing of emotional facial expressions in a separate task even when those emotions are of a distinctive valence. Thus, our novel findings suggest that language acts as a contex... (shrink)

Richard Wollheim claims that speech acts express emotions always in virtue of how they are said and never solely in virtue of what they say. However, it would seem to follow that we cannot express our emotions in writing, since texts preserve what we wish to say without recording how we would wish to say it. I argue that Wollheim’s thesis in fact sheds new light on how authors can and do express their emotions in writing. In short, an author (...) must employ a variety of techniques within appropriate contexts to substitute for the non-verbal behaviours that would express her emotions physically. This substitution constitutes a ‘virtual expression’ just in case it empowers readers to vividly imagine the production of these behaviours. (shrink)

Modern appraisal theories inherited a problem from the Schachter theory: are emotions directed at intentional objects, and if so, why? On both theories the emotion is initiated by some sort of cognitive state, which according to Schachter produces a state of arousal, and according to appraisal theorists a cluster of emotion-specific states. If cognitions are components of the emotional state it may seem like we can explain why emotions inherit objects from those cognitions. In this article I focus on appraisal (...) theories, and argue that appraisals are emotional components because they are synchronized with other emotion subsystems. However, emotions do not inherit their intentional objects from appraisals, because the appraisals that are emotional components are generic, rather than object-directed. (shrink)

Models of cognitive vulnerability claim that depressive symptoms arise as a result of an interaction between negative affect and cognitive reactions, in the form of dysfunctional attitudes and negative inferential style. We present a model that complements this approach by focusing on the appraisal processes that elicit and differentiate everyday episodes of emotional experience, arguing that individual differences in appraisal patterns can foster negative emotional experiences related to depression (e.g., sadness and despair). In particular, dispositional appraisal biases facilitating the elicitation (...) of these emotions more frequently and more intensely. This, in turn, is likely to have a negative influence on cognitive processing and emotion regulation in general. (shrink)