3 Newest Theories on How Emotions Work!
Reviewed By: Nicole Cauchois, LCPC, LADC
Written By: Daniel Mark Hipp
Western psychology has been attempting to unravel how feelings work since William James and Carl Lange proposed their theory on emotions in the 19th century. Of course, philosophers, poets, and writers have been wondering about this question for all of written history.
Since then, many have proposed their own scientific take on the order of events necessary to experiencing an emotion.
Basic Theory of Emotion
Charles Darwin was the first to suggest that facial expressions are similar around the world. This lead to the thought that there is probably a way to divide up emotions into categories.
Modern psychologists created a sorting bin and titled it basic emotions.
Paul Ekman created a list of basic emotions. These included “happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise” (Shiota & Kalat, 2018; Ekman, 1972; Ekman et al., 1987).
There have been extensive suggestions from other psychologists regarding what should be on this list. These included “contempt, shame, guilt, interest, hope, pride, relief, frustration, love, awe, boredom, jealousy, regret, and embarrassment" (Shiota & Kalat, 2018; Keltner & Buswell, 1997).
3 Qualifications of Basic Emotions
Basic emotions have three qualifications.
The Emotion Has a Purpose for Survival
The first qualification is that the emotion serves a purpose for survival. Think about a time when you ran into someone you had a crush on. You probably felt some type of way. That feeling motivated behaviors in you meant to allow motivate you to get that person’s romantic attention. Hopefully you capitalized on it.
Take the example of running into a bear in the woods. You feel fear. What is going to happen when this bear sees me? Your heart rate spikes and you either fight the bear (highly unlikely), or you sprint off and don’t look back.
The Emotion Leads to a Behavior in Response
The second qualification is that the emotion lines up a package of responses in order to serve that purpose for survival. When we ran into our crush or the bear, we had a response. Pupils dilate from seeing someone we are attracted to or in response to being just inches away from death. Heart rate spiking intended to spur action within yourself.
The Emotion is a Common Human Experience
The third qualification is that the emotion should surround circumstances common to the human psychological experience. This means that we can survey different cultures across the globe and find a similar category for the emotional response.
It’s easy to believe that anger, fear, and love are universal emotions. There’s a good chance you feel all three on a weekly basis.
How about more nuanced emotions? Perhaps the ones that may have developed later in life such as pride? Envy? Loathing? Insecurity? Homesickness?
Are all, if any, basic emotions?
3 Critical Aspects of Basic Emotions if True
The Emotion is Universal Across Cultures
The first critical aspect of emotion should be that is universal across cultures. The word or expression may not map directly to our use and definition, but there should be some categorical way to match up the basic emotion with an experience seen across cultures. This may go so far as to be seen in other species.
The Emotion has a Common Facial Expression
The second critical aspect is that should have an innate manner of expression for that emotion. It should have some sorts of distinct facial expression, or have some sort of tone associated to it. Certain resulting actions become associated to it as a response.
The Emotion Can Be Seen in Children
The third critical aspect is that we should be able to observe it early in life. Children should have displays of this emotion when socializing with others. Perhaps it is not a basic emotion, but rather a learned response later in life if it does not appear in children. How late is too late to be categorized as a basic emotion? Psychologists debate this today.
Psychological Construction Theory of Emotion
Psychologists noted that emotions did not always follow the critical qualifications and aspects of basic emotion theory.
Alternative theories were suggested on the grounds that emotions should be seen along dimensions.
If it is possible to see emotions in these dimensions, it is suggested that they are psychologically constructed by us rather than by nature. It is thought that this is a way to “organize [our] experience of the world” (Shiota & Kalat, 2018).
Core affect refers to how much pleasantness and arousal is related to the emotion in question (Russell, 2003).
Using this idea, James Russell suggested emotions should be seen as a circumplex (1980).
Circumplex Model of Emotion
In the circumplex model of emotion, emotions are viewed along two axes. The x axis measures pleasantness while the y axis measures levels of arousal. Emotions are seen in this model as falling somewhere in this graph.
I created a diagram in order to illustrate the circumplex model of emotion.
The Circumplex Model of Emotions
Russell’s circumplex model of emotion lead to the inspiration for the creation of another model of emotion which took a much direct measurement of core affect.
Evaluative Space Model of Emotions
This model utilizes two different dimensions for measuring emotion. In the evaluative space model, the x axis measures negative affect while the y axis measures positive affect.
The four corners of the graph represent whether an emotion is engaging or pleasant in relation to levels of positive and negative affect (Cacioppo et al., 1997).
I created another diagram in order to illustrate the evaluative space model of emotion.
The Evaluative Space Model of Emotion
The thought here was that situations being cognitively appraised can potentially be both good and bad. Emotions are categorized by levels of both in the evaluative space model of emotion.
Component Process Theory of Emotion
Our third and final theory of emotion is the component process model. The entirety of the component process model is based upon cognitive appraisals.
Cognitive Appraisals are the thoughts we have in relation to an event or situation. We judge situations in relation to how it affects our own personal interests.
Every theory of emotion that has come before the component process model required that a cognitive appraisal take place. What it did not take into account was that we can have many different evaluations of a triggering event.
Let’s say that we see our friend, the bear, in the woods again. Maybe you thought, “oh my gosh! What a beautiful and magnificent creature! I really want to go pet it, but I know it’ll eat me. I’m afraid of being eaten, so I’m going to start running instead now.”
How many different things were considered in evaluating the bear? There’s bewilderment from being so close to the animal. There’s an awareness that it can kill you. You have some unhealthy desire to pet the bear.
The component process model takes into account the combination of all our evaluations. It suggests that we can predict how we will respond physiologically and behaviorally to real events.
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References
Shiota, M. & Kalat, J. (2018). Emotion (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford.