Emotions have
recently become a prominent topic, with popular books like Emotional
Intelligence, Descartes’ Error and The Emotional Brain
climbing bestseller lists.  There is new, exciting research in psychology,
neuroscience, evolutionary biology, philosophy and even artificial
intelligence. Unfortunately, the investigation of the emotions is divided into
different camps, often with very different aims and methods. While
evolutionary, neurological, therapeutic and developmental approaches, to
mention only a few important research areas, don’t necessarily conflict, they
are not integrated in any obvious way. There is no standard reference for
someone who’s interested in mastering the
fundamental research on emotion. The Handbook of
Emotions, edited by Michael Lewis and Jeannette Haviland-Jones, comes
close, with excellent articles by experts in different areas, but is geared
more towards specialists than undergraduates or the merely curious.

The current state of emotion
research is reflected by university psychology departments, which rarely have a
course devoted purely to the emotions. Rather, the subject is grouped under
developmental psychology, abnormal psychology, neuroscience and other
sub-disciplines. This may change given the increasing prominence of the subject
and there is a need for a standard textbook. Robert Plutchik, professor emeritus at the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, has been publishing research on the emotions since the 1950s
and is an excellent candidate.

The text, as its title suggests,
takes an evolutionary perspective, where emotions perform biological functions
that contribute to reproduction and survival. Plutchik divides the book into
twelve sections, including a historical chapter, chapters on emotion and
cognition, language and emotion, measuring emotions, and various theories of
emotion. Other chapters include emotional development, emotions and evolution,
emotion and communication and a chapter on what
brain research tells us about emotion. Finally, there are two chapters
dedicated to specific emotions, one concerning love and sadness and the other
anger and aggression.

The text is clearly written, if a
little dry, and provides a useful introduction to
the topics it discusses. But writing a textbook, especially a pioneering one,
is a thankless task and experts in each area of emotion theory will probably
have their reservations. I have some doubts about
the text’s organization, which sometimes seems a little arbitrary.

For example, if, as Plutchik
writes, "emotions are best understood in an evolutionary framework (p.xviii),"
why is the chapter on emotions and evolution almost 200 pages into the book? It
would make more sense to place it towards the beginning, relating later
chapters back to this basic, evolutionary perspective. Perhaps this reflects the state of the subject, where there isn’t
a universally accepted theory or set of theories, but is nonetheless puzzling.

There is a general lack of unity in
the text, where topics could be combined and certain amount of repetition could
have been avoided.  Do the language of emotions
and the study of facial expressions really deserve the same space as theories
of emotions or emotions and the brain? Parts of "The
Language of Emotions" could have been incorporated into chapters about
methods for investigating emotion. The theory that emotions can be distributed
on a circumplex, depending on how closely they are related, would fit nicely in
the chapter on theories of emotions. This is also true of many of the theories
of emotion presented by prominent neurophysiologists in the chapter "Emotions
and the Brain".

Similarly, it would have made sense
to include facial expressions in the chapter on emotion and communication. I
suspect the reason for its isolation is largely the
historical role Darwin, Paul Ekman and others have played, especially in the
controversy concerning the universality of certain human emotions. Facial
expressions have received a great deal of discussion because they have commonly
been invoked to claim that there is a strong, innate component to human
emotions, instead of being somehow "socially constructed."

The degree to which emotions are
socially constructed (if at all) is a topic I believe warrants discussion. In
philosophy, at least, the extent to which emotions can differ between cultures
is a controversial topic. The Japanese have an emotion called amae which
involves a gratifying sense of dependence on a person or institution and New
Guinean’s Gururumba have an emotion translated as "being a wild pig",
where men go on  rampages, looting and attacking bystanders. This had led
some theorists to suggest that at least many human emotions and the specific
forms they take have a powerful cultural component.

Plutchik’s text — rightly, in my
opinion — supports a strong biological basis for human emotions, but it would
be valuable to see how he addresses these issues. Many philosophers pay
insufficient attention to the empirical literature, but it is true that
emotional _expression varies wildly between cultures. Does this reflect
cultural relativism concerning emotion or is it merely about "display
rules" governed by norms that dictate when it is appropriate to express
emotions? If we give an evolutionary account of basic emotions, we still need
to explain how they develop into fully fledged human emotions, taking on a
variety of objects and provoking to some extent culturally relative patterns of
behavior.

The text tends to avoid addressing
specifically human emotions. Plutchik often prefers to focus on animal studies,
perhaps because they are better established. This lack of focus on human
emotions is particularly evident in the chapter on emotional development, which
focuses almost entirely on infants and the challenge of inferring their
emotions. When it does discuss toddlers — there is no mention of older
children — it is to only mention their ability to identify emotions. Rather
oddly, there is no mention of social emotions like empathy, guilt and shame. In
fact, the only reference in the book to empathy is made about a bonobo. The
index contains no entries for guilt or shame, though they both are mentioned in
the context of the language and theories of emotion. In fact, if we rely on the
index, social emotions receive one reference, where they are defined in a
sentence, never to be heard from again. Failing to devote space to social
emotions neglects a good deal of work in developmental psychology about
prosocial emotions and moral development.

One final comment:
it would be useful to have a glossary of terms at the end of the book and a
list of recommended, relatively non-technical readings for each chapter.

Despite these concerns, Emotions
and Life provides a useful introduction to the emotions and will be of
interest to people looking for an overview of a blossoming field.

 © 2003 Alex Sager

Alex Sager
writes about himself:

I’m a
philosopher and writer, married to a Mexican lawyer.I am currently doing a
Ph.D. in philosophy at L’Université de Montréal. In my thesis I am proposing a
model of our moral psychology combining the insights of cognitive science,
developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology and other disciplines. I
believe that most philosophers are still using psychology from the 18th
century, ignoring many of the recent scientific advances, and suggest that
there is evidence our minds contain a number of innate, distinct faculties that
allow us to make moral judgments in different domains.

Categories: MentalHealth, Psychology