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(9/10/98)

CHAPTER XIII

A MODERN LOOK AT FEELINGS

What are emotions? How many emotions are there? What purpose do they serve? Where did they come from? The foregoing questions and many more are answered below. Emotions are of fundamental concern to a Science of Religion and a Religion of Wisdom since the primary goal is to achieve a sustainable feeling that one's life has meaning. This is a positive, energized feeling state that includes all feelings. Therefore, it seems important to understand to the degree possible all emotions and related information. This chapter draws from an outstanding reference source[1] to guide discussion.

"This book is about a new integration [by psychologists, ethologists[2], biologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts]. It is based on the assumption that emotions are of fundamental importance to all living creatures, that they have evolutionary significance, and that there are very important parallels between emotions in lower organisms and in humans. It examines these issues in detail, considers the theories and hypotheses of many writers, and goes further in attempting a synthesis of the different views and of the evidence that is available. It will become evident that the subject of emotion is a large topic, with ramifications in almost all areas of psychology and life."

"...an attempt will be made to relate emotions in a systematic way to a variety of interconnected domains: cognitions, personality, defense mechanisms, and diagnostic concepts."[1] (p. xiv)

"The philosophers of science have taught us that adequate theories should have at least four functions. Theories should act as integraters of facts already known; they should show connections, if possible, between apparently separate areas; they should stimulate new research; and they should predict some new relations."

"During the 1960s there was a ferment of new ideas from investigators in diverse fields, and for the first time the foundations of a general theory of emotion are becoming evident. This book will explore these ideas and will attempt to answer many of the questions that any thoughtful person would ask about emotions, or suggest the kinds of research needed to provide the information we need."(p. xviii)

"Almost everyone who has written about emotions during the past century has considered them from one of four points of view. Each of these views was associated initially with the work of a particular individual, and each has influenced the thinking and research of scientists to the present day....these four pioneers [are]: Charles Darwin, William James, Walter Cannon, and Sigmund Freud."

"Charles Darwin and the Evolutionary Tradition:

"Darwin began to collect evidence for [the evolutionary history of emotions that could be identified at different phylogenetic levels]..., and in 1872 his classic book THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS was published. This book has had a major influence on contemporary thinking on the subject of emotions and is the source of the evolutionary tradition."(p. 1)

"...Darwin's view of expressive behavior is a functional one. Emotional expressions serve some function in the lives of animals. They act as signals and as preparation for action. They communicate information from one animal to another about what is likely to happen and thereby affect the chances of survival."(p. 5)

RESPONSE: Emotions also mobilize and focus an animal's energy and behavior. This becomes particularly important at the human level because this positive, focused energy results in a feeling state that promotes and maintains the life of the individual.

p. 6: "William James and the Psychophysiological Tradition:

"Twelve years after Darwin had published his book on emotion, the American psychologist-philosopher William James published an article in which he presented a new way of looking at emotion, and at the same time founded a second major tradition in the psychology of emotions (James, 1884). In his article and in an expanded chapter in his book published in 1890, William James pointed out that the commonsense way to think about the sequence of events when an emotion occurs is that the perception of a situation gives rise to a feeling of emotion, which is then followed by various bodily changes. His theory was that this sequence is incorrect. Instead he proposed that bodily changes directly follow a perception of an exciting event and that the feelings of these bodily changes is the emotion. (p. 8) "Unfortunately, James never examined [several] questions implied by his theory. For example, how does a perception produce a bodily change in the first place."

(p. 9) "Because James and many who have followed him have been concerned with the relations between introspective states and physiological changes, this approach may be described as the psychophysiological tradition."

(p. 9) "Walter B. Cannon and the Neurological Tradition:

"A few years after William James died, another Harvard professor, Walter Cannon, working in the Physiology Department, began to publish a series of studies concerned with testing and modifying the James-Lange theory. These studies led Cannon to reject the basic elements of this theory and to propose an alternative one. In his book BODILY CHANGES IN PAIN, HUNGER, FEAR AND RAGE, first published in 1915 and revised in 1929, he presented evidence that raised serious questions about the James-Lange theory. The evidence consisted of five major points."

"First, Cannon pointed out that even when extensive surgery was done on animals such that no sensory impulses could reach the brain it was found that the animals showed typical emotional reactions of anger, fear, and pleasure. The lack of feedback of visceral changes apparently had no effect on emotional expression, as the James-Lange theory would have predicted.

(p. 11) "Cannon's second criticism was based on the fact that stressful stimuli of any type tend to produce pretty much the same physiological reactions....These visceral responses seem to be too uniform to provide a basis for distinguishing between strong emotions or between emotions and other nonemotional stresses."

"Cannons third criticism simply pointed out that the viscera are relatively insensitive structures....Therefore, it appears unlikely that such visceral events could contribute to an individual's recognition of his or her own emotional states."

"The fourth criticism that Cannon offered concerns the slow reaction time of visceral organs to stimulation....It...seemed unlikely that visceral events could provide information to the brain quickly enough to help individuals decide what emotional state they were experiencing."

"Finally, Cannon pointed out that attempts to artificially induce visceral changes typical of strong emotions did not produced emotional feelings. For example, injection of adrenalin into normal or abnormal persons produced...extensive bodily changes...yet did not induce feelings of fear or any other emotion."

Cannon presented an alternative theory of emotion:

(p. 13) "Instead of assuming that there is a linear sequence of events relating perception to feeling, as believed by William James, Cannon proposed that the thalamic discharge simultaneously produces both an emotional experience and a series of bodily changes. This hypothesis is sometimes called the Cannon-Bard theory because of the empirical studies of Bard dealing with these issues."

(p. 14) "Cannon [proposed]...that visceral changes did not tell us anything about emotions; rather, they were homeostatic adjustments that helped the body prepare for action." [fight, or flight]

(p. 14) "Several points are worth noting about [these theories]. First, all views start with the idea that a perception is necessary to start an emotional process. Second, none of the theories makes any attempt to explain how a perception can directly produce an emotional feeling, a motor reaction, or a hypothalamic arousal. Third, all the theories are concerned fundamentally with conscious, reportable, subjective, emotional experience."

(p. 15) "Sigmund Freud and the Dynamic Tradition:

"In 1895, Freud published a book, STUDIES ON HYSTERIA, that described the development of his new theory of the origin of this illness. At the same time he laid the foundation for a theory of emotion."

(p. 17) Freud and psychoanalysts in general call emotions "affects." They thought of behavior being controlled by basic drives -- sex drive and ego drives. "These drives were to be thought of as internal stimuli that effected the behavior of each individual by regulating directions and type of action. Each drive was assumed to have a source, an aim, and an object. The source of each drive was to be found in some biological or biochemical internal process; the aim was discharge and pleasure. The object of each drive could vary greatly and was dependent on experience, learning, and the vicissitudes of conditioning. An important characteristic of drives was their lability; they could be displaced, localized, or transformed."

"The ego drives included hunger, thirst, and aggression, although Freud was not always consistent on how he classified aggression. Also included in the ego drives were impulses to control others, to wield power, to attack, and to flee from danger. Freud did not assume that aggressiveness was always present and striving for expression; he assumed that aggressiveness appeared only when a person's survival was threatened. Also part of the aggressive drive were feelings of hate and destructiveness."

"Freud's concept of drives was not a theory of emotion, but it did provide some basis for psychoanalytic interpretations of two major affects, anxiety and depression."

(p. 20) "...the psychoanalytic view of affects assumes: (1) that an unconscious process occurs between the perception of the stimulus evoking an emotion and the peripheral physiological or visceral change; (2) that the peripheral autonomic change and the feeling of the emotion are both discharge processes of the same drive source of energy; and (3) that all emotions are mixed in that they are expressions of conflicts."

"The psychoanalytic theory of emotion, as represented by these views, contains some interesting ideas. It eliminates the sequence problem (i.e., which came first, the feeling or the bodily change) by claiming that they both result from an unconscious evaluation. It emphasizes the idea that some aspects of an emotion are unconscious and therefore cannot be examined by introspection alone....Finally, it suggests that conflicts are involved in all emotions."

"Despite these views, Freud never developed a general theory of emotion."

(p. 35) Many individuals have developed theories about emotions. Each theory "tends to be incomplete in that it focuses upon one or another narrow issue, taken as a whole such theories deemphasize subjective feelings as essential ingredients of emotion. They create a framework within which animal behavior can be encompassed as part of a theory of emotion."

(p. 30) Harold Schlosberg: A Three-Dimensional Model of Emotion. Developed idea that emotions form not a linear line, but a circular series with a vertical dimension of intensity. He did not develop the model.

(p. 36) "According to... [Schrachter and Singer], the same state of physiological arousal could be interpreted by a person as joy or anger or any other emotional state depending on his or her interpretation of the situation." [See p. 284 for Plutchik's synthesis of this model.]

(p. 38) George Mandler: "...states he is concerned with presenting a psychological rather than a physiological concept of arousal as a basic explanatory term."

(p. 40) "[Richard S.] Lazarus strongly rejects the idea that emotions are motivations."/P>

He defines emotion "as a complex disturbance that includes three main components: subjective affect, physiological changes related to species-specific forms of mobilization for adaptive action, and action impulses having both instrumental and expressive qualities."

(p. 42) "[Lazarus'] work is more a statement of a program for future research than it is a reasonably complete description of a model."

(p. 44) Evolutionary Theories of Emotion:

These "theories differ from one another in many important ways, they share a profound belief in the generality of emotions across species and in the concept that emotions have positive, adaptive value."

"[Sylvan S.] Tomkins assumes that there are eight basic emotions (or affects, as he prefers to call them). The positive ones are (1) interest, (2) surprise, and (3) Joy. The negative ones are (4) anguish, (5) fear, (6) shame, (7) disgust, and (8) rage. These basic emotions are 'innately patterned responses' to certain types of stimuli and are expressed through a wide variety of bodily reactions, particularly through facial responses. For each distinct affect there are assumed to be specific 'programs' stored in subcortical areas of the brain. There is therefore a genetic, species-related basis for the expression of the basic emotions."

"Much of the emphasis of the theory is on the distinctions between the affect system and the motivational system."

"The affect system is more general than the drive system....Affects are stronger than drives...."

(p.45) [Carroll E. Izard] "...proposes that affects are primarily facial responses." Izard states that an "emotion (is) an experience defined not by a stimulus but by evolutionary-hereditary processes"

(p. 47) Robert Plutchik looks at importance of the problems of intensity, persistence, purity, individual differences, and introspection:

Intensity --- emotions can exist in varying degrees.

Persistence -- the duration of an emotional state must be part of its investigation.

Purity -- needs to specify the nature and mixture of emotions.

Individual differences -- can vary greatly from person to person.

Introspection -- to the degree possible evaluation of emotions should be free of introspections.

(p. 49) Plutchik has developed "a conceptual model of the emotions based on the idea that emotions must be considered from a broad, evolutionary point of view."

"Within the framework of the theory a basic or primary emotion is one that is identifiable at all phylogenetic levels, including humans, and has adaptive significance in the individual's struggle for survival. Eight such basic or 'prototypic' patterns of emotion are described; it is then possible to show systematically that mixtures of two or more primary emotions produce the many hundreds of mixed emotions we encounter in daily life and clinical practice. All individual differences in the emotional realm can thus be conceptualized as the overt expression of combinations of eight basic dimensions."

(p. 50) "The brain contains a model of the animals' world; indeed each species of animal or plant in a sense 'models' or represents the world around it." J.Z. Young

RESPONSE: In my mind the foregoing generalizes the HBAURS concept to point out that each species has its own reference system that everything it encounters is referred to.

(p. 50) J.W. Papez: Integrated Brain Pathways for Emotion

"In 1937 the neurologist J.W. Papez proposed the existence of certain brain pathways that mediate emotional experience. He pointed out that the word emotion refers to both a way of acting (emotional expression) and a way of feeling (subjective experience), and that different parts of the brain were involved in these two aspects of emotion."

(p. 51) "...[Paul D.] MacLean points out that the course of evolution has, in a sense, juxtaposed three different types of brains into one; and despite differences in structure, they must function together. The oldest type of brain is basically reptilian; the second is inherited from lower mammals; and the third is a late development in terms of evolution, found most highly developed in the primates."

(p. 56) "[Karl H.] Pribram's theory of emotion differs from others in a number of ways. First of all, rather than emphasizing visceral changes as a major source of input for feeling states, he emphasizes memory factors."

(p. 58) "[Magda B. Arnold's]...basic philosophical position is that an analysis of the subjective aspects of emotion -- what she calls its phenomenology -- can provide a guide toward identifying the brain structures and pathways that are involved in emotions."

"Emotional states or behavior always presuppose some kind of appraisal or evaluation that the individual has made of a situation."

(p. 59) "...the transient reactions we call emotions may become habitual and produce an enduring habit or disposition. Such dispositions are very much like personality traits."

(p. 61) "[Jose M.R. Delgado]...has demonstrated...that there are three types of brain structures in relation to emotion. In the first type, electrical brain stimulation produces no observable effects that can be considered emotional....When electrically stimulated, the second type of structure will produce behavioral manifestations of emotions but will not produce subjective experiences of emotion....The third type of structures will produce both emotional behavior and emotional experiences when electrically stimulated."

(p. 62) "His conclusion is that understanding (or evaluation) precedes the emotion."

(p. 64) "...Delgado's work is an outstanding example of an attempt to integrate both neurological data and psychological concepts."

(p. 65) "[Marfred] Clynes believes that emotions are unique sensory experiences, in many ways like feelings such as 'redness,' 'warmth,' or 'itch.' He believes that the experiences of emotion -- anger, fear, joy -- are based on genetically programmed brain states. However, an emotion is more than an experience, according to Clynes; emotion refers to 'a class of qualities which is inherently linked to the motor system, so that its uniqueness is complete only with inclusion of the dynamics of the motor system as an integral part of their spatio-temporal existence....Emotion and its expression form an existential unit, a system.'"

"Clynes lists a number of principles that govern the operation of emotional (sentic) states. For example, he says:

1. Only one sentic state can be expressed at any one time.

2. A sentic state may be expressed by any one of a number of different output modalities.

3. The dynamic expression of a sentic state is governed by a brain program which is specific for that state.

4. Recognizing a sentic form generates a sentic state in the perceiver.

5. The intensity of a sentic state is increased, within limits, by the repeated, arrhythmic generation of essentic forms [basic patterns that determine each emotion] by expressive behavior.

These principles are partly assumptions and are partly based on some empirical data...."

(p. 69) "Not only does [Sandor] Rado's 'method of contextual inference' help identify affects in a patient, but it also makes possible the identification of specific types of affects. In this connection he lists seven affect patterns that may be identified, but he implies that there are others as well. These patterns include escape, combat, submission, defiance, brooding, expiation, and self-damage, among others."

"He hypothesizes that there are four psychological levels of integration or control. The first, called the hedonic level, refers simply to the effects of pleasure and pain in organizing and selecting forms of behavior. This mode of control is quite primitive and is found in all organisms, even the very lowest. Its effect is to move an individual towards a source of pleasure and away from a source of pain."

(p. 70) "The second level of integration Rado calls the brute-emotional level....'basic' emotions of fear, rage, love, and grief....In a sense the overt behavior is an amplifier of whatever feeling state exists in the organism."

"Rado calls the third level of integration the emotional-thought level, and it is associated with a notable increase in encephalization of the brain."

"At this level of control, emotions are more restrained and more mixed. Derivative emotions appear such as apprehension, annoyance, jealousy, and envy."

"The fourth level of regulation of action Rado calls the unemotional-thought level. This involves the mastery of events by rational, intellectual means alone. The key elements of such mastery are foresight and postponement of reaction. Reason can overrule the evaluation of events determined by immediate feelings of pleasure or pain and can lead an individual to engage in painful means designed to achieve pleasurable goals."

RESPONSE: It is for the above dimension that I believe the FLIHM (Feeling that one's LIfe Has Meaning) concept provides a more focused explanation than pleasure and pain.

(p. 71) "...Rado defines emotion as 'the preparatory signal that prepares the organism for emergency behavior....The goal of this behavior is to restore the organism to safety.'"

"He claims that disordered behavior is fundamentally an overreaction. A person who experiences pain, fear, rage, or other emergency emotions tries to get rid of the cause by withdrawal, submission, or combat. However, these emergency reactions have at least three serious imperfections as control mechanism. For one thing, inborn fear and rage responses need to be conditioned in order to occur appropriately in any give culture. Since sometimes this conditioning process is unsuccessful, a person may continue to react with fear to conditions that are not realistically threatening or may not react with fear or anger when he or she should."

(p. 72) "To summarize his views on maladaptation, he believes that behavioral disorders are based on emergency dyscontrol, resulting from excessive feelings of rage, pain, and fear that impede rather than aid individuals in their overall goals."

RESPONSE: In developing a Wise Community these are the kind of issues that need to be considered and avoided.

(p. 73) "Like all psychoanalysts, [Charles] Brenner believes that conscious, subjective reports of emotions (affects) are often unreliable. This is simply because most affect states are characterized by mixtures of both pleasant and unpleasant feelings, as well as expectations or memories of both 'good' and 'bad' events. Such ambivalences are the rule rather than the exception. In addition, part or all of these affects may be repressed or modified, and thus a conscious report is seldom what it seems."

(p. 72) Emotion as an Inferred State

"Language is the depository of past discovery, but it is also hypnotic, blinding the mind to its own concealed, redundant and often erroneous assumptions." Lancelot L. Whyte

(p. 76) John Bowlby: Emotion, Control Theory, and Evolution

"He defines emotions as 'phases of an individual's intuitive appraisals either of their own organismic states and urges to act or of the succession of environmental situations in which they find themself....At the same time, because they are usually accompanied by distinctive facial expressions, bodily postures, and incipient movements, they usually provide valuable information to their companions.'"

(p. 78) "...Bowlby examines...[the] issue...is feeling the cause of behavior?" He thinks emotion predisposes one to certain actions, but does not cause it.

"To refuse to accept inner states as causal agents is a philosophical position (not an empirical one) that sees the causes of behavior only in the external environment. But there is an internal environment as well, and complex appraisals and causal processes go on within it."

RESPONSE: True. Choices come out of inner processes. They are only related to the immediate external environment by a long, complex chain of cause and effect.

(p. 86) "In one study concerned with nonverbal communication between patient and therapist the investigators discovered, quite by chance, that the expression on the patients's face would sometimes change dramatically within a period of one-fifth of a second. This was discovered only by slow frame-by-frame analysis of films. Neither the therapist nor the patient was aware of these 'micromomentary' changes of facial expressions."

"Detailed, laborious examinations of films then reveled that the number of these micromomentary expressions (MMEs) varied greatly from patient to patient and from session to session. For example, during one therapy session, the patient emitted 98 MMEs, while during another one characterized by depressive mood and long silences, only three MMEs were observed."

RESPONSE: It sounds as though MMEs might point to some important insights about how the body works.

(p. 90) Verbal reports of emotional states...depend upon memory -- and are subject to what ever biases exist in memory."

"Experimental psychologists have recognized sources of bias in research for a long time. These sources include failure of the subject to cooperate, dissembling, failure to understand instructions, refusal to believe the experimenter's avowed reasons for the experiment, fear of exposure of personal inadequacies, knowing the 'right' answer in advance, hiding feelings of anger from the experimenter, and others. All these factors act to raise questions about the veracity and validity of the verbal response of subjects."

(p. 94) "...another element frequently recognized in the language of emotion is the concept of opposites. We usually consider that joy is the opposite of sadness, that love is the opposite of hate, and that acceptance is the opposite of rejection."

(p. 103) "...a verbal report of an inner emotional state is only a rough approximation to whatever that state is. We must conclude that an emotion is not to be considered as synonymous with a presumed inner-feeling state. Instead, it appears that the word emotion refers to a complex theoretical term whose characteristics can only be inferred on the basis of a congruence of various classes of evidence. One of these classes of evidence consists of verbal reports of supposed inner states, but such evidence has no greater logical priority than do the other classes of evidence."

(p. 104) Emotion in Animals: "It now logically follows that since the concept of emotion applies to adult patients with repressions, to the mentally defective, to young children with limited verbal repertoires, and to infants with none, there is no reason why the concept cannot be applied to animals."

(p. 109) "Although many philosophers have argued that humans and animals are basically selfish and are governed only by 'those twin masters, pleasure and pain,' there is increasing evidence that altruistic behavior is widely found in the animal kingdom. Altruism may be defined as purposive behavior that functions to help another person or animal even at the risk of danger of death."

RESPONSE: For me the selfishness concept and pleasure and pain are two different things. I would say when selfishness is properly defined, all human behavior is chosen for selfish reasons. However, this definition would incorporate a SFLIHM (a Sustainable Feeling that one's LIfe Has Meaning) as the goal of all truly selfish behavior. Anything else is not selfish. Rather it comes out of ignorance about what is truly in one's best interest.

Pain and pleasure provide too limited of an explanation of human behavior. Although they might be expanded to include this dimension, to do so would confuse understanding rather than promote it in my mind. Much behavior is more directly tied to our beliefs than to pain and pleasure. A soldier may move toward certain death because of a conviction about the importance of the cause for which they are fighting. However, to say this choice gives the soldier pleasure or is made out of fear of worse pain should they refuse, I think, misses something critical.

(p. 107) "Harry Harlow and his associates have carried out a long series of studies dealing with the effects of deprivation of social contacts in rhesus monkeys. In one of his papers...he points out that the idea for trying this in a laboratory setting, and the hypotheses about what would happen, came largely from the work of Spitz (1946) and Bowlby (1960). These psychoanalysts had described the effects of enforced social separations in young children. Based on these observations, Harlow raised rhesus monkeys without human or animal contact for up to six months. The results were devastating. The monkeys huddled in a corner, rocked, whimpered, and looked 'depressed.' Even when social contact was restored, the effects of this early contact deprivation remained, and the monkeys had noticeably impaired social behavior and totally deficient sexual behavior."

RESPONSE: See Chapter IV, "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence," by Dr. James W. Prescott.

(p. 115) Pleasure and Pain: Behavior is organized basically to minimize pain and maximize pleasure.

"Pleasure and pain represent internal states of affective (emotional) arousal. They are not directly observable, but are intervening variables whose existence can be inferred on the basis of approach or avoidance behavior. Several principles define affective processes, according to [P.T.] Young. These are briefly listed:"

"1. Every stimulus has both sensory and affective qualities. There is no necessary connection between them.

2. Emotional arousal orients an individual toward or away from a stimulus.

3. Emotional processes lead to the development of motives; that is, they generate persisting tendencies to approach or avoid an object.

4. Behavior is organized basically to minimize pain and maximize pleasure.

5. The strength of a tendency to approach is a direct function of the anticipated pleasure.

6. Hedonic processes summate algebraically.

7. The laws of conditioning apply to emotional processes. This implies that hedonically neutral stimuli associated with pleasure or pain tend to take on affective qualities.

8. Affective processes regulate behavior by influencing choice. The relative degree of positive emotional arousal of two stimuli will determine an individual's choice or preference among the stimuli."

"These principles of hedonic processes postulated by Young are based upon limited evidence and have the character of hypotheses rather than principles. They imply that states of pleasure and pain have an objective existence, and are most readily revealed by an individual's choice behavior."

RESPONSE: I believe that "pleasure and pain" are approximations to explaining behavior, but the real issue is the FLIHM state. In most situations the two are the same. However, FLIHM carries with it a long-term, total life dimension that when explained by "pleasure/pain" can become very convoluted.

(p. 117) "...emotion is a hypothetical construct based on inferences. In order to make these inferences various types of evidence are needed...."

(p. 119) "The preceding chapters have attempted to demonstrate that the concept of emotion is a broad, theoretical idea that is applicable to both humans and animals. Also mentioned, but not fully examined, is the notion that emotions have some kind of adaptive significance in the lives of all organism. These ideas strongly suggest that emotions must be considered within an evolutionary context."

(p. 127) "The theory to be proposed in the following chapters assumes that certain of these classes of adaptive responses, involving the whole organism, are the prototype patterns of emotions in animals and humans. The theory assumes that the environment of all organisms creates certain common problems, for example, identifying prey and predator, food and mate. Emotions are total body reactions, internal plus behavioral, to these kinds of basic survival problems created by the environment. Emotions are attempts of the organism to achieve control over certain events that relate to survival."

(p. 129): Basic postulates of a psychoevolutionary theory of emotions:

POSTULATE 1: The concept of emotion is applicable to all evolutionary levels and applies to all animals as well as humans.

POSTULATE 2: Emotions have an evolutionary history and have evolved various forms of expression in different species.

POSTULATE 3: Emotions serve an adaptive role in helping organisms deal with key survival issues posed by the environment.

POSTULATE 4: Despite different forms of expression of emotions in different species, there are certain common elements, or prototype patterns, that can be identified.

POSTULATE 5: There are a small number of basic, primary, or prototype emotions.

POSTULATE 6: All other emotions are mixed or derivative states, that is, they occur as combinations, mixtures, or compounds of the primary emotions.

POSTULATE 7: Primary emotions are hypothetical constructs or idealized states whose properties and characteristics can only be inferred from various kinds of evidence.

POSTULATE 8: Primary emotions can be conceptualized in terms of pairs of polar opposites.

POSTULATE 9: All emotions vary in their degree of similarity to one another.

POSTULATE 10: Each emotion can exist in varying degrees of intensity or levels of arousal."

(p. 134) Plutchik "...assumed that primary emotions are identifiable, in some form, at all phylogenetic levels and that they have adaptive significance in the individual's struggle for survival."

(p 138) "...the concept of primary, pure, or basic emotions has a long history, though one marked by disagreements concerning both their number and type. These disagreements are probably due to reliance on introspections alone, to the lack of formal procedures for determining how mixtures are formed from primaries, and to a lack of theoretical implications suitable for research. These difficulties, which are quite formidable, must be surmounted if a meaningful concept of primary emotions is to be developed."

"...whatever is taken to be a primary emotion should be applicable, in some sense, to lower evolutionary levels....emotion should be conceived of as relevant to the entire evolutionary scale. This suggests, first, that emotion should be related to some kinds of basic, adaptive, biological processes, a point elaborated below."

"...if emotions are to be recognized at all evolutionary levels, they cannot be identified with particular body parts."

"...emotions must be recognizable in terms of total body reactions...."

(p. 139) "It is implicit in this view that emotions are adaptive devices in the struggle for individual survival at all evolutionary levels."

(p. 144) "It is...possible to arrive at eight basic adaptive behavior patterns that may be found in some form at all levels of evolution, do not depend on particular neural structures or body parts, do not depend on introspections, and are defined in terms of gross behavioral interactions between organism and environment."

"They represent the prototypes of all emotional behavior."

"The following list summarizes these basic prototypic dimensions."

1. "Incorporation: The act of taking in or ingesting food represents a basic prototype of behavior indicating acceptance of stimuli from the outside world into the organism. Such stimuli may be thought of as generally being beneficial or pleasurable for the individual." [EMOTION: Acceptance, trust]

2. Rejection: This represents a kind of riddance reaction. It is the prototype of behavior involved in getting rid of something harmful that has already been incorporated. It may take two forms, such as expelling feces or vomiting. [EMOTION: Disgust, loathing]

3. Destruction: This prototypic pattern of behavior, which occurs when the organism contacts a barrier to the satisfaction of some need, consists essentially of an attempt to destroy the barrier. If the barrier is another animal, it may be killed or it may even be eaten. At the lowest organismic levels the destruction of a barrier and the incorporation of food are fused into a single pattern, which at higher phylogenetic levels is gradually differentiated. [EMOTION: Anger, rage]

4. Protection: The prototypic protection response occurs under conditions of pain, or threats of pain or destruction. It is an attempt to avoid being destroyed. [EMOTION: Fear, terror]

5. Reproduction: This term is used to represent the prototypic response associated with sexual interactions. Reproduction behavior may be defined in terms of approach, maintenance-of-contact tendencies, and exchange or mixing of genetic materials. [EMOTION: Joy, ecstasy]

6. Reintegration: The loss of a pleasureful or nutrient object that has been incorporated is associated with a prototypic behavior pattern that, at the human level, is generally described as grief or sadness. The word reintegration is defined as the pattern of reaction to the loss of something possessed or enjoyed. [EMOTION: Sadness, grief]

7. Orientation: This pattern of behavior occurs when an organism contacts a new or strange object. This reaction is typically quite transient and exists so long as the object remains unevaluated in terms of harm or benefit, pain or pleasure. As soon as the object or stimulus is evaluated this pattern of surprise changes to one (or more) of the other patterns. If the object produces, pain, the pattern becomes protection; if it produces pleasure, the pattern may change to incorporation or reproduction. [EMOTION: Surprise]

8. Exploration: This refers to the more or less random activities organisms use to explore their environment. The form of these activities depends a great deal upon the type of sensory endowment of the organism, some animals utilizing their tactile sense much more that others. Birds, who have excellent distance receptors, explore large portions of their environment at a glance. Exploratory activity is prototypic of what humans call curiosity and play." [EMOTION: Anticipation]

(p. 145) "These prototypes may be conceptualized as the basis for emotional reactions seen in all animals and humans."

(p. 146) "The identification of these eight functional modes of adaptation is only the beginning of a theory of emotion. There remains the task of discussing their interrelations to one another, and to the words that are commonly used to describe human emotions." [See Table 11.1 below.]

TABLE 11.1: Three Languages That May Be Used to Describe Emotional States

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SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE BEHAVIORAL LANGUAGE FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE

Fear, terror Withdrawing, escaping Protection

Anger, rage Attacking, biting Destruction

Joy, ecstasy Mating, possessing Reproduction

Sadness, grief Crying for help Reintegration

Acceptance, trust Pair bonding, grooming Incorporation, or

affiliation

Disgust, loathing Vomiting, defecating Rejection

Expectancy, anticipation Stopping, freezing Orientation

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(p. 146) "There is another way to look at the problem of defining the basic emotions. This alternative, though speculative, is also fairly general. It assumes that basic emotions are essential reaction patterns that have evolved in all organisms to deal with basic types of existential problems. Such basic survival problems are of four general types which may be labeled in the following way:

1) the problem of hierarchy

2) the problem of territoriality;

3) the problem of identity; and

4) the problem of temporality."

"Hierarchy: The concept of hierarchy refers to the vertical dimension of social life....dominance hierarchies...."

"Two general ways to deal with the existence of hierarchies in social living is to try to fight one's way up the hierarchy or to submit to those who are dominant. The first solution requires anger and attack behavior, whereas the second is based on fear and withdrawal. It must thus be concluded that anger and fear are emotions that act to deal with the problem of hierarchies....Depression appears to be related, in part, to perceived downward mobility within a particular hierarchy."

RESPONSE: Since I take depression to be a lack of nurturing physical affection, I would take it to be more related to lack of connection with other individuals in the group. This might relate to role changes or ambiguity around where the individual fits in the group.

(p. 147) Territoriality: "A hypothesis may be proposed to the effect that the basic emotional states related to the issue of territoriality are exploration (with its implied control) and orientation (with its implied surprise or loss of control). Organisms are in control when they know (have mapped) their territory; they are out of control when their boundaries have been penetrated by strangers."

(p. 147): Identity: "...this refers to the basic question of who we are; or alternatively, to what group does one belong. This is a fundamental problem for all organisms because isolated individuals in society do not usually survive, and certainly they do not propagate. Group membership therefore is a fundamental basis for survival."

(p. 148): "From the point of view of emotions, it is likely that the two basic emotions connected with identity are incorporation and rejection."

RESPONSE: In the modern world it is the propagation of one's ideas that is even more important than the propagation of one's genes because genes are generic, ideas are specific. Therefore, participation in one's culture is the essence of their identity.

(p. 148): Temporality: "In order to deal with the problem of loss and separation (that is, the problem of temporality), certain emotions have evolved during the course of evolution."

"The emotion that deals with loss is sadness or distress. If...[there is] only a partial or limited reintegration, this may result in a persistent, long-term distress signal that we call depression. If the signal works well and completely it produces an opposite emotion, the emotion of joy. Joy is the experience of rejoining or of possession and is thus the opposite of sadness."

RESPONSE: The above description of depression sounds right to me. Sadly enough depression is not a very good signal since it tends to be actualized by withdrawal and lack of involvement so to the degree it is actualized this way it is not observed and cannot be responded to.

(p. 149): "This schema -- defining four universal problems of adaption that have been called problems of hierarchy, territoriality, identity, and temporality -- has some important implications. For one thing, it provides a general way of looking at life problems in all organisms. Moreover, it provides a set of implicit dimensions that one can use to try to assess the environmental and/or social demands on a given species....What kinds of adaptations has the group made for dealing with each of these problems?"

"...the schema presented here of basic life problems suggests the possibility that emotions are functional adaptations for establishing a kind of social equilibrium. This would imply that emotions enter into every social transaction, and help to establish a balance of opposing forces. These balances are always temporary and frequently change as organisms move through life from one conflict to another."

(p. 152): A Structural Model of the Emotions

"The psychoevolutionary theory being proposed here assumes that these eight basic adaptive patterns [behavior] are the functional bases for all emotions recognized in humans and animals." [See Table 11.1.]

(p. 156): Emotions are bipolar

"The concept of polarity cannot be considered in isolation from the concept of similarity, since bipolarity represents a point of maximum dissimilarity on a given measure. The problem thus arises on how to arrange the eight basic emotions in terms of their relative degrees of similarity." [See diagrams: "A Model of the Eight Basic Emotions."]

"It must be said at the outset that there is no final, unequivocal answer to this problem....The eventual decision for the optimal ordering will also depend upon the kind of internal consistency and research implications provided by one grouping rather than another."

(p. 154): "...there are...other derivative languages that reflect emotional states. These include the language of personality traits, the language of diagnostic labels, and the language of ego defenses." [See Table 19.1, below.]

(leave 15 lines for table 19.1)

(p. 157): "The vertical dimension [of Plutchik's model of emotions] represents intensity, or level of arousal, and ranges from a maximum state of excitement to a state of deep sleep at the bottom."

(p. 159) Based on the number of synonyms it appears "that we are able to make finer discriminations with negative emotions than with positive ones."

(p. 160) Low level emotions: Annoyance, mindfulness (expectancy), pleasure (serenity), acceptance (trust), timidity (apprehension), uncertainty (distraction), pensiveness, boredom.

"The 'C' at the center of the circle [see following page] is used to represent the idea of conflict resulting from the mixture of two or more emotions."

"With...[the models on the following page] as the starting point, many interesting implications follow....it is evident that any adjacent pair of primaries could be combined to form an intermediate mixed emotion, just as any two adjacent colors on the color circle form an intermediate hue. A mixture of any two primaries may be called a dyad; of any three primaries, a triad. But these dyads and triads may be formed in different ways. If two adjacent primaries are mixed, the resulting combination may be called a primary dyad. Mixtures of two primary emotions that are once removed on the circle may be called secondary dyads, while mixtures of two primaries that are twice removed on the circle may be called tertiary dyads. The same general method of designation would apply to triads as well."

"But how do we name the emotions that result from various mixtures?"

(p. 161) "That it is not always easy to name all of the combinations of emotions may be due to one or more reasons. Perhaps our language does not contain emotion words for certain combinations, although other languages might....we may not yet have discovered all the emotional combinations of which humans are capable."

"One other important point might be made about the problem of naming

emotion compounds. This is a problem almost identical with that faced by the international conference which set out in 1931 to develop a system for the

numerical specification of what a color looks like to the ordinary man or woman under a given set of conditions. Since there are certain differences in the reaction of individual observers, even after people with abnormal color vision have been eliminated, it was necessary to define a color match that would be acceptable to an average observer. This was done by defining how a 'standard observer' sees any particular color. The average data from a small number of selected observers provided an imaginary standard observer and all results reported in the CIE system are adjusted so as to satisfy the requirements of this standard observer. This is a system that has worked very well since 1931. Perhaps a similar system may be developed for the psychology of emotions."

RESPONSE: Perhaps the CIE system discussed above could also serve as a model for the HBAURS concept. With proper efforts it might be possible to define a "standard observer," or possibly several "standard observers" based on personality types as the reference system that projects, observes, interprets the universe and provides the reference system applicable to a Wise Person.

A MODEL OF THE EIGHT BASIC EMOTIONS

(p. 166) "...many of the terms that are supposedly meant to describe emotional states equally well describe personality traits....[The foregoing] is not a trivial or irrelevant matter. It reflects a fundamental reality about the nature of emotions....the formation of personality traits is related to the development of mixed emotions, and since some degree of conflict is connected with the mixing of emotions, all personality traits imply components in greater or lesser conflict. Since emotions are reactions to specific kinds of situations that elicit the responses of anger, fear, joy, sadness, and so on, it may be concluded that persisting or repetitive situations that produce mixed emotions produce personality traits.

RESPONSE: The foregoing strikes me as a tremendously valuable insight to be used in understanding human behavior and helping persons achieve a SFLIHM.

(p. 174) "[O.] Fenichel suggests four general factors that determine the fixation of character attitudes: (1) the nature of the instinctual impulses that have to be warded off; (2) the time when the decisive conflict was experienced; (3) the content and intensity of the frustrations and the nature of the frustrating factors; and (4) whether substitute gratifications are available. These ideas are obviously hypotheses that should be explored in further clinical research."

RESPONSE: I agree!

(p. 176) "Conceptually, the mixing of eight primary emotion dimensions will permit the synthesis of all the emotions and interpersonal personality traits recognized in our language."

RESPONSE: And that sounds like a very significant tool to be used in helping persons become their best self.

(p. 196) "In circumplex analysis we are not concerned with finding labels for supposed underlying dimensions but rather with identifying a reasonable sample of the important variables being investigated. For example, in the evaluation of personality traits we are not so much concerned with trying to show that something like extraversion-introversion is a basic dimension, but rather we are interested in finding a subset of all personality traits that represent, in an adequate way, the thousands of terms we use to describe personality. Once such a subset is found it can provide a basic language for all studies and for integrating diverse viewpoints."

RESPONSE: What does the above mean? I don't understand what it is getting at. Isn't that what extrovert-introvert is supposed to be doing?

(p. 197) "It is evident that the circle model of emotions and personality traits is an analogue model and acts to summarize parsimoniously various known relations among emotions and among traits. As an analogue model the circle implies certain things. It implies that there is an implicit similarity scale for emotions and traits. It implies that we are dealing in these areas with continuous functions and not discrete entities. It means that the specific words we use to describe emotions and traits are only arbitrary codings of certain points along implicit scales and that these particular codings reflect frequently occurring events, or historical accident. It means, too, that bipolarities exist and that conflicts can occur not only between the bipolar elements but among all other elements as well. It means that such concepts as complementarity, hue, and saturation apply to personality traits as well as to emotions and colors. These implications not only help integrate existing knowledge but have stimulated new researches as well."

RESPONSE: The above sounds very important, but its meaning escapes me.

(p. 199) The measurement of emotions: Use of introspective reports.

"There are at least four different methods by which emotions have been measured. One method involves the use of self-reports of subjective feelings, a procedure that is used mainly with human adults. A second method for judging emotions is through ratings made of the behavior of an individual. Such ratings can be used with adults, children, mentally retarded persons, and with lower animals. A third way to evaluate emotions is through a rating of the product of someone's behavior; for example, an individual's handwriting or figure drawings. Finally, emotions may be assessed through the use of physiological recordings of bodily changes."

(p. 200) Plutchik makes no distinction between moods and emotions.

(p. 207) "If we consider the worst mood these people [in the experiment] ever experienced, it appears that the dimension of depression is the most strongly represented. The words that make up this dimension are: depressed, gloomy, sad, empty, lonesome, helpless, discouraged, and hopeless. The experience of loss, separation, and mourning is apparently a more distressing experience than that of fear or worry."

"These findings are only preliminary, but they suggest the hypothesis that depression may be more distressing than anxiety even though anxiety is often called the 'core' of neurosis."

RESPONSE: I interpret the foregoing to support my analysis of the importance of the FLIHM, No-FLIHM concepts. Those states I postulate as being closest to No-FLIHM have been shown in the above study to be the most painful ones to these persons. I further postulate that these are the states that lead one to suicide or otherwise causing their death since without a FLIHM, life is not worth living.

(p. 215) Emotions Profile Index (Plutchik & Kellerman, 1974) "was developed directly on the basis of the psychoevolutionary theory of emotion and has had wide use both as a measure of emotion and as a measure of personality. Not only does it provide an index of fear and anxiety, but also of other emotions and other combinations as well."

(p. 219) The Measurement of Emotions: II. Use of behavior and indirect effects of behavior.

"The psychiatric literature contains many examples of rating scales to assess emotional states in mental patients. This abundance of rating scales reflects the fact that psychiatrists are usually not inclined to accept a patient's self-description at face value; they assume that repression, denial, and lack of insight often prevent an accurate self-description."

RESPONSE: And certainly these matters would be of importance to a Wisdom Group working to help individuals move toward becoming Wise Persons.

(p. 228) Studying emotions in infants: "The authors concluded that these findings suggest a possible genetic role in the development of fear during infancy. These studies also indicate that it is perfectly possible to study emotions in young infants, and, by implication, it should be possible to also study organisms that are lower on the phylogenetic scale."

(p. 230) "...[N.] Buirski, [H.] Kellerman, [R.] Plutchik, [R.] Weininger, and [P.] Buirski (1973) developed an interesting variation of the Emotions Profile Index for use with animals. They selected and defined a set of ten terms descriptive of emotional behavior. The terms were belligerent, fearful, inquisitive, irritable, defiant, depressed, dominant, playful, sociable, and submissive."

(p. 236) "One of the more widely known indirect measures of affect [emotion] is the Rorschach test....Unfortunately, despite their wide use, projective tests such as the Rorschach have been criticized as having low reliability and doubtful validity...."

(p. 237) "Interestingly enough, the only linguistic style change associated with anxiety content was an increase in breakup of speech flow."

(p. 239) "The results showed that various measures of dysfunction increase with age....The differences between adult patients and adult normals were similar to the differences between adult normals and elderly persons of any status."

(p. 241) "...it is very difficult to establish clear-cut relations between emotional states and physiological responses....The vocabulary of emotion is larger than the vocabulary of physiology, and therefore the latter cannot be used as a direct index of the former....Physiological changes are clues to emotions but not direct measures of them. Only by combining various classes of evidence can we make a reliable inference about the existence of an emotional state."

(p. 252/253) "In interpreting his and others' findings [on facial expressions in different societies, age groups, etc.] in a general framework, [C.E.] Osgood (1966) presented two interesting hypotheses. He suggested that the discrete labels we give to facial expressions are 'either structurally determined (a species-specific organization of the neurophysiology of emotions) or psycholinguistically determined (a culture-specific, and rather arbitrary, matter of the way continuous psychological variables are mapped into discrete linguistic categories much in the way different languages differentially carve up the color spectrum.' Osgood thus implies a view that is consistent with Guttman's idea of the circumplex: a continuous circle of qualities for which the language of emotion represents convenient and useful, but somewhat arbitrary, partitioning."

"The studies that have been cited on the dimensionality of facial expressions imply that despite differences in the posed sets of facial expressions and differences in judges in several different countries, statistical analyses of the judgments reveal only two or three basic dimensions that can account for the judgments. This raises the possibility that there may be certain universal characteristics identifiable in facial expressions in all cultures. Indeed, this was the hypothesis that Darwin proposed in his 1872 book."

(p. 269) The evolutionary significance of facial expressions:

"From an evolutionary point of view facial expressions may be considered simply as one kind of display system."

(p. 285) "...it is...evident that in human beings, with highly developed facial musculature, a large number of facial expressions can be voluntarily created and given arbitrary meanings like the words in a language."

(p. 286) Emotions and Cognitions (Chapter 17):

"The recent development of cognitive psychology has made clear that cognition should be considered as synonymous with thinking and should include such functions as perceiving, conceptualizing, and remembering."

(p. 287) "...cognitive appraisals lead to emotional reactions, according to Arnold."

"...emotional reactions are determined by an individual's interpretation of a situation."

"No one [doubts] that the first term [in the sequence of an emotional event] must be an evaluation of an event."

"When the psychoanalysts began to write about affects they broadened the notion of the relation between cognition and affect....The decision by the ego, which could be unconscious, determined the nature of the subsequent emotional response."

RESPONSE: The above material is part of the foundation ideas for building a Wise Community made up of Wise Persons. A FLIHM is based on cognitive processes in line with the foregoing studies that are based on beliefs and knowledge.

(p. 288 to 291) Postulates about Relations Between Cognitions and Emotions "Postulate 1: The existence of any emotion presupposes the prior occurrence of an evaluation. This is true for human adults, for infants and for animals. However, although all emotions presuppose evaluations, not all evaluations produce emotions.

Postulate 2: Evaluations may be based upon information obtained from external or internal stimuli.

Postulate 3: Evaluations are concerned with whether a stimulus is good or bad, beneficial or harmful, productive of pleasure or productive of pain. Other classes of evaluation are possible, however; for example, that a stimulus is novel or unexpected.

Postulate 4: Most events are evaluated as both good and bad, or beneficial as well as harmful. Such multiple evaluations lead inevitably to conflicts between emotions.

Postulate 5: In lower animals and probably in human infants, certain evaluations can occur without prior learning or experience.

Postulate 6: In higher animals, most evaluations depend upon learning or conditioning and can be modified through experience.

Postulate 7: Evaluations are not always conscious or reportable; they are hypothetical constructs or 'maps' whose properties can be inferred on the basis of various kinds of evidence.

Postulate 8: Evaluations may be in error. An individual may evaluate a certain stimulus as beneficial when it is in reality harmful. Conversely, a stimulus may be evaluated as dangerous (as in the case of phobias) when it is not.

Postulate 9: Most evaluations must be reasonably accurate if an individual is to survive.

Postulate 10: There are a limited number of evaluations needed for survival in the face of major life problems. These evaluations and their many combinations lead to the large variety of emotional responses that are actually observed.

"These postulates have some interesting implications, some of which are most clearly seen in Table 17.1."

leave 17 lines

"They imply that there is a complex sequence of events associated with the appearance of an emotion. This sequence begins with the occurrence of an important survival-related event, e.g., threat by a predator, loss of a valued individual or confrontation with an unexpected object. These events, in order to produce emotional reactions, must be related directly or indirectly to survival issues. Once the event occurs, the next step in the chain of reactions is a cognitive evaluation, which is inferred on the basis of a variety of types of evidence. Such inferred cognitions include such evaluations as 'danger' when confronted by a predator, 'enemy' when confronted by an obstacle, and 'abandonment' when confronted by the loss of a valued person."

"Consistent with the theory that has been elaborated in previous chapters, it is assumed that for each primary emotion there is a major class of stimulus events that triggers the emotion sequence and also that there is a major type of evaluation. Following each cognition is a subjective feeling state that characterizes the primary emotion. This feeling state is then associated (either sequentially or simultaneously) with a relevant (adaptive) behavior such as running away from 'danger,' crying for help at 'abandonment,' or vomiting out 'poison.' Finally, the behavior will serve a function or have an effect such as protection, destruction, or rejection. The word emotion refers to this complex chain of reactions that have adaptive value for the individual in dealing with various kinds of life crises or survival problems."

"A second implication of this schema concerns the fact that the changes described above have only a probabalistic relation to one another. In other words, it is possible that a number of vicissitudes may befall this sequence of events. For one thing, the initial cognition may be in error so that a group member is perceived as a 'danger' instead of a 'friend.' The effect of this misperception would be to make the subsequent behavior maladaptive instead of adaptive."

"A second vicissitude that might occur is the activation of two or more evaluations about the same stimulus event. Such blendings of cognitions are the sources of the mixed emotions that are typically observed."

"Further vicissitudes may occur. Even if the cognition is accurate, it is still possible for the feeling aspect of the emotional chain to be blocked, modified, or distorted. This is presumably what ego defenses such as denial and repression do. However, even if the feeling is clearly present, appropriate action may or may not occur. This is simply because environmental or internal restraints may prevent the action. If someone is locked in a cell, running away in the face of danger is impossible. Similarly, if one has strong feelings about the importance of bravery, one may not run even if one's life is at stake. Finally, depending on whether or not the behavior occurred, the goal or purpose of the chain of emotional reactions may or may not be served. Emotions may thus be conceptualized as sequential chains of events involving inferred cognitions, feeling states, and behavioral effects. Such sequences are as relevant to lower organisms as they are to higher ones, although important differences exist in the stimuli that trigger survival-related evaluations. Differences also exist in the patterns of behavior different organism use to try to accomplish the same functions."

"The psychoevolutionary theory presented here implies that cognitions should be considered from the broadest possible viewpoint."

(p. 295) "It should also be noted that the capacity to learn is another function that has evolved steadily throughout the animal kingdom....In the most basic sense, any organism must predict on the basis of limited information whether there is danger in its environment, or food, or a mate. Depending on this prediction, the organism makes a decision: to run, to attack, to play, or to mate."

(p. 297) "...human thinking is intimately associated with emotions."

(p. 298) "What is particularly significant is that each new cognitive experience that is biologically important is connected with an emotional reaction such as fear, pain, pleasure, disgust, or depression."

"The original purpose of the evolution of cognition is to enable the organism to map its environment and predict the future in regard to significant emotional or motivational events. Once such a complex mechanism has evolved, however, it can be used for other things....It can also deal with the symbols of past events as well as future ones; and the symbols, once in the store of memory, can be used for fantasy productions, such as art, literature, and play."

(p. 299) "It is evident that thinking, like emotions, can be considered from at least three points of view: the functional, the physiological, and the subjective."

(p. 303) "These complex responses having multiple components of feeling, behavior, and purpose are emotions. They are the end results of a complex cognitive process. The appropriateness of the emotional response determines whether the individual lives or dies. The whole cognitive process evolved over millions of years in order to make the evaluations of stimulus events more correct and the predictions more precise so that the emotional behavior that finally resulted would be adaptively related to the stimulus events. It is in this sense that cognitions are in the service of emotions."

(p. 305) "In a sense, emotions are more primitive than cognitions."

"Fundamentally...cognitions have maintained their basic function: to predict the future so that emotional behavior may be more adaptively related to biologically significant events in the environment."

(p. 317) "...[C.E.] Izard (1978) has claimed that at least five emotions are identifiable in neonates [newly born infants]: distress, pleasure, startle, interest, and disgust."

(p. 321) "Contrary to a simple conditioning model, rewarding the crying infant by picking it up does not increase the crying, but decreases it."

RESPONSE: And the foregoing should be required learning before anyone can become a parent.

(p. 334) "These ideas suggest that some fruitful directions of research would be to determine in systematic ways when each component of an emotion appears. In addition another interesting avenue of research would concern itself with the types of parent-child interactions that produce the mixtures of emotion that are so typical of the adult condition."

(p. 338) "The EPI [Emotions Profile Index] obtained by chance on the day before the suicide attempt showed that the patient was severely depressed, angry, and uninterested in socializing and exhibited low anxiety. Two weeks after the suicide attempt the patient had made an adequate recovery and was released from the hospital. The emotion profile at the time of discharge showed low depression and anger, high sociability and trust, and high anxiety. These findings led to the hypothesis that the affective precursors to a suicide attempt required a triad of affects -- namely, high depression, high anger, and low anxiety."

RESPONSE: Obviously, one cannot depend on one case to prove anything very important about human behavior. However, on first examination the above would appear to conflict with my theories regarding FLIHM and No-FLIHM. I have thought the No-FLIHM leads naturally to suicide and anger would not fit into this model. However, coupling anger and a lack of interest in socializing would provide a focus that makes sense to me. I would interpret this combination to be very compatible with a No-FLIHM state. It is curious that the author left out "uninterested in socializing" which in my framework is the key element of this example.

(p. 350) "...the theory...implies that ego defenses have a circular, similarity structure, and that ego defenses are primarily designed to manage emotions. Thus each basic emotion has a basic ego defense that is functionally connected to it. Just as displacement is connected with anger, and repression is connected with fear, the model assumes that projection is connected with disgust, that denial is connected with excessive trust [acceptance], that regression is connected with surprise (acting out), that intellectualization is connected with anticipation [expectation], that compensation is connected with sadness, and that reaction formation is connected with joy (or sexuality)." [See table 19.1.]

RESPONSE: It seems to me that the foregoing is a useful, and powerful insight. If ego defenses exist to manage emotions then what happens in the case of mixed emotions? Does one end up choosing an ineffective defense much of the time? What is its goal? Does it sometimes have negative effects comparable to autoimmunity? How can this insight help us focus on the beliefs that activate our emotions in such a way as to support psychological good health?

(p. 355) "When...hypnotized subjects were asked to 'lock' their bodies into... defined postures [based on emotions], it was found that the subjects could not change their emotional feelings even when suggested by the hypnotist unless their postures were allowed to change."

RESPONSE: For anyone not yet aware that body positions are causally related to emotions, the foregoing is a powerful introduction to the concept.

(p. 362-363) Emotion vs. motivations. How are They Different?

(p. 362) Emotions vs. Motivation/Drives/States

Emotions: anger, fear, disgust, joy, sorrow, etc.

States (drives): hunger, thirst, nausea, fatigue, drowsiness, intoxication, sexual excitement, greed, etc.

Magna Arnold: "Emotions themselves are action tendencies like physiological appetites, but they are not activated by a physiological state, nor do they aim toward a specific naturally determined object...Though there is a physiological state specific for each emotion, this state is induced after the object seen or appraised."

"The characteristic of emotions may be summarized in the following way:

1. Emotions are generally aroused by external stimuli.

2. Emotional expression is typically directed toward the particular stimulus in the environment by which it has been aroused.

3. Emotions may be, but are not necessarily or usually, activated by a physiological state.

4. There are no 'natural' objects in the environment (like food or water) toward which emotional expression is directed

5. An emotional state is induced after an object is seen or evaluated and not before."

(p. 363) "The characteristic of motives [drives] may be summarized as follows:

1. Motives are aroused by gradually changing internal states of the organism.

2. The basic condition for the arousal of a motive is the absence of something. (Emotions are typically aroused by the presence of something).

3. There are certain objects toward which motives 'naturally' tend to direct the organism (e.g., food, water, sex mate).

4. Most motives tend to have a rhythmic character, showing more or less regular peaks and troughs of intensity."

(p. 363) "[R.L.] Solomon [1977] has proposed an 'opponent-process theory of motivation which has many formal similarities to the opponent-process theory of color vision.'"

"...the theory is based on the assumption that there is a neural process that reacts to emotional or motivational states by creating an opposite state. This process is assumed to apply both to positive and negative emotions....For example, parachutists are often anxious and tense before their jumps. After they land safely there is an opposite feeling of joy and exhilaration."

(p. 364) "Surprisingly enough, one may find a detailed description of the repression and control of emotions in Darwin's (1872) book THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS;....'Most of our emotions are so closely connected with their expression that they hardly exist if the body remains passive....'"

(p. 365) "Darwin thus suggests that repression of emotion may occur through voluntary inhibition of the outward signs of expression of the emotion. Another way of saying this is that we tend to pit one bodily expression against another or one muscular tension pattern against another in order to modify or reduce emotional feeling. This is, in essence, a technique for the control of emotion. In ordinary conversation we often tell someone to keep a stiff upper lip or keep one's chin up to hide or overcome sadness. Someone who has learned to hide all his or her emotions (except the fact that it is necessary to hide them) is called a deadpan or a poker face."

(p. 366) "Another area of clinical interest is the problem of symptom formation in psychosomatic medicine. Previous explanations for the individual's choice of symptom have usually pointed to hereditary factors, constitutional weaknesses, or early fixations, all of which act as predisposing factors. Sometimes, the correlations found between body types or personality traits and symptoms are used as an explanation of symptom formation."

"Although all of these factors may be relevant, a variable not yet systematically explored is the type of emotional reaction an individual typically makes to a stressor. Lacey, Bateman, and Van Lean (1953) have reported that most individuals react with one dominant physiological pattern, regardless of the nature of the stress. In a situation where the individual is subjected to a long-term stress, this pattern of reaction will predispose the body for breakdown in the dominant reaction system. Thus a cardiovascular reactor type of person, when subjected to repeated or prolonged stress, is more likely to develop some kind of heart or hypertension condition than, say, a gastrointestinal reactor type."

"At the same time, it must be recognized that individuals also vary with regard to their preferred methods for inhibiting emotional expression. These methods of inhibition may be just as specific as the methods of expression and lead to other physiological reaction patterns. In general, it would be reasonable to expect that there is a definite connection between the body systems used to express an emotion and those used to suppress or inhibit it. The issues raised here are obviously important ones for research."

RESPONSE: And I would think that understanding the relation between our emotional reactions and our health would be important to anyone attempting to live the good live.

Also, I would think that it is important to become aware of those areas of our emotional life that are not fully developed. Otherwise we are doomed to live using only a small part of our positive potential.

(p. 367) "In retrospect, it may be fairly stated that the theory presented here has tried to comment meaningfully on all the questions raised in the Introduction. In addition, it has attempted to integrate many scattered observations within a single framework; it has predicted some new possibilities; it has shown relationships between apparently diverse areas; and it has acted as a stimulator of research. The theory remains an evolving conception, subject to new data and insights."

RESPONSE: And I think Plutchik has succeeded in his efforts. He provides a way to consider emotions not only at the theoretical level, but also at the practical level. His book seems to me to be an essential reference for anyone addressing the topic of emotions whenever it is done on any more than a superficial level.

.

1. EMOTION: A PSYCHOEVOLUTIONARY SYNTHESIS, Robert Plutchik, Harper & Row, New York, 1980.

2. Scientists who study the characteristic behavior patterns of animals.

.