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Chapter 8 Summary

Decent Essays

In chapter 8 of Handbook of Emotions, The Evolutionary Psychology of the Emotions and Their Relationship to Internal Regulatory Variables, Tooby & Cosmides (2008) thoroughly discuss the theories of how emotions came to be. The overall conclusion is that emotions did not inadvertently occur, but instead were specifically designed and evolved to solve distinct issues that would affect the probability of fitness. Emotions evolved to utilize physical responses based on environmental cues in order to promote the individual’s overall success.
Specifically focusing on the evolution of emotions as outlined in chapter 8, I wonder is it then possible that as we continue to adapt and evolve as a species will new emotions come to rise and others eventually go extinct? For instance, Tooby & Cosmides (2008) discussed how in ancestral times the emotional response of sexual jealousy was often violence. Based in ancestral times this response was viable as sexual competitors were often …show more content…

I found the research by Anderson, Keltner, & John (2003) extremely intriguing. They looked at college roommates over the course of a year and found that the roommates became more emotionally similar both positively and negatively. I wonder if the emotional convergence occurred in one roommate more so than to the other or if it was an equal adjustment. I am also curious if the roommates were at all aware of these emotional convergences. To clarify, because they lived together did they feel the need to emotionally connect? Hatfield et al. (1992) suggests that a mutual involvement and emotional closeness encourages emotional cogniniton in order to provide feelings of intimacy and and closeness (Fisher & Manstead, 2008, p. 458). Does this occur solely in intimate relationships, and since roommates cohabitate would said relationship then be considered

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