Emotion As Described And Theorized By Antonio Damasio

An emotion is experienced as a feeling that motivates, organizes, and guides perception, thought, and action (Izard, 1991). Emotions can be classified into three major categories which are: (1) the physiology of emotion, (2) the behaviour of emotion, and (3) the subjective

This third conflict is of Old vs. New but discusses the conflict of emotion and rationality. In patients with damage to orbitofrontal cortex, which regulates and produces emotions, they become very rational but also crumble in a real world setting, without having any personal, emotion drive (Haidt 12). This shows that reason and emotion are both necessary for the functioning of the human mind, the cooperation of both rider and elephant is necessary. The last conflict is that of the automatic and controlled processing of the human mind. Automatic processing is unconscious and handles many things at once, while controlled processing handles the things we consciously think about one at a time, and both of these processes are happening alongside each other continuously (Haidt 14). As I was reading a lot of this chapter I drew connections to even very simple things in my life, like when controlled processes let me see that I should get out of bed and go to work or start writing a paper for school, and so helps me overcome the urge to go right back to sleep. Controlled processes consciously perceive risks to not getting up, overcoming the automatic urge to sleep in.

Attempts to define “emotion” have proved to be rather difficult. Instead of searching for a comprehensive definition, Gross (2011) describes the three core features of emotions. First, emotions occur when an individual decides that a situation is relevant to his or her goals. Second, emotions are multi-faceted, and involve both subjective and physiological experiences, as well as behaviors. The third feature involves the authoritative nature of emotions. They have the powerful ability to interrupt ongoing processes, assert their priority over other activities, and force their way into awareness. For example, some traditions describe emotions as “disorganized interruptions of mental activity” (Salovey & Mayer, 1989). Emotions are such an

Christakis and Fowler state that emotions themselves contain several elements. Emotions contain a conscious element, meaning people are aware of what they’re feeling. They have a physical aspect; emotions are tied to an individuals’ health. They also have a neurological affect; altering activity and blood flow levels in the brain. Finally, emotions contain a visual aspect; they can be expressed in facial expressions and body language.

The natural human impulse is the largest savior of mankind while simultaneously being its greatest downfall. Man is subject to emotion every day, intensity and reaction vary with everyone, but in every person emotion is the core influence on human impulse. An illustration of such submission to emotion is William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, the lovers are ruled by their love, their heartbreak, their anger, unable to think sensibly ultimately leading them to an avoidable demise.

Anthony Damasio’s: Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain introduces the reader to the interesting world of emotions. Before reading this book, one probably did not pay much attention to the science and philosophy behind emotion. In fact, few people would likely be able to properly describe and define emotion. Damasio, though, demonstrates that emotions are central to the life-regulating processes of almost all living creatures. Damásio presents the” somatic-marker hypothesis” a proposed mechanism by which emotions guide behavior and decision-making, and positing that rationality requires emotional input.

There are several functioned emotions that will be analyzed in this paper. Psychological emotional arousal and cognitive activity can be very important. At least two historical theories of emotion and arousal as they relate to human motivation such as; American psychologist Stanley Schatcher as well Jerome Singer’s theory will be examined. There will be at least two research methods used for uncovering basic emotions analyze such as; Johnson-Laird and Oatley. Facial feedback hypothesis, particularly the event-appraisal-emotion sequence will be discussed as well. Other information and knowledge will be shared and discussed too. There are different expressions in an individual that can sometimes or most of the time determines

Social constructionists argue that because emotion is a phenomenon deeply incorporated in the culture, it is not possible to understand emotion as universal conception. In addition to culture-bound emotions like “amea”, most common emotions also have their culture-specific presentation. Evolutionary psychology, on the other hand, argues that the psychological mechanisms are innate and present in all human beings. Therefore, emotion can be universal. Mallon and Stitch argue that this dispute about the universality of emotion between social constructionists and evolutionary psychologists originate from the “disagreement about the meaning and the reference of the emotion terms.”(146,Mallon and Stitch) Further, the disagreement can be resolved by taking a “thick description theory” which entails opulent description theory and high accuracy. With a thick description theory, the social constructionists first agree that ethnopsychology contributed significantly to mental state terms, and also that the claims must be “true of mental states”(148,Mallon and Stitch) Therefore, neither does “song” exist in American culture, not does “anger” exist in Ifaluk culture. In this sense, once it is acknowledged that ethonopsychology is different crosss culture, and that social constructionism and evolutionary psychologists both have their own way of dealing with meaning and reference of the emotion terms, the seemingly obvious different between social construction and evolutionary psychology would not hinder their study on

Emotion is the premise for this discussion. We see in chapter four of our text that emotion is one way of handling an argument. Moreover, the text gives different outlines for the aspects used in emotion. The

The emotions found within all of us have a deep relation towards perception and culture because people react to different emotional states, and often show emotion physically. However, emotions have always been the central point of an individual’s life because it is the cause that leads us to our personality. In many ways, our emotions define our existence without them, most of us would not feel truly alive.

In “Your Emotional Mind” covered in Chapter 1, I learned many interesting things about emotional intelligence, such as an emotion being defined as a feeling state, distinguishing the difference between a thought and a feeling lays the foundation for emotionally intelligent behavior, and how emotional reactivity can become a bad habit. Although these subjects were interesting, I was more enthralled with the Temporal Theory of Primary Emotions and diagram showing three primary emotions of anger, sadness, and fear in relation to the past, present, and future.

In social life, emotional labour is continually having required the management of feeling. What is human feeling? Hochschild characterises feelings, like similar to emotion, in a sense, similar to the feeling of knowing about sight. We frequently say that we attempt to feel, but how can we do this, the feeling is not the thing within us, but

Philosophers and psychologists identify emotion as something you gain through many experiences you go through. There were many theories that were developed by scientist and psychologists throughout the centuries that express their beliefs on how emotion is developed. Seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke described a young child 's mind as a “tabula rasa” (blank slate) upon which the child 's experiences are recorded. A child at a young age can be easily impacted or influenced by anything that is going on around them and the way instances are perceived and responded to can affect the way the child is going to act in the future because there isn’t much. An eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau also argued that “human development was primarily a function of experience”. He believed in the existence of a natural, unspoiled state of humankind that is

Chapter 1 explains the work of a Harvard psychologist named William James. William published the article “What is an Emotion?” in a philosophical journal entitled Mind in 1884. His paper is an argument for the primacy and necessity of bodily systems in producing emotional feelings. James-Lange theory states that physiological arousal instigates the experience of emotion. A Harvard physiologist, Walter Cannon, roundly criticized James’ theory, claiming that, according to the Cannon Bard theory, physiological changes follow emotional expression.

In everyday life there is a constant evidence of interaction between cognition and emotion. If we see something funny we laugh, if we fear we run or hide, if we are distressed we find it hard to concentrate. However we do not need to present any of the emotions to others, we can regulate them, think about situations and consequences and estimate the outcome. We are able to control our emotions. Ochsner and Gross(2005,p.242) argues that capacity to control emotion is important for human adaptation. The question is to what extent does cognition control emotion?