PSYC18H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Tania Singer, Seven Deadly Sins, Aristotle
Document Summary
An emotion is a psychological state/process that mediates btwn our concerns (or goals) and events around the world: at any one time an emotion gives priority to one concern over others; it gives that concern urgency. Charles darwin (evolutionary approach: in 1838 the accepted theory was that god had given humans special facial muscles that allowed them to express uniquely human sentiments. Darwin"s theory humans are descended from other species: we are not only closer to animals than had been thought, but we ourselves are kinds of animals. He proposed theat emotional expressions derive largely from habits that in our evolutionary/indiv past had once been useful. So, emotional expressions are based on reflex-like mechanisms, and some of them occur whether they are useful or not: they can be triggered involuntarily in circumstances analogous to those that had triggered the original habits.
