Chapter 1 textbook notes on Understanding Emotions

Chapter 1 Introduction N Over 2000 years, many have argued that emotions are base and destructive N More novel reaches of human nature are achieved when passions are controlled by reasons. N Perils of particular emotions: Anger as destructive to the self and to social relations. N Emotions as having important functions especially in our social lives. Nineteenth-century founders (Darwin, James, Freud) Darwin : evolutionary approach N Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals N Humans as being descended from other species: we are not only closer to animals than had been thought, but we ourselves are animals N Normal vs. Abnormal N Two questions o How are emotions expressed in humans and other animals? o Where do our emotions come from? N Concluded that emotional expressions derive largely from habits that in our evolutionary or individual past had once been useful. o Analogous triggers of habits ex: Tears that do not function to lubricate eyes N Emotional expressions showed the continuity of adult human behavioral mechanisms with those of lower animals and with those of infancy; vestigal parts of our bodies. o Sneering linked to snarling and preparing to bite o Crying links to infancy, vestige of screaming in infancy. When adults cry, they still secrete tears but have no longer any protective function N Argued for the universality of emotion William James: the bodily approach N Argued against the idea that when we feel an emotion, it impels us to a certain kind of activity. N Instead, when we perceive an object of fear, for example, the emotion is the perception of changes of our body as we react to the fact. N Ex: When we feel frightened, we feel our heart beating, our skin cold, our posture frozen, etc. N Theory is on the nature of emotional experience. N Emotion as a pattern of bodily responses and changes N Emotions gives us color and warmth to experience it affects our perceptions Sigmund Freud: the psychoanalytic approach N Proposed that certain events (usually of a sexual kind) can be damaging that they leave psychological scars that can affect the rest of our lives. N One of the first to argue that emotions are at the core of many pathologies N Freud to Richard Lazarus development of theory of appraisal on the basis of goals N Freud to Bowlby development of theory of attachment Philosophical and literary approaches (Aristotle, Descartes, Elliot) Aristotle: the conceptual approach N Emotions are connected with action N Emotions depend on what we believe, that they are evaluations. We are responsible for our emotions because we are responsible for our beliefs and valuations of the world. N Rhetoric book how do we persuade others? Three principles: o 1) A hearer is more likely to believe a good person that a bad one. o 2) People are persuaded when what is said stirs their emotions o 3) People are persuaded by arguments that seem truthful. N Emotion is defined cognitively, in terms of knowledge A slight has occurred. To be slighted is to be treated with contempt, or thwarted, or shamed. N Rhetoric as a search for truth, by speaking and discussion. N When speaking to persuade, you must know something about the people to whom you speak, about their values, and about the effects that speaking may have on them. www.notesolution.com