PSYC18H3 Chapter 1: Book/ Chapter 1
Document Summary
Many thinkers have argued that our emotions are base and destructive, and that the more noble reaches of human nature are achieved when our passions are controlled by our reason. The west"s most prominent early theorists of emotions, the epicureans and stoics, whose influence has continued for more than 2,000 years, thought that emotions are irrational and damaging. The accepted theory was that god had given humans special facial muscles that allowed them to express uniquely human sentiments unknown to animals. Darwin observed emotional expressions in nonhuman species, as well as in adult and infant humans. In his book on emotions, darwin asked two broad questions that guide emotion researchers today. In table 1. 1 we present a taxonomy of some of the expressions darwin described. Darwin concluded that emotional expressions derive largely from habits that in our evolutionary or individual past had once been useful. He thought emotional expressions were like vestigial parts of our bodies.
