The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions

Description

The Editors of this unique volume asked some of the world's leading emotion researchers to address 14 fundamental questions about the nature and origins of emotion. Each chapter addresses one of these questions, with often divergent answers from the more than 100 experts represented here. At the end of each chapter, the Editors highlight key areas of agreement and disagreement. In the final chapter, they outline the most important challenges facing the field and the most fruitful avenues for future research. Not a textbook offering a single viewpoint, The Nature of Emotion reveals the central issues in emotion research and theory in the words of the leading scientists working in the field today, providing a unique and highly accessible guide for students, researchers, and clinicians. Cover Series The Nature of Emotion Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Editor Contributions CONTRIBUTORS Introduction Preface to Paul Ekman’s Essay How emotions might work Question 1: What is an emotion? 1.1 Emotions and feelings: William James then and now 1.2 Emotions are functional states that cause feelings and behavior 1.3 What is emotion? A natural science perspective 1.4 Affect is essential to emotion 1.5 Emotions: Causes and consequences 1.6 What are emotional states, and what are their functions? 1.7 Active inference and emotion 1.8 Emotions are constructed with interoception and concepts within a predicting brain 1.9 Afterword Question 2: How are emotions, mood, and temperament related? 2.1 Distinguishing affective constructs: Structure, trait-​ vs. state-​ness, and responses to affect 2.2 Inhibited temperament and intrinsic versus extrinsic influences on fear circuits 2.3 Feelings, moods and temperaments 2.4 Distinctions between temperament and emotion: Examining reactivity, regulation, and social understanding 2.5 Afterword Question 3: What are the dimensions and bases for lasting individual differences in emotion? 3.1 Personality as lasting individual differences in emotions 3.2 The bases for preservation of emotional biases 3.3 The psychological and neurobiological bases of dispositional negativity 3.4 Reactivity, recovery, regulation: The three R’s of emotional responding 3.5 Afterword Question 4: What is the added value of studying the brain for understanding emotion? 4.1 Studying the brain is necessary for understanding emotion 4.2 Brain and emotion research: Contributions of patient and activation studies 4.3 Understanding emotion by unraveling complex structure–​function mappings 4.4 Brain studies can advance psychological understanding 4.5 Afterword Question 5: How are emotions organized in the brain? 5.1 Discrete and dimensional contributions to emotion arise from multiple brain circuits 5.2 Brain limbic systems as flexible generators of emotion 5.3 At primal levels, vast subcortical brain networks mediate instinctual emotional reactions that help program higher-​order emotional-​cognitive abilities in higher regions of the brain and mind 5.4 Brain architecture and principles of the organization of emotion in the brain 5.5 Variation and degeneracy in the brain basis of emotion 5.6 How are emotions organized in the brain? 5.7 The brain is organized to emote 5.8 Neural circuit mechanisms for switching emotional tracks: From positive to negative and back again 5.9 Afterword Question 6: When and in what ways are emotions adaptive and maladaptive? 6.1 The ambiguous issue of adaptive emotions 6.2 Maladaptive emotions are inseparable from inaccurate appraisals 6.3 Emotions aren’t maladaptive 6.4 Cultural neuroscience of emotion 6.5 Positive emotions broaden and build: Consideration for how and when pleasant subjective experiences are adaptive and maladaptive 6.6 The social nature of emotions: Context matters 6.7 Afterword Question 7: How are emotions regulated by context and cognition? 7.1 Emotion as an evolutionary adaptive pattern: The roles of context and cognition 7.2 Individual differences in fear conditioning and extinction paradigms: Insights for emotion regulation 7.3 The role of context and cognition in the placebo effect 7.4 Emotional intensity: It’s the thought that counts 7.5 Emotion regulation as a change of goals and priorities 7.6 Searching for implicit emotion regulation 7.7 Fighting fire with fire: Endogenous emotion generation as a means of emotion regulation 7.8 Afterword Question 8: How do emotion and cognition interact? 8.1 The interplay of emotion and cognition 8.2 The impact of affect depends on its object 8.3 Thoughts on cognition–​emotion interactions and their role in the diagnosis and treatment of psychopathology 8.4 Beyond cognition and emotion: Dispensing with a cherished psychological narrative 8.5 Can we advance our understanding of emotional behavior by reconceptualizing it as involving valuation? 8.6 Beyond the threat bias: Reciprocal links between emotion and cognition 8.7 The cognitive-​emotional brain 8.8 Emotional vs. rational systems, and decisions between them 8.9 Afterword Question 9: How are emotions embodied in the social world? 9.1 Connections between emotions and the social world: Numerous and complex 9.2 Effects of emotion on interpersonal behavior: A motivational perspective 9.3 Emotion in the social world 9.4 The affective nature of social interactions 9.5 On the significance of implicit emotional communication 9.6 Deconstructing social emotions: Empathy and compassion and their relationship to prosocial behavior 9.7 Afterword Question 10: How and why are emotions communicated? 10.1 Form of facial expression communication originates in sensory function 10.2 Expression of emotion: New principles for future inquiry 10.3 The (more or less accurate) communication of emotions serves social problem solving 10.4 Making sense of the senses in emotion communication 10.5 Movement and manipulation: The how and why of emotion communication 10.6 Concepts are key to the “communication” of emotion 10.7 The web of emotion understanding in human infants 10.8 The dynamic-​interactive model approach to the perception of facial emotion 10.9 Afterword Question 11: How are emotions physically embodied? 11.1 How and why emotions are embodied 11.2 Emotion in body and brain: Context-​dependent action and reaction 11.3 The importance of the mind for understanding how emotions are embodied 11.4 How are emotions physically embodied? 11.5 Pain as an embodied emotion 11.6 How are emotions organized and physically embodied? 11.7 The complex tapestry of emotion: Immune and microbial contributions 11.8 Afterword Question 12: What is the role of conscious awareness in emotion? 12.1 Emotions are more than their subjective feelings 12.2 Reactive emotional processing in the absence of conscious awareness 12.3 What is the role of unconscious emotions and of conscious awareness in emotion? 12.4 Self-​regulating our emotional states when we are conscious of them and when we are not 12.5 Regulatory benefits of conscious awareness: Insights from the emotion misattribution paradigm and a role for lateral prefrontal cortex 12.6 Afterword Question 13: How are emotions integrated into choice? 13.1 How can affect influence choice? 13.2 Emotions through the lens of economic theory 13.3 Emotions as computational signals of goal error 13.4 Affect is the foundation of value 13.5 Emotion, value, and choice 13.6 Emotions can bias decision-​making processes by promoting specific behavioral tendencies 13.7 Emotions are important for advantageous decision-​making: A neuropsychological perspective 13.8 From emotion to motion: Making choices based on current states and biological needs 13.9 Afterword Question 14: What develops in emotional development? 14.1 The recognition of emotion during the first years of life 14.2 Everything develops during emotional development 14.3 Stability and change in emotion-​relevant personality traits in childhood and adolescence 14.4 Normative trajectories and sources of psychopathology risk in adolescence 14.5 What happens in emotional development? Adolescent emotionality 14.6 Goals change with age and benefit emotional experience 14.7 Ideal ends in emotional development 14.8 Afterword Epilogue: ​The nature of emotion 403 A research agenda for the Twenty-First century Notes REFERENCES Index