Functional Accounts of Emotion

Functional Accounts of Emotion
Author: James J. Gross
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1999
Genre: Affect (Psychology)
ISBN: 9780863776441

In recent years, emotion researchers have paid increasing attention to the functions that emotions service. This attention to function has been apparent in many disciplines and at many levels of analysis. From the most basic physiological symptom to the most overarching social structure, the effects of emotion, both on the emotional person and on others, are being recognized. The knowledge that has accumulated is substantial but is scattered among a variety of fields and literatures. This special issue summarizes the functional approach to emotion. The six articles that have been selected concentrate on the work of psychologists but include many of the other fields that have contributed to what is truly a multidisciplinary approach. The special issue opens with three foundational articles that discuss (a) the intrapersonal functions of emotions, (b) the social functions of emotions, and (c) the developmental functions of emotions. The next three articles focus on challenges to traditional functional accounts of emotions. These articles consider (d) emotion regulation, (e) emotions and psychopathology, and (e) negative affect and health.

The Function of Emotions

The Function of Emotions
Author: Heather C. Lench
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2018-05-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9783319776187

This eye-opening text brings together research from behavioral science, neuroscience, and other fields to make a cogent case for emotions acting as a practical framework for living our lives. A dozen basic emotions are analyzed in terms of what causes them, how they change thoughts and behaviors, and the functional value of these responses. Contrary to the common idea of emotions as fleeting occurrences, they are shown as having the potential for lasting impact on moods, thoughts, and behaviors. Intriguing findings assert that even negative emotions such as jealousy and anger can have positive results such as promoting positive goals, and can lead to successful outcomes in overarching domains such as cognition and well-being. Among the topics covered: · How fear and anxiety promote attention and protective behavior. · How sadness and depression promote analysis of complex problems in goal-pursuits. · How happiness promotes processing and attention. · How love promotes relationship development and goal attainment. · How pride promotes sense of self and identity. The Function of Emotions is a valuable resource for students, researchers, and clinicians interested in the psychology and neuroscience of emotions and their function in everyday life. It will attract an interested readership among professionals working in such fields as education, management and leadership, social work, and psychotherapy.

Active Inference

Active Inference
Author: Thomas Parr
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2022-03-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262362287

The first comprehensive treatment of active inference, an integrative perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior used across multiple disciplines. Active inference is a way of understanding sentient behavior—a theory that characterizes perception, planning, and action in terms of probabilistic inference. Developed by theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston over years of groundbreaking research, active inference provides an integrated perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior that is increasingly used across multiple disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. Active inference puts the action into perception. This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of active inference, covering theory, applications, and cognitive domains. Active inference is a “first principles” approach to understanding behavior and the brain, framed in terms of a single imperative to minimize free energy. The book emphasizes the implications of the free energy principle for understanding how the brain works. It first introduces active inference both conceptually and formally, contextualizing it within current theories of cognition. It then provides specific examples of computational models that use active inference to explain such cognitive phenomena as perception, attention, memory, and planning.

Theories of Emotion

Theories of Emotion
Author: Robert Plutchik
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2013-10-22
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1483270017

Emotion: Theory, Research, and Experience, Volume 1: Theories of Emotion, presents broad theoretical perspectives representing all major schools of thought in the study of the nature of emotion. The contributions contained in the book are characterized under three major headings - evolutionary context, psychophysiological context, and dynamic context. Subjects that are discussed include general psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion; the affect system; the biology of emotions and other feelings; and emotions as transitory social roles. Psychologists, sociobiologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, ethologists, and students the allied fields will find the text a good reference material.

The Cognitive-Emotional Brain

The Cognitive-Emotional Brain
Author: Luiz Pessoa
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2013-10-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262019566

A study that goes beyond the debate over functional specialization to describe the ways that emotion and cognition interact and are integrated in the brain. The idea that a specific brain circuit constitutes the emotional brain (and its corollary, that cognition resides elsewhere) shaped thinking about emotion and the brain for many years. Recent behavioral, neuropsychological, neuroanatomy, and neuroimaging research, however, suggests that emotion interacts with cognition in the brain. In this book, Luiz Pessoa moves beyond the debate over functional specialization, describing the many ways that emotion and cognition interact and are integrated in the brain. The amygdala is often viewed as the quintessential emotional region of the brain, but Pessoa reviews findings revealing that many of its functions contribute to attention and decision making, critical components of cognitive functions. He counters the idea of a subcortical pathway to the amygdala for affective visual stimuli with an alternate framework, the multiple waves model. Citing research on reward and motivation, Pessoa also proposes the dual competition model, which explains emotional and motivational processing in terms of their influence on competition processes at both perceptual and executive function levels. He considers the broader issue of structure-function mappings, and examines anatomical features of several regions often associated with emotional processing, highlighting their connectivity properties. As new theoretical frameworks of distributed processing evolve, Pessoa concludes, a truly dynamic network view of the brain will emerge, in which "emotion" and "cognition" may be used as labels in the context of certain behaviors, but will not map cleanly into compartmentalized pieces of the brain.

Cognition and Emotion

Cognition and Emotion
Author: Jan de Houwer
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2010-05-09
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1136980946

Emotions are complex and multifaceted phenomena. Although they have been examined from a variety of perspectives, the study of the interaction between cognition and emotion has always occupied a unique position within emotion research. Many philosophers and psychologists have been fascinated by the relationship between thinking and feeling. During the past 30 years, research on the relationship between cognition and emotion has boomed and so many studies on this topic have been published that it is difficult to keep track of the evidence. This book fulfils the need for a review of the existing evidence on particular aspects of the interplay between cognition and emotion. The book assembles a collection of state-of-the-art reviews of the most important topics in cognition and emotion research: emotion theories, feeling and thinking, the perception of emotion, the expression of emotion, emotion regulation, emotion and memory, and emotion and attention. By bringing these reviews together, this book presents a unique overview of the knowledge that has been generated in the past decades about the many and complex ways in which cognition and emotion interact. As such, it provides a useful tool for both students and researchers alike, in the fields of social, clinical and cognitive psychology.

Descartes' Error

Descartes' Error
Author: Antonio Damasio
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2005-09-27
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 014303622X

Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.

Emotions

Emotions
Author: Tracy Mayne
Publisher: Guilford Press
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2001-01-03
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9781572306226

This volume presents cutting-edge work in emotion theory and research. Contributors describe innovative methods, models, and measurements that illuminate and at times challenge traditional paradigms. Each chapter defines basic terms, reviews the historical development and evolution of the issue at hand, and discusses current research and directions for future investigation.

Emotions, Values, and Agency

Emotions, Values, and Agency
Author: Christine Tappolet
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2016
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199696519

The emotions we experience are crucial to who we are, to what we think, and to what we do. But what are emotions, exactly, and how do they relate to agency? The aim of this book is to spell out an account of emotions, which is grounded on analogies between emotions and sensory experiences, and to explore the implications of this account for our understanding of human agency. The central claim is that emotions consist in perceptual experiences of values, such as the fearsome, the disgusting or the admirable. A virtue of this account is that it affords a better grasp of a variety of interconnected phenomena, such as motivation, values, responsibility and reason-responsiveness. In the process of exploring the implications of the Perceptual Theory of emotions, several claims are proposed. First, emotions normally involve desires that set goals, but they can be contemplative in that they can occur without any motivation. Second, evaluative judgements can be understood in terms of appropriate emotions in so far as appropriateness is taken to consist in correct representation. Third, by contrast with what Strawsonian theories hold, the concept of moral responsibility is not response-dependent, but the relationship between emotions and moral responsibility is mediated by values. Finally, in so far as emotions are perceptions of values, they can be considered to be perceptions of practical reasons, so that on certain conditions, acting on the basis of one's emotions can consist in responding to one's reasons.