This post is by Edoardo Zamuner (pictured above), a senior research fellow in the School of Psychology of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He previously held research and teaching positions at University College London, La Trobe University (Melbourne) and the University of Hong Kong. While he is a philosopher by training, he is a psychologist by trade and persuasion. His current research in psychology focuses on visual perception of faces and facial properties such as gender, expression and personality. His work in philosophy of mind concerns the emotions. Here he summarises his recent paper ‘Emotions as Psychological Reactions’, published in Mind and Language.
What kinds of mental states are emotions? My paper argues for the view that emotions are reactions to our experience and thoughts, broadly construed. But what exactly is a reaction? And why should we think of emotions as reactions? Talk of reactions is a reflection of everyday causal explanations, just as talk of cause and effect. It would, however, be a mistake to equate reactions and effects. As I show in my paper, we think of reactions as effects with polarity. For example, we view changes such as worsening and improvement as polarly opposed reactions to a treatment. If emotions are reactions, then they have polarity. But what exactly is the polarity of emotions? The paper’s main thesis claims that we can characterise emotional polarity in terms of the distinction between approach and avoidance.
Specifically, emotions come with the tendency to engage with (approach), or withdraw from (avoidance), the objects and situations in reaction to which emotions occur. This tendency can express itself behaviourally, like when anxiety results in procrastination (avoidance), or psychologically, like when joy results in anticipation (approach).
Two main objections can be raised against this thesis. First, emotional behaviours such as freezing in fear and sulking in resentment do not seem to come with any tendency to approach or avoid the objects of fear and resentment. Second, the emotional syndrome commonly known as brooding does not seem to dispose one to engage with, or withdraw from, the object of one’s emotion. My replies involve showing that both objections fail to acknowledge the polarity of the emotions that underlie the phenomena under consideration.
Freezing is known to occur when movement might provoke further attacks from a predator or assailant. This suggests that the emotion of which freezing is an expression comes with the tendency to avoid damage. Sulking, on the other hand, is a behavioural strategy in which seemingly non-relational attitudes (e.g. grudging) and signals (e.g. ‘yes-or-no’ answers) aim to negatively affect another party in a relationship. Since affecting others is a way of indirectly engaging with them, there is a sense in which the emotion that leads to sulking involves the tendency to approach.
Similar considerations apply to brooding. This is an affective state in which lack of action often translates into rumination and obsessive thinking about something that makes one unhappy, angry or worried. As I noted earlier, an emotion’s tendency to approach or avoid its object can express itself not only behaviourally but also psychologically. Brooding seems a case in point since the person who broods over an issue imaginatively engages with it. We may thus view brooding as an emotional syndrome that comes with the tendency to approach and engage with thoughts and images that represent the object of one’s sadness, anger or worry.
At this point, one may wonder about the theoretical gain of the view that emotions are reactions. The answer lies in the explanatory power of polarity. Most notably, polarity can explain some aspects of the intentionality of emotion, understood as the way in which a person views the world as a result of her being in the grip of an emotion. In recent years, new accounts of the intentionality of bodily sensations have been proposed. They begin with the observation that certain bodily sensations tell us what to do or not to do. Tickles, for example, tell us to laugh. Pain, on the other hand, tells us to avoid those movements that would make it worse.
Drawing on this observation, some theorists argue that bodily sensations are part descriptive and part prescriptive. The descriptive part represents a region of one’s body as being a certain way, i.e. as being titillated in the case of tickles or damaged in the case of pains. The prescriptive part, on the other hand, involves a command to do or not to do something. Thus, tickles involve the imperative ‘Laugh!’ and pains involve the negative imperative ‘Don’t do it!’.
This account seems particularly well suited to explain some aspects of the intentionality of emotions such as disgust, surprise and fear. Suppose you experience disgust upon finding a dead bird on your balcony. Besides representing the dead bird as repulsive, your emotion commands you to avoid or stay away from the carcass. It is in this sense that polarity can help explain certain aspects of the intentionality of emotions. Since polarity defines reactions, the claim that emotions are psychological reactions is both plausible and significant.
Specifically, emotions come with the tendency to engage with (approach), or withdraw from (avoidance), the objects and situations in reaction to which emotions occur. This tendency can express itself behaviourally, like when anxiety results in procrastination (avoidance), or psychologically, like when joy results in anticipation (approach).
Two main objections can be raised against this thesis. First, emotional behaviours such as freezing in fear and sulking in resentment do not seem to come with any tendency to approach or avoid the objects of fear and resentment. Second, the emotional syndrome commonly known as brooding does not seem to dispose one to engage with, or withdraw from, the object of one’s emotion. My replies involve showing that both objections fail to acknowledge the polarity of the emotions that underlie the phenomena under consideration.
Freezing is known to occur when movement might provoke further attacks from a predator or assailant. This suggests that the emotion of which freezing is an expression comes with the tendency to avoid damage. Sulking, on the other hand, is a behavioural strategy in which seemingly non-relational attitudes (e.g. grudging) and signals (e.g. ‘yes-or-no’ answers) aim to negatively affect another party in a relationship. Since affecting others is a way of indirectly engaging with them, there is a sense in which the emotion that leads to sulking involves the tendency to approach.
Similar considerations apply to brooding. This is an affective state in which lack of action often translates into rumination and obsessive thinking about something that makes one unhappy, angry or worried. As I noted earlier, an emotion’s tendency to approach or avoid its object can express itself not only behaviourally but also psychologically. Brooding seems a case in point since the person who broods over an issue imaginatively engages with it. We may thus view brooding as an emotional syndrome that comes with the tendency to approach and engage with thoughts and images that represent the object of one’s sadness, anger or worry.
At this point, one may wonder about the theoretical gain of the view that emotions are reactions. The answer lies in the explanatory power of polarity. Most notably, polarity can explain some aspects of the intentionality of emotion, understood as the way in which a person views the world as a result of her being in the grip of an emotion. In recent years, new accounts of the intentionality of bodily sensations have been proposed. They begin with the observation that certain bodily sensations tell us what to do or not to do. Tickles, for example, tell us to laugh. Pain, on the other hand, tells us to avoid those movements that would make it worse.
Drawing on this observation, some theorists argue that bodily sensations are part descriptive and part prescriptive. The descriptive part represents a region of one’s body as being a certain way, i.e. as being titillated in the case of tickles or damaged in the case of pains. The prescriptive part, on the other hand, involves a command to do or not to do something. Thus, tickles involve the imperative ‘Laugh!’ and pains involve the negative imperative ‘Don’t do it!’.
This account seems particularly well suited to explain some aspects of the intentionality of emotions such as disgust, surprise and fear. Suppose you experience disgust upon finding a dead bird on your balcony. Besides representing the dead bird as repulsive, your emotion commands you to avoid or stay away from the carcass. It is in this sense that polarity can help explain certain aspects of the intentionality of emotions. Since polarity defines reactions, the claim that emotions are psychological reactions is both plausible and significant.