Evolution & Emotion
The past predicts the future
The fascinating topic of emotion and evolution has long been studied since Charles Darwin’s famous work, “Emotions in Man and Animals”. In this timeless treatise, Darwin observed that certain emotions are expressed across species, particularly among closely related ones, suggesting that these emotions are preserved over time through evolution.Â
Through modern evolutionary theory, we know that various emotions evolved at different phases in our history, beginning with primal emotions, followed by filial emotions, and later social emotions. To understand the complexities of our emotional responses, evolutionary psychologists look to how these emotions could have best served our ancestors’ lives, especially in nomadic foraging bands.
If you want to develop your social skills and emotional intelligence, we recommend delving into the best books about the evolution of emotions. By exploring this fascinating subject, you’ll gain a deeper appreciation of how we’ve evolved to express our emotions, and how they’ve helped us to adapt to the world around us.
How Paul Ekman’s Theory of Emotion Can Help You Better Understand Others
The framework described by Paul Ekman is influenced by Charles Darwin and Silvan Solomon Tomkins, although he himself stated that he did not accept in tot what either of them said. Ekman sustained there are three meanings for the term “basic” as you can read his argumentation in the article.
Ekman considers that emotional expressions are crucial to the development and regulation of interpersonal relationships. His studies demonstrated that facial expressions play an important role in the formation of attachments and are involved in the formation, acceleration or deceleration of aggressive behaviour.Â
Understanding Robert Plutchik’s Theory of Emotion: A Comprehensive Guide
Robert Plutchik proposed a psychoevolutionary classification approach for general emotional responses. He considered there to be eight primary emotions—anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy. Plutchik argues for the primacy of these emotions by showing each to be the trigger of behaviour with high survival value, such as the way fear inspires the fight-or-flight response.
Theories of Emotion in Psychology: A Quick Guide for Beginners
Emotion represents a complex of affective states that implies conscious or unconscious experiences which lead to psychological responses that either inhibit or facilitate the motivation of behaviour.
Emotions exert an incredibly powerful force on human behavior. Strong emotions can cause you to take actions you might not normally perform or to avoid situations you enjoy. Why exactly do we have emotions? What causes us to have these feelings?
Evolution and emotion psychology book recommendations
Amazon Bookshelf
Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
William James Tweet
Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.
Erich Fromm Tweet
The James-Lange Theory of Emotions: How Our Body Shapes Our Feelings
William James, known as the father of American Psychology, developed along with his 19th Century fellow psychologist Carl Lange the James-Lange theory which considers that environmental events lead to the apparition of muscular and visceral responses, and that these responses eventually determine emotions. Instead of feeling an emotion and subsequent physiological (bodily) response, the theory proposes that the physiological change is primary, and emotion is after that experienced, as the brain reacts to the information received via the body’s nervous system.
The emotion follows the behaviour, and does not determine it.