Emotions What Is an Emotion?

Emotions

What is an emotion? Explain how an emotion is the interaction between stimuli, physiology, and behavior.

An emotion is both a subjective (the traditional reading) and an objective response to an outside stimulus. The subjective quality of emotions originally led researchers to classify emotions as innately human responses. However, an emotion is also an objectively measured physical response on the part of the individual organism to an outside influence. For example, the physiology of the organism, human or animal, changes in terms of the chemically measurable anxiety of the individual, when the anxiety-producing stimulus is removed through the process of conflict resolution. This results in a corresponding alteration in the behavior of the organism. For example, a chimp might cease to engage in pulling his or her own hair, a tic that indicates anxiety, when the anxiety-producing stimulus is removed, and the chimp's brain chemistry begins to alter.

Thus emotions are subjectively influenced in the sense that they are based on individual's perceptions, but emotional changes are create physical as well as mental changes in the organism, and produce changes in individual behavior. Also, perceptions can be affected by emotion, as one's senses are heightened during states of anxiety, and some anxious people or animals might be more sensitive to environmental changes than others. (Aureli & Smuncy, 2000, pp. 99-100)

Explain how anxiety is an adaptive emotion that has evolved to manage conflict. How do emotions mediate pre- and post-conflict interactions and how are they expressed and communicated between individuals?

Anxiety is an adaptive emotion with many positive benefits. It enables animals to quickly perceive an environmental threat, and flee a dangerous situation. It makes other biological phenomenon, like eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom, etc. A low priority, and makes leaving the situation or defending one's safety a high biological priority. Also, the senses are heightened as a result of anxiety, enabling the organism to better defend itself and react to changes in the environment. Finally, anxiety as a visible emotion is seen even in primates, as noted by Wall (2000) when chimps engage in conflict, then hug and kiss and make peace after quarreling, indicating a shift in emotional response, and the production of different emotions through altered behavior in the brain chemistry of the animals. Both before and after conflicts, emotions are heightened by an increased sensitivity to change and stimuli, and this is also reflected in behavior on the part of the individual and in response to others. These heightened emotions are communicated by both shifts in personal posture, and also in expressive, outer-directed behavior.

In what ways are emotions "costly signals" - costly signals must be honest and reliable because they waste energy and cannot be faked.

Emotions are costly in the sense that they produce alterable physical changes that make what would otherwise be a priority (food, harmonious interaction with others) a relatively low priority. Also, because anxious emotions make one's response to the environment so heightened, and raise the potential for conflict between individuals, they are costly on a societal as well as upon a biological level of energy expenditure and the potential for creating dangerous social situations.

What is the social and physiological motivation for individuals to reconcile after a conflict? How is the value of a relationship relative (that is, different from each individual's perspective)? How is the motivation for pre- and post-conflict resolution influenced by relative relationship value?

Physiologically, the release from the tensions of anxiety is one potential reward for the individuals engaged in conflict. Also, resolving conflict decreases some, if not all of the chemically induced, physical unpleasantness felt during a state of anxiety. However, anxiety, like all emotions, is not the same for every person who experiences that emotion. One person may value the relationship more than the other person who is engaged in a conflict. Thus, the stakes are higher in the conflict, and one party has more motivation to instigate resolution.

There is also the potential for different levels of post-resolution anxiety to vary between individual to individual. A highly suspicious person may still experience intense anxiety, even after the conflict has been resolved, and continue to feel the heightened sense of awareness that goes along with the physical changes induced by conflict resolution.

Living in a social group presents conflicts of interest but is the result of interests in common. Explain how social interactions can result in positive emotional responses and influence the strength of a social bond. How is physical contact important for maintaining relationships and facilitating conflict resolution?

Anxiety and emotion produce physiological changes, and are communicated by changes in behavior, such as shifts, for example in the pattern of scratching, crouching, or other customary habits in chimps. The anxious behavior of one animal, if observed by other animals, can produce changes in the behavior of other animals. But conflict resolution, and the relaxation of anxious behavior, can produce measurable changes in the behavior of other, observing animals as well.

Furthermore, the existence of a necessary social group, and social bonds, acts as a way of enforcing greater compassion on the part of the individual. The individual has less motivation to engage in peaceful resolution, for example, with a hostile member of the tribe than a person to whom he feels kinship. By touching, transferring positive emotions, and stimulating brain neurotransmitters that promote relaxation and pleasure, as well as demonstrating through mimicry the safety of physical intimacy, a more harmonious society is created through social relationships and social bonding where conflict, overall, is reduced.

The intense sociality seen among primates, including humans has deep roots in mammalian evolutionary history. Not surprisingly, Aureli and Smucny argue that emotional responses are general adaptations that evolved for managing the social relationships and do not require advanced intelligence, a large brain, or language. Are human emotions equivalent to those of other primates? Or, are there emotions that are uniquely human? Explain.