Understanding Human Emotions

Men and women have been pondering the definition of emotion for thousands of years. Explore the thoughts of scientists, philosophers, and psychologists from Aristotle to René Descartes, B. F. Skinner to Magda Arnold, and more. Each has added significant concepts to the discussion. But do we have a functionally complete definition, yet? Do we even need one?

Our ancestors had a long list of adaptations to help them survive. But some of those adaptations are mutually exclusive, and how did they know which one to call on in a given circumstance? Explore the phenomenon of natural selection in the development of fear, joy, anger, and disgust as the superordinate programs we rely on today.

We know that our autonomic nervous, neuroendocrine, and immune systems are strongly related to our emotions, and we usually think of them as responding to emotions. But if we made changes in those systems, could we create the associated emotions? Learn about the fascinating experiments that have tried to do just that.

Humans are social animals and our best chance of survival comes when we thrive in the social environment. Learn about the affiliative and distancing functions of emotions on our ability to create the social connections necessary for survival. Explore the fascinating games created to test various hypotheses about the effects of emotions on social bonds.

Explore the fascinating human face, a dual-processing system that can produce both genuine emotional and feigned expressions—from two different neuronal pathways. Discover the possible evolutionary reasons for showing those expressions front and center, on a body part that is so difficult to hide.

Some of our emotions result from an assessment of our own behavior in relation to a particular standard or goal. These evaluative self-conscious emotions include shame, guilt, pride, embarrassment, and hubris. Explore the very detailed and unique physical expressions that tend to accompany these particular emotions—and why.

In the Western world, we tend to view our emotions as individualistic. But for the rest of the world, this idea makes no sense. Most people consider emotions to be interpersonal, and this is the trend among scientists studying emotions now, too. Explore the fascinating ways in which culture affects our concepts, and expression, of emotions.

We all know that babies do not exhibit the full range of human emotions. Jealousy, pride, shame, guilt, etc. cannot be expressed until later development. But is each baby born with access to the full range of human emotions or are emotional tendencies shaped by family, culture, and peer group? Learn about the fascinating theories.

Throughout the centuries, we have often worshipped the rationality of our cognitive powers. Our emotions, however, have usually been negatively described as irrational. But what if we think our emotions are pointless only because we are in the dark about their goals? Discover why scientists describe emotions as orderly; purposeful; and, yes, intelligent.

While emotional responses are short lived, lasting on a scale of seconds to minutes, and always with an obvious trigger, moods can last days, months, or even a lifetime, and be future-oriented. Explore the mood disorders of anxiety and of depression. How could these disorders have resulted from the process of natural selection?

Disgust and anger are complicated feelings. Learn why the latest work by some evolutionary psychologists identify three types of disgust—pathogen, sexual, and moral—and why anger, possibly more than any other emotion, is often attempted to be controlled or mitigated. From an evolutionary point of view, exactly how do disgust and anger work to our benefit?

We would all agree that love is an emotion. But while we have defined all emotions as being fleeting, this is not a characteristic we really want to attribute to love. Discover the differences between romantic and companionate love. Explore these two types of love from an evolutionary point of view and discover how they can both contribute to our species’ success.