Emotion Review current issue

Preface

Stearns, P. N. — 2009-09-16

Emotions as Cognitive-Affective-Somatic Hybrids

Harre, R. — 2009-09-16

One way of studying emotions which is sensitive to cultural differences is to analyze the vocabularies people use to describe their own and other’s emotions, which can be called the local emotionology. Wittgenstein’s concepts of language game and family resemblance can be used in this project. The result of research in this mode is a three-factor account of emotions, involving bodily perturbations, judgments of meanings, and the social force of emotion displays. This treatment of a psychological phenomenon is typical of recent conceptions of psychology as a hybrid science, linking cognitive, cultural, and physiological phenomena. It can be seen as a further development of the cognitive account of emotions that has appeared in the last century.

Historical Research on the Self and Emotions

Reddy, W. M. — 2009-09-16

Research on this topic in Europe and North America has reached a new stage. Prior to 1970, historians told a story of progress in which modern individuals gradually gained mastery of emotions. After 1970 this older approach was put into doubt. Since 1990 research into the history of emotions has increasingly relied on a new methodology, based on the assumption that emotion is a domain of effort, and that it is possible to document variance between emotional standards, on the one hand, and the greater or lesser success of individuals in conforming to them, on the other. Emotional standards are now assumed to display a history that is not progressive, but reflects distinctive features of each period.

Reconstructing the Past: A Century of Ideas About Emotion in Psychology

Gendron, M., Feldman Barrett, L. — 2009-09-16

Within the discipline of psychology, the conventional history outlines the development of two fundamental approaches to the scientific study of emotion—"basic emotion" and "appraisal" traditions. In this article, we outline the development of a third approach to emotion that exists in the psychological literature—the "psychological constructionist" tradition. In the process, we discuss a number of works that have virtually disappeared from the citation trail in psychological discussions of emotion. We also correct some misconceptions about early sources, such as work by Darwin and James. Taken together, these three contributions make for a fuller and more accurate account of ideas about emotion during the century stretching from 1855 to just before 1960.

The Sociology of Emotions: Basic Theoretical Arguments

Turner, J. H. — 2009-09-16

In this article, the basic sociological approaches to theorizing human emotions are reviewed. In broad strokes, theorizing can be grouped into several schools of thought: evolutionary, symbolic interactionist, symbolic interactionist with psychoanalytic elements, interaction ritual, power and status, stratification, and exchange. All of these approaches to theorizing emotions have generated useful insights into the dynamics of emotions. There remain, however, unresolved issues in sociological approaches to emotions, including: the nature of emotions, the degree to which emotions are hard-wired neurological or socially constructed, the relevance of analyzing the biology and evolution of emotions, the relationship between cognition and emotions, the number of distinctive emotional states produced by humans, and the relationship between emotions and rationality.

Affective Neuroscience: Past, Present, and Future

Dalgleish, T., Dunn, B. D., Mobbs, D. — 2009-09-16

The discipline of affective neuroscience is concerned with the underlying neural substrates of emotion and mood. This review presents an historical overview of the pioneering work in affective neuroscience of James and Lange, Cannon and Bard, and Hess, Papez, and MacLean before summarizing the current state of research on the brain regions identified by these seminal researchers. We also discuss the more recent strides made in the field of affective neuroscience. A final section considers different hypothetical organizations of affective neuroanatomy and highlights future directions for the discipline.