A Study on Emotion as it Relates to Construction
Bendjhi Villiers
2017
New College House
April 2, 2017
Bendjhi Villiers was a Scientific and Philosophical Study of Mind major and a Philosophy minor from North Miami, Florida. He is the former president of both I.M.P.A.C.T and L.I.F.T. He was involved in the Creative Writers Corps where he held writing workshops at local schools. His passion for writing has also led him to serve on the Emerging Writers Festival Planning Committee.
- Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to explore the idea that differentcultures have different emotions. However, before this can be explored, an account of what is meant by “emotions” is needed. When one says, they feel “afraid,” they often describe their emotions by referring to their experience of some bodily sensation in response to a stimulus. Sensations under this view are the physiological happening in the body. Such sensation involves palms getting sweaty, heart rate increasing, and butterflies in the stomach. The common-place understanding of emotions uses the words “feeling/sensation” and “emotion” interchangeably. What you feel is often thought to be what emotion you are currently experiencing. Yet, a feeling theory to emotion falls apart too easily to be adopted in this paper. One problem with the feelings theory is the fact that it renders an emotion to be something that just is. Physiological sensations just are the emotion. It does not need to be explained nor does that explanation need to be defined. If someone steals my last piece of cake and I become angry, I can explain my emotion by pointing towards the thing that has made me angry, mainly someone stealing my last piece of cake. Anger here is the right kind of emotion because some wrong has been done to you.
Furthermore, the feeling theory struggles to explain accounts of emotions that have the same psychological arousal. If the emotion is the sensation you experience, “fear” would be the sensation of your heart accelerating, your stomach being in knots, and your palms getting sweaty. Yet, there are times where you can have the same feeling and experience a different emotion. Take an experienced skydiver. Before a jump, they may feel their heart accelerating, stomach being in knots, and palms getting sweaty. Although these are the same sensation as being afraid, the experienced skydiver may say that they are not afraid but rather excited. Several other theories about what emotions are have been proposed by philosophers. These theories have looked to distinguish between the “emotion” itself and the “feeling” accompanied by the emotion. To do this, philosophers have pointed to the fact that emotions have formal objects. The target of our emotions causes an emotion to be brought on. Here, target is concerned with the thing your emotion is about. Take the case of being angered after some stole your last piece of cake: the target in this case would be the fact that someone has stolen your last piece of cake. On the other hand, the formal object involves an evaluation of the target. In the case of the cake thief, the formal object is the evaluation that the cake was of value to you and now someone has taken that valuable thing.
Philosophers such Ira Roseman (1984), Richard Lazarus (2001), and Klaus Scherer (2001) have been in favor ofthe appraisal approach to emotion, arguing that emotions are responses that come from an appraisal of a situation. Appraisal here is a judgment which an individual makes. Fear would be explained by the way we judge a situation. For example, if you are about to engage in skydiving and judge the situation to be something negative, namely your life being in danger, then you would then feel fear. On the other hand, if you judge skydiving to be something positive, for example if you see it as an enjoyable pastime, then you would experience joy, even if the same bodily sensation is felt under both circumstances. The difference between these two situations is the formal object of the skydiver in the face of the same target. While jumping out of a plane remains the target in both situations, the formal object in the first example is the dangers that come with sky diving, while the pleasures of skydiving is the formal object for the experienced skydiver. For appraisal theories, an emotion can come about even if physiological arousal isn’t present. This account links an emotion to a thought/evaluation.
Other theorists such as Paul Ekman (1999) go on to attempt to establish a set of basic emotions that all other emotions derive from. This originates in evolutionary theories for emotions, believing that emotions evolved to further our chances of survival. In the case of fear, by evaluating something to be detrimental towards your chances of survivaland responding by moving away from the stimulus, you increase your chances of survival. The stimulus is thus the target of your emotion. Still, under appraisal theories, a broad description of what an emotion is cannot be established.Because appraisal theory links emotions with thoughts, in order to have an emotion some evaluation is needed. It would also appear that an agent needs to be conscious of the evaluation they are making; there are, however, instances of emotions that occur before an evaluation can be made. These are examples of instances in which an emotion is said to “sweep” an individual away. Fear of an unknown threat can be an example of this. In these examples, an individual does not have a target totheir emotions, nor is there something they can make an appraisal of. Still, in this situation, an individual would say they are afraid. The question here is what do we do in the case of emotions for which a cause cannot be located. Whether the appraisal was made or not, an account of what the emotion is that can explain all instances of emotions is needed.
This idea moves us towards questioning the emotional categories such as “fear” “anger” and “joy”, which we have adopted. For us to be able to experience the same emotion, under appraisal theory we would need to have the same kind of evaluation, while under the feelings theory we would need to have the same type and intensity of physiological arousal. Evaluations as well as physiological arousal nevertheless vary from individual to individual. When we look at examples of happiness, fear, or sadness across individuals we see differences in physiological arousal and appraisal, yet we treat two instances of happiness or fear as the same. The larger issue here is, despite these differences, emotions are placed in larger categories that try to generalize all instances of that emotion. But how are these categories constructed and what do such categories say about the emotion? Social constitutionalists have attempted to answer this question. In order to move forward, a full account of what an emotion is that combines both evaluation and physiological arousal is needed. While there are several theories that do this, Robert Roberts’ account of what an emotion is will be considered. To argue in favor of Robert Roberts, Paul Griffiths’ objections towards Roberts will also be considered. Once Roberts’ account for what emotions are has been defended we will move towards looking at cultural variation in emotions and exploring if these variations are examples of distinct emotions only found within its home culture, an idea which has been proposed by constructionists[1]. Both Roberts and Griffiths agree on a need for an account of what an emotion is that is grounded in scientific terms, however the dispute here falls under how social construction is meant to fit into theories of emotions. With Roberts leaving room for social construction, Griffiths urges us to move away from social construction.
- Construction of Emotions and Concern-based Construal
Robert Roberts calls for us to use conceptual analysis[2]when studying and discussing emotions. Under this account the concern about emotions moves away from what happens in the body towards what it means for an individual to experience an emotion. Answering the question of what it means to experience an emotion, is believed to lead us towards what an emotion is. Roberts states “What is an emotion? Is not a question about underlying physical mechanism (whether thought of in terms of distant history or present operation), but about emotions as experienced by human subjects, as structures of meaning and explanation in the course of social life, as entering into our actions and reasoning, as evaluated to be proper or improper, praiseworthy, blameworthy, or morally indifferent, and as bearing on our happiness and maturity and relationships…”[3]The structures of explanation and meaning server as a way for individuals to communicate with one another, which shared understanding of concepts. This account asks us to move away from the common understanding of emotions. Instead by looking at what emotions are in themselves or more clearly the composition of the emotion, we are able to accurately point to what an emotion truly is. By understanding how an emotion is experienced, we are able to also explain the things that causes these experiences.
What does it mean to experience an emotion? Roberts first distinguish between the feeling of an emotion and the feeling of sensations. When you are anxious, you can feel your shoulders tightening up and a burning sensation in your stomach without feeling the anxiety. Although these are common sensations associated with anxiety, it is not the same thing as feeling the anxiety. “feeling anxious, is an immediate awareness of being anxious.”[4] Knowing that you are anxious, is to experience that emotion. This experiencing of said emotion, allows you to better understand the emotion you are having, as you are able to label it. Where labeling implies a set of knowledge you didn’t previously have. Roberts compares this to knowing that it is snowing outside. If you saw a weather report calling for snow and are aware of your geographic location, you would have reason to infer that it is snowing outside. Yet the feeling how having the snow fall onto you and seeing it with your own eyes is different than the inference you made. By seeing the snow for yourself, you become immediately aware that it is snowing. Immediate awareness is a kind of firsthand experience. This first-hand experience gives you access to knowledge that you previously didn’t have by simply watching the weather report. The same is true of emotion. By having a first-hand experience of an emotion and recognizing what that emotion is, you gain a better understanding of the emotion that you wouldn’t have by simply knowing say the biological or cognitive components of an emotion. Thus, the experience of an emotion is a self-awareness of that emotion.
In order to experience an emotion, you first need to have an understanding of what an emotion is. Roberts[5] outlinesan emotion as aconcern-based construal. To say an emotion is a concern-based construal, is to say that they are states in which a subject seems to grasp the significance of their situation. This seeks to account for the possibility of formal objects inherent with in the subject. By calling an emotion a concern-based construal, two subjects can have very different evaluation of a situation, as the evaluation of a situation is linked to the subjects understanding of how the situation effects themselves. A construal is a judgment you make about a situation. The judgment you make about the situation is grounded in the beliefs you have about the situation and how that situation may positively or negatively affect your desires. For the construal to lead to an emotion, it must make an impression on the subject. When faced with a bear in the wild, you make a judgment that the bear is dangerous and can cause you harm, because you desire to remain unharmed and believe the bear can cause you harm, fear is brought out. In comparison, if you were to see the same bear in a zoo, you would not feel fear, because you believe that no harm can be brought to you from the bear. In another example if you were to see a bear in the wild, evaluate it as dangerous, however you don’t have a concern for your safety, fear would not be the emotion that is brought on, as emotions are closely link you your concerns as well as beliefs and desires. During examples in which a formal object cannot be located, a concern-based construal allows an individual to still be afraid, because there is a possibility of their beliefs or desires to be negatively affected, despite the fact that they cannot point to what might cause this.
Roberts pushes this idea further by including elements of conceptual analysis towards his theory. This is an attempt to understand what is meant by words such as “emotions” and “anger”. Conceptual analysis[6] brings into the fold an element of active participation when it comes to emotions rather than a belief that emotions are experienced passively. This account separates beliefs and propositions from emotions. While beliefs and propositions may be included in an emotion, they are not fundamental to emotions. Instead we can understand emotions to be mental states. Understanding an emotion as a mental state[7], we can begin to understanding variations in emotion found in the emotional categories in which we place emotions. While emotional categories serve as an umbrella for the emotions we understand, such as fear, anger, and happiness, every instance of these emotions are not identical. Let’s say you and your friend are both angry. Under this example it is possible for both you and your friend to have different psychological states as well as different evaluations of a situation; however it is still true that both you and your friendare angry. Commonly declarations of anger are the same. On a communication level, categories allow us to communicate to others the emotions we have despite the differences in our emotions. While we are able to understand the general emotion, someone has through our own experience of that emotion, there is an acknowledgment as to the differences in emotional experiences. This is highlighted in the question, “how do you feel,” when talking to a friend who is communicating their emotion to you. While yes, on some level you understand the emotion they say they have, there is still a difference between your experience of an emotion like anger, and your friend’s anger. This disconnection pushes you away from making assumptions about the emotion as well as the sensation your friend is feeling. Your anger and your friend’s anger are of the same type of emotion, but are different token emotions. Take for example the idea you and your friend both have the same car, say a Toyota Camry. It is true that you and your friend have the same type of car, what makes your car, your car (despite registration), is your experience with your car which is different from your friend’s experience with his car. Experience here accounts for everything that deals with you and your car. Conceptual analysts allow us to try to explain how we can have similar emotions along categorical divisions, although the composition of such emotions vary from individual to individual.
On the surface, thisis believed to be a linguistic issue. When one says “I am angry,” he is appealing to a specific type of states that he understands to mean that the emotion of anger is what he is currently experiencing. These states are specific to the individual. Their anger is a combination of their own beliefs and desirers. Yet we still understand what is meant by “angry” although we do not have access to the state that the individual is in. While we can understand the types of beliefs and desires another individual has, the essence of those beliefs and desires are so closely linked to the individual, which is to say that everyone internalizes their personal beliefs and desires differently, that the only way to have true access to these beliefs and desires is for to to be the individual in question. Or understanding of another person’s emotions comes from an understanding of our own emotional experience and how that experience is similar to another individual. However, similarity does not equate to identical emotions.
It could be argued that this is a case where we are calling two different things by the same name. It is also commonly believed that they are parts of the same category and to belong to the category you need not experience all aspects of the category. Emotional categories have broadly defined emotions, to make them easier to understand from person to person. The issue here is the fact that this tells us nothing about what the emotion is. By applyingbroad characterizationtoemotions,we are able to distinguish emotions such as fear and happiness which have different compositions. However, distinction between emotions such as envy and jealousy is harder to make as we get more general about the category each falls into. Categories tell us about the overall similarities between the objects that fall within the categories but tell us little about the differences between those objects. Paul Griffiths seeks an account of emotions that allows us to account for the difference between emotions that fall within the same category as well as emotions from outside categories, stating we need to have an account of emotions that allows us to “cut the world at its joints.” By knowing where an emotionstarts and ends, we are better able to point to exactly what makes each emotion different and through these differences we are able to know truly what each emotion is.