Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ReviewCognitive approaches to emotions
Section snippets
How cognitive psychologists approach emotions
The study of emotions has recently expanded in psychology. It has extended, too, into fields that range from history to neuroscience and from literary theory to psychiatry. Intense debates now occur on definitions of emotions, on what the best measurements are, and even on whether emotions are real psychological states. These debates can make the field seem confusing. Cognitive approaches, based on the mind's organization of conscious and unconscious knowledge, offer a clarifying perspective
Action-readiness theory of emotions
The longest standing cognitive theory of emotions that remains under active development is Frijda's action-readiness account 9, 10, 11. Like Ortony, Clore, and Collins's componential theory 12, 13, to which it is comparable, Frijda's theory holds that emotions are built from elements that are not themselves emotions. For the componential theory, these are stimulus–response pairs; for Frijda they are ‘ur-emotions’, states of readiness for certain kinds of action [11], each of which gives
How three cognitive theories of emotion concur and differ
The three theories presented here are not the only ones being developed, but they are representative of cognitive approaches to emotions. They accept that experiential, physiological, and behavioral aspects are typical but not invariable in emotions and that measures of these aspects do not always cohere [15], so they avoid problems of whether any one measure always indicates an emotion. Clarification also occurs by seeing, as shown in Figure 2, how emotion-based states have different time
Evidence for cognitive approaches
In investigating cognitive approaches, Roseman and Evdocas have shown experimentally that appraisals are not just post hoc impressions, but causes of emotions [37]. It has also been found that appraisal rather than the situation determines the emotion; appraisal predicts the intensity of emotions and the same sorts of appraisal yields the same sorts of emotion [38]. The best method of reducing the intensity of a distressing emotion once it has started is reappraisal of events giving rise to it
Emotions and psychological illnesses
Hard-nosed psychiatrists attribute psychological illnesses to defects in the brain; psychoanalysts attribute them to unconscious conflicts; cognitive therapists attribute them to faulty reasoning [48]. A recent development, however, proposes that psychological illnesses are due to emotions experienced more intensely than usual 49, 50; such illnesses are, indeed, emotional disorders. In such a disorder, a cognitive appraisal elicits a basic emotion appropriate to the situation, but excessive in
Concluding remarks
Cognitive theorists propose that emotions are sources of value that originate in cognitions. These cognitions appraise events: real as in everyday life, imagined as in fiction, or abstract as in music. The nature of the emotion that occurs is a matter of controversy. It may derive from an ur-emotion of action readiness or from core affect or it may be one of a small number of basic emotions. A goal of future research is to decide among these possibilities (Box 4). In any event, an emotion can
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2022, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsCitation Excerpt :As for the problem of the models of emotional lateralization, data reported in this review, mainly support the ‘right hemisphere model’, which suggests a prevalence of the right hemisphere in both positive and negative emotions, but can also explain a greater involvement of this hemisphere in negative emotions (Gainotti, 2019). This additional capacity of the ‘right hemisphere model’ is consistent with the definition of emotions as a phylogenetically older emergency adaptive system (Oatley and Johnson-Laird, 1987, 2014) which applies more to the high arousing danger-related negative emotions than to positive and social emotions. The ‘right hemisphere model’ is supported in this review by the observation that (in the most consistent and methodologically sound lines of research) the right lateralization of emotional expression was not influenced by the valence of the emotional situation (e.g. Hauser, 1993, Hauserand Akre, 2001; Fernández-Carriba et al., 2002a and 2002b; Losin et al., 2008; Wallez and Vauclair, 2011, 2013 and 2019; Kawakami et al., 2017).
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2022, Acta PsychologicaCitation Excerpt :The communicative theory is in this Darwinian family. It postulates that emotions are signals that differ in their aims (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987, 2014). These signals occur among members of the same species, but they also have corresponding signals in the brain to prepare individuals for a relevant course of action or inaction (see also Frijda, 2007).
Cognitive and affective processes of prosociality
2022, Current Opinion in PsychologyCitation Excerpt :Applied to the context of prosocial decision-making, the social heuristics hypothesis, positing that prosocial behavior is an intuitive behavioral tendency while selfish choices require more deliberation [55∗], however, makes no specific predictions about the role of affect in the decision process. In other general models of cognition and affect, cognitions have been modeled to act on or precede affective processes (for a recent review, see Oatley and Johnson–Laird [56∗]), and vice versa, affect has been modeled to act on cognitive processes (for reviews, see Bless and Fiedler [57], as well as Mitchell and Phillips [58]). Theories on the influence of affect on cognition can be summarized in three categories.
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