Topic: Evolution of human emotions. Why did were human emotions developed?
Pagel, Mark. "The Evolution of Human Emotions." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution 1 (2002): 296-99. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. This article talks about how humans have basic human emotions that they are born with as well as other emotions that are specifically derived from social interactions. It expresses different forms of these emotions and how they actually play a role in aiding in sexual selection as well as survival.
Buss, D. M. 2000. The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex. New York: Free Press. An evolutionary psychological approach to jealousy. This article talks about how jealousy is a form of evolutionary adaptation to the fact that men want their genes to be passed on to the next generation and so they are disturbed by the prospect of a mate's infidelity because then the likelihood of their genes getting passed on decreases. Women however are more concerned with males becoming emotionally attached to other women because they want the males to take care of the offspring.
Ekman, P. 1992. An argument for basic emotions. Cognition & Emotion 6(3-4):169-200. A point- by-point enumeration of the case for basic emotions. This article talks about the nine characteristics that distinguish basic emotions. It also talks about the universal signals of facial expressions for each of the emotions and how the are portrayed in society.
Hirshleifer, J. 1987. On emotions as guarantors of threats and promises. In J. Dupre and et al., (eds.), The Latest on the Best: Essays on Evolution and Optimality. pp. 307-326. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. A game theoretic account of emotions in cooperative interactions. This article talks about a study that was performed involving people that were touching each other in different ways. The study showed that emotions were heightened and that during certain interactions small amounts of oxytocin were released.
"Robert Plutchik: The Nature of Emotions." Robert Plutchik: The Nature of Emotions. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2014. This article talks about how cognition was evolved over millions of years. It also addressed the fact that emotions are not just a state of feeling but that they are a complex chain of loosely related events and that emotions arise when an issues of the individuals survival rate arise.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion
Suggestions
editThe article could focus on each emotion as a subcategory explaining theories as to why each emotion was developed and what evolutionary process led to that development. It would also be more well rounded if it didn't just focus on Darwin's ideas and instead incorporated some from other scientists as well. Also talking about how emotion has evolved over the centuries and why it has changed into what it is now, comparing and contrasting the need for certain emotions then compared to now.
"He said that discrete emotion experiences emerge in ontogeny before language or conceptual structures that frame the qualia known as discrete emotion feelings are acquired."
Ledoux, J. (1996). "Emotion Theory and Research: Highlights, Unanswered Questions, and Emerging Issues". Annual Review of Psychology 60 (1): 1–25
_____________________________________________________________ Edit to wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion Emotions can motivate social interactions and relationships and therefore are directly related with basic physiology, particularly with the stress systems. This is important because emotions are related to the anti-stress complex, with an oxytocin-attachment system, which plays a major role in bonding. Emotional phenotype temperaments affect social connectedness and fitness in complex social systems (Kurt Kortschal 2013). These characteristics are shared with other species and taxa and are due to the effects of genes and their continuous transmission. Information that is encoded in the DNA sequences provides the blueprint for assembling proteins that make up our cells. Zygotes require genetic information from their parental germ cells, and at every speciation event, heritable traits that have enabled its’ ancestor to survive and reproduce successfully are passed down along with new traits that could be potentially beneficial to the offspring. In the five million years since the linages leading to modern humans and chimpanzees split, only about 1.2% of their genetic material has been modified. This suggests that everything that separates us from chimpanzees must be encoded in that very small amount of DNA, including our behaviors. Students that study animal behaviors have only identified intraspecific examples of gene-dependent behavioral phenotypes. In voles (Microtus spp.) minor genetic differences have been identified in a vasopressin receptor gene that corresponds to major species differences in social organization and the mating system (Hammock & Young 2005). Another potential example with behavioral differences is the FOCP2 gene, which is involved in neural circuitry handling speech and language (Vargha-Khadem et al. 2005). Its present form in humans differed from that of the chimpanzees by only a few mutations and has been present for about 200,000 years, coinciding with the beginning of modern humans (Enard et al. 2002). Speech, language, and social organization are all part of the basis for emotions.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Final Draft Starts Here Human emotions have been studied throughout history and seem to have evolved with the changing of times. Basic human instincts and behaviors are seen to be the baseline from which more complex emotions evolve. Human emotions are modulated in ontogeny and preserved in evolutionary history. Emotions can motivate social interactions and relationships and therefore are directly related with basic physiology, particularly with the stress systems. This is important because emotions are related to the anti-stress complex, with an oxytocin-attachment system, which plays a major role in bonding. Emotional phenotype temperaments affect social connectedness and fitness in complex social systems (Kurt Kortschal 2013). These primitive characteristics are shared with other species and taxa and are due to the effects of genes and their continuous transmission. Information that is encoded in the DNA sequences provides the blueprint for assembling proteins that make up our cells. Zygotes require genetic information from their parental germ cells, and at every speciation event, heritable traits that have enabled its’ ancestor to survive and reproduce successfully are passed down along with new traits that could be potentially beneficial to the offspring. In the five million years since the linages leading to modern humans and chimpanzees split, only about 1.2% of their genetic material has been modified. This suggests that everything that separates us from chimpanzees must be encoded in that very small amount of DNA, including our behaviors. Students that study animal behaviors have only identified intraspecific examples of gene-dependent behavioral phenotypes. In voles (Microtus spp.) minor genetic differences have been identified in a vasopressin receptor gene that corresponds to major species differences in social organization and the mating system (Hammock & Young 2005). Another potential example with behavioral differences is the FOCP2 gene, which is involved in neural circuitry handling speech and language (Vargha-Khadem et al. 2005). Its present form in humans differed from that of the chimpanzees by only a few mutations and has been present for about 200,000 years, coinciding with the beginning of modern humans (Enard et al. 2002). Speech, language, and social organization are all part of the basis for emotions. Social organization is extremely important for mating and the raising of offspring. Certain emotions are innate to ensure socialization and better the chance of reproduction and survival. Different studies have been done to determine the neural and cognitive mechanisms of advanced emotions. One study used functional magnetic resonance imaging. In this study the areas of the brain that were stimulated during negative-based emotion learning were the medial prefrontal and the anterior cingulate cortex. The areas of the brain that were stimulated during the positive and negative based emotion learning was the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that the prefrontal area plays a major role in the relationship between social interactions and complex facial expressions, and that these areas make independent contributions to learning specific emotions and that emotions are ultimately hard-wired in our brains. There are two classes of emotion: classical and homeostatic. Classical emotions are emotions such as fear, love, and anger and are evoked by environmental stimuli. Homeostatic emotions are attention demanding emotions that are evoked by our body states. These include pain, hunger, and fatigue. These emotions motivate behavior aimed at maintaining the body’s idyllic state to ensure survival. Homeostatic emotions are innate and are seen in not just humans but all mammals alike. While classical emotions are learned through social interactions which has been shaped by the evolution of our social society, homeostatic responses are more primitive. Behavior and instincts are huge factors involved with emotions, however, social environment also plays a huge role in how and why certain emotions have evolved. Emotions are basically adaptations for behavioral regulations that evolved in response to recurrent social or ecological challenges (Fessler & Gervais 2010). Certain emotions such as fear and disgust seem to be subject to phylogenetically old brain regions or endocrine systems and are used with minimal cognitive requirements. Psychologists such as Robert Plutchik and Paul Ekman have suggested that there is a small set of innate emotions and that fear is one of them. These responses are highly intertwined with physiological systems and have had positive effects on survival and reproduction. Fear, for example, is induced by a threat which causes a change in brain and organ function to result in a change in behavior to induce, the ever so popular, fight-or-flight response. This fight-or-flight response serves as a survival mechanism for humans and animals alike. By generating the appropriate response to a certain threat, the threat may be avoided or neutralized and the survival of the animal ensured. In humans and animals fear is modulated by cognition and learning and can therefore be deemed rational or irrational. Irrational fears are called phobias that have been learned over the course of an individuals life. Phobias usually elicit a response to a certain stimuli that is not an actual threat. Since the individual is not born with the phobia, but rather learns the fear, the phobia would not be passed down onto the individuals offspring. These phobias are another example of evolved classical emotions that are learned through the individuals’ environment. Jealousy is another emotion that is beneficial to humans and is both innate and learned through social interactions. Jealousy is a form of evolutionary adaptation to the fact that men want their genes to be passed on through the next generation. When a female engages in sexual acts with another male the mate becomes disturbed by the prospect of the female’s infidelity. This is because if infidelity is taking place the likelihood of the mate’s genes getting passed down to the offspring is decreased due to sexual competition. This emotion is innate and is often considered a primal emotion. Women also experience jealousy as a primal emotion. Women, however, are more concerned with the males becoming emotionally attached to other women rather than the male just engaging in infidelity. This is because the woman wants the male to take care of the offspring and protect them from ‘predators’. If the male is engaging in infidelity the woman's chance of the male choosing to protect her offspring decreases (D.M. Buss 2000). While the threat of predators to human offspring has decreased, the emotion is still there because of its’ primal origin. Jealousy is an emotion that was developed to help ensure successful reproduction and is considered innate and can be experienced with little cognitive thought, making it more of an instinct than socially acquired. Humans also have unique emotions that have been learned through social interactions and are not considered innate. An example of this would be moral emotions that are related to social norm violations (Fessler & Gervais 2010). Humans have developed socially transmitted standards that define expectations and promote benefitting society as a whole (McElreath et al. 2003). Moral disgust is an emotion that is faced by non-cooperative norm violators, direct and altruistic punishments are important in enforcing social norms. Disgust is connected to our sense of morality and our sense of morality is dependent upon our social upbringing. A study was done that looked between disgust and moral sense. In this study people watched a video. Some watched a video about something disgusting (a scene in which a character reaches through a toilet filled with feces). And others watched a video that was supposed to generate sadness (a scene in which a child watches a father’s death). After seeing these videos people read a variety of violations of purity and justice and the people who watched the disgusting video found the violations of purity to be much more wrong than the people who watched the video about sadness. This study suggests there is a tight relationship between our sense of morality and motion of disgust. Violations of our morality lead us to disgust. Emotions ultimately aid in social interactions, reproduction, and survival. Acting on emotions may seem like one is not thinking, and rather, just acting but cognition is a huge part of emotion. Depending on the interpretation of events a response usually follows the emotion being felt. For example, the cognition of danger arouses the nervous system and the body starts to react by sweating, rapid heartbeat, and muscle tension all to prepare the body for a fight or flight response, if it is deemed necessary. This is an example of a cognitive theory proposed by Richard Lazarus who argued that emotions must have cognitive intentionality. His theory says that emotion is a disturbance that elicits a cognitive appraisal in which the individual assesses the event, then a physiological change such as an increased heart rate or pituitary adrenal response follows, and finally an action in which the individual chooses how to react to said emotion is played out. This response is innate and has only further developed through an individual’s social environment. People from fifty years ago used to be afraid of certain things that people now-a-days are no longer afraid of and vise versa. These fear responses are learned and developed throughout ones’ lifetime. Emotions are necessary for social interactions, reproduction success, and survival. These primitive characteristics are shared with other species and taxa and are due to the effects of genes and their continuous transmission. While certain emotions are innate to ensure socialization and better the chance of reproduction and survival, some emotions are learned through our society where social norms are established. These emotions such as disgust, shame, and embarrassment are developed over ones’ life and followed to prevent social ridicule. Innate emotions such as jealousy, fear, and anger have evolved to coincide with the changing of our social environments. Emotions play a huge role in our reproductive success, social interactions, and survival and will have to keep evolving as our social norms and potential dangers also change.
Fessler DMT,GervaisM(2010)From whence the captains of our lives:Ultimate and phylogenetic perspectives on emotions in humans and other primates. In: Kappeler PM, Silk JB (eds) Mind the Gap: Tracing the Origins of Human Universals. Springer, Heidelberg, pp. 261–280
McElreath R, Boyd R, Richerson PJ (2003) Shared norms and the evolution of ethnic markers. Current Anthropology 44:122–130
Enard W,KhaitovichP,KloseJ,Zo ̈llnerS,HeissigF,GiavaliscoP,Nieselt-StruweK,Much-more E, Varki A, Ravid R, Doxiadis GM, Bontrop RE, Pa ̈a ̈bo S (2002) Intra- and interspecific variation in primate gene expression patterns. Science 296:340–343
Vargha-Khadem F, Gadian DG, Copp A, Mishkin M (2005) FOXP2 and the neuroanatomy of speech and language. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6:131–138
Pagel, Mark. "The Evolution of Human Emotions." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution 1 (2002): 296-99. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.
Buss, D. M. 2000. The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex. New York: Free Press. An evolutionary psychological approach to jealousy.
Ekman, P. 1992. An argument for basic emotions. Cognition & Emotion 6(3-4):169-200. A point- by-point enumeration of the case for basic emotions.
"Robert Plutchik: The Nature of Emotions." Robert Plutchik: The Nature of Emotions. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2014
Hirshleifer, J. 1987. On emotions as guarantors of threats and promises. In J. Dupre and et al., (eds.), The Latest on the Best: Essays on Evolution and Optimality. pp. 307-326. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. A game theoretic account of emotions in cooperative interactions.
Hammock E.A.D, Young L.J. Microsatellite instability generates diversity in brain and sociobehavioral traits. Science. 2005;308:1630–1634.