On the Origins of Human Emotions

On the Origins of Human Emotions PDF Author: Jonathan Turner
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804764360
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Language and culture are often seen as unique characteristics of human beings. In this book the author argues that our ability to use a wide array of emotions evolved long before spoken language and, in fact, constituted a preadaptation for the speech and culture that developed among later hominids. Long before humans could speak with words, they communicated through body language their emotional dispositions; and it is the neurological wiring of the brain for these emotional languages that represented the key evolutionary breakthrough for our species. How did natural selection work on the basic ape anatomy and neuroanatomy to create the hominid line? The author suggests that what distinguished our ancestors from other apes was the development of an increased capacity for sociality and organization, crucial for survival on the African savanna. All apes display a propensity for weak ties, individualism, mobility, and autonomy that was, and is today, useful in arboreal and woodland habitats but served them poorly when our ancestors began to move onto the African plain during the late Miocene. The challenge for natural selection was to enhance traits in the species that would foster the social ties necessary for survival in the new environment. The author suggests that the result was a development of certain areas of the primate brain that encouraged strong emotional ties, allowing our ancestors to build higher levels of social solidarity. Our basic neurological wiring continues to reflect this adaptive development. From a sociological perspective that is informed by evolutionary biology, primatology, and neurology, the book examines the current neurological bases of our emotional repertoire and their implications for our social actions.

On the Origins of Human Emotions

On the Origins of Human Emotions PDF Author: Jonathan Turner
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804764360
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book Here

Book Description
Language and culture are often seen as unique characteristics of human beings. In this book the author argues that our ability to use a wide array of emotions evolved long before spoken language and, in fact, constituted a preadaptation for the speech and culture that developed among later hominids. Long before humans could speak with words, they communicated through body language their emotional dispositions; and it is the neurological wiring of the brain for these emotional languages that represented the key evolutionary breakthrough for our species. How did natural selection work on the basic ape anatomy and neuroanatomy to create the hominid line? The author suggests that what distinguished our ancestors from other apes was the development of an increased capacity for sociality and organization, crucial for survival on the African savanna. All apes display a propensity for weak ties, individualism, mobility, and autonomy that was, and is today, useful in arboreal and woodland habitats but served them poorly when our ancestors began to move onto the African plain during the late Miocene. The challenge for natural selection was to enhance traits in the species that would foster the social ties necessary for survival in the new environment. The author suggests that the result was a development of certain areas of the primate brain that encouraged strong emotional ties, allowing our ancestors to build higher levels of social solidarity. Our basic neurological wiring continues to reflect this adaptive development. From a sociological perspective that is informed by evolutionary biology, primatology, and neurology, the book examines the current neurological bases of our emotional repertoire and their implications for our social actions.

Evolved Emotions

Evolved Emotions PDF Author: Glenn Weisfeld
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498574297
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
In Evolved Emotions, Glenn Weisfeld analyzes a comprehensive list of universal emotions, detailing their elicitors, affects, behavioral tendencies, expressions, visceral changes, neural mediations, development over the life span, and presence in other species. This comparative, evolutionary perspective inspires respect for the ancient utility of our emotions and the specific, enduring adaptive value of each one. This book offers novel insights into neglected emotional behaviors such as contact comfort, pain, feeding, disgust, fatigue, sleep, play, amorousness, sex, grief, parental behavior, anger, pride and shame, and humor. This systematic study of universal human emotions offers a framework for understanding all voluntary human behavior, including developmental, personality, gender, and pathological differences, explaining how each normal emotion serves to enhance the biological fitness of the individual.

The Evolution of Emotion

The Evolution of Emotion PDF Author: Paul F. Kisak
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781533011602
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
The study of the evolution of emotions dates back to the 19th century and has come to be known as "sensusology." Evolution and natural selection has been applied to the study of human communication, mainly by Charles Darwin in his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin researched the expression of emotions in an effort to support his theory of evolution. He proposed that much like other traits found in animals, emotions also evolved and were adapted over time. His work looked at not only facial expressions in animals and specifically humans, but attempted to point out parallels between behaviors in humans and other animals. According to modern evolutionary theory, different emotions evolved at different times. Primal emotions, such as fear, are associated with ancient parts of the brain and presumably evolved among our premammal ancestors. Filial emotions, such as a human mother's love for her offspring, seem to have evolved among early mammals. Social emotions, such as guilt and pride, evolved among social primates. Sometimes, a more recently evolved part of the brain moderates an older part of the brain, such as when the cortex moderates the amygdala's fear response. Evolutionary psychologists consider human emotions to be best adapted to the life our ancestors led in nomadic foraging bands.

How Emotions Are Made

How Emotions Are Made PDF Author: Lisa Feldman Barrett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544129962
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Preeminent psychologist Lisa Barrett lays out how the brain constructs emotions in a way that could revolutionize psychology, health care, the legal system, and our understanding of the human mind. “Fascinating . . . A thought-provoking journey into emotion science.”—The Wall Street Journal “A singular book, remarkable for the freshness of its ideas and the boldness and clarity with which they are presented.”—Scientific American “A brilliant and original book on the science of emotion, by the deepest thinker about this topic since Darwin.”—Daniel Gilbert, best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture. A lucid report from the cutting edge of emotion science, How Emotions Are Made reveals the profound real-world consequences of this breakthrough for everything from neuroscience and medicine to the legal system and even national security, laying bare the immense implications of our latest and most intimate scientific revolution.

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings PDF Author: Randolph M. Nesse
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241291097
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
One of the world's most respected psychiatrists provides a much-needed new evolutionary framework for making sense of mental illness With his classic book Why We Get Sick, Randolph Nesse established the field of evolutionary medicine. Now he returns with a book that transforms our understanding of mental disorders by exploring a fundamentally new question. Instead of asking why certain people suffer from mental illness, Nesse asks why natural selection has left us with fragile minds at all. Drawing on revealing stories from his own clinical practice and insights from evolutionary biology, Nesse shows how negative emotions are useful in certain situations, yet can become excessive. Anxiety protects us from harm in the face of danger, but false alarms are inevitable. Low mood prevents us from wasting effort in pursuit of unreachable goals, but it often escalates into pathological depression. Other mental disorders, such as addiction and anorexia, result from the mismatch between modern environments and our ancient human past. Taken together, these insights and many more help to explain the pervasiveness of human suffering, and show us new paths for relieving it. Good Reasons for Bad Feelings will fascinate anyone who wonders how our minds can be so powerful, yet so fragile, and how love and goodness came to exist in organisms shaped to maximize Darwinian fitness.

Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves

Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves PDF Author: Frans de Waal
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393635074
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. Frans de Waal has spent four decades at the forefront of animal research. Following up on the best-selling Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, which investigated animal intelligence, Mama’s Last Hug delivers a fascinating exploration of the rich emotional lives of animals. Mama’s Last Hug begins with the death of Mama, a chimpanzee matriarch who formed a deep bond with biologist Jan van Hooff. When Mama was dying, van Hooff took the unusual step of visiting her in her night cage for a last hug. Their goodbyes were filmed and went viral. Millions of people were deeply moved by the way Mama embraced the professor, welcoming him with a big smile while reassuring him by patting his neck, in a gesture often considered typically human but that is in fact common to all primates. This story and others like it form the core of de Waal’s argument, showing that humans are not the only species with the capacity for love, hate, fear, shame, guilt, joy, disgust, and empathy. De Waal discusses facial expressions, the emotions behind human politics, the illusion of free will, animal sentience, and, of course, Mama’s life and death. The message is one of continuity between us and other species, such as the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we don’t have a single organ that other animals don’t have, and the same is true for our emotions. Mama’s Last Hug opens our hearts and minds to the many ways in which humans and other animals are connected, transforming how we view the living world around us.

Emotions and Life

Emotions and Life PDF Author: Robert Plutchik
Publisher: Amer Psychological Assn
ISBN: 9781557989499
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Emotions are powerful forces influencing our everyday behaviour. People laugh, cry, fall in love, or blow up buildings under the influence of emotions. Most of the current diagnoses of mental disorders involve one or more emotions that have gone awry. Yet until recently, emotions have not received the attention they deserve in college and university psychology courses. There are many reasons for this neglect; they concern linguistic, experiential, historical and philosophical issues, and all are explored in depth in this work. The book attempts to shed light on the nature and function of emotions, drawing on the latest theories in evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience, as well as the older, established motivational and psychodynamic traditions. Author Robert Plutchik demonstrates the fundamental importance of emotions to all living creatures, and their crucial role in ensuring both bodily and genetic survival.

The Emotional Foundations of Personality: A Neurobiological and Evolutionary Approach

The Emotional Foundations of Personality: A Neurobiological and Evolutionary Approach PDF Author: Kenneth L. Davis
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393710580
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
A CHOICE Magazine Outstanding Academic Title of 2018. A novel approach to understanding personality, based on evidence that we share more than we realize with other mammals. This book presents the wealth of scientific evidence that our personality emerges from evolved primary emotions shared by all mammals. Yes, your dog feels love—and many other things too. These subcortically generated emotions bias our actions, alter our perceptions, guide our learning, provide the basis for our thoughts and memories, and become regulated over the course of our lives. Understanding personality development from the perspective of mammals is a groundbreaking approach, and one that sheds new light on the ways in which we as humans respond to life events, both good and bad. Jaak Panksepp, famous for discovering laughter in rats and for creating the field of affective neuroscience, died in April 2017. This book forms part of his lasting legacy and impact on a wide range of scientific and humanistic disciplines. It will be essential reading for anyone trying to understand how we act in the world, and the world’s impact on us.

The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions

The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions PDF Author: Laith Al-Shawaf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197544754
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 1425

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Book Description
In this Handbook, Laith Al-Shawaf and Todd K. Shackelford have gathered a group of leading scholars in the field to present a centralized resource for researchers and students wishing to understand emotions from an evolutionary perspective. Experts from a number of different disciplines, including psychology, biology, anthropology, psychiatry, and others, tackle a variety of "how" (proximate) and "why" (ultimate) questions about the function of emotions in humans and nonhuman animals, how emotions work, and their place in human life. Comprehensive and integrative in nature, this Handbook is an essential resource for students and scholars from a diversity of fields wishing to build upon their theoretical and empirical understanding of the emotions.

Descartes' Error

Descartes' Error PDF Author: Antonio Damasio
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014303622X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.