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On Some Affective Relations between Audiences and the Characters in Popular Fictions

Noël Carroll

in Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives

This essay explores a range of affective relations between popular audiences and the characters in mass fiction including including identification, empathy, sympathy, antipathy,sollidarity, ... More

This essay explores a range of affective relations between popular audiences and the characters in mass fiction including including identification, empathy, sympathy, antipathy,sollidarity, vectorially-convergent and connected emotional states, coincident emotional states, and mirror reflexes.Less

Composers’ creative process: The role of life-events, emotion and reason

Vladimir J. Koneˇcni

in Musical Imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance and perception

This chapter presents reflections about an important and much discussed aspect of art-music composers' creative process, namely, the role — if any — that emotions, and specifically acute emotional ... More

This chapter presents reflections about an important and much discussed aspect of art-music composers' creative process, namely, the role — if any — that emotions, and specifically acute emotional states induced by life-events, play in that process. In contrast to the emotivist attitude, it argues for the paramount importance of contemplation, analytical and technical skills, problem-solving, and planning — in short, reason — as the key features of art-music composers' daily work, especially when developing large-scale pieces. It is also proposed that when emotions are experienced by composers in response to others' and their own music of very high quality, these are likely to be the states of being moved and aesthetic awe — which are very rare and have different phenomenological characteristics and evolutionary origin than the emotions with which psychologists and biologists are usually concerned.Less

The search for the fundamental brain/mind sources of affective experience

Jaak Panksepp and Marcia Smith-Pasqualini

in Emotional Development:: Recent Research Advances

This chapter points out that humans begin to navigate the complexities of the world, and learn about the values and contingencies of the environment at birth. What emerges most during development is ... More

This chapter points out that humans begin to navigate the complexities of the world, and learn about the values and contingencies of the environment at birth. What emerges most during development is the higher capacity to regulate emotional states and to construct more complex behavioural strategies to cope with emotionally challenging events. This chapter reviews brain imaging studies and recent advances in understanding basic emotional systems of the mammalian brain, and implications for understanding the nature of affective feelings in humans.Less

Cognitive Performance After Listening to Music: A Review of the Mozart Effect

E. Glenn Schellenberg

in Music, Health, and Wellbeing

This chapter reviews studies that examined the effects of music listening on cognitive performance. It focuses on performance after listening to music. The arousal and mood hypothesis offers an ... More

This chapter reviews studies that examined the effects of music listening on cognitive performance. It focuses on performance after listening to music. The arousal and mood hypothesis offers an explanation of the Mozart effect that has nothing to do with Mozart or with spatial abilities. Rather, it proposes that Mozart's music is simply one example of a stimulus that can change how people feel, which, in turn, influences how they perform on tests of cognitive abilities. In other words, the hypothesis offers a simple and sensible explanation of the effect when it is evident. There does not appear to be a specific link between music listening and cognitive abilities, and certainly not between listening to Mozart and spatial abilities. Hence, the direct benefits of listening to music on cognition are more of a fantasy than a reality. On the other hand, it is clear that music can change listeners' emotional states, which, in turn, may impact on their cognitive performance, and the fact that the link is mediated by arousal and mood does not make it less meaningful.Less

The Value of Positive Emotion: Philosophical Doubts and Reassurances

Daniel M. Haybron

in Positive Emotion: Integrating the Light Sides and Dark Sides

This paper argues that positive emotion is a central element of human well-being, but with important qualifications. To begin with, it is helpful to focus attention more broadly than on emotions per ... More

This paper argues that positive emotion is a central element of human well-being, but with important qualifications. To begin with, it is helpful to focus attention more broadly than on emotions per se, on the notion of having a positive emotional condition, or emotional well-being. I sketch a regulate-and-inform view of the function of emotional conditions, followed by discussion of the value of a positive emotional condition. On the last question the obvious answer is that it is hedonically valuable, that is, pleasant. Less obviously, our emotional natures are central to who we are—the self—and positive emotional states may figure centrally in well-being, as an aspect of self-fulfilment. Additionally, a person’s emotional condition seems to matter as a cause of good outcomes, as a source of information about well-being, and as a verdict about the quality of the individual’s life. Yet positive emotional states are not always desirable: they can have ill effects or be unfitting. Unfitting emotional states in turn can be contrary to virtue, or inauthentic. A final question concerns the desirability of various emotional profiles. In particular, what balance of positive versus negative emotional states counts as genuinely “positive”? Some research by Barbara Fredrickson et al. suggests that a 3:1 ratio may represent a threshold for broadly positive functioning; less than that may signal significant problems, and generally poor functioning. If this view is correct, then research on the emotional side of subjective well-being may be due for a radical reinterpretation: studies previously thought to show most people are happy, and presumptively doing well, may in fact show the opposite.Less

Social Color Vision

Mark A. Changizi and Shinsuke Shimojo

in The Science of Social Vision

This chapter reviews evidence supporting the hypothesis that color vision is a kind of social vision, about the emotional states and moods of others. The argument from the first of the three main ... More

This chapter reviews evidence supporting the hypothesis that color vision is a kind of social vision, about the emotional states and moods of others. The argument from the first of the three main sections of the chapter centers on evidence that our perception of skin is organized so that we are maximally able to discriminate spectral changes around baseline skin color, akin to the way in which we are maximally able to discriminate temperature changes of skin around baseline skin temperature. The argument from the second section concerns evidence that our primate cone sensitivities have been designed by natural selection to sense the subtle spectrum changes that occur with modulations of hemoglobin oxygenation. Finally, the third section presents evidence that it is the primates with color vision that are bare-skinned; the nontrichromatic primates are furry faced, like a typical mammal. This is just as the hypothesis would predict if color vision is about skin.Less

Emotional Response to Music: A Review

John Sloboda

in Exploring the Musical Mind: Cognition, emotion, ability, function

The reason that many people engage with music, as performers or listeners, is that it has power to evoke or enhance valued emotional states. Studies supporting this general assertion are reviewed in ... More

The reason that many people engage with music, as performers or listeners, is that it has power to evoke or enhance valued emotional states. Studies supporting this general assertion are reviewed in this chapter. In the light of this one might have expected the study of emotion to be central to the psychology of music. This has not been the case. This chapter discusses conceptual issues, including the inherent variability of emotional response. It also addresses some of the methodological issues arising primarily from difficulties of measurement. Notwithstanding the difficulties inherent in research on this topic, some progress has been made, and the chapter outlines some major findings, including some evidence that a major subset of emotional responses are cued by confirmations and violations of expectancy within the musical structure, in line with the predictions arising from the theoretical proposals first articulated by L. B. Meyer.Less

The Art of Compression

Mark Turner

in The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity

The Power of Images (1989) described some of the recurrent symptoms of emotional responses to paintings and sculptures throughout history. This chapter takes the problem one ... More

The Power of Images (1989) described some of the recurrent symptoms of emotional responses to paintings and sculptures throughout history. This chapter takes the problem one step further and suggests that one of the tasks of future interdisciplinary work between the neurosciences and the history of art might be to examine the relationship between how pictures look and the emotional responses they evoke. The chapter rejects the notion that such a relationship may be too ragged to plot. The chapter gives some examples—from the history of painting and the history of music—where efforts have been made to connect particular compositions with particular emotional states.Less

Once Again, This Time with Feeling

Stephen Davies

in Musical Understandings and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Music

I argue against an account of expressiveness in musical performance that models it after quotation effected through the induction or simulation of an emotional state. A preferable view holds that, if ... More

I argue against an account of expressiveness in musical performance that models it after quotation effected through the induction or simulation of an emotional state. A preferable view holds that, if the music's expressiveness is an objective property of the music, the performance will be appropriately expressive so long as it realizes the relevant properties, which is achieved by following the score accurately. But in addition, the player usually makes a crucial contribution to the performance's expressiveness through her interpretation of the piece, both as regards her treatment of detail and her overall shaping of the performance.Less

Managing Emotions as a Professional Ideal

Jodi Halpern

in From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice

This chapter attempts to distinguish between emotional reasoning and detached reasoning. Physicians are aware of the therapeutic value of emotional engagement, yet emotions can also affect and even ... More

This chapter attempts to distinguish between emotional reasoning and detached reasoning. Physicians are aware of the therapeutic value of emotional engagement, yet emotions can also affect and even disrupt sound medical judgment. The modern view of detachment as a necessary evil in medical practice argues for objectivity—a physician detached from their patient's emotional state can better understand the patient and their condition. Yet detachment is not truly free of emotional influence, as it serves to suppress rather than address the physician's emotional responses. Due to this, the physician is much more liable of making medical decisions that are subconsciously emotional, thus breaking the illusion of objectivity.Less

Mother- and father-to-infant emotional involvement

Bárbara Figueiredo

in Perinatal Psychiatry: The legacy of Channi Kumar

A mother’s specific emotional and hormonal state after childbirth ensures her emotional involvement and adequate parental behaviour. Soon after delivery, or even in late pregnancy, the mother’s ... More

A mother’s specific emotional and hormonal state after childbirth ensures her emotional involvement and adequate parental behaviour. Soon after delivery, or even in late pregnancy, the mother’s emotional state—in particular, an increased sensitivity—becomes fully adapted to the identification and satisfaction of the infant’s physical and psychological needs. Winnicott (1956, 1960) was perhaps one of the first authors to point out the presence of a particular emotional state in recently delivered mothers—‘primary maternal preoccupation’, referring to the mother’s correct identification and immediate satisfaction of the infant’s physical and psychological needs. Winnicott (1990) later defined and described four main tasks to be fulfilled in the maternal role, including the emotional involvement with the child, which he termed ‘holding’. Holding tasks are: (1) to provide protection and care to the child, (2) to take into account the child’s limitations and dependency status, (3) to provide the necessary care for the child’s growth and development, and (4) to love the child. In the meantime, Yalom et al. (1968) and Pitt (1973) both described the ‘postpartum/maternity blues—a transient state of emotional dysphoria, emerging within a few hours to 2 weeks after childbirth, in about 50 to 70% of puerperal women, and characterized by intermittent mild fatigue, tearfulness, worry, difficulty in thinking, and sleep disturbances. Progesterone and oestrogen levels, which gradually increase during pregnancy, fall suddenly after delivery, returning to prepregnancy levels in just 3 days. This rapid decline, the most severe threat to a women’s hormonal and emotional balance, has been proposed as the main cause of postpartum/maternity blues (e.g. Pitt 1973; Yalomand et al. 1968). The mother’s behavioural sensitivity to such a drop in reproductive hormones was later associated with higher reactivity to the infant’s stimuli and greater proximity with the neonate (e.g. Barrett and Fleming 2011; Carter 2005; Fleming et al. 1997; Miller and Rukstalis 1999), and was proposed as serving the function of eliciting mother-to-infant involvement, to ensure that the infant receives the required care to survive (e.g. Carter 2005; Figueiredo 2003; Pedersen 1997). The evolutionary point of view had its clearest proponent in John Bowlby (1969/1982, 1980) who proposed the presence of a behavioural system (that is, an organized set of behaviours) in parents—the ‘caregiving system’, to guarantee the proximity and protection of the child. Less

Neural and Evolutionary Perspectives on Empathy

C. Sue Carter, James Harri, and Stephen W. Porges

in The Social Neuroscience of Empathy

This chapter focuses on autonomic and neuroendocrine processes that underlie social behaviors and emotional states, including those that are believed to reflect empathy in humans. Empathy has been ... More

This chapter focuses on autonomic and neuroendocrine processes that underlie social behaviors and emotional states, including those that are believed to reflect empathy in humans. Empathy has been considered a unique characteristic of human consciousness, but evidence suggests that emotional contagion and consolation exist in other mammalian species, including social primates such as bonobo chimpanzees. The chapter argues that empathy is a trait shared by humans with other mammals and linked to the neural circuits that emerged during the evolutionary transition from reptiles to mammals. It discusses empathy in relation to the evolution of social awareness in mammals, along with the neuroendocrine correlates of sociality, prosocial behaviors in highly social mammals, the role of neuropeptides in selective sociality, and possible mechanisms for sex differences in sociality or empathy.Less

Perceiving Social Category Information from Faces: Using ERPs to Study Person Perception

Tiffany A. Ito

in Social Neuroscience: Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of the Social Mind

The human ability to perceive faces is particularly impressive when considered in the context of the many different social inferences we perform, as well as the high degree of accuracy and relatively ... More

The human ability to perceive faces is particularly impressive when considered in the context of the many different social inferences we perform, as well as the high degree of accuracy and relatively little effort with which they are typically made. Even very brief glimpses at a person's face may allow us to gain information relevant to determining his or her emotional state, personality characteristics, and identity. Face perception has also been recognized as supporting inferences about social category membership, with information about an individual's race, gender, and age usually easily determined from his or her face. All of these inferences are integral to social perception, but it is the latter category of inferences that are of particular interest in this chapter, which reviews the line of research pursued using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to study social perception, focusing particularly on the perception of race and gender cues.Less

Prologue

Moore Colleen F.

in Silent Scourge: Children, Pollution, and Why Scientists Disagree

This chapter explains the objective of this book, which is to review some of the best science on how pollution affects the quality of children's lives, particularly intellectual functioning, ... More

This chapter explains the objective of this book, which is to review some of the best science on how pollution affects the quality of children's lives, particularly intellectual functioning, behaviour, and emotional states. This book argues that a body count of deaths of cancer is not needed to conclude that a category of pollution has serious developmental effects. It analyses different types of pollutants including lead, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and organophosphorus and carbamate pesticides.Less

Talk as Show (a Show of Emotion)

in The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows

Producers have an easier time leading guests to the emotional brink if the topic is sensitive or volatile to begin with, if the guest feels strongly about it, if the guest is being surprised, or if ... More

Producers have an easier time leading guests to the emotional brink if the topic is sensitive or volatile to begin with, if the guest feels strongly about it, if the guest is being surprised, or if producers have found others with an opposing viewpoint to challenge him or her on the air. Given these conditions, coaxing a dramatic performance from guests may not seem so difficult, but producers experience this aspect of their job as one of the, if not the, most unpredictable—and hence stressful—aspects of the job, for, no matter how much they work with guests, they can never be sure that someone who is good on the phone or in the green room will also be good onstage. Producers live in constant fear that guests will become tongue-tied, fail to express emotion, not disclose the most important information first, get the story mixed up or confused, go into too much detail, or lose focus and go off on a tangent.Less

Voter Affect and the Demise of Party Systems

in Party-System Collapse: The Roots of Crisis in Peru and Venezuela

This chapter analyzes voter affect and the psychological mechanism connecting citizens' attitudes with the decision to vote in favor of party-system collapse in Peru and Venezuela. It describes an ... More

This chapter analyzes voter affect and the psychological mechanism connecting citizens' attitudes with the decision to vote in favor of party-system collapse in Peru and Venezuela. It describes an experiment regarding the effects of anger on propensity to support a candidate from outside the party system and discusses the result which shows that voters randomized to feel anger are significantly more likely to support the outsider candidate than are those assigned to the control group. The chapter also considers how emotional states influence political attitudes and positions on political issues.Less

Have the Arabs Changed Their Mind?

in The Culture of Islam: Changing Aspects of Contemporary Muslim Life

In some societies, the domains of religion and sociopolitical life may be demarcated precisely by the projected impenetrability of another's mind, thus making it difficult for those one does not ... More

In some societies, the domains of religion and sociopolitical life may be demarcated precisely by the projected impenetrability of another's mind, thus making it difficult for those one does not trust—questionable neighbors, centralized powers, or the unpredictable promptings of one's own emotional states—to gain access to some deeper self through one's motives or intentions. In other societies, however—those of the Arabs among them—domains such as intent are so deeply connected to the concatenation of conceptual domains through which a person is known that whatever happens to one set of concepts is likely to affect many others as well. It is for this reason that this chapter questions whether anything has led the Arabs of Morocco—and perhaps those in other parts of the Arab and Muslim world—to change their concept of intent in recent decades, and it does so by moving the inquiry outside the realm of intent alone to consider whether similar shifts are also taking place in the concepts of probability, causality, and responsibility.Less

Rejoinder

Alan B. Krueger, Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur A. Stone (eds)

in Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being

This chapter explains several valid points about the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed method for National Time Accounting (NTA), particularly regarding the idea of measuring subjective ... More

This chapter explains several valid points about the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed method for National Time Accounting (NTA), particularly regarding the idea of measuring subjective well-being by the fraction of time people spend in an unpleasant emotional state. The assumptions underlying the proposal for NTA seem to strike a reasonable balance between measurement requirements and practicality. The U-index and related indicators can provide a useful indicator of situations that are associated with unpleasant emotional experiences and of groups that are more likely to endure emotionally unpleasant experiences. It is hoped that NTA can provide a means for tracking whether societies are spending their time in more or less enjoyable ways, which can be an input along with others to derive a picture of the progress of society.Less