The Misunderstood Nature Of Emotions

We all know the feeling of our heartbeat increasing when we are angry or our eyes starting to water when we feel sad. These are bodily reactions related to what we call emotions. When we think of emotions, we might think of the terms happy, sad, angry, scared and their effects on our body such as smiling, frowning, crying, etc. But are emotions just brain reactions that were built in? Can we understand what the other person is feeling simply by looking at their face? There has been a lot of conflict between scientists regarding these questions and according to Lisa Feldman Barrett, psychologist, neuroscientist, and author of the book “How Emotions Are Made” we have long misunderstood the nature of emotions

The first thing we pay attention to when we look at a person is usually their face. Therefore, we usually try to understand what that person is feeling or thinking by looking at them . But is it possible to understand what the other person is feeling just by looking at their face? In order to answer this question, many scientists have made experiments. In one, mentioned in the article written by W. Ayhan LeCopmte named “Emotional facial expressions and clinical psychology”, scientists showed the subjects different facial expressions in a short amount of time. The result was that 80% of the subjects were able to define facial expressions. A similar experiment was made with babies where they were shown portraits with facial expressions. They succeeded in defining them but they were not successful in defining the same portraits upside down. This shows that some emotions that we call “primary emotions” might be built in from birth. Research regarding emotions started in the early 19th century with French physiologist Duchenne and important scientist Charles Darwin. While Duchenne tried to answer the question “how do facial expressions reflect emotions?”, Darwin tried to understand how emotions are defined and understood by people. The book “The Expression Of Emotions In Man And Animals” written by Charles Darwin in 1872, is an important piece of work regarding the nature of emotions. Darwin took the photos and experiments done by Duchenne and showed them to different people. But almost no reactions or answers were the same. After almost a century, a lot of research and experiments show that there are six emotions that are called “primary emotions”, which are recognised by everyone and built in from birth. These are: happiness, fear, anger, disgust, sadness and astonishment. Other emotions are learned and differ across cultures and regions. When something that triggers our emotions happens, they come out automatically as certain reactions. This is the theory that Lisa Barrett likes to call “The classical view of emotion”. Despite its huge influence in our culture and society, there is scientific evidence that proves this classical view of emotion wrong.

With the view Lisa Barrett likes to call “ The Theory of Constructed Emotion” it is possible to explain emotions in a different way. When the classical view is not taken into consideration and the only thing that is looked at is data collected from experiments, we can see that emotions are not actually built-in but built as we live. They are not universally recognized by everyone but they differ across cultures and regions. They are not automatic reactions that get triggered, but you create them at the moment. For example, someone that was raised in an environment where sadness is defined by crying, will define someone crying as sad. Or when they come across a tragic scene or story, their brain will predict what reaction to give using past experiences. In this case, as a way of calming their nervous system down, they will start crying. So crying for this person is a reaction that is not built-in but constructed at the moment by the brain using past experiences. When we give meaning to these sensations, they become reactions to the sadness emotion. This means that if the person was raised in an environment where sadness was defined by raising an eyebrow, the person would raise an eyebrow and the sensations would still be defined as the sadness emotion. So, people may have different reactions to certain emotions. For example, while crying is defined as sadness for one person based on past experiences, it might also define happiness for another person who was raised in a different culture. Well then, emotions are not universally recognized. But most facial expressions like smiling or frowning are. How does that happen? As Lisa Berrett cited in her book “How Emotions Are Made”, hundreds of experiments have shown that people worldwide can match emotional words to facial expressions posed by actors who are not actually feeling that emotion. But when people are actually feeling those emotions, expressions cannot be defined objectively. Numerous experiments also show that facial expressions are not enough to understand the emotion and that the brain considers many different factors like voice, the situation, or posture along with facial expressions to give meaning to the situation. For example, scientists have taken photographs of faces and bodies that do not belong together and matched them. When they showed them to the subjects, almost all subjects responded based on the body and not the face. So, we can say that the brain takes a lot of information from our surroundings to give meaning to emotions. If we pay a lot of attention to things other than the face to recognize emotions and if they are not universal, how come we say that a happy person is a smiling person? Lisa Berett answers this question: “The answer is that it is a stereotype, a symbol that fits a well-known theme within our culture.” So, all of the facial expressions we know were created by our culture? Yes and that is why there is no scientific evidence that each emotion has a specific facial expression. This also proves the classical view of emotion wrong which claims that there are six ‘primary emotions’ that are recognized by everyone.

Emotions are something that we all experience and they are a part of what makes us human. Yet for decades people have struggled to understand the nature of them and thought that they were just built in. This new idea of ‘constructed emotions’ proves to us that emotions are not in fact instinctive and are built in the moment. Knowing this, makes us reevaluate how we understand ourselves and others. This not only is a revolution in psychology but also in our society and social institutions.

Work Cited

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gks6ceq4eQ

https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/

Barrett, Feldman Lisa, How Emotions Are Made

LeCompte, W. Ayhan, Duygusal Yüz İfadeleri Ve Klinik Psikoloji, Psikoloji Dergisi, Aralık 1982, S.16