Agnes Moors

Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science, allowing scholars in both fields to understand the commonalities and differences between these theories. Agnes Moors also proposes her own novel, skeptical theory of emotions, called the goal-directed theory, based on the central idea that all kinds of behaviors and feelings are grounded in goal-striving. Whereas most scholars of emotion do not call the notion of emotion itself into question, this review engages in a critical examination of its scientific legitimacy. This book will appeal to readers in psychology, philosophy, and related disciplines who want to gain a deeper understanding of the controversies at play in the emotion domain.

Müller proposes a position-taking theory to account for the manifest image of emotional feelings as “feelings towards”. He reduces the process of position-taking to goal-based construal, which is akin to the stimulus-goal comparison process central in appraisal theories. Although this reduction can account for the heat of emotional feelings and the intuition that non-linguistic organisms can also have feelings, it may fail to keep the position-taking aspect on board. Moreover, the image of emotional feelings as active position-takings may itself be questioned and replaced with a passive image. I end by acknowledging that a passive image is still compatible with an active underlying mechanism as is the case in appraisal theories but even more so in the goal-directed theory.

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 111-113, April 2022. Suri and Gross's 2022 connectionist emotion theory can be considered as one version of a family of theories known as network theories of emotion. It presents similarities and differences with older versions of network theories. Like previous network theories and several other traditional emotion theories, however, the connectionist theory remains a reactive theory. The class of reactive theories can be meaningfully contrasted with a class of instrumental theories of which the goal-directed theory is a representative example. Although the latter theory does not deny the existence of emotion networks in memory, it does not grant them many causal powers, thereby seriously restricting their explanatory territory. Future research efforts may help disambiguate between both classes of theories.

Despite growing awareness of the benefits of large-scale open access publishing, individual researchers seem reluctant to adopt this behavior, thereby slowing down the evolution toward a new scientific culture. We outline and apply a goal-directed framework of behavior causation to shed light on this type of behavioral reluctance and to organize and suggest possible intervention strategies. The framework explains behavior as the result of a cycle of events starting with the detection of a discrepancy between a goal and a status quo and the selection of behavior to reduce this discrepancy. We list various factors that may hinder this cycle and thus contribute to behavioral reluctance. After that, we highlight potential remedies to address each of the identified barriers. We thereby hope to point out new ways to think about behavioral reluctances in general, and in relation to open access publishing in particular.

The review first discusses componential explanations of automaticity, which specify non/automaticity features (e.g., un/controlled, un/conscious, non/efficient, fast/slow) and their interrelations. Reframing these features as factors that influence processes (e.g., goals, attention, and time) broadens the range of factors that can be considered (e.g., adding stimulus intensity and representational quality). The evidence reviewed challenges the view of a perfect coherence among goals, attention, and consciousness, and supports the alternative view that (a) these and other factors influence the quality of representations in an additive way (e.g., little time can be compensated by extra attention or extra stimulus intensity) and that (b) a first threshold of this quality is required for unconscious processing and a second threshold for conscious processing. The review closes with a discussion of causal explanations of automaticity, which specify factors involved in automatization such as repetition and complexity, and a discussion of mechanistic explanations, which specify the low-level processes underlying automatization.

Positive and negative feelings were central to the development of economics, especially in utility theory in classical economics. While neoclassical utility theory ignored feelings, behavioral economics more recently reintroduced feelings in utility theory. Beyond feelings, economic theorists use full-fledged specific emotions to explain behavior that otherwise could not be understood or they study emotions out of interest for the emotion itself. While some analyses display a strong overlap between psychological thinking and economic modelling, in most cases there is still a large gap between economic and psychological approaches to emotion research. Ways how to reduce this gap are discussed.

I present an overview of emotion theories, organised around the question of emotion causation. I argue that theories of emotion causation should ideally address the problems of elicitation, intensity, and differentiation. Each of these problems can be divided into a subquestion that asks about the relation between stimuli and emotions (i.e., the functional level of process description, cf. Marr, 1982) and a subquestion that asks about the mechanism and representations that intervene (i.e., the algorithmic level of process description). The overview reveals that theories of emotion causation sometimes differ with regard to the kind of process that they hold responsible for emotion causation. More precisely, they hold different assumptions regarding the conditions under which the process is supposed to operate (optimal versus suboptimal), the format of the representations involved (propositional versus perceptual), and the object or input of the central process (stimulus versus responses/experience). Further, the overview reveals that theories of emotion causation sometimes differ with regard to the level of process description that they focus on. Finally, the overview brings to light several similarities among the theories discussed.

Many appraisal theories claim that appraisal causes emotion. Critics have rejected this claim because they believe (a) it is incompatible with the claim that appraisal is a part of emotion, (b) it is not empirically supported, (c) it is circular and hence nonempirical, and (d) there are alternative causes. I reply that (a) the causal claim is incompatible with the part claim on some but not all interpretations of the causal claim and the part claim, (b) the lack of empirical support can be remedied, (c) there may even be ways to cope with the circularity problem, and (d) it is unclear to what extent the alternative causes differ from appraisal

Standard dual-process models in the action domain postulate that stimulus-driven processes are responsible for suboptimal behavior because they take them to be rigid and automatic and therefore the default. We propose an alternative dual-process model in which goal-directed processes are the default instead. We then transfer the dual- process logic from the action domain to the emotion domain. This reveals that emotional behavior is often attributed to stimulus-driven processes. Our alternative model submits that goal-directed processes could be the primary determinant of emotional behavior instead. We evaluate the type of empirical evidence required for validating our model and we consider implications of our model for behavior change, encouraging strategies focused on the expectancies and values of action outcomes.

In reply to the commentaries of Clay-Warner, Gendolla, Nesse, Shweder, and Zachar, I repeat the essential features of appraisal theories of the second flavor: They take emotional components as the phenomenon to be explained, and they strive for a multilevel mechanistic explanation that leaves room for complex and dynamical processes or mechanisms. Every mechanistic explanation starts with an accurate description of regularities between inputs and outputs. Regularities do not preclude context-dependent variety, because there is no limit to the number of input factors that can influence the output, and back.

Many views define the concept of automaticity in terms of a number of features, but they differ with regard to the features they put most emphasis on, as well as with regard to the coherence they assume among the features. One contemporary account is the gradual and decompositional view, which proposes to investigate each automaticity feature separately and determine the degree to which it is present. In this chapter, we engage in a detailed analysis of the most important features in order to examine whether they can indeed be regarded as gradual, and whether they can be conceptually and logically separated.

I address the questions of whether cognitive methods are suited to the study of emotion, and whether they are suited to the study of the unique aspect of emotion. Based on a definition of cognitive processes as those that mediate between variable input–output relations by means of representations, and the observation that the relation between stimuli and emotions is often variable, I argue that cognition is often involved in emotion and that cognitive methods are suited to study them. I further propose that the unique feature of emotion has to do with the content of the representations involved in the transition from stimulus input to emotion. Emotions are elicited when stimuli contain information about the satisfaction status of goals (i.e., when they are goal relevant). Given that cognitive methods are fit to study any representation-mediated process regardless of their content, they can a fortiori be used to study a process that operates on representations with goal-relevant content. I compare this process to processes that have no or a different relation to goals, including the process that deals with purely valenced information.

The paper sketches the historical development from emotion as a mysterious entity and the source of maladaptive behaviour, to emotion as a collection of ingredients and the source of also adaptive behaviour. We argue, however, that the underlying mechanism proposed to take care of this adaptive behaviour is not entirely up for its task. We outline an alternative view that explains so-called emotional behaviour with the same mechanism as non-emotional behaviour, but that is at the same time more likely to produce adaptive behaviour. The phenomena that were initially seen as requiring a separate emotional mechanism to influence and cause behaviour can also be explained by a goal-directed mechanism provided that more goals and other complexities inherent in the goal-directed process are taken into account.

We investigated whether motivationally determined stimulus valence can be processed in an automatic way, as is assumed in many appraisal theories (e.g., Frijda, 1986, 1993; Lazarus, 1991; Scherer, 1993a). Whereas appraisal theorists typically use conscious self-report methods to investigate their assumptions, our experiments used indirect experimental methods that leave less room for deliberate, conscious reflections of the participants. Using variants of the affective priming and Simon paradigms, we demonstrated that intrinsically neutral, but wanted stimuli facilitated responses with a positive valence, whereas intrinsically neutral, but unwanted stimuli facilitated negative responses. In addition, the second experiment proved to be supportive of another assumption made by appraisal theorists according to which a relation exits between different (automatic) outcomes of motivational appraisal (positive-negative) and different action tendencies (approach-withdrawal).

Critics of appraisal theory have difficulty accepting appraisal (with its constructive flavor) as an automatic process, and hence as a potential cause of most emotions. In response, some appraisal theorists have argued that appraisal was never meant as a causal process but as a constituent of emotional experience. Others have argued that appraisal is a causal process, but that it can be either rule-based or associative, and that the associative variant can be automatic. This article first proposes empirically investigating whether rule-based appraisal can also be automatic and then proposes investigating the automatic nature of constructive (instead of rule-based) appraisal because the distinction between rule-based and associative is problematic. Finally, it discusses experiments that support the view that constructive appraisal can be automatic

My reply to the comments of Parkinson (2010) and Kuppens (2010) is organized in three parts. The first part deals with Parkinson’s claim that the scope of our research is limited because no real emotions were elicited. I suggest that the outcomes in our studies are structurally similar to real emotions but that they lack intensity. In the second part, I try to correct three potential misunderstandings regarding the nature of the comparison process that I proposed. In the third part, I respond to Kuppens’ suggestion that we also need to consider the transition of appraisal values into the other components of emotion (actions tendencies, responses, and subjective experience)

Learning has been defined functionally as changes in behavior that result from experience or mechanistically as changes in the organism that result from experience. Both types of definitions are problematic. We define learning as ontogenetic adaptation—that is, as changes in the behavior of an organism that result from regularities in the environment of the organism. This functional definition not only solves the problems of other definitions, but also has important advantages for cognitive learning research.