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Text 2. Common views on emotions
Following are some propositions concerning the nature of emotions. Some of these
assertions may be mutually contradictory. Nonetheless, they are an indicator of the wide
range of beliefs on this subject:
• An emotion is a mental state or process. This process can be conscious or
subconscious, but in any case it attempts to balance and integrate various and often
conflicting, facts, experiences and concepts.
• It is a subjective, psychological experience, associated with a group of physiological
reactions arising in response to some event. This experience is often held to be involuntary,
although there appears to be no agreement on the extent to which one can learn to
intentionally influence emotions .
• Emotional experiences consist of thoughts, feelings, affective responses (e.g.,
sadness, anger, joy, determination), physiological responses (changes in internal bodily
functioning), cognitive res pons es (e.g., a conceptual repres entation of an event), and
behavioural responses (an outward expression such as flight or resistance).
There is considerable debate as to whether emotions and emotional experiences are
universal or culturally determined. One of the first modern attempts to classify emotions
was Adam Smith's study, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. This book is based largely on
data from Western Europe. Some anthropologists have explored the relationship between
emotional disposition or expression and culture, most notably Ruth Benedict in her
ethnological study, Patterns of Culture; Jean Briggs in her ethnography Never in Anger,
Michelle Ros aldo in her ethnography Knowledge and Passion; Lila Abu-Lughod in her
ethnography Veiled Sentiments; and Katherin Lutz in her ethnography Unnatural Emotions.
Paul Ekman has found that some facial expressions of emotion appear to be culturally
independent, as described in his book Emotions Revealed.
In his book Descartes' Error, the neurologist Antonio Damasio has developed a
universal model for human emotions. Damasio defines "emotion" as: the combination of a
mental evaluative process, s imp le o r co mp le x, w it h dispositional responses to that process,
mo s t ly toward the body proper, resulting in an emotional body state, but also toward the
brain itself (neurotransmitter nuclei in the brain stem), resulting from additional mental
changes. Damasio distinguishes emotions from feelings, which he takes to be a more
inclusive category. Damasio also distinguishes between "primary emotions", which he
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