Emotions Are Not Modules

Jane is calmly strolling through the forest one lovely day. Suddenly, a large spider drops in front of her face. She immediately freezes; her heart races; her hands tremble; her face broadcasts "fear." She screams and runs away. Both before and after, she concedes that spiders in this forest are harmless.

Jane's reaction to the spider contrasts greatly with the way she normally reacts to events. Normally, or so the story goes, Jane weighs her options thoughtfully, choosing a course of action consistent with her beliefs and with the greatest benefit. Indeed, her reaction to the spider contrasts so greatly with calm, rational, deliberate, belief-consistent action that traditional folk psychology supposed two different kinds of mechanism are at work: animal-like emotion (located in the heart and gut) versus human reason (located in the mind). Her emotion explains her reaction to the spider. Her emotion made her do it.

This common-sense folk theory has grown into a plausible and productive scientific research program in which emotions (now re-located to a primitive part of the brain) are assumed to be fast-acting instinctual reflex-like responses honed through evolution to provide ready-made solutions to problems recurrent in our ancestors' day. I refer here to this research program as Basic Emotion Theory (BET).

BET implies that emotions are modular, meaning that they show many or all of the following features: unique output; fast; innate; subject to an evolutionary explanation; produced by a dedicated neural processor; mandatory (automatic and involuntary); and informationally encapsulated and hence beyond cognitive control (free from influence by certain seemingly relevant information).

This article briefly sketches my reasons for doubting BET. In doing so, I draw on an alternative account, one that poses the question of modularity in a different way. The key concept in my alternative account is Core Affect. I first characterize Core Affect and then turn to a brief critique of BET.

I. Core Affect

Core Affect is a neurophysiological state accessible to consciousness as the simplest feelings: feeling good or bad, lethargic or energized (Russell 2003). When prolonged, these feelings are the basis of mood. Core Affect differs from specific emotions in a number of ways. A person is always in some state of Core Affect. Although Core Affect is involved in specific emotions, more typically Core Affect is a simple feeling. Core Affect is not necessarily directed at anything (it is non-intentional). Core Affect responds to too many simultaneous influences to mentally track its causes with certainty. As a consequence, although we sometimes have a good idea of why we feel the Core Affect we do, we often don't, as in free-floating moods. One influence on core affect is virtual reality (art, fantasy, music) as when a song makes us feel good or not so good.

Core Affect is an ingredient of (but not the whole of) specific emotions. Would we understand someone's grief without understanding (in addition to which facial expressions, changes in the Autonomic Nervous System, appraisals, actions, and so on occur) whether the griever feels good or bad? Would we understand joy without understanding whether the joyful person feels good or bad? (My claim is not that all cases picked out by English words such as grief or joy entail a specific value of Core Affect, but that Core Affect is an ingredient in our emotional lives. For example, a very atypical case of grief might include feeling numb rather than bad.)

II. Evidence on Basic Emotion Theory

Reviewing evidence on BET is difficult because BET is a broad class of theories (or perhaps a framework or research program) that remains a mix of folk and scientific psychology. There are different versions, even by the same theorist. These theorists differ in how (or whether) they define emotion, anger, fear, and other key terms. Theorists disagree on what makes an emotion basic, how to account for non-basic emotions, how many emotions are basic, the role of cognitive processes, and so on. They differ in whether emotion is explicitly a causal entity or not. I cannot here consider...