Wonder: From Emotion to Spirituality

2. Emotion and Evolution

2. Emotion and Evolution Wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves. —herbert w. boyer, co-founder of Genentech, Inc. T he modern scientific study of the emotions can be traced to Charles Darwin. Thirteen years after publishing his epochal On the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin produced a volume titled The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. This study was not a thorough analysis of emotions per se. It was, rather, a more limited attempt to account for why we continue to exhibit certain emotional expressions even though they no longer appear to serve adaptive functions. Yet The Expression of the Emotions remains a classic in the study of emotions both because it exemplifies Darwin’s distinctive manner of analyzing biological phenomena and because it explains how discrete emotional expressions a√ect the chances of survival. Like other natural scientists, Darwin was interested in matters of what, how, and when.∞ That is, Darwin investigated issues such as what each emotion expresses, how these expressions are physiologically produced, and when these expressions occur. But Darwin’s most important contribution to the study of the emotions is his answer to the more important question of why we have emotions at all. emotion and evolution 17 Darwin set out to explore why animals display their emotions through expressive behaviors such as facial expressions, gestures, and postures.≤ He utilized data from his own fieldwork as well as observations provided by zookeepers, explorers, and missionaries who had lived in nonliterate human cultures. Darwin began by examining, arranging, and classifying these data. He then proposed three principles that he believed could account for the origin and function of emotions in our evolutionary history. The first principle had to do with the functional value of emotions. Darwin described this as ‘‘the principle of serviceable associated habits.’’ By this he meant that emotional states are of functional value to the individual. Emotions facilitate behavior that bring individual gratification and promote survival. In his words, ‘‘certain complex actions are of direct or indirect service under certain states of the mind.’’≥ The second principle was what Darwin called ‘‘the principle of antithesis.’’ He explained that ‘‘there is a strong and involuntary tendency to the performance of movements directly opposite of others.’’∂ Expressive behaviors signal our intentions to others. Thus, for example, we shrug our shoulders when we feel helpless because it is the opposite of the movements we make when we are asserting ourselves aggressively. The third principle concerning the evolutionary origin of the emotions had to do with the direct action of the nervous system (over and beyond conscious intention or acquired habit). Darwin’s point here is that our emotions are part of our basic physiology. We sweat, tremble, faint, or even smile as a result of direct actions of the nervous system. These emotional expressions are therefore innate and biologically grounded. Emotions are inherited traits preserved through natural selection because they contributed to the survival of the species. Yet, Darwin observed in The Expression of the Emotions, the emotional expressions that humans have inherited are patterns of action that occur even ‘‘though they may not . . . be of the least use’’ in our current day.∑ His point was that many emotional expressions we find in humans and animals today exist because they were functional in our evolutionary past even though they may no longer be of any 18 emotion and evolution use. Therefore some emotion-based expressions persist not because they are useful in our present settings but because they are triggered by environmental cues similar to those that had elicited them in our evolutionary past. Darwin’s overall answer to the question of why humans (and other animals) have emotions was thus a functional one. He showed that emotional expressions—at least as they initially emerged in our evolutionary history—facilitate adaptation and survival. He pointed out, for example, that the emotions of fear and anger often promote survival by triggering behaviors that make an animal appear much bigger than it really is. Darwin observed, ‘‘Hardly any expressive movement is so general as the involuntary erection of the hairs, feathers and other dermal appendages. . . . These appendages were erected under the excitement of anger or terror: more especially when these emotions are combined, or quickly succeed each other. The action serves to...