9: The Environmental Awareness System
The author considers fear, specifically, as an emotional response that is requisite to survival. In a natural environment, "every animal is food for another animal," so the fear response that causes us to react quickly to a threat, even before we pause to consider the nature of the threat in a rational manner, is a survival mechanism.
He speaks of using a video in conferences in which a snake attacks a camera - some people in the audience will jump out of their seats. And while those who over-react feel a bit awkward and embarrassed, those are the very people most likely to avoid being bitten had the danger been real. The composed individuals, who stifle their emotional responses, would likely exercise their curiosity and rational faculty, wondering whether what they see is a rock or a snake, wondering whether the snake is poisonous, wondering whether it's actually a danger. They are far more likely to be bitten than a person who acts on impulse at the sight of something that might be a snake.
(EN: The point is well taken, but there's a valid counterpoint that rational action is also a contributor to survival, and in many instances an over-reaction can either be harmful. A person misses an opportunity because they fear danger, or their reaction to a perceived threat is damaging. This is where the "emotion" camp goes too far to the opposite extreme - both emotions and logic are necessary for survival, each in different situations.)
The process of seeing a snake in the wild demonstrates the process of decision-making. The sensory data is of an object of a certain shape and size, that moves a certain way, that touches on the "snake" gestalt. There is an instant chemical reaction (adrenaline) and a physical reaction (to freeze or move abruptly away). It is only after this action has been taken that we have a closer look at the object, logic kicks in, and we realize that it was only a twig. But rationalization comes later - after reaction.
(EN: Another related point that is a diversion from the author's path is that our responses are based on experience: a person who has been bitten by a snake, seen a video of a snake bite, or even heard about someone being bitten by a snake, is more sensitive to snakes afterward and more likely to elicit a fear response to any snake-like object they perceive.)
It is reckoned that animals do not have a rational faculty: they react to the strongest stimulus, the greatest danger, in their immediate environment. Higher order of animals will develop associations and "learn" from experience, but lower orders will always act according to pre-programmed instincts - a fly will take off quickly at any sudden movement, even if it is not life-threatening.
The systems involved in autonomous responses lie in the amygdala , which is one of the most primitive parts of the brain. In layman's terms, the amygdala is nicknamed the "reptile brain," which is entirely accurate: for most species of reptile, the amygdala is all the brain matter they have.
Reconsidering the human-snake encounter from a snake's perception, the snake senses the motion of a large and warm object and reacts according to instinct. Most snakes will flee. Some snakes, like the puff adder, will lie perfectly still and won't bite unless they are trod upon. Other species are more aggressive and will seek to attack or drive off a threat. One species is not "smarter" than any other, all are merely reacting to instinct - the amygdala fires and they do what they are programmed to do, without evaluation or thought.
The higher orders of animals are more comparable of altering their programming, of learning from experience. There is nothing in the natural world that gives a cat the instinct to recognize the sound of an electric can opener, but through experience it makes the connection between that sound and food, and is attracted to that sound. It's at this point that we begin to see the influence of emotion - a connection that has been made by experience, rather than innate instinct, that is still prior to the application of logic.
Emotion As Post-Rationalization
The author refers to emotion as a two-step process of reaction: The first step where emotion is involved is reactive to environmental stimuli - we see something and experience an immediate emotional response. The second step, which happens so quickly that it is often not distinguished from the first, is that we interpret the stimulus and our feelings about it, correlate it to one or more gestalts, and either confirm or (less often) contradict the initial response.
The example is given of two infants playing next to one another, and one of them takes a toy away from the second. There is a moment's pause as the first infant experiences a panoply of emotional reactions to having an object that fascinated him taken away; and as a second step, the infant chooses to have one, specific reaction - he cries, or is indifferent.
Adults go through these same two steps more quickly, without a moment's pause in-between, as their life experience has created stronger gestalt, and they have developed patterns of reaction that guide them to choose the reaction that is customary based on their personalities.
There is also the notion of mood - the reaction we choose is based on the state of mind at the moment. Moods modify an emotional response, and an emotional experience can lead to a mood - but that's a matter that will be considered later.
The difference between a rational response and an emotional one is chiefly in the speed of onset. Emotion is a fast reaction, which takes milliseconds to formulate when we respond to stimuli. It is our visceral or "gut" reaction that the rational mind will justify or regret afterward.
It is this justification or regret that creates a later emotional reaction, a reaction to our own reaction, that influences our future responses. A person startled by a twig that they mistook for a snake is less likely to be as dramatic in their reaction the next time they see something that might be one or the other.
This post-rationalization and the emotions we have after the fact changes our programming, becomes a part of who we are. In an individual, the sum of this process is their own personality. In a group, where individuals have similar experiences and emotional responses, it is their culture.
Considering this, reason and emotion are not the separate and conflicting forces they are often made out to be - they are intertwined and supportive of one another. An emotional reaction leads to rational evaluation, and that rational evaluation guides our future emotional reactions.
Are Advertisements Like Snakes?
In an earlier book, the author used the example of the snake in relation to advertising: that a person reacts to a promotional message based on their emotional response to it, but later becomes more familiar with advertising in general sense, and in a more specific sense to a given brand or product category, and their emotional response is modified based on this experience.
That is to say that a viewer response more positively to an advertisement of a brand with which they already have positive experience, or at least a positive sentiment, than they do to an advertisement for a brand with which they are totally unfamiliar. Naturally, they respond least positively to advertisements for brands for which they have negative experience or sentiment.
There's a stray remark about how we do this with more than just advertisements: when we meet someone who looks or acts similar to a person they already know, their initial impression of this stranger is affected by their sentiment toward the person they resemble.
(EN: Brings to mind the patterns that emerge in human relationships. In the dating scene, people tend to fall into a pattern and date the same "type" of person, due to this association. Men will marry women who are like their mothers, women will marry men who are like their fathers, for much the same reason.)
As such, an advertisement is not an independent stimulus: the viewer compares and advert to an existing gestalt, and the existing positive or negative sentiment to various elements determines their response.
Herd Behavior
There is also evidence that we react to the reactions of others: that people who view images of frightened faces show increased activity in the amygdala, even though they are not experiencing fear themselves.
The notion that culture affects emotions will be explored in more detail in a later chapter - but for the present, the author acknowledges that other people are part of the environment to which we react. On the simplest level, we have greater anxiety dealing with a person we have not previously encountered than one to whom we have been exposed, and this is an emotional basis for tribalism.
Going back to the snake example, when two people are walking through a forest and one reacts because they thought they saw a snake, the other one reacts as well, even though they did not see the reason - they reacted to another person's reaction. This is a common behavior, and an effective survival mechanism for animals that gang.
It's been observed, even among birds, that some behaviors are cooperative: some will feed, focused on the ground, while others keep watch, and when a "watcher" is startled, the entire flock flits away. The same is true for antelopes and other herd mammals, even schools of fish.
(EN: I recall seeing slow-motion video of a watering hole where several different species of prey animals showed a cascade effect - when one group became anxious, it spread to others. Arguably, they might have caught the same scent at the same time, but it seemed reasonable to me that they might be responding to the response of other groups.)
How Many Emotions Do We Have?
There is no universally accepted list of emotions. Various theorists have made attempts to enumerate and classify human emotions, and they are not in agreement. There isn't even much agreement on what is an "emotion" and what is a "mood," or what differentiates one from another.
In general, consensus is forming that emotion is short-lived and has a motivational role, whereas mood has longevity and is more in the nature of a state of being that does not coax a person to take action. Sadness would be considered a mood, but fear would be an emotion. Though when you consider that a person might be motivated to take action to change their mood, to realize they are sad and want to feel happier, the line again becomes blurred.
Language is also a barrier to understanding emotions: the English language has a plethora of words for emotions that describe subtle shades of meaning, far more than are documented in languages that have fewer, and yet we are at a loss to describe the way we feel.
(EN: I disagree. English is a mixed language that borrows from other languages. The fact that we have five words that mean roughly the same thing doesn't mean we are attuned to nuances and subtle differences, just that one word comes to English from Saxons, another from Normans, another from Celts, another from Greek, and another from Latin.)
The author refers to Plutchik, who developed a "wheel of emotions" similar to a color wheel in 1958 - but his schema blurs emotion and mood and makes some rather strange assertions (apprehension is the polar opposite of annoyance, boredom is a blend of contempt and remorse). The idea is good, but the execution quite flawed. Other schematizations of emotion suffer from much the same problem.
In a general sense, emotions can be considered positive or negative, by the way we are prone to react to a stimulus (to fear or be attracted), or other schemas which consider one thing in opposition to another. This jibes well with traditional logic, the evaluation that a thing "is" or "is not", but it doesn't suit the very nature of emotions, which resist our attempt to reduce them to a binary choice.
There is no evidence that entirely different pars of the brain are engaged in love or hate, exhilaration or fear, and people often experience mixed emotions - one person does not have a pure response, and two people may have entirely different responses. So in terms of Putchik's color wheel, we do not yet have sufficient grasp on what are the primary and secondary "hues" and how they are blended.
As such, the naming, classification, and schematization of emotions eludes us, and remains the subject of inference and theory that are not founded on any scientific basis.
Emotions And Marketing
As we attempt to apply our knowledge of emotions to marketing, there is the need for greater precision - to gauge success at evoking a specific emotion, it is necessary to assess the reaction with greater precision and reliability than science is capable of providing.
We assume, but cannot prove, that a person who purchases something is attracted to it and that when they purchase it a second time, they were happy with the experience they had the previous time around. But we have no clue as to the reason a prospect did not purchase, or a customer did not remain loyal. And while it makes perfect sense that peoples actions are guided by emotion, we have only a vague and general sense of the emotions that come into play.
In the end, the conclusion is not that we are completely clueless, just that the clues we have discovered lead to the realization that there is much more to be learned before we can claim scientific precision.