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3 - Evolution of Emotions

While evolution was a radical departure from creationism, its perspective on emotions was not that different. Religion held mankind to be an imperfect creation of the gods, and emotions were imperfections to be eradicated to bring us closer to the spiritual world. Evolution held mankind to be a descendent of animals, and emotions were a vestige of our primitive ancestors to be eradicated to bring us closer to the next step in our evolutionary journey.

The current view on emotions in Western culture is to accept that they are natural, but regard them as obsolete our counterproductive. There has been some suggestion and research into the function of emotions, but it is scant and scattered.

In the present chapter, the authors intend to consider the evolution of emotions as patterns of behavior with three specific aspects:

Given that culture has been discussed in the previous chapter, the authors will seek to focus on commonalities among humans as a species, and similarities and differences to other species of animal.

Recognition of Expressions

It is generally accepted that facial expressions had a functional role at their time of origin, as reflexes that poised us to take an action. While we not longer perform many of the actions, the expressions remain as a vestige, but perform a more social function.

For example, a wolf retracts its ears when faced with a threat, which protected the ears from attack. A wolf who observes this in another recognizes that the expression conveys fear of an attack - this wolf is afraid of me, hence not a threat to me, hence I need not attack it. As such the posture meant to protect against an attack decreases the likelihood of being attacked.

While human beings do not have the ability to retract their ears, the raising of the eyebrows is a secondary effect of articulating the same muscles - so it does not perform the same practical function, but it still serves the same social function: it signals non-aggression and makes others less inclined to deal with us aggressively, hence to be open to social interaction.

Expressions such as this, derived from biological behaviors, are considered to be universal. There may be subtle cultural distinctions, but raised eyebrows is recognized as a signal of non-aggression across the panoply of human cultures. They may be suppressed in certain cultures, but where there is not an intentional or conditioned attempt to suppress them, their expression communicates a universal message.

A separate study (Eibl 1973) considers the expressions of young children, before the age at which their parents or societies begin to coach them to use or refrain from using certain expressions. Across various cultures, the manners in which children express a number of basic emotions (happiness, sadness, frustration, curiosity, fear, attraction) are universal. This includes not only facial expressions, but bodily postures and the quality of utterances.

A number of studies (notably by Ekman and Sorenson) have been done with the Fore tribe during the 1970's, at which time the tribe had not been exposed to Westerners. Shown a series of 30 photographs of American faces making certain expressions, the Fore people were able to name the associated emotions. Happy expressions were correctly identified 82% of the time and negative emotions were correctly identified 56% of the time - but even in instances of an incorrect response, the error was in the same general area of positive or negative emotion (e.g. a sad face was mistaken for angry).

It's also noted that members of the tribe who had contact with people outside the Fore society (not westerners but other Polynesian tribes) had a higher degree of accuracy: 99% for positive emotions. When the same study was performed the other way around - Americans evaluating the expressions of Fore tribesmen, the results were similar, between 46% and 73% correct and markedly low performance on negative emotions such as fear or surprise.

Some miscellaneous findings from the same study: when asked to describe a situation in which a person might make an expression, the stories for happy faces were very brief ("he has seen a friend") and those for negative emotions were detailed ("he has come across a wild pig in the forest and realizes he has left his spear back in the village"). When given a choice of pictures to tell stories amount, most subjects gravitated toward happy expressions. And when told a story and asked to pick a fitting expression, accuracy was better (between 70% and 90%) than the other way around.

The results of these studies identify a number of "human universals" that include happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. It is therefore reckoned that there are certain innate patterns to expressions but these are diffused by culturally variable display rules.

The authors conceded that this and similar studies have been challenged from various angles, most notably that the photographs were intentional depictions of emotions rather than actual ones (a person told to make a happy face is posturing rather than naturally reacting), but even so "fake" expressions are often used in social settings to communicate emotions, whether feigned entirely or exaggerations of actual emotional reactions.

It's also noted that emotional expressions are seldom attributable to a specific feature - the raised eyebrows of a "happy" or "friendly" expression have a biological precedent, but other aspect of the expression do not - and even the elements of an expression may be mixed: the western expression of happiness includes not only the raised eyebrows that convey fear of an attack, but also a smile that conveys the threat of a counterattack (lips retracted to bare the teeth).

Moreover some elements are common to contradictory expressions - we may shed tears of joy rather than tears of sadness, a smile can communicate embarrassment of contempt rather than friendliness or amusement, etc.

Species-Characteristic Patterns of Action

In animals, instincts describe a pattern of behavior that a creature follows, presumably without a conscious process of thought. The action is genetically hardwired to a stimulus. In man, an emotional reaction is sudden and brief, like a reflex action, and the behaviors that follow are a matter of choice. If he is angered and he bites, it is a choice to bite rather than a compulsion.

The author concedes that animals are not strictly driven by instinct, and the higher order of animals can learn behaviors. A dog or a chimp can be trained to respond to signals with specific behaviors that are not hardwired by genetics, and learned behaviors have been observed outside the laboratory. But many of the lower orders, such as reptiles, do not demonstrate this capacity.

One example (Lorenz 1937) demonstrated that geese behave in a particular manner when an egg escapes their nest: the method by which they return it is identical among geese, even with those who have not observed the behavior in other geese. This behavior is likened to a script: an "egg out of next" event triggers a sequence of actions that are continued until a state of "all eggs back in nest" has been achieved.

(EN: "script" here is used as a metaphor to theater, but it lends itself very well to computer programming as well. Consider that an interactive Web page is simply a collection of scripted reactions to stimuli.)

The notion of scripted behavior is also seen in human beings: purchasing a magazine from a newsstand or taking a meal in a restaurant follows a very specific pattern. The same can be said of many cultural customs. The difference is that in the human context, the script is learned and the subject may deviate - to act differently to achieve the goal or simply to choose not to pursue the goal at all - for no other reason than he so wishes.

There's passing mention of faulty scripts, which cause behavior that seems unnatural or irrational to occur, such as the way in which rodents horde items that have no practical use to them. There is an unfortunate tendency to consider these behaviors to be evidence of intellect beyond instinct, but generally it can be observed that they are instinctual behaviors that have misfired - like a goose reacting to an egg-shaped stone because it does not detect or differentiate it from an actual egg.

Origins of Human Emotional Characteristics

Tracing the origins of human emotion can be done by a few different methods: to consider the behavior of our closest animal relatives, the consider evidence of the behavior of prehistoric man, and to consider the behavior of present-day people who live a primitive lifestyle.

The Social Lives of Primates

Jane Goodall's work with primates has provided much insight into the sociology of these creatures. While popular entertainment focuses attention on her work with gorillas, she previously conducted far more extensive research with chimpanzees, which are more generically and behaviorally similar to mankind.

There remains some contention over the objectivity of Goodall's work (her original notes often anthropomorphize chimps and makes premature suppositions based on scant evidence), but it is nonetheless the most extensive resource to date on the behavior of these animals in the wild, totaling nearly five thousand hours of observation over two years time.

Goodall describes the creatures as primarily docile, but gives special attention to aggression, defining three levels: (1) a single hit, kick, or push, often in passing (2) an attack that lasts less than 30 seconds, and (3) an extended attack lasting more than thirty seconds. Level-one aggression was constant, and even levels two and three were relatively common, occurring once every 62 hours by mails and even 106 hours by females, with intervals differing by role (230 hours for the omega female and 9 hours for the alpha male).

She also paid quite some attention to their feeding habits. Grazing on vegetation was constant and seemed of little consequence, but on the occasions when a member of the troop killed a monkey or a piglet, there was considerable drama: it was not uncommon for the chimps to fight for the carcass, and lower-ranked members of the troop would proactively share out their kills to avoid conflict.

Switching channels: Raleign (1991) attributes dominance to serotonin levels in the brain. Experiments gathered groups of 12 monkeys, giving six of them drugs to enhance serotonin production and the other six drugs to inhibit serotonin. Those whose serotonin production was enhanced took dominance, and when the drugs were reversed, so was the tendency to seek dominance.

Linking serotonin to dominance provides a handy explanation for the reason some primates seek dominance - through natural variations, some produce more serotonin than others. It's also noted that antidepressant pharmaceuticals used in humans manipulate serotonin as a means to increase social confidence and enthusiasm, suggesting that brain chemistry is a significant factor in behavior.

Comparison of behaviors of chimps to other ape species yield some striking similarities, but also significant differences. The same can be said of the similarities and differences in the behavior of chimps and humans: there is some degree of similarity.

When it is observed that the behavior patterns of primates are similar to those of humans, it is assumed that the emotional motivators for those behaviors are the same. Goodall remarked that "the emotional states of the chimpanzee are so obviously similar to ours that even an inexperienced observer can interpret the behavior."

(EN: And therein lies the problem of anthropomorphism, in which a scientist becomes as precious as a pet owner who claims that their cat is "smiling" because it is amused by a television program, they are projecting emotions onto a subject, which sadly undermines the reliability of their findings. My sense is there's something to be learned, but it would be more credible coming from a researcher who is less desperate to manufacture evidence for their hypothesis.)

(EN: I'm skipping the remainder of the section - a few more pages about primate emotions - as the anthropomorphism continues and I am unable to accept the authors' assertions as being based on sound premises.)

Evidence of Human Ancestry

Another theory considers the emotions of modern man to have been gained during a process of evolution: situations that frequently occurred in the physical environment of our ancestors lead to the development of patterns of behavior that became genetically ingrained. As a result, the emotions experienced by modern man in an urban environment may derive from patters of behavior necessary for survival in the forests and plains of pre-civilization.

Studies of DNA trace homo sapiens to a single female creature that lived about 200,000 years ago in Africa, whose progeny thrived, spread their genes, and eventually migrated to other parts of the world. Separation of distance and the changing features of landscape caused groups to become isolated, interbreed, and adapt to specific climates and environments.

It is generally reckoned that humans living in social groups experienced emotion, at first in a way similar to primates living in troops, but eventually with greater complexity, as necessary to urbanization. Instinct, it is reckoned, may be sufficient for a small group of animals to refrain from attacking one another, but the ability to live in large settlements requires a higher degree of refinement in communicating and developing relationships.

It is further suggested that if we were to bring forward in time an infant born 10,000 years ago and raised it in the present society, it would be indistinguishable from a child born in the modern age - that is, not only is it genetically identical, but it has the mental capacities of modern man.

(EN: All of this is too much suggesting, supposing, and reckoning to form a plausible case in the absence of any evidence whatsoever. Again, it seems reasonable, but unfounded by any form of evidence whatsoever.)

Hunter-Gatherer Ways of Life

A third line of inquiry considers the behavior of tribal man in the modern world - groups who live in isolation from modern civilization and carry on in ways that are considered to be crude by comparison. Such tribes could be found in Australia, Africa, South America, and other locations that are isolated from the global community, even as late as the 1970s.

It is observed in the animal kingdom that groups resembling a "family" are composed of females rearing their young until they are capable of self-sustenance. In many species the male cohabitates with the group only during mating season, whereas in others the male regularly cohabitates, but the activities of the group are largely independent.

In higher orders of animals, such as chimps, the group remains together and collaborates more extensively to share responsibilities. In such groups each female typically tends to her own offspring whereas males perform services for the group as a whole, including all their mates and offspring of various females.

It is speculated that early man followed much the same patterns, but evolved past the animals in their degree of collaboration: females would share child-rearing tasks with others, and extended their care to the sick as well as the young. Males took on specific roles in service to the group and shared in the mating privileges. Alliances spread outside the family to accomplish goals that were not related to child rearing but contributed to survival and welfare of the group.

Examination of primitive tribes shows the next step in the evolution of social creatures: there is still an alpha male in the tribal leader, male members of the tribe perform specific functions related to the survival needs of the group (food gathering, building shelters, etc.) whereas females perform functions related to the tending of children and the elderly

In this sense modern man has not progressed very far: the social arrangements are the same though the technology differs. Professions such as soldier and farmer correspond to the roles of defense and food-gathering in primitive tribes; professions such as teacher and nurse correspond to child-rearing and care for the sick and injured. But the fundamental relationships and their function to the survival of the group are largely the same.

Emotions evolved by their association to specific survival activities - to which end the author provides some examples:

The emotions of modern man can still be derived from those that are supportive of survival activities in the primitive environment, though there is significant evidence of the misapplication of emotions when a stimulus in a non-survival situation provokes a survival response.

Attachment in Mammals

It is theorized that the basis of attachment stems from the mammalian need to suckle the young. For the act of reproduction (and sustainment of the species) to be successful, a mother must suckle its young and the young must not stray from the mother. Further, psychologists often focus on the mother-child relationship as an key factor of the mental health of an individual.

From the perspective of the infant, the mother represents survival - with positive emotions arising from her presence and negative ones from her absence. From this relationship comes a lifelong pattern of behavior of social behavior: the pleasant emotions of being connected to others and the fear of separation or isolation.

Granted, this is not unique to mammals, but can also be noticed in other species in which there is a dependency for survival upon the mother. Studies of geese demonstrate similar patterns of behavior, in which goslings cling to the hen and seem panicked by her distance or absence until a certain age when they become largely independent, but still tend to cohabitate within a flock.

Reference is made to the Harlow experiment (in which monkeys were presented two "mothers" - one of wire that gave milk and one of soft cloth that offered no nourishment, and monkeys gravitated to the latter), which suggests that the survival need for food is not the sole reason for attachment - but instead a need for comfort drives children to bond with adults and adults with one another.

Emotions as Bases of Social Relationships

The authors refer to emotions as "the language of human social life" that indicate the way in which people relate to one another, expressing various degrees of affection or hostility to one another. Verbal language communicates emotions in a secondary way that is indirect and a bit clumsy: we often find ourselves unable to accurately or adequately describe emotional states in words.

Intentionality of Emotions

It is suggested that our evolution has made emotions more intentional - they are less a matter of uncontrolled reactions and more the result of a conscious process of thought. We choose to feel the way that we do, or ponder the reason for emotional reactions we do not understand.

That is not to say that all emotional reactions are controlled - the baser emotions still express themselves, at least briefly, in ways we do not fully comprehend. The higher emotions, considered to be more sophisticated, have a rational basis. Even the lower emotions become trained given time - we may react reflexively once, but then consider how we ought to react in future and are to some degree successful at training our emotional responses.

In infancy, there is no rational intent of emotion: an infant reacts without thought. Children are trained by adults, and adolescents begin to train themselves, to have more controlled emotional reaction. In adulthood, most emotions are fully intentional. (EN: My sense is the ideal of a psychologically healthy adult, as there are many who still seem to be ruled by their emotions.)

The authors posit that the language of a culture is an indication of its emotional maturity, as the degree to which emotions can be communicated reflects the degree to which they are understood, and there is a similar correlation between understanding and control.

Social Emotions

There are a class of emotions that are biologically based - those related to survival - and these tend to be relatively simple. The class of emotions that deal with long-term goals and social interactions have a higher degree of complexity. They pertain to our sense of self and our relationships with others in society.

Consider the emotion of schadenfreude, pleasure at witnessing the distress of another. To experience this emotion requires a high degree of emotional sophistication: to have a negative perspective of a person, to feel the distress they are suffering is deserved, and to feel safe from the same peril because we do not choose to behave in the same way, requires quite a feat of cognition.

Consider the emotion of indignation, which is evident even in primates: a monkey that gives food to another member of his troop expects a display of gratitude to be shown to acknowledge that his gift is appreciated, and demonstrates indignation when gratitude is not shown. This too is not an immediate reaction to stimuli without a conceptual framework that creates certain expectations.

Embarrassment, shame, guilt, and social anxiety are also emotions that arise from the disjunction between the way things seem to be and the way the subject expects they ought to be. To experience them requires a process of cognition to envision an expected outcome as well as the perceptive skills to interpret and compare the actual situation to the idealized one.

In the same nature, many of the human emotions arising from social interaction require the comparison of a situation to an ideal. Many emotions arise from feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the social hierarchy and the degree to which an individual feels he should be regarded by others. These emotions also require a conception and comparison of "is" and "ought to be."

(EN: The cognitive aspect of emotion goes a bit further. The display of emotion is not merely reactive, but purposeful. A person who feels that another has failed to show respect emotes not only to express their dissatisfaction, but as an attempt to communicate their dissatisfaction to the other party with the intention of changing the behavior of the other person.)

There's an extended example of the emotional aspects of human interaction: a person who wishes to assert their rank in the hierarchy acts to shame another individual into accepting a submissive role, the other individual is angered by this attempt, anger escalates into hostility, each side feels itself to be in the right, each incident creates satisfaction and resentment, and so on.

The history of human conflict, from petty squabbles among siblings, gang fights, family feuds, and even warfare among nations is essentially emotional - the functional consequences of "what happened" are often quite petty when viewed objectively, but "how I feel about what happened" results in a great deal of hostility.

The Uniqueness of Human Relationships

It's suggested that in lower orders of primates, there is a lack of specificity in relationships: they react to other members of their species in terms of their role within the group. Whomever is the alpha male today will be treated as the alpha male, and he is usurped the subject will react with the new alpha male in the same way as the old one, with no sense that the individual in question is any different than the one before. And should the former alpha remain within the group, he will be treated as appropriate to his role with no memory of his former status.

In human social life, there is the added dimension of memory and history, in which we regard each person as an individual with whom we have a unique relationship. The new manager of a work crew does not immediately receive the same loyalty and trust as his predecessor, but must forge a new relationship with each member of his crew. There will be comparisons between the two, but the recognition that each manager is unique and the superior-subordinate relationship is unique to that individual.

The same is true of the parent-child relationship. There is a sense of an ideal way in which the two interact, but a parent of multiple children does not regard them as equal and identical, but instead forges a specific relationship with each child as an individual.

It's also worth noting that the number of individual relationships we sustain differs by culture. The members of an isolated tribe may interact with 20 people, who are all that exist in their group. The members of civilized society may be in the presence of thousands, but tends to maintain relationships with about 150 people (some more, some less).

So human emotions generally have objects: I am not simply angry, but I am angry at John. There is also generally a rationale behind the emotions - the reason I am angry with John - that can be quite complex. Emotions can also change, either as a result of additional experience of a change in personal perspective. I used to be angry with John, but now we are the best of friends.

(EN: I sense the author stresses the social, but overlooks the tendency of people to have emotions toward other things as well. To feel attachment to a garment, to a pet, to an organization. These are sometimes perversions of social relationships, but it is likely there is a functional element - to feel attraction to those things that serve a purpose and revulsion toward things that are difficult or counterproductive seems quite natural to a reasonable degree.)

Reference is made to a study of random conversations among college students, which found that 64.7% of men and 74.4% of women talk about relationships, experiences with other people, or social plans. (EN: Which implies these are matters of importance, though this may be exaggerated because talking to another person is itself a social activity - there is no need to talk of things that don't involve people.) The study also suggested that the most common emotional topics of conversation were love and regret.

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