WAYS OF KNOWING
Emotions
~Navnita Karmakar
“CONQUER YOUR PASSIONS, YOU
CONQUER THE WORLD”
~A HINDU SAYING
What does it tell us about emotions?
WHAT ARE EMOTIONS?
• Emotions comprise of internal feelings and external behavior.
• Emotions can vary in intensity: mild to extreme
• Passion is an extreme form of emotion
• Mood is something general
• Emotions are generally associated to personality: cheerful, easy-going, timid,
depressed
• Emotions are of two types: primary and secondary
WHICH WORDS WOULD YOU ASSOCIATE WITH REASON
AND WHICH WOULD ASSOCIATE WITH EMOTION?
hot
subjective
reflective
folly
objective
weak
impulsive
voluntary
angry
controlled
blind
joyous
cool
wisdom
depressed
powerful
instinctive
logical
TYPES OF EMOTIONS
• Primary emotions
• Secondary emotions
• According to psychologists, there are six
universal primary emotions:
• Primary emotions blend to produce
secondary emotions
• happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise
and disgust
• Contempt: anger and disgust
• Most of these emotions result in specific
facial expressions.
• Some secondary emotions are: admiration,
anxiety, gratitude, guilty, pity, jealousy, pride,
regret, shame, etc.
• The visually challenged demonstrate the
same kind of facial expression; an
indication of the innate nature of these
emotions.
• Emotions affect our physiology.
• Disappointment: sadness and surprise
• Secondary emotions are formed by
language and culture.
• Need language to differentiate between
irritation, anger and disgust
• Animals only experience primary emotions;
not the sophisticated secondary emotions
IDENTIFY THE PRIMARY EMOTIONS
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONS AND PHYSICAL
STANCE
JAMES-LANGE THEORY OF EMOTIONS
• What comes first： emotions or physical changes?
• According to the James-Lange theory of emotions, emotions are physical in nature;
bodily changes happen first, then comes emotional changes.
• Consider the following situation:
• You are about to sit an exam and you are very nervous. Your mouth feel dry; a sinking
feeling in the stomach; palms are sweaty, you want to go to the washroom to relieve
yourself.
• Now, remove each physical symptom one by one.
• What is left of your exam nervousness?
TWO THEORIES OF EMOTIONS
EMOTIONS ARE CONTAGIOUS
contagious emotions
• Have you ever wondered
why you feel sad when
someone you talk to is sad?
• And you feel happy when
someone is happy.
• Babies cry when they hear
other babies cry. Why?
• Waves of emotion cascade
through crowds of people
and lead to outbreaks of
mass hysteria or mindless
aggression.
physiological
explanation
• Our mirror neurons fire
when we see someone
sad or happy.
• As a result, we mirror the
same emotions.
empathy
• As social beings we like to
empathize with our fellow human
beings.
• Most people link empathy with
sympathy, but you may empathize
with someone, yet not feel any
sympathy with him/her.
• Empathy is the ability to understand
someone’s situation from their
perspective
• How accurate it is as a way of
knowing?
• Empathy spectrum: autistic~most
people~extreme empathy
THE BELIEF THEORY OF EMOTIONS
• James-Lange theory can be criticized on the ground that human emotions not just
have a physical aspect, but a mental aspect too.
• Our emotions are closely connected to our bodies, but also affected by our beliefs
• Bidirectional relationship between the two: emotions affect belief, and belief affects
emotions
• Angry when you believe someone has insulted you; anger subsides when it turns out
to be a misunderstanding
CULTURE AFFECTS EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION
• In an experiment involving American and Japanese participants who were shown video
of a nasal surgery, it was found that both showed disgust when they felt they were
unobserved.
• But when they knew they were observed, the Japanese showed the least disgust, and
the Americans showed more disgust.
• The Americans being from an individualistic culture showed more emotion to express
the authenticity and honesty of their emotion
• The Japanese hid their disgust as it is socially unacceptable in the Japanese culture to
show any emotions that might affect social relationships
• What stereotypes are there to the extent to which cultures express emotions? What truth,
if any, is there about these stereotypes?
EMOTIONS AND THE QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE
•
How important are emotions in the quest for knowledge?
•
What role, if any, the emotions play in the pursuit of mathematical knowledge?
•
Do the arts evoke emotions or purge them?
•
The ten-year rule: takes 10 years or 10,000 hours to produce greatness in any endeavor
•
“Genius is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration”, Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
•
It is sustained passion that produces great results.
•
What are the qualities of a great teacher?
EMOTION AS AN OBSTACLE TO KNOWLEDGE
EMOTIONS AS A SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE
CONCLUSION
• Emotions not only provide the energy for intellectual endeavors, but they also play a
central role in our mental lives.
• At best, educated emotions reveal important features of the social world to us and
contribute to our knowledge of values.
• At worst, unruly emotions are short-sighted and narrow minded, and can lead us to
bad reasons to justify our pre-existing prejudices.
• We should listen to emotions, but do it with a critical ear and test them against other
possible sources of knowledge, such as sense-perception and reason
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
• ‘Crimes of passion’ are often judged less harshly than
crimes committed in cold-blood. How, if at all, can this
difference be justified?
• Do novels and movies guide emotions or corrupt them?
SUMMATIVE ASSIGNMENT
• When can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of
knowledge?
• Consider history and one other area of knowledge. (November
2008/May 2009)
• Write an essay of about 600 to 800 words discussing the question
provided.
• Your essay must be led by a knowledge question of your own.
• Essay must have clear paragraphs: introduction ending with a KQ,
followed by two paragraphs of discussion, concluded by revisiting
the KQ.