Affective Maps:
Literature as Emotional Endophenotype
Leslie Heywood
Binghamton University
Panksepp’s Seven Primary Process
Social Affective Systems of the Brain
• SEEKING (general motivation/engagement)
• CARE (leads to learned empathy)
• PLAY (joy)
• PANIC/GRIEF
• LUST (sexuality)
• RAGE (reaction to being confined physically or psychically)
• FEAR (precipitates RAGE/PANIC/GRIEF)
These neural systems are “capitalized to highlight their primary-process nature”
(“Depression,” 5).
Affective Neuroscience (Jaak
Panksepp)
• Studies the “affective infrastructure of the evolved mind”
(“Depression,” p. 5).
• Has outlined “seven primary process (i.e. genetically
provided) emotional systems” situated subcortically (5).
• “Subcortically” means literally “beneath cortext”—
beneath the brain’s gray matter. Subcortical structures
enable fast, unconscious reactions.
Emotional
endophenotypes
• “The primal affects are intrinsic brain value systems
that unconditionally and automatically inform animals
how they are faring in survival. They serve an essential
function in emotional learning. The positive affects
index “comfort zones” that support survival, while
negative affects inform animals of circumstances that
may impair survival . . . Since all vertebrates appear to
have some capacity for primal affective feelings, the
implications for animal-welfare and how we ethically
treat other animals are vast. ” (“Basic Emotional
Circuits,” 1).
`AFFECT’ EFFECTS EVERYTHING ELSE
•
Brain circuits-------control instinctual (core) emotional behaviors----------
primitive consciousness---2 different
processes, emotional ACTIONS and
emotional FEELINGS arise from the same
brain mechanisms (“dual-aspect monism
strategy”) (“Mammalian,” 14).
-Other affects besides
emotion: sensory
(pleasure/displeasure)
bodily (hunger/thirst)
We Need to Study
Affect Because:
• -Affects have profound developmental consequences for
the emergence of cognitive structures
• -The operation of core emotions becomes hidden by
secondary cognitive processes
-Affective feelings show how we prioritize actions and
associated cognitive plans (“Mammalian,” 17).
Interaction effects between
affect and cognition
• -Raw affects are initially objectless in the brain—linkages between affect and
object are LEARNED (“Mammalian,” 22).
• -This means cultural learning tells us what to fear, etc.: embeds affect in a
network of meanings.
• -This concept allows us to examine the relationship between nature and
culture and how that relationship effects our behavior: “Constructivist
theories of emotion obviously need some basic tools for anything useful to be
constructed. The intrinsic, evolutionarily provided emotional abilities
revealed by affective neuroscience are such tools” (22).
• -”Through learning, as well as through the guiding role of initial genetic
variability in emotional systems, each person [and animal becomes a unique
affective being through their individual genetic inheritance and epigenetic
experiences of the world” (22).
•
(“epigenetic=cultural/environmental triggers that catalyze genetic
tendencies/capacities)
Structural Model for selfconscious emotions (Michael Lewis)
1. “Standards, Rules, and Goals (SRGs): in the humanities
lexicon= “ideology” or “dominant culture”
2. Self-evaluation of the success or failure of one’s action in
relation to SRGs
3. Attribution Theory: global (“it’s all about me!!!”) or
specific: (“this one thing is about me”)
Literature as Emotional endophenotype:
Once A Runner, Sport Culture, and the
A/E/fect of SRGs
Athletic Subculture
and SRGS
Athletic subculture
Athletes and global
Attribution
Affective Balance
Therapy
Affective/cognitive maps