Approaches to Understanding Emotions

Although affects and emotion sound synonymous, there is strong differences in understating and perception of both terms. Many approaches are developed in different times to explain the differences of emotion and affects. The essay is going to analyse different approaches associated with description of affects and emotion. The essay will make critical discussion on the three different approaches of emotion such as philosophical, biological and social approaches. In addition to this, the essay will critically discuss different approaches and concept of affect such as positivism, constructionism and process philosophies. By using relevant as well as valuable evidences, this essay will make critical discussion on the affective turn.

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Evidence based studies have stated that, although the two terms affect and emotion are mire or less similar in literal meaning, there is differences in their in-depth understanding and perception. In this context Bladow & Ladino (2018) mentioned in their articles, that affect can be described as the broader image of feelings and experiences of people after any consequences. On the other hand, the emotion can be defined by many authors as the short term’s feelings of people. Many researchers consider affects as broader understanding of feeling and experiences that embodies moods and emotion. While it comes to make critical analysis on differences of affect and emotion, there are two terms need to be analysed differently with using relevant evidences.

While discussing emotional and its different approaches it can be stated that there are three major approaches associated with the emotion, such as social, biological and philosophical. As mentioned by (0), while discussing philosophical theories on emotion that were developed in the 17th and 18th century, the first theory comes in mind is Descartes on the Emotions. While describing the emotional Descartes had stated that reality can b divided into two aspects such as Res cogita and Res extensa. Res cogita means the thinking as well as unextended things and the Res-extensa defines unthinking and extended things. Based on the philosophical approaches that is developed in the theory of Descartes, it can be stated passion is the psychological condition as well as mental process that can be fortified, caused and maintained by the human body. As mentioned by Blasi (2017), the theory on emotion by Descartes has pointed on the strong relation between the mind and body. Based on the theory of Descartes, each movement in human body as well as in human mind can be associated with producing stimuli on the pineal gland which leads to development of a feeling or emotion. In this context Chu et al. (2017) stated that, emotion can be described by the interaction of body and mind which provides stimuli to neurotransmitters in term of developing a feeling or experience by the human. Physiological description of the Descartes on Emotion focuses on the strong connection of emotion with cognition and reason. On supporting the viewpoint Coppin & Sander (2016) mentioned in their article that, emotion is associated with mental processes that control the overall activities and performance of body. For example, if a person has person knows that he or she possess some good will, this feeling makes the individual happy. By analysing the concept of this philosophical approach, Descartes on Emotion, it can be stated that there is strong connection between mind events and bodily events. On the contrary Cottingham (2018) argued that, the theories of emotion by Descartes focused more on the body vs mind, subjectivity vs objectivity and emotion vs reality, rather than focusing on behavioural, social and cultural associated that ae also associated with emotional feelings of human.

Another important approach on emotion is developed by Benedict Spinoza during the 17th century, which have some similarities with the approaches presented by Descartes. The concept of emotion presented by the Benedict Spinoza focuses on the fact that body and mind can be defined as the two infinite aspects from the same divine body. The overall theory of Benedict Spinoza has denied the dualistic metaphysics represented by Descartes, by claiming that emotion can be considered to be resisted as the imperfect as well as defective thought in the world. On et contrary Fugate et al. (2018) argued that although there is strong relation between body and mind that are associated with development different types of emotional feeling in human n being, sometimes, emotion is also developed by the be behavioural changes in people that is due to the changing interaction as well as interrelation of people with their external environment. In this context another important theory on emotion is theory of William James which is known as Revolutionary theory (Marcus et al. 2017). Based on the concept presented in the theory, it can be stated that, James has represented bidirectional relationship between mind and body, in which the bodily disturbances can be considered as by-products as well as expression of the emotion. On the contrary to the concept of Descartes and Spinoza, the theory of James had focused on the fact that, emotion is not developed though changes in the mental condition that is immediately influenced by any bodily consequences, rather emotion develop after successful interposed of bodily manifestations. In this context Jeon (2017) argues that sometimes the changes in the biological system or in the body is immediately associated with both changes in the mental state, that can lead to development of certain feeling or emotion in human body, that can not be defined by the theory of James. On the other hand, the theory of James Lange has stated that emotion can be defined as the vaso-motor changes in human mind that leads to bring about changes in in body movements.

While discussing biological concept of emotion, the fist approaches that needs to be stated is Theory of Darwin. This approach had mentioned the strong link between natural selection and emotion. Based on this theory, the emotion or expression is universal which is the result of external stimuli that an individual receives from his or her external environment. On supporting the viewpoint Moruzi et al. (2017) mentioned in article that, emotion has developed in human being in similar way as the individual responses to external stimuli. Based on this perception it cannot be stated that emotional is resulted due to the interaction of individual with its external environment. In this context the theory of Paul Ekman had identified seven different facial expression that defines their emotion such as anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. In his theory, Ekman also had analysed that whether the expression or emotion ins universal or is there any relation between the cultural context and types of emotion. In his context Togelius & Yannakakis (2016) argued that although this theory of Ekman is associated with describing whether there is connection between culture and emotion, it is unable to define how cultural aspects impact on changing behaviour and mentality that are associated with developing different emotions in human being. While describing social approaches on emotion, it is important to discuss the social aspects that are highlighted in different times by various authors in their study in terms of defining emotion. As mentioned by Jeon (2017), the Constructivism theory of emotional focuses on the fact that feeling as well as emotion can nit be defined as inborn rather it can define as culturally and socially derived events. The research of Lara & Enrico (2013) had mentioned seven different aspects that are associated with description of emotion such as social construction of feeling, interpretative discussion of emotion, histographies, feminist theory, cultural approach of emotion, discursive approach for emotion and sociolinguistic approach. On the contrary Moruzi et al. (2017) argued that, although there are social and cultural connection with develop of different types of emotion in individual, the entire process of emotional develop is solely connected with the brain functioning it interaction with body. Based on the abovementioned discussion it can be stated that different aspects such as social biological, psychological and cultural aspects are associated with development off emotion in individual. Although there is critical discussion on relationship between the mind and body in developing feeling in individual, several scientists had acknowledged that mind and body are the two main factors that is associated with developing different emotions. In addition to that, culture and social factors play important roles in developing emotion in human being.

While it comes to discuss affect, different approaches need to be mentioned. Serval scientist have defined that there are two major conditions are associated with the Affective turn such as Re-encountering with philosophy and re-encountering the science. As mentioned by Moruzi et al. (2017) three major approaches are associated with the re-encountering the philosophy such as positivism, constructivism and process philosophies. Based on the positivism approach, affect can be defined as the result of consequences of behavioural, psychological and bodily changes that occur due to the sensory experience of individual. On the contrary Togelius & Yannakakis (2016) argued that positivism approach cannot be implemented in proper manner in describing affect as it prioritizes the concept of reasons and logical aspect which in most of the times has mere connection with affective turn. In this context, positivism approach can be used in describing affect by stating that, sensory experience developed in individual by the interaction of their knowledge, understanding and perception. On supporting positivism viewpoint Fugate et al. (2018) stated that, there is strong connection between logical decision and reasons associated with affective turns, that makes individuals to understand that what type of expression they will show on their face to express the actual affect. On the other hand, constructivism approach of affect has stated that, the affect is the result of consequences of the social, behavioural and mental changes human body rather than a genetic or biological factor. In addition to this approach has mention the involvement of social and cultural factor in developing emotion.

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From the overall discussion it can be stated that, although emotion and affect are two different perception, they can be considered as the two sides of one coin. Emotion can be defined as the result of affect, there are several factors that are considered to be involved in producing affective turn in human being that it turns generate the proper emotion. In addition to this the above-mentioned discussion stated that there is strong connection of body and mind with degenerating proper emotion in human being. By analysing different approaches on emotion, it can be stated that, logical and reasoning aspects can be stated to have strong role in developing understanding in human being as well as in other about showing the appropriate emotion in their appearance.

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Reference list:

Bladow, K., & Ladino, J. (Eds.). (2018). Affective ecocriticism: emotion, embodiment, environment. University of Nebraska Press.

Blasi, G. (2017). Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film. Projections, 11(2), 109-114.

Chu, B. C., Chen, J., Mele, C., Temkin, A., & Xue, J. (2017). Transdiagnostic approaches to emotion regulation: Basic mechanisms and treatment research.

Chu, B. C., Chen, J., Mele, C., Temkin, A., & Xue, J. (2017). Transdiagnostic Aproaches to Emotion Regulation: Basic Mechanisms. Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents, 419-451.

Coppin, G., & Sander, D. (2016). Theoretical approaches to emotion and its measurement. In Emotion measurement (pp. 3-30). Woodhead Publishing.

Cottingham, M. D. (2018). Emotion, Sociology of. Core Concepts in Sociology, 90.

Fortin, P. E., & Cooperstock, J. R. (2017). Laughter and tickles: toward novel approaches for emotion and behavior elicitation. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 8(4), 508-521.

Fugate, J., Gendron, M., Nakashima, S. F., & Barrett, L. F. (2018). Emotion words: Adding face value. Emotion, 18(5), 693.

Heekeren, H. R., Schulreich, S., Mohr, P. N., & Morawetz, C. (2017, January). How incidental affect and emotion regulation modulate decision making under risk. In 2017 5th International Winter Conference on Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) (pp. 13-15). IEEE.

Jeon, M. (2017). Emotions and affect in human factors and human–computer interaction: Taxonomy, theories, approaches, and methods. In Emotions and Affect in Human Factors and Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 3-26). Academic Press.

Lubis, N., Sakti, S., Yoshino, K., & Nakamura, S. (2018, April). Eliciting positive emotion through affect-sensitive dialogue response generation: A neural network approach. In Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

Marcus, G. E., Neuman, W. R., & MacKuen, M. B. (2017). Measuring emotional response: Comparing alternative approaches to measurement. Political Science Research and Methods, 5(4), 733-754.

Moruzi, K., Smith, M. J., & Bullen, E. (Eds.). (2017). Affect, Emotion, and Children’s Literature: Representation and Socialisation in Texts for Children and Young Adults. Routledge.

Togelius, J., & Yannakakis, G. N. (2016). Emotion-driven level generation. In Emotion in Games (pp. 155-166). Springer, Cham.

Zhao, W., & Siau, K. (2017). An Experimental Comparison of Two Machine Learning Approaches for Emotion Classification.

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