- Email: [email protected]
The biopsychology of emotion: Current theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives
Biological Psychology 84 (2010) 381–382
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Biological Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biopsycho
Editorial
The biopsychology of emotion: Current theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords: Biopsychology Emotion Theory Research Methodology
Emotion has been an enduring topic in psychology since the field emerged as a distinct discipline in the latter part of the 19th century. This is not a surprising observation, in view of the central role that affect plays in human experience and behavior. The inextricable connection between emotion and the body was notably recognized by William James (1884, 1890), who advanced the first major theory of the biopsychology of emotion. Theoretical debate ensued, spawning an empirical tradition that diverged along many lines throughout the 20th century on into the present. Nevertheless, emotion research has also been conspicuously absent during certain eras in psychology. Under the influence of radical behaviorists and activation theorists, who considered affective phenomena to be too subjective and elusive to be part of an objective behavioral science, emotion all but disappeared from the psychological literature in the 1930–1950s. For similar reasons, emotion was neglected by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists in subsequent influential movements in behavioral science (Damasio, 1998). This special issue was initiated by a symposium on William James’s model of emotion in relation to the concept of autonomic response specificity of emotion, held at the annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (Kreibig, 2007). This symposium attested to the ongoing interest in the topic of emotional response specificity in the field of biological psychology. Subsequent discussions led to this special issue which includes, but goes beyond the topic of autonomic specificity. The set of invited papers represents the vibrant, dynamic state of contemporary emotion research in biopsychology. In this issue, we have attempted to broadly sample this domain from theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives. A diversity of content areas is represented: basic and applied research; clinical, cultural, developmental, historical, motivational, neuroscientific, personality, quantitative, and social perspectives. Of course, it has been impossible to include all current major influences in this area, and regrettably, work from numerous significant research groups was, by necessity, omitted. Nevertheless, we feel that the special issue represents well the current state of biopsychological emotion research, and will be a positive stimulus for future work in this area. 0301-0511/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2010.02.001
The special issue opens with Friedman’s (2010) historical overview of the autonomic specificity issue, traced from its origins in William James’s seminal theorizing through the present. Kreibig (2010) proceeds with an extensive, detailed empirical review of autonomic response specificity in emotion. Next, Norris et al. (2010) outline the current status of theory and research on the structure of evaluative space, with a special emphasis on the postulates of affective oscillation and calibration. Lang and Bradley (2010) then offer a comprehensive perspective on their motivational theory of emotion, elegantly synthesizing peripheral psychophysiological and neuroimaging data in support of the theory. Harmon-Jones et al. (2010) review research on the emotive functions of asymmetric frontal cortical activity and point to the importance of distinguishing motivational direction from affective valence. A number of distinct content areas and methodological approaches are reflected in our collection of empirical articles. Stephens et al. (2010) explore the question of autonomic specificity by utilizing multivariate analyses of affective responses to different laboratory emotion inductions. Kreibig et al. (2010) use a performance context to investigate motivational antecedents and emotional effects of goal attainment and report on physiological concomitants of positive achievement-related emotions. Scarpa et al. (2010) offer a perspective on emotion in the context of aggressive behavior, which they distinguish into reactive versus proactive acts and analyze differences in autonomic, emotional, and behavioral functioning. Jain and Labouvie-Vief (2010) present research on emotion regulation over the life span that documents compensatory effects on emotional arousal related to age and attachment. Hess and Bourgeois (2010) explore the roles of emotional and social contexts in relation to the factors of gender, power status, expressivity, and mimicry in dyadic interactions. Mauss and Butler (2010) discuss cultural differences in emotion control values and report on cardiovascular responses of AsianAmerican and European-American cultural groups in an angerprovoking situation. The construct of emotion regulation, which has been ubiquitous in contemporary emotion research, is addressed in a study of cardiac vagal control and facial expression by Pu et al. (2010). The issue also contains stimulating methodological articles that offer practical guidelines for conducting future emotion research. Stemmler and Wacker (2010) propose a framework for modeling trait–situation interactions in personality research, suggesting that emotional and motivational traits only exert their influence under trait-relevant conditions (e.g., when certain emotions have been elicited), and use several biopsychological data sets to illustrate
382
Editorial / Biological Psychology 84 (2010) 381–382
applications of this model. Wilhelm and Grossman (2010) contribute a wide-ranging guide to conducting ambulatory emotion research, addressing inclusively the numerous methodological considerations inherent in this enterprise. Finally, distinguished theorist Nico Frijda (2010) integrates the body of work contained in the special issue into his emotion model. Drawing on this diverse set of theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions, Frijda argues that emotional events, as appraised by the individual, lead to changes in motive state that can be causal in subsequent action. He concludes by identifying unanswered questions that will constitute important avenues for future research. We gratefully acknowledge a number of people who contributed in various ways in bringing this special issue to press. First, we want to show our appreciation to members of the Editorial Board and Staff of Biological Psychology and Elsevier Publications: Ottmar Lipp, Editor; Fiona Healy, Journal Manager; Lijuan Wang and Grace Yao, Content Development Coordinators; and Ewa Kittel-Prejs, Publisher Neuroscience. We also thank John J.B. Allen, a past Associate Editor of Biological Psychology, for his role in initiating this project. We are especially indebted to the reviewers of special issue manuscripts, whose insightful comments and useful suggestions contributed immeasurably to the high quality of these papers. Finally, we express our gratitude to the contributing authors of this issue, from their initial commitment to submit a paper through the final revisions to their manuscripts. We hope that you, the readers, will find this set of articles to be collectively thought-provoking, and that the issue as a whole will make a meaningful statement about the past, present, and future of research on the biopsychology of emotion. As such, it will be a fitting tribute to the fertile intellect, eloquence, and prescience of William James, whose seminal ideas have been so influential in launching this body of research. References Damasio, A.R., 1998. Emotion in the perspective of an integrated nervous system. Brain Research Reviews 26, 83–86. Friedman, B.H., 2010. Feelings and the body: the Jamesian perspective on autonomic specificity of emotion. Biological Psychology 84, 383–393. Frijda, N., 2010. Impulsive action and motivation. Biological Psychology 84, 570– 579. Harmon-Jones, E., Gable, P.A., Peterson, C.K., 2010. The role of asymmetric frontal cortical activity in emotion-related phenomena: a review and update. Biological Psychology 84, 451–462. Hess, U., Bourgeois, P., 2010. You smile–I smile: emotion expression in social interaction. Biological Psychology 84, 514–520.
Jain, E.M., Labouvie-Vief, G., 2010. Compensatory effect of emotion avoidance in adult development. Biological Psychology 84, 497–513. James, W., 1884. What is an emotion? Mind 9, 188–205. James, W., 1890. What is an emotion? In: James, W. (Ed.), The Principles of Psychology. Dover, New York, pp. 442–485. Kreibig, S.D., 2010. Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: a review. Biological Psychology 84, 394–421. Kreibig, S.D. (Chair), 2007, October. William James’ legacy: the present state of autonomic response specificity of emotion. Symposium Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Savannah, GA. Kreibig, S.D., Gendolla, G.H.E., Scherer, K.R., 2010. Psychophysiological effects of emotional responding to goal attainment. Biological Psychology 84, 474–487. Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M., 2010. Emotion and the motivational brain. Biological Psychology 84, 437–450. Mauss, I., Butler, E.A., 2010. Cultural context moderates the relationship between emotion control values and cardiovascular challenge versus threat responses. Biological Psychology 84, 521–530. Norris, C.J., Gollan, J., Berntson, G.G., Cacioppo, J.T., 2010. The current status of research on the structure of evaluative space. Biological Psychology 84, 422–436. Pu, J., Schmeichel, B.J., Demaree, H.A., 2010. Cardiac vagal control predicts spontaneous regulation of negative emotional expression and subsequent cognitive performance. Biological Psychology 84, 531–540. Scarpa, A., Haden, S.C., Tanaka, A., 2010. Being hot-tempered: autonomic, emotional, and behavioral distinctions between childhood reactive and proactive aggression. Biological Psychology 84, 488–496. Stemmler, G., Wacker, J., 2010. Personality, emotion, and individual differences in physiological responses. Biological Psychology 84, 541–551. Stephens, C.L., Christie, I.C., Friedman, B.H., 2010. Autonomic specificity of basic emotions: evidence from pattern classification and cluster analysis. Biological Psychology 84, 463–473. Wilhelm, F.H., Grossman, P., 2010. Emotions beyond the laboratory: theoretical fundaments, study design, and analytic strategies for advanced ambulatory assessment. Biological Psychology 84, 552–569.
Bruce H. Friedman* Department of Psychology (0436), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0436, United States Sylvia D. Kreibig** Department of Psychology, University of Geneva and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Geneva, Switzerland *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 540 231 9611; fax: +1 540 231 3652 **Corresponding author at: Geneva Motivation Lab, FPSE, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Boulevard du Pont d’Arve 40, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B.H Friedman) [email protected] (S.D Kreibig) Received 27 January 2010 Available online 8 February 2010
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Biological Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biopsycho
Editorial
The biopsychology of emotion: Current theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords: Biopsychology Emotion Theory Research Methodology
Emotion has been an enduring topic in psychology since the field emerged as a distinct discipline in the latter part of the 19th century. This is not a surprising observation, in view of the central role that affect plays in human experience and behavior. The inextricable connection between emotion and the body was notably recognized by William James (1884, 1890), who advanced the first major theory of the biopsychology of emotion. Theoretical debate ensued, spawning an empirical tradition that diverged along many lines throughout the 20th century on into the present. Nevertheless, emotion research has also been conspicuously absent during certain eras in psychology. Under the influence of radical behaviorists and activation theorists, who considered affective phenomena to be too subjective and elusive to be part of an objective behavioral science, emotion all but disappeared from the psychological literature in the 1930–1950s. For similar reasons, emotion was neglected by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists in subsequent influential movements in behavioral science (Damasio, 1998). This special issue was initiated by a symposium on William James’s model of emotion in relation to the concept of autonomic response specificity of emotion, held at the annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (Kreibig, 2007). This symposium attested to the ongoing interest in the topic of emotional response specificity in the field of biological psychology. Subsequent discussions led to this special issue which includes, but goes beyond the topic of autonomic specificity. The set of invited papers represents the vibrant, dynamic state of contemporary emotion research in biopsychology. In this issue, we have attempted to broadly sample this domain from theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives. A diversity of content areas is represented: basic and applied research; clinical, cultural, developmental, historical, motivational, neuroscientific, personality, quantitative, and social perspectives. Of course, it has been impossible to include all current major influences in this area, and regrettably, work from numerous significant research groups was, by necessity, omitted. Nevertheless, we feel that the special issue represents well the current state of biopsychological emotion research, and will be a positive stimulus for future work in this area. 0301-0511/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2010.02.001
The special issue opens with Friedman’s (2010) historical overview of the autonomic specificity issue, traced from its origins in William James’s seminal theorizing through the present. Kreibig (2010) proceeds with an extensive, detailed empirical review of autonomic response specificity in emotion. Next, Norris et al. (2010) outline the current status of theory and research on the structure of evaluative space, with a special emphasis on the postulates of affective oscillation and calibration. Lang and Bradley (2010) then offer a comprehensive perspective on their motivational theory of emotion, elegantly synthesizing peripheral psychophysiological and neuroimaging data in support of the theory. Harmon-Jones et al. (2010) review research on the emotive functions of asymmetric frontal cortical activity and point to the importance of distinguishing motivational direction from affective valence. A number of distinct content areas and methodological approaches are reflected in our collection of empirical articles. Stephens et al. (2010) explore the question of autonomic specificity by utilizing multivariate analyses of affective responses to different laboratory emotion inductions. Kreibig et al. (2010) use a performance context to investigate motivational antecedents and emotional effects of goal attainment and report on physiological concomitants of positive achievement-related emotions. Scarpa et al. (2010) offer a perspective on emotion in the context of aggressive behavior, which they distinguish into reactive versus proactive acts and analyze differences in autonomic, emotional, and behavioral functioning. Jain and Labouvie-Vief (2010) present research on emotion regulation over the life span that documents compensatory effects on emotional arousal related to age and attachment. Hess and Bourgeois (2010) explore the roles of emotional and social contexts in relation to the factors of gender, power status, expressivity, and mimicry in dyadic interactions. Mauss and Butler (2010) discuss cultural differences in emotion control values and report on cardiovascular responses of AsianAmerican and European-American cultural groups in an angerprovoking situation. The construct of emotion regulation, which has been ubiquitous in contemporary emotion research, is addressed in a study of cardiac vagal control and facial expression by Pu et al. (2010). The issue also contains stimulating methodological articles that offer practical guidelines for conducting future emotion research. Stemmler and Wacker (2010) propose a framework for modeling trait–situation interactions in personality research, suggesting that emotional and motivational traits only exert their influence under trait-relevant conditions (e.g., when certain emotions have been elicited), and use several biopsychological data sets to illustrate
382
Editorial / Biological Psychology 84 (2010) 381–382
applications of this model. Wilhelm and Grossman (2010) contribute a wide-ranging guide to conducting ambulatory emotion research, addressing inclusively the numerous methodological considerations inherent in this enterprise. Finally, distinguished theorist Nico Frijda (2010) integrates the body of work contained in the special issue into his emotion model. Drawing on this diverse set of theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions, Frijda argues that emotional events, as appraised by the individual, lead to changes in motive state that can be causal in subsequent action. He concludes by identifying unanswered questions that will constitute important avenues for future research. We gratefully acknowledge a number of people who contributed in various ways in bringing this special issue to press. First, we want to show our appreciation to members of the Editorial Board and Staff of Biological Psychology and Elsevier Publications: Ottmar Lipp, Editor; Fiona Healy, Journal Manager; Lijuan Wang and Grace Yao, Content Development Coordinators; and Ewa Kittel-Prejs, Publisher Neuroscience. We also thank John J.B. Allen, a past Associate Editor of Biological Psychology, for his role in initiating this project. We are especially indebted to the reviewers of special issue manuscripts, whose insightful comments and useful suggestions contributed immeasurably to the high quality of these papers. Finally, we express our gratitude to the contributing authors of this issue, from their initial commitment to submit a paper through the final revisions to their manuscripts. We hope that you, the readers, will find this set of articles to be collectively thought-provoking, and that the issue as a whole will make a meaningful statement about the past, present, and future of research on the biopsychology of emotion. As such, it will be a fitting tribute to the fertile intellect, eloquence, and prescience of William James, whose seminal ideas have been so influential in launching this body of research. References Damasio, A.R., 1998. Emotion in the perspective of an integrated nervous system. Brain Research Reviews 26, 83–86. Friedman, B.H., 2010. Feelings and the body: the Jamesian perspective on autonomic specificity of emotion. Biological Psychology 84, 383–393. Frijda, N., 2010. Impulsive action and motivation. Biological Psychology 84, 570– 579. Harmon-Jones, E., Gable, P.A., Peterson, C.K., 2010. The role of asymmetric frontal cortical activity in emotion-related phenomena: a review and update. Biological Psychology 84, 451–462. Hess, U., Bourgeois, P., 2010. You smile–I smile: emotion expression in social interaction. Biological Psychology 84, 514–520.
Jain, E.M., Labouvie-Vief, G., 2010. Compensatory effect of emotion avoidance in adult development. Biological Psychology 84, 497–513. James, W., 1884. What is an emotion? Mind 9, 188–205. James, W., 1890. What is an emotion? In: James, W. (Ed.), The Principles of Psychology. Dover, New York, pp. 442–485. Kreibig, S.D., 2010. Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: a review. Biological Psychology 84, 394–421. Kreibig, S.D. (Chair), 2007, October. William James’ legacy: the present state of autonomic response specificity of emotion. Symposium Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Savannah, GA. Kreibig, S.D., Gendolla, G.H.E., Scherer, K.R., 2010. Psychophysiological effects of emotional responding to goal attainment. Biological Psychology 84, 474–487. Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M., 2010. Emotion and the motivational brain. Biological Psychology 84, 437–450. Mauss, I., Butler, E.A., 2010. Cultural context moderates the relationship between emotion control values and cardiovascular challenge versus threat responses. Biological Psychology 84, 521–530. Norris, C.J., Gollan, J., Berntson, G.G., Cacioppo, J.T., 2010. The current status of research on the structure of evaluative space. Biological Psychology 84, 422–436. Pu, J., Schmeichel, B.J., Demaree, H.A., 2010. Cardiac vagal control predicts spontaneous regulation of negative emotional expression and subsequent cognitive performance. Biological Psychology 84, 531–540. Scarpa, A., Haden, S.C., Tanaka, A., 2010. Being hot-tempered: autonomic, emotional, and behavioral distinctions between childhood reactive and proactive aggression. Biological Psychology 84, 488–496. Stemmler, G., Wacker, J., 2010. Personality, emotion, and individual differences in physiological responses. Biological Psychology 84, 541–551. Stephens, C.L., Christie, I.C., Friedman, B.H., 2010. Autonomic specificity of basic emotions: evidence from pattern classification and cluster analysis. Biological Psychology 84, 463–473. Wilhelm, F.H., Grossman, P., 2010. Emotions beyond the laboratory: theoretical fundaments, study design, and analytic strategies for advanced ambulatory assessment. Biological Psychology 84, 552–569.
Bruce H. Friedman* Department of Psychology (0436), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0436, United States Sylvia D. Kreibig** Department of Psychology, University of Geneva and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Geneva, Switzerland *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 540 231 9611; fax: +1 540 231 3652 **Corresponding author at: Geneva Motivation Lab, FPSE, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Boulevard du Pont d’Arve 40, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B.H Friedman) [email protected] (S.D Kreibig) Received 27 January 2010 Available online 8 February 2010