Emotions in Ideal Human Development

Leonard Cirillo, Barnard Kaplan, Seymour Wapner

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780805804737
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317784425
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Derived from a conference sponsored by the Heinz Werner Institute for Developmental Analysis at Clark University, these papers consider the role emotions play in ideal human development. Contributors from the fields of psychology, philosophy, and sociology discuss the place that "feelings," "affect," "passion," and "emotion" should ideally occupy in human existence and how realization of this goal can be fostered.

The conference organizers focused the discussions by asking the participants to consider six questions, each of which was intended to touch upon some aspect of the relationship between emotions and ideal human development. Chapters contain the papers presented and a summary of the discussions that followed the presentations.

1

CHOICE OF EMOTION AND IDEAL DEVELOPMENT

Joseph de Rivera

Clark University

At first glance, the relationship between emotion and ideal development might seem to depend simply on what one means by “emotion” and what one takes to be “ideal development.” For example, if one conceives of emotion as an alternative to action, a degraded form of consciousness that occurs when a person cannot imagine how to act (i.e., Sartre, 1948), then emotion is a regressive move which is, at best, a necessary detour on the way to mature action. If one takes ideal development to be the state of Nirvana pursued in Buddhisim, then some emotions, such as Metta (loving-kindness), will facilitate, whereas others, such as Dosa (hatred), will retard development (de Silva, 1976).

Further study suggests that emotion and ideal development are so intertwined that it may be fruitful to consider the terms to have interdependent meaning. In this chapter I explore three different aspects of this interdependence: (a) the relationships between emotion and value, (b) the interface between emotional relationship and what is taken to be ideal development, and (c) the role that “choice” of emotion may play in the realization of ideal development.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTION AND VALUE

There is an intimate connection between the perception of an object and the existence of that object as a real entity. Thus, in his critique of Descartes, Merleau-Ponty (1962) pointed out that one cannot really doubt the existence of an object without also doubting that one perceives the object. If one perceives an object (rather than simply thinking that one sees it), one does not doubt its existence.

In a similar manner, there is connection between the emotion one has toward an “object” and the value of that object. That is, one cannot intuit the goodness or badness of an object without having some positive or negative emotion toward that object. One cannot have an emotion without intuiting the value of the object of the emotion.

Of course, there can be emotional illusions, just as there can be perceptual illusions, and later I discuss such “mistakes” in some detail. Nevertheless, as soon as a person is disillusioned, both the emotion of the person and the value of the object disappear. Just as true existence can only be revealed by true perception, true value can only be revealed by true emotion.

When we speak of value and emotion, it is important to distinguish between the perceived value of the object of an emotion, the hedonic quality of an emotional experience, and the evaluation of an emotion. The goodness of the object we love or the badness of whatever we hate or fear is different from the pleasant quality that feels good or the painful quality that feels bad, and both are different still from our judgment that the emotion is good or bad for us to have. Yet most studies that have asked persons to rate emotions as positive or negative have overlooked that at least three different things may be meant: (a) Is one attracted to the goodness or repulsed by the badness of the object at which the emotion is directed? (b) Is the emotion pleasant or unpleasant? and (c) Is the emotion evaluated as good or bad to have? Although there is some general tendency for all three aspects to be either positive or negative, they are often clearly different. Thus, a person may subject himself or herself to dangerous situations in order to get pleasurable thrills yet later come to evaluate such fear as childish.

For our purposes it is most useful to focus on the first of the aforementioned meanings. For one thing, the various emotions, such as love, admiration, and anger are essentially characterized by the property of attraction or repulsion to the valued object of the emotion. Both hedonic quality and evaluation may vary, whereas the attraction to a perceived good or repulsion from a perceived bad object is an invariant aspect of the emotion. That is, fear may have either a pleasant or an unpleasant quality and may be judged to be good in some situations and bad in others, yet fear always involves a perception of danger and an impulse to escape that danger. Value appears to be grounded in perceptions of goodness or badness rather than in felt pleasantness or pain or reasoned judgments of right or wrong. I discuss this assertion in a bit more detail later, but begin by examining how the perceived value of an object is intertwined with the emotion that is experienced and, in fact, may be regarded as a part of the emotion’s structure.

The structural theory of emotions (de Rivera, 1977) asserts that any type of emotion (e.g., anger, love, anxiety) may be described as a dynamic structure of three interrelated parts. A number of studies (Kahn, 1984; Kane, 1976; Lindsay-Hartz, 1981, 1984) have demonstrated that these structural descriptions may be used to discriminate closely related emotions and to articulate how different emotions function to reveal value and to enhance the ideals to which the person is committed. The three parts of each emotion’s structure involve: (a) the particular way in which the person perceives the object of the emotion; (b) the transformation of the person’s body; and (c) the “impulse” of the emotion or way in which the person is “instructed” to behave. For example, when a person is angry he or she perceives the object of anger to be a challenge to what the person asserts ought to exist. The body is energized and expands. This empowered body is “instructed” to remove the perceived challenge.

The dynamic of this structure is related to value in three distinct ways. First, it charges the object of anger with the responsibility for acting in a way that is perceived to be wrong or “bad.” This “judgment” (cf. Solomon, 1984) of negative value is not experienced to be dependent on the person’s own needs. Second, the anger functions to remove the challenge to the values to which the person is committed. Third, somewhat paradoxically, the anger functions to maintain a closeness between the person and the other, for if the other is perceived to challenge the person’s values, the other must be subject to the same thoughts as the person and, hence, “worth” getting angry with.

Relationships Between Structure, Hedonic Tone, and Evaluation

The relationship between an emotion’s hedonic tone and its underlying value-revealing structure is a complex one. Consider the emotion of anger. For some persons, anger is an intensely unpleasant experience. They don’t like feeling the emotion, and they dislike the consequences that occur when they express it. Others seem to enjoy anger, and they report that the expression of anger “clears the atmosphere.” In part, hedonic tone appears to be a function of the “flow” of an emotion, so that persons who feel comfortable with the expression of an emotion experience it as pleasant, whereas others, uncomfortable with the expressive ways that they have learned, block the expression and experience the emotion as unpleasant.

The “flow” of an emotion may be a function of all three aspects of its structure. In the case of anger, the body is experienced as energized and growing outward, and there is an impulse to remove the challenge. Perception of a “challenge” may be pleasant or unpleasant, depending on our power to meet it. Likewise, the removal of a challenge may be pleasant, but persons who have not learned benign forms of expression may check their impulse to remove the challenge, and this may be quite unpleasant. Finally, the experience of having an energized and expanded body may lead the person to have a clearer self-boundary or to feel as though the self is in danger of falling apart.

There is another important factor that affects hedonic tone. The emotion and its expression often become the object of a second emotion. Thus, in one context a person may be pleased that he or she got angry, whereas in another the person may feel guilty or get angry at the self for getting angry. Although the pleasantness or unpleasantness of an emotion may be quite separate from whether we abstractly judge the emotion to be ideally good or bad, it would seem that when an emotion is the object of an immediate emotional judgment its hedonic quality might well be affected.

There is an equally complex relationship between the perception of value that is inherent in emotional structure, and rational evaluation. On the one hand, as previously noted, an emotion may become the object of a second emotion and, hence, may itself become valued as good or bad. On the other hand, we may rationally evaluate an emotion or action from an objective standpoint. As we mature, we learn that our emotions may be in error, and we attempt to evaluate our feelings by asking others how they see our situation, or by comparing our present situation with our past experience. This process of evaluation requires us to move back from our involvement with the other, and to examine our situation from a distance so that we may “see” it from different perspectives and not simply “feel” it from our position of involvement.

Of course, in an important sense, this movement itself is an emotional act, and Lawrence (1960) argued that the very stance of evaluation–the detached, cool, observation of the other as object–is one of four basic emotional relationships that precede language. The resulting position of detachment enables us to make a comparison of different situations, to learn from the perspectives of others, and to reason theoretically about our emotional involvement before we move back to reimmerse ourselves in the immediate concrete situation.

This move to abstract reflection may be very freeing. It may enable a person to see new possibilities, make objective comparisons, and give responsible evaluations. However, these new possibilities and objective comparisons must still work with the values revealed by emotional experience. Although an objective evaluation may suggest that a particular object or action has the greatest value, this value can only be realized if it is translated into a new emotional perception. Thus, while a judge may objectively decide the excellence of a performance, this evaluation is only realized when the judge awards some recognition, and the winner is exalted. Or, although a person may objectively evaluate a course of action, this evaluation will remain intellectual until the person’s emotional relationship is restructured. The person will be an observer rather than an historical actor until he or she again becomes emotionally involved and able to express the value in action.

Of course, the evaluation of emotions, like the evaluation of action, depends on personal and cultural context. Sommers (1984) showed that persons from some cultural backgrounds evaluate anger, love, or shame as more valuable than persons from other backgrounds. Nevertheless, any differences in evaluation will always relate to the structure of the emotion. Thus, Lindsay-Hartz (1981) showed that personal differences in the evaluation of elation are related to the way in which the elated person is lifted from the level of reality to the level of unreality and, hence, loses contact with other persons. Some persons are appalled by this loss of contact, experience it as bad and, hence, devalue the emotion. Others are delighted by the freedom from the restraints of responsibility and value the elation as a form of recreation. Similarly, while the Japanese appear to value shame more highly than Americans, Vogel’s (1986) data suggest that this is because, in Japan, the exhibition of the unworthiness that is a structural aspect of shame demonstrates that a person is not shameless.

The Conceptualization of Value and Emotional Structure

Value refers to the goodness or badness of an object, person, event, or action. What determines or constitutes this goodness or badness? Many psychologists seem to equate positive value with what is desirable and negative value with what is feared. Thus, a person is said to value what he or she wants or finds useful or likeable. Although there is some truth here, such an assertion makes value dependent on personal needs and fails to provide any grounds for distinguishing between objective value and mere subjective preference.

Developments in anthropology and economics have supported this conflation of value and preference. Anthropology’s current stress on the uniqueness of different cultures has emphasized the relativity, rather than the universality, of what is valued, and this makes values appear to only be cultural preferences. Economists, who once attempted to relate the concept of value to the worth of realities such as the amount of expended labor or resources or the usefulness or scarcity of an item, have settled on operationalizing the value of a good or service to simply mean how much money it can command in the marketplace. Thus, the “value” of a machine, an act of service, or a work of art does not refer to any objective factors or to anything of intrinsic merit, but simply to personal preferences as expressed by how much money someone is willing to pay.

Although we do value what we want to possess, it seems clear that there is more to value than mere preference. For one thing, when we desire an object, we experience value as inherent in the object, rather than projected by the desire; the goodness or badness of an object appears as an objective property of the object rather than as a subjective imposition of personal tastes. When I say an orange is good I am referring to the objective qualities of the orange and not simply to the fact that I like oranges and prefer ones that combine juicy sweetness with sourness and a certain amount of firm texture. As Murdoch (1970, p. 97) observed, “The ordinary person does not, unless corrupted by philosophy, believe that he creates values by his choices. He thinks that some things really are better than others and that he is capable of getting it wrong. We are not usually in doubt about the direction in which good lies.”

There is another important fact. At least some goodness and badness seems to have nothing to do with personal desires or fears, with utility or disfunction. We may look at some act of kindness or heroism, or witness some tragedy and directly intuit a goodness or badness that has nothing to do with what we desire or fear for ourselves. Such values are “objective” in the sense that they refer to a goodness or badness that is experienced as existing independently of personal preference.

Indeed, it is this type of value, or this meaning of “value,” that is referred to by psychologists such as Lewin, Heider, and Kohler. Lewin (1951), for example, distinguished between “valence” and value. Valence is the property of objects that attracts or repels us: a chair’s ability to “command” us to sit down, or an exposed electric wire’s command that we stay away. Valence depends both on the character of the object and the state of the person’s own needs. If we are tired, a chair’s command to “sit down” will be stronger. If we are hungry, a cookie’s attractive properties will be heightened. The greater the need, the greater the object’s valence and the attractive or repulsive force that exists between the object and the self. Likewise, a person’s intentions or “will” may induce valence in an appropriate object. If we intend to mail a letter, a mailbox will acquire valence, attract us to it, and command us to deposit our letter. Just as a person’s own needs and intentions affect the valence of objects, it is possible for an other’s will to induce valences. When a parent commands a child to had over a toy, or a stranger asks for the time, valences are induced that have more to do with the other’s needs and will than with our own.

Lewin suggested that a person’s values are formally similar to the will or commands of others. That is, they are capable of inducing valences that are not a result of the person’s own needs or will. Our values may even command us to perform some activity that is not in our personal self-interest. We may do what ought to be done rather than what we would personally desire to do.

In a similar manner, Heider (1958) related values to what ought to be. What ought to exist is not what a person desires, but what a suprapersonal objective order desires. If a person has a value, he or she believes that the objective order is constituted in such a way that under certain conditions persons ought to behave in certain ways. Similarly, Kohler (1938) pointed to the relationship between value and what is required by the objective order (rather than desired by the person). Because values are the “needs” of an objective order, they have the same status as a belief in what is real. Thus, Heider pointed out that we are not disturbed when an other has different preferences from our own, but are as upset when the other has different values as when the other sees blue where we see yellow. The mere fact of value disagreement creates tension between persons.

There are two rather different meanings to value. The first relates to what a person desires for him or herself. It is this personal desire that, together with the properties of the object, constitutes the object’s value. The second meaning relates to a goodness that is independent of a person’s own desires. These two meanings of value, or types of value, may be related to the structures ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 CHOICE OF EMOTION AND IDEAL DEVELOPMENT
• 2 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MORAL EMOTIONS OF SHAME AND GUILT
• 3 WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT?
• 4 EMOTIONS AS SITUATED ACTIONS
• 5 EMOTION AND UNDERSTANDING: TOWARD A THEORY AND METHOD
• 6 EMOTIONS, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE SELF
• 7 GENERAL DISCUSSION
• EPILOGUE
• AUTHOR INDEX
• SUBJECT INDEX