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Solving the Emotion Paradox: Categorization and the Experience of Emotion

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Solving the Emotion Paradox: Categorization and the Experience of Emotion Personality and Social Psychology Review Copyright © 2006 by 2006, Vol. 10, No. 1, 20–46 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Solving the Emotion Paradox: Categorization and the Experience of Emotion Lisa Feldman Barrett Department of Psychology Boston College In this article, I introduce an emotion paradox: People believe that they know an emo- tion when they see it, and as a consequence assume that emotions are discrete events that can be recognized with some degree of accuracy, but scientists have yet to pro- duce a set of clear and consistent criteria for indicating when an emotion is present and when it is not. I propose one solution to this paradox: People experience an emo- tion when they conceptualize an instance of affective feeling. In this view, the experi- ence of emotion is an act of categorization, guided by embodied knowledge about emotion. The result is a model of emotion experience that has much in common with the social psychological literature on person perception and with literature on em- bodied conceptual knowledge as it has recently been applied to social psychology. Humans experience emotion. For many, experience people feel fear when their fear mechanism has trig- serves as an emotion’s central and defining aspect. We gered, such that this feeling shapes perception and feel the heat of anger, the despair of sadness, the dread decision making and can have important conse- of fear. Most days, at least in North America, each of us quences for social relationships. asks and answers about our emotional state. We talk Although there is accumulating evidence that the about our experiences of emotion over coffee, or dur- experience of emotion can have great consequence for ing a telephone conversation, or in a therapist’s office. subsequent thoughts, decisions, and behaviors, it re- All things being equal, we assume that experiencing an mains unclear whether such experiences issue from emotion gives us introspective access to the emotion it- separate mechanisms for anger, sadness, fear, and so self. When an emotion is triggered, we feel it, in much on. The goal of this article is to explore how scientists the same way that we feel hunger before a meal. might understand the experience of emotion if this In psychological science, researchers often assume view of emotions is set aside. I sketch a framework for that people experience emotion because people have one such model that is more consistent with the empiri- “emotions”—internal mechanisms for a small set of cal evidence on emotion and incorporates existing re- reactions (typically happiness, anger, sadness, fear, search on psychological mechanisms more broadly. disgust, and interest) that, once triggered, can be The result is a model of emotion that has greater ex- measured in a clear and objective fashion. Emotions planatory power for understanding the richness and di- such as anger, sadness, and fear are treated as entities versity of emotional life. that scientists can make discoveries about—and for To begin the article, I argue that many contempo- better or worse, this assumption shapes the scientific rary models of emotion are guided by the assumption treatment of emotion experiences. It is assumed that that emotions are entities, and I examine the conse- quences of this assumption for the scientific study and This article benefited from discussions with many friends and measurement of emotion experience. Next, I briefly re- colleagues over the past several years. I especially thank Batja view the literature and conclude that these assumptions Mesquita, Larry Barsalou, Daniel Gilbert, James Russell, James are not well grounded in the available empirical evi- Gross, Jeanne Tsai, Paula Niedenthal, Piotr Winkielman, Eliot dence. This frames an emotion paradox: Our everyday Smith, Christopher Wright, Scott Rauch, Kevin Ochsner, Richard experiences of anger, sadness, fear, and several other Lane, Karen Quigley, David DeSteno, Patricia Devine, Deborah Prentice, John Skowronski, Robert Solomon, George Bonnano, Ger- emotions are compelling, but they are scientifically ald Clore, Peter Salovey, Ype Pootinga, Agneta Fisher, Paula elusive and defy clear definition. Pietronomaco, Julie Norem, Arnie Shore, and members of the Emo- The next major section of the article then explores tion Research Group not already named. Preparation of this article the idea that people experience emotion in the same was supported by NSF grants SBR–9727896, BCS 0074688, BCS way that they see color or the way that they perceive 0092224, and NIMH grant K02 MH001981. Correspondence should be addressed to Lisa Feldman Barrett, behaviors in others: People use knowledge to parse and Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, conceptualize the bottom-up information that is MA 02467. E-mail: [email protected]. sensorially given. I sketch a framework where the ex- 20 THE EMOTION PARADOX perience of emotion results from conceptualizing a study of emotion is grounded in the assumption that very basic form of affective responding during the act emotions are entities. This idea is schematically de- of categorization, where the categorization of affect is picted in a very simple way in Figure 1: Some event guided by knowledge about emotion that is acquired (usually external) triggers a kind of emotion, produc- from prior experience, tailored to the immediate situa- ing a set of recognizable behavioral and physiologic tion, and designed for action. Categorizing affect puts a outcomes (including a set of facial movements, a vocal person into a state that corresponds with the colloquial signal, changes in peripheral physiology, and some idea of “having an emotion.” I then unpack the idea that voluntary action) that are coordinated in time, corre- we experience an instance of emotion in ourselves, or lated in intensity, and constitute the components of an see it in others, when we conceptualize an ongoing, ba- emotional response. Different kinds of emotion (e.g., sic affective state via the process of categorization. I anger, sadness, fear) are presumed to be associated discuss how this “conceptual act” model of emotion with different coordinated response patterns. Presum- leads to a richer, more far-reaching research agenda ably, these patterns are how we (as people and as scien- with potentially greater explanatory power, highlight- tists) recognize that an emotion has occurred. They al- ing where the conceptual act model of emotion di- low us to know an emotion when we see it. verges from what I call the natural-kind view of emo- Figure 1 is simple, but it is not simplistic. The gen- tion. Finally, I end the article by exploring how the eral idea is that emotions are unlike other psychologi- conceptual act builds on seminal works in the emotion cal phenomena (say, cognition or attention), and each literature. category of emotion, often referred to in psychological science by such English words as anger, sadness, and fear, is a natural kind (Barrett, in press-a). Instances of Emotions as Entities each kind of emotion cluster together in a meaningful way because they have something real in common. In the history of psychological science, there are Figure 1 distills the assumptions that are common several notable examples where psychologists have to many scientific models of emotion, regardless of progressed from thinking about psychological phe- how those models differ in their surface features. nomena as unitary faculties of the mind—entities, if Substitute “affect program,” “internal signals,” or a you will—to thinking about them as emergent phe- literal neural circuit defined by a specific brain area nomena that vary with the immediate context. This is or a neurotransmitter system for “emotion” and Fig- most clearly the case in the study of memory (e.g., ure 1 summarizes the “basic” emotion approach (e.g., Johnson, 1992; Loftus, 1992; Schacter, 1996). No one Buck, 1999; Ekman, 1973, 1992; Izard, 1977, 1993; would deny that “memories” exist, but they are no Johnson-Laird & Oatley, 1992; LeDoux, 1996; longer thought of as intact entities like computer files Lundqvist & Öhman, 2005; Panksepp, 1998; that are stored in the brain to be retrieved when Plutchik, 1980; Tomkins, 1962). Substitute “apprais- needed. Psychologists no longer search for the als” for “emotion,” and Figure 1 is consistent with the engram (the place in the brain where a memory re- basic assumptions of some appraisal models of emo- sides). A memory is not an entity to be found. If I had tion, particularly those models where appraisals are coffee with a friend yesterday, and I remember that assumed to be literal cognitive processes that produce event today, the content of my memory may differ an emotional response (e.g., Lazarus, 1991; from what happened in the actual event, and my Roseman, 1984, 1991; Scherer, 1984). In principle, memory for this event several weeks from now may appraisal models acknowledge the enormous variety differ to some extent again. A similar argument has in emotional responding and do not assume that par- been made for the idea of “personality” (Mischel, ticular emotions are basic in any biological way, but 1984; Mischel & Shoda, 1995), and more recently for these models do tend to organize emotional respond- “concepts” (Barsalou, Simmons, Barbey, & Wilson, ing into the familiar set of discrete categories, such as 2003). Each was once assumed to be a fixed entity anger, sadness, fear, and so on (e.g., Frijda, 1986; with an identifiable causal mechanism or essence. Lazarus, 1991; Roseman, 1991; Scherer, 1984; C. A. Now, each is accounted for by distinct but interacting systems. A given instance of a memory, personality, or concept, is sensitive to context, so may be some- what different from what occurs at some other in- stance. This variability, rather than being viewed as a source of error or bias, is a valid reflection of a per- son’s psychological state that must be modeled and explained.
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