§ 13. EMOTIONS.

1. Feelings, like all psychical phenomena, are never permanent states. In the psychological analysis of a composite feeling, therefore, we must always think of a momentary affective state as if it were held constant. This can be done the more easily the more slowly and continuously the psychical processes occur, so that the word feeling has come to be used mainly for relatively slow processes and for those which in their regular form of occurrence never pass beyond a certain medium intensity, such as the feelings of rhythm. Where, on the other hand, a series of feelings succeeding one another in time unite into an interconnected process which is distinguished from preceding and following processes as an individual whole, and which has in general a more intense effect on the subject than a single feeling, we call such a succession of feelings an emotion.

This very name indicates that it is not some specific subjective content of experience which distinguishes emotion from feeling, but rather the arousing effect which comes from a special combination of particular affective contents. In this way it comes that there is no sharp line of demarcation between feeling and emotion. Every feeling of greater intensity passes into an emotion. The separation of the feelings within an emotion from one another is always a more or less arbitrary sundering of complete relations. In the case of feelings which have a certain particular form of occurrence, that is in feelings of rhythm, such a breaking up of the emotions is entirely impossible. The feeling of rhythm is distinguished from an emotion only by the small intensity of its moving effect on the subject, which is what gives "emotion" its name. And even this distinction is by no means fixed, for when the feelings produced by rhythmical impressions become somewhat more intense, as is usually the case especially when the rhythm is connected with sensation contents which arouse the feelings greatly, the feelings of rhythm become in fact emotions. Rhythms are for this reason the important means both in music and poetry of portraying emotions and arousing them in the auditor.

2. The names of different emotions, like those of feelings, do not indicate single processes, but classes in which a large number of single affective processes are grouped because of certain common characteristics. Emotions such as joy, hope, anxiety, care, and anger, are accompanied in every case by new ideational contents; their affective elements also, and even the way in which the emotions themselves occur, may vary greatly. The more composite a psychical process, the more variable will be its single concrete manifestations; a particular emotion will, therefore, be less apt to occur in exactly the same form than will a particular feeling. Every general name for emotions indicates, accordingly, certain typical forms in which related affective processes occur.

3. Not every interconnected series of affective processes is called an emotion or is to be classed as such under one of the typical forms discriminated by language. An emotion is a unitary whole which is distinguished from a composite feeling through two characteristics. First, an emotion has a definite temporal course and second, it exercises a more intense present and subsequent effect on the interconnection of psychical processes. The first characteristic arises from the fact that an emotion is a process of a higher order as compared with a single feeling, for it always includes a succession of several feelings. The second characteristic depends on the intensification of the effect produced by the summation of the feelings.

As a result of these characteristics, emotions have in the midst of all their variations in form a regularity in the manner of their occurrence. They always begin with a more or less intense inceptive feeling which in its quality and direction is immediately characteristic of the nature of the emotions. This inceptive feeling is due either to an idea produced by an external impression (outer emotional stimulation) or to a psychical process arising from associative or apperceptive conditions (inner stimulation) . Following this inceptive feeling, comes an ideational process accompanied by its corresponding feelings. This process shows, in cases of particular emotions, characteristic differences both in the quality of its feelings and in its rapidity. Finally, the emotion closes with a terminal feeling which continues even after the emotion has given place to a quiet affective state. In this terminal feeling the emotion gradually fades away, unless it passes directly into the inceptive feeling of a new emotion. This last mentioned transition sometimes occurs, especially in feelings of the intermittent type (inf. 13).

4. The intensification of the effect which may be observed in the course of an emotion, appears not merely in the psychical contents of the feelings which compose it, but in the physical concomitants as well. For single feelings these accompanying phenomena are usually limited to slight changes in the innervation of the heart and respiratory organs, which can be demonstrated only by using exact graphic methods (p. 96 sq.). It is only in relatively rare cases that there are added to these minor forms of reaction, mimetic movements of even moderate extent and intensity. With emotions the case is essentially different. As a result of the summation and alternation of successive affective stimuli there is in emotions not only an intensification of the effect on heart, blood-vessels, and respiration, but the external muscles are always affected in an unmistakable manner. Strong movements of the mimetic muscles appear at first, then movements of the arms and of the whole body (pantomimetic movements). In the case of stronger emotions there may be still more extensive disturbances of innervation, such as trembling, convulsive contractions of the diaphragm and of the facial muscles, and paralytic relaxation of the muscles.

Because of their symptomatical significance for the emotions, all these movements are called expressive movements. As a rule they are entirely involuntary, being either reflexes following emotional excitations, or else impulsive acts prompted by the affective components of the emotion. They may be modified, however, in various ways through voluntary intensification or inhibition of the movements or even through intentional production of the same, so that the whole series of external reactions which we shall have to discuss under volitional acts, may enter into these expressive movements (§ 14).

5. According to their symptomatical character, expressive movements may be divided into three classes. 1) Purely intensive symptoms; these are always expressive movements for more intense emotions, and consist in strong movements when the emotions are of middle intensity, and in sudden inhibitions and paralysis of movement when the emotions are violent. 2) Qualitative expressions of feelings; these are mimetic movements, the most important of which are the reactions of the oral muscles, resembling the reflexes following sweet, sour, and bitter impressions of taste. The reaction for sweet corresponds to pleasurable emotions, the reactions for sour and bitter, to unpleasurable emotions, while the other modifications of feeling, such as excitement and depression, strain and relief, are expressed by a tension of the muscles. 3) Expressions of ideas; these are generally pantomimetic movements which either point to the object of the emotion (indicative gestures) or else describe the objects as well as the processes connected with them by the form of the movement (representative gestures). These three classes of expressive movements correspond exactly to the psychical elements of emotions; the first class corresponds to the intensity of the psychical elements, the second to the quality of the feelings, and the third to the ideational content. A concrete expressive movement may unite all three forms in itself. The third class, that of expressions of ideas, is of special psychological significance because of its genetic relations to speech (cf. § 21, 3).

6. The changes in pulse and respiration which accompany emotions are of three kinds: 1) They may consist of the immediate effects of the feelings which make up the emotions, as for example a lengthening of the pulse curve and respiration curve when the feelings are pleasurable, and a shortening of the same for unpleasurable feelings (cf. sup. p. 96). This holds only for relatively quiet emotions, where the single feelings have sufficient time to develop. When sufficient time is not given, other phenomena appear which depend, not merely on the quality of the feelings, but also, and that mainly, on the intensity of the innervations, due to the summation of these innervations. 2) Such summations may consist of intensified innervation. This arises from an increase in the excitation which in turn results from an adding together of the separate effects when the succession of feelings is not too rapid. This increase shows itself in retarded and strengthened pulse-beats, since the more intense excitation affects most the inhibitory nerves of the heart. Besides these there is usually an increased innervation of the mimetic and panto-mimetic muscles. These are called sthenic emotions. 3) If the feelings are very violent or continue an unusually long time in a single direction, the emotion brings about a more or less complete paralysis of the innervation of the heart and a reduction of the tension of the outer muscles. Under certain circumstances disturbances in the innervation of special groups of muscles appear, especially in the innervation of the muscles of the diaphragm and the innervation of the sympathetic facial muscles. The first symptom of the paralysis of the regulative cardiac nerves is a marked acceleration of the pulse and a corresponding acceleration of the respiration, accompanied by a weakening of the same, and a relaxation of the tension of the external muscles to a degree equal to that in paralysis. These are the asthenic emotions. There is still another distinction, which is not important enough, however, to lead to the formation of an independent class of physical effects of emotions, since we have to do here only with modifications of the phenomena characteristic of sthenic and asthenic emotions. It is the distinction between rapid and sluggish emotions, based upon the greater or less rapidity with which the increase or inhibition of the innervation appears.

7. Both in natural, and in voluntarily aroused emotions the physical concomitants have, besides their symptomatical significance, the important psychological attribute of being able to intensify the emotion. This attribute is due to the fact that the excitation or inhibition of certain particular groups of muscles is accompanied by inner tactual sensations which produce certain sense-feelings. Since these feelings unite with the other affective contents of the emotion, they increase the intensity of the emotion. From the heart, respiratory organs, and blood-vessels, we have such feelings only in cases of emotions, when the feelings may indeed be very intense. On the other hand, even in moderate emotions the state of greater or less tension of the mimetic and pantomimetic muscles, exercises an influence on the affective state and thereby on the emotion.

7a. Older psychology, because of its general tendency to give an intellectualistic interpretation to psychical processes, generally offered logical reflections about emotions, as a theory of the emotions, or even as a full description of them. The best illustration of this kind of a theory of the emotions is the doctrine of spinoza. In such theories the psychological treatment was very largely influenced by ethical considerations. As one result of such influence, we have the distinction between emotions and passions, the latter term being employed to designate those conditions in which certain particular impulses through long continued feeling and emotions, gain the complete ascendency over volition. kant modified these definitions of emotions and passions, in that he regarded the essential attribute of emotions to be their sudden rise, while the essential attribute of passions consisted for him in the fact that the tendencies of feeling have settled into fixed habits. These modes of classification are all either of merely practical significance and belong accordingly in the domain of characterology or ethics, or else they are based upon characteristics which are essential only in discussions of the intensity and course of emotions, and will, accordingly, be dealt with under these heads in a later paragraph (12). From the psychological point of view, the passions are in no essential respect different in nature from the emotions. In contrast with this practical mode of treating the emotions, there has arisen a tendency in recent times to give more and more attention to the expressive movements, and to the other physiological accompaniments of the emotions which show themselves in the pulse and respiration and in the vaso-motor changes. There begins to show itself thus, a recognition of the value of these phenomena as aids to the study of the emotions, just as there is a recognition of the innervation symptoms of feelings. To be sure, the study of these outer phenomena can never take the place of immediate observation of the psychical processes themselves; it can serve at most to call attention to certain of the attributes and relations of the psychical processes which might perhaps be otherwise overlooked. Thus, for example, the objective observation suggests very easily the fact that emotions are intensified through the sensory feelings which are connected with the expressive movements. But when lange and james make these concomitant phenomena the exclusive causes of the emotions, when they describe the emotions as psychical processes which can be aroused only through expressive movements, we must reject their paradoxical view for the following three reasons. First, the definite outer symptoms of emotions do not appear until such time as the psychical nature of the emotion is already clearly established. The emotion, accordingly, precedes the innervation effects which are looked upon by these investigators as causes of the emotion. Second, it is absolutely impossible to classify the rich variety of psychical emotional states in the comparatively simple scheme of innervation changes. The psychical processes are much more varied than are their accompanying forms of expression. Third, and finally, the physical concomitants stand in no constant relation to the psychical quality of the emotions. This holds especially for the effects on pulse and respiration, but is true also for the pantomimetic expressive movements. It may sometimes happen that emotions with very different, even opposite kinds of affective contents, may belong to the same class so far as the accompanying physical phenomena are concerned. Thus, for example, joy and anger may be in like manner sthenic emotions. Joy accompanied by surprise may, on the contrary, present the appearance on its physical side of an asthenic emotion.

7b. The general phenomena of innervation which give rise to the distinction between sthenic and asthenic, and rapid and sluggish emotions, do not show the character of the affective contents of these emotions, but only the formal attributes of the intensity and rapidity of the feelings. This is clearly proved by the fact that differences in involuntary innervation analogous to those which accompany the different emotions, may be produced by a mere succession of different impressions, as for example by the strokes of a metronome. It is observed in such a case that especially the respiration tends to adapt itself to the faster or slower rate of the strokes, becoming more rapid when the rapidity of the metronome increases. Commonly, too, certain phases of respiration coincide with particular strokes. Furthermore, the hearing of such an indifferent rhythm is not unattended by emotion. When the rate changes, we observe at first a quiet, then a sthenic, and finally, when the rapidity is greatest, an asthenic emotion. Still, the emotions in this case have to a certain extent a mere formal character; they exhibit a great indefiniteness in their contents. This indefinite-ness disappears only when we think into them concrete emotions of like formal attributes. This is very easy, and is the condition of the great utility of rhythmical impressions for describing and producing emotions. All that is necessary to arouse an emotion in all its fulness, is a mere hint of qualitative affective content, such as it is possible to give in music through the clangs of a musical composition.

7c. The external expressive effects of emotions are, accordingly, ambiguous symptoms and can, therefore, have, when taken by themselves, no psychological value. They may, however, acquire such value when connected with introspection which has been properly provided for in an experimental way. Indeed, as checks for experimental introspection the expressive movements have great value. The principle that observation is wholly inadequate when applied to psychical processes which present themselves in the natural course of life, holds especially for the emotions. In the first place, emotions come to the psychologist by chance, at moments when he is not in a condition to subject them to scientific analysis; and in the second place, in the case of strong emotions which arise from real causes, we are least of all able to observe ourselves with exactness. Exact observation can be carried on much more successfully when we voluntarily arouse in ourselves a particular emotional state. In such a case, however, it is not possible to estimate how nearly the subjectively aroused emotion agrees in intensity and in mode of occurrence with one of like character due to external circumstances. For this reason the simultaneous investigation of the physical effects, especially of those effects most removed from the influence of the will, namely the effects on the pulse and respiration, furnishes a check for introspection. For when the psychological quality of emotions is alike, we may infer from their like physical effects that their formal attributes also agree. Indeed, the intensity of the expressive movement furnishes a fairly reliable measure of the degree in which the artificial emotion approximates the natural emotion.
 
 

References. Kant, Anthropologie, Bk. 3. Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions, 1872. Piderit, Mimik und Physiognomik, 2nd ed. 1866. Hughes, Die Mimik des Menschen, 1900. Lehmann, Die körperlichen Äußerungen psychischer Zustände, vol. 1, 1899. W. Gent, Volumpulskurven bei Gefühlen und Affekten, Phil. Stud., vol. 18. Mosso, (English trans. by Kiesow), On Fear. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie, vol. I, pt. 1, chap. 1. James, Principles of Psychology, vol. II, chap. 25. Wundt, Zur Lehre von den Gemütsbewegungen, Phil. Stud., vol. 6 (contains also a criticism of the various theories).
 

8. The great number of factors which must be taken into consideration for the investigation of emotions renders a psychological analysis of the single forms impossible. This is all the more so because each of the numerous distinguishing names marks off a whole class, within which there is a great variety of special forms, including in turn an endless number of single cases of the most various modifications. All we can do is to take a general survey of the fundamental forms of emotions. The general principles of division here employed must bc psychological, that is, such as are derived from the immediate attributes of the emotions themselves, for the accompanying physical phenomena have only a symptomatical value and are even then, as noted above, frequently equivocal in character.

Three such psychological principles of classification may be made the basis for the grouping of emotions: 1) emotions may be grouped according to the quality of the feelings entering into the emotions, 2) according to the intensity of these feelings, 3) according to the form of occurrence, this form being conditioned by the character and rate of the affective changes.

9. On the basis of quality of feelings we may distinguish certain fundamental emotional forms corresponding to the chief affective dimensions distinguished above (p. 91). This gives us pleasurable and unpleasurable emotions, exciting and quieting emotions, straining and relaxing emotions. It must be noted, however, that because of their more composite character the emotions are always, even more than the feelings, mixed forms. Generally only a single affective tendency can be called primary for a particular emotion. There are affective elements belonging to other dimensions which enter in as secondary elements. The secondary character of such elements usually appears in the fact that under different conditions various sub-forms of the primary emotion may arise. Thus, for example, joy is primarily a pleasurable emotion. Ordinarily it is also exciting, since it intensifies the feelings, but when the feelings are too strong, it becomes a depressing emotion. Sorrow is an unpleasurable emotion, generally of a depressing character; when the intensity of the feelings becomes somewhat greater, however, it may become exciting, and when the intensity becomes maximal, it passes again into depression. Anger is much more emphatically exciting and unpleasant in its predominant characteristics, but when the intensity of the feelings becomes greater, as when it develops into rage, it becomes depressing. Thus, exciting and depressing tendencies are always mere secondary qualities connected with pleasurable and unpleasurable emotions. Feelings of strain and relaxation, on the contrary, may more frequently be the primary components of emotions. Thus, in expectation, the feeling of strain peculiar to this state is the primary element of the emotion. When the feeling develops into an emotion, it may easily be associated with unpleasurable feelings which are, according to circumstances, either exciting or quieting. In the case of rhythmical impressions or movements, there arise from the alternation of feelings of strain with those of relaxation, pleasurable emotions which may be at the same time either exciting or depressing, according to the character of the rhythm. When they are depressing there may be unpleasurable feelings intermingled with them, or the feelings may all become unpleasurable, especially when other affective elements cooperate, as for example in feelings of clang or harmony.

10. Language has paid the most attention in its development of names for emotions to the qualitative side of feelings, and among these qualities it is especially the pleasurable and unpleasurable forms which have been emphasized. These names may be divided into three classes. First, we have names of emotions that are subjectively distinguished, chiefly through the nature of the affective state itself. Such are joy and sorrow and, as subforms of sorrow in which either depressing, straining, or relaxing tendencies of the feeling are also exhibited, sadness, care, grief, and fright. Second, there are names of objective emotions referring to some external object, such as delight and displeasure and, as subforms of the latter in which, various tendencies unite, annoyance, resentment, anger, and rage. Third, we have names of objective emotions which refer rather to outer events not expected until the future, such as hope and fear and, as modifications of the latter, worry and anxiety. They are combinations of feelings of strain with pleasurable and unpleasurable feelings and in different ways with exciting and depressing tendencies as well.

Obviously language has produced a much greater variety of names for unpleasurable emotions than for pleasurable. This may be due either to an actual superiority in the number of unpleasurable forms of emotion, or it may be due to the fact that unpleasurable experiences attract a higher degree of attention. Probably the full explanation involves both factors.

11. On the basis of the intensity of the feelings, two classes of emotions, namely the weak and the strong, may be distinguished. These concepts, derived from the psychical properties of the feelings, do not coincide with the concepts of sthenic and asthenic emotions, based upon the physical concomitants, for the relation of the psychological categories to the psycho-physical, is dependent not only on the intensity of the feelings, but on their quality as well. Thus, weak and moderately strong pleasurable emotions are always sthenic, while, on the contrary, unpleasurable emotions become asthenic after a longer duration, even when they are of a low degree of intensity, as for example care and anxiety. Finally, the strongest emotions, such as fright, worry, rage, and even excessive joy, are always asthenic. The discrimination of the psychical intensity of emotions is accordingly of subordinate significance, especially since emotions which agree in all other respects, may not only have different degrees of intensity at different times, but may on the same occasion vary from moment to moment. Then too, since this variation from moment to moment is essentially determined by the sense-feelings which arise from the accompanying physical phenomena, in accordance with the principle of the intensification of emotions discussed above (p. 194), it is obvious that sthenic and asthenic character which is due originally to certain physiological conditions, often has a more decisive influence even on the psychological character of the emotion than the primary psychical intensity itself.

12. The third distinguishing characteristic of emotions, the form of occurrence, is more important. Here we distinguish three classes. First, there are sudden, irruptive emotions, such as surprise, astonishment, fright, disappointment, and rage. They all reach their maximum very rapidly and then gradually sink to a quiet affective state. Second, we have gradually arising emotions, such as anxiety, doubt, care, mournfulness, expectation, and in many cases joy, anger, worry. These rise to their maximum gradually and sink in the same way. As a third form, and at the same time a modification of the class just mentioned, we have intermittent emotions, in which several periods of rise and fall follow one another alternately. All emotions of long duration belong in this last class. Thus, especially joy, anger, mournfulness, and the most various forms of gradually arising emotions, come in waves and often permit a distinction between periods of increasing and those of decreasing emotional intensity. The sudden, irruptive emotions, on the contrary, are seldom intermittent. They are intermittent only in cases in which the emotion may belong also to the second class. Such emotions of a very changeable form of occurrence are, for example, joy and anger. They may sometimes be sudden and irruptive. In such cases, to be sure, anger generally becomes rage. Or such emotions may gradually rise and fall, they are then generally of the intermittent type. In their psycho-physical concomitants, the sudden irruptive emotions are all asthenic, the gradually arising emotions may be either sthenic or asthenic.

12a. The form of occurrence, then, however characteristic it may be in single cases, is just as little a fixed criterion for the psychological classification of emotions as is the intensity of the feelings. Obviously a psychological classification can be based only on the quality of the affective contents, while intensity and form of occurrence may furnish the means of subdivision. The way in which these conditions are connected with one another and with the accompanying physical phenomena and through these with secondary sense-feelings, shows the emotions to be most highly composite psychical compounds which are therefore in single cases exceedingly variable. A classification which is in any degree exhaustive must, therefore, subdivide such varying emotions as joy, anger, fear, and anxiety into their subforms, according to their modes of occurrence, according to the intensity of their component feelings, and finally according to their physical concomitants, which physical concomitants are dependent on both the psychical factors mentioned. Thus, for example, we may distinguish a strong, a weak, and a variable form of anger, a sudden, a gradually arising, and an intermittent form of its occurrence, and finally a sthenic, asthenic, and a mixed form of its expressive movements. For psychological explanation, an account of the causal interconnection of the single forms in each particular case is much more important than this mere classification. In giving such an account, we have to deal in the case of every emotion with two factors: first, the quality and intensity of the component feelings, and second, the rapidity of the succession of these feelings. The first factor determines the general character of the emotion, the second its intensity in part, and more especially its form of occurrence, while both together determine its physical accompaniments and the psycho-physical changes resulting from the sense-feelings connected with these accompanying phenomena (p. 191). It is for this very reason that the physical concomitants are as a rule to be called psycho-physical. The expressions "psychical" and "psycho-physical" should not, however, be regarded as absolute opposites in such a case as this where we have to do merely with symptoms of emotion. We speak of psychical emotional phenomena when we mean those which do not show any immediately perceptible physical symptoms, even when such symptoms can be demonstrated with exact apparatus (as, for example, changes in the pulse and in respiration). On the other hand we speak of psycho-physical phenomena in those cases which can be immediately recognized as two-sided.

References. Maass, Versuch über die Leidenschaften, 2 pts., 1805. (This is a comprehensive resume of the older psychology). Bain, The Emotions and the Will, 3rd ed., 1888. ribot, Psychologie des sentiments, 1896. Bourdon, L'expression des émotions et des tendances dans le langage, 1892. Lehmann, Die Hauptgesetze des menschlichen Gefühlsleben, 1892. Wundt, Grundz., 5th ed., vol. Ill, Chap. 16; Lectures, lectures 25 and 26.