Abstract
What do emotions do for people? This chapter presents a framework that emotions function much like a precision toolkit, with particular emotions best used to fix particular problems. This means that emotions are not always functional or always dysfunctional. Instead each emotion prepares people to deal with particular issues. The key to promoting functional emotion in our own lives, then, is to recognize what emotions do and to regulate how we express them. This chapter also brings together perspectives from the science of emotion to identify the next big questions about emotion.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Butler, A. C., & Beck, J. S. (2000). Cognitive therapy outcomes: A review of meta-analysis. Journal of Norwegian Psychological Association, 37, 1–9.
Butler, A. C., Chapman, J. E., Forman, E. M., & Beck, A. T. (2006). The empirical status of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Clinical Psychology Review, 26, 17–31.
Carmody, J., & Baer, R. A. (2008). Relationships between mindfulness practice and levels of mindfulness, medical and psychological symptoms and well-being in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 31, 23–33.
Chirico, A., & Yaden, D. B. (2018). Awe: A self-transcendent and sometimes-transformative emotion. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Danckert, J., Mugon, J., Struk, A., & Easterwood, J. (2018). Boredom – What is it good for? In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Ein-Dor, T., & Hirschberger, G. (2018). On sentinels and rapid responders: The adaptive function of emotion dysregulation. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Frijda, N. H. (1987). Emotion, cognitive structure, and action tendency. Cognition and Emotion, 1, 115–143.
Gould, S. J., & Vrba, E. S. (1982). Exaptation – A missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology, 8, 4–15.
Gross, J. J., & Thompson, R. A. (2007). Emotion regulation: Conceptual foundations. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 3–24). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Huron, D. (2018). On the functions of sadness and grief. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Karnaze, M. M., & Levine, L. J. (2018). Sadness, the architect of cognitive change. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Lench, H. C., Bench, S. W., Darbor, K. E., & Moore, M. (2015). A functionalist manifesto: Goal-related discrete emotions from an evolutionary perspective. Emotion Review, 7, 90–98.
Lench, H. C., & Carpenter, Z. K. (2018). What do emotions do for us? In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Lench, H. C., Tibbett, T. P., & Bench, S. W. (2016). Exploring the toolkit of emotion: What do sadness and anger do for us? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10, 11–25.
Levine, L. J., Safer, M. A., & Lench, H. C. (2006). Remembering and misremembering emotions. In L. J. Sanna & E. C. Chang (Eds.), Judgments over time: The interplay of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (pp. 271–290). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Moors, A., & Boddez, Y. (2017). Author response: Emotional episodes are action episodes. Emotion Review, 9, 353–354.
Moors, A., Boddez, Y., & De Houwer, J. (2017). The power of goal-directed processes in the causation of emotional and other actions. Emotion Review, 9, 310–318.
Moors, A., Ellsworth, P. C., Scherer, K. R., & Frijda, N. H. (2013). Appraisal theories of emotion: State of the art and future development. Emotion Review, 5,119–124.
Nanay, B. (2017). Comment: Every action is an emotional action. Emotion Review, 9, 350–352.
O’Neil, M. J., Danvers, A. F., & Shiota, M. N. (2018). Nurturant love and caregiving emotions. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 242–249.
Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108, 483–522.
Panksepp, J., & Burgodorf, J. (2003). “Laughing” rats and the evolutionary antecedents of human joy? Physiology and Behavior, 79, 533–547.
Parsafar, P., & Davis, E. L. (2018). Fear and anxiety. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works. New York, NY: Norton.
Pizarro, D., Inbar, Y., & Helion, C. (2011). On disgust and moral judgment. Emotion Review, 3, 267–268.
Roseman, I. (2018). Functions of anger in the emotion system. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Scherer, K. R., & Ceschi, G. (1997). Lost luggage: A field study of emotion-antecedent appraisal. Motivation and Emotion, 21, 211–235.
Stein, N. L., & Hernadez, M. W. (2007). Assessing understanding and appraisals during emotional experience. In J. A. Coan & J. J. B. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment (pp. 298–317). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Storbeck, J., & Wylie, J. (2018). The functional and dysfunctional aspects of happiness: Cognitive, physiological, behavioral, and health considerations. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Tamir, M., & Ford, B. Q. (2012). When feeling bad is expected to be good: Emotion regulation and outcome expectances in social conflict. Emotion, 12, 807–816.
Tibbett, T. P., & Lench, H. C. (2015). When do feelings help us? The interpersonal function of emotion. In Advances in Psychology Research (Vol. 107, pp. 1–10). New York, NY: Nova Science.
van Kleef, G. A., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2004). The interpersonal effects of – Anger and happiness in negotiations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 57–76.
Williams, L. A. (2018). Emotions of excellence: Communal and agentic functions of pride, moral elevation, and admiration. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Yong, J. C., & Li, N. P. (2018). The adaptive functions of jealousy. In H. C. Lench (Ed.), The functions of emotion: When and why emotions help us. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lench, H.C., Baldwin, C.L., An, D., Garrison, K.E. (2018). The Emotional Toolkit: Lessons from the Science of Emotion. In: Lench, H. (eds) The Function of Emotions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77619-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77619-4_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77618-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77619-4
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)