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Beyond Nature Versus Nurture: the Emergence of Emotion

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Abstract

Affective science is stuck in a version of the nature-versus-nurture debate, with theorists arguing whether emotions are evolved adaptations or psychological constructions. We do not see these as mutually exclusive options. Many adaptive behaviors that humans have evolved to be good at, such as walking, emerge during development – not according to a genetically dictated program, but through interactions between the affordances of the body, brain, and environment. We suggest emotions are the same. As developing humans acquire increasingly complex goals and learn optimal strategies for pursuing those goals, they are inevitably pulled to particular brain-body-behavior states that maximize outcomes and self-reinforce via positive feedback loops. We call these recurring, self-organized states emotions. Emotions display many of the hallmark features of self-organized attractor states, such as hysteresis (prior events influence the current state), degeneracy (many configurations of the underlying variables can produce the same global state), and stability. Because most bodily, neural, and environmental affordances are shared by all humans – we all have cardiovascular systems, cerebral cortices, and caregivers who raised us – similar emotion states emerge in all of us. This perspective helps reconcile ideas that, at first glance, seem contradictory, such as emotion universality and neural degeneracy.

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Notes

  1. Note we are not saying that emotions are optimized for specific “situations” (e.g., being on a roller coaster or being chased by a bear) since appealing to situations may neglect attention to the sensory properties (the sensation of speed, the sound of a growl) and contextual demands (the need to flee) that actually mediate emotion attractors. “Situations” can likely act as proxy variables for the sensory properties and contextual demands of interest, but as a practical matter, maintaining focus on those properties and demands should facilitate the standardization of elicitation and assessment approaches (cf., Coan & Allen, 2007).

  2. This is the point at which, for example, Coan (2010) leaves off in his discussion of the statistical properties of emergence.

  3. Infants have protective reflexes like the Moro reflex, which they display when dropped, but this requires only the presence of a brainstem and does not necessarily involve an organized fear state (Futagi et al., 2012).

  4. Allostasis—stability through change—is Sterling and Eyer’s (1988) theoretical elaboration on homeostasis. Whereas homeostasis refers to an organism’s tendency to return to a preferred physiological attractor state, allostasis instead emphasizes the optimization of the organism’s response to variable environmental demands with the predictive regulation of the body’s highly adaptive physiological and behavioral systems. In homeostasis, the organism is always seeking a particular physiological state. In allostasis, the organism is always seeking the most efficient and effective physiological state given prevailing circumstances.

  5. Distinguishable when identified at the level of functional goal pursuit, not at the level of individual components, because complex systems display degeneracy.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Adrienne Wood & James A. Coan

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A.W. was funded by the National Science Foundation Grant 2145385.

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Wood, A., Coan, J.A. Beyond Nature Versus Nurture: the Emergence of Emotion. Affec Sci 4, 443–452 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-023-00212-2

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