The Evolutionary Psychology of Emotions

Abstract

This paper will discussed that evolutionary perspective on emotions and behavior may help to resolve its inconsistency. To resolve this inconsistency we will evaluate two evolutionary approaches to emotion, discuss how linking these emotions to specific problems work, and argue that the findings are consistent with the claim that the emotions often display evidence of being intended to help, rather than deter.

EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES OF EMOTION
Over the years there have been several adaptive-evolutionary treatments of emotion that have developed ( Ekman & Davidson, 1994), there are several evolutionary approaches but the psychological evolutionary approach distinguishes itself by implementing an overtly adaptationist perception (Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992). According to research conducted by Buss, Halelton, Shackelford, Bleske, &Wakefeild (1999) adaptionist seem to think that the mind is made up of countless psychological adaptions, which is said to produce natural and sexual selection over several generations throughout human evolution.
Emotions can be affective by the ways humans think and behave (Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994). Throughout the years evolutionary approaches for emotions and social decision making changed from hypothetical models to empirical investigations. One of the theoretical approaches used in emotion and decision making is experimental economics which is used to explore theoretic aspects of emotions. Another approach claims that emotions are superordinate programs that organize human’s way of thinking and behaviors as a result of specific adaptive experiments.
Superordinate Coordination Theory
Cosmides & Tooby (2000) stated that emotions serves a purpose by coordinating systems of perception, attention, goal pursuit, energy and effectiveness, in addition to activating specific implications, recalibrating decision weightings, and modifying behavior. A scenario was conducted by Comides &Tooby (2000) to make evident of the emotion of fear. The scenario begin with some such as myself visualizing walking alone after dark and all of a certain a strange noise starts coming from the woods. Your adrenalin is immediately stimulated and now you are ready for action, you then start listen for sounds that may indicate that someone is following you, where you may have been hungry for a mate, you no longer are. Getting a mate no has completely out of your thoughts now. As you continue to walk you start to ask yourself where are some good hiding spots, do I start to run, do I stay and fight, or do I just stop walking, the decision would be made based on the circumstances.
Sometimes human emotions can automatically be aroused when being linked to ancestrally repeated dangers such as being hit over the head at night, someone observing you naked, sexual attractive partners, or smelling delightful foods, by this means initiating particular approaches that in ancestral environments would have led to targeted adaptive responses. Because of the things that people are involved in on a daily basis it is evident that this hypothesis holds some value. For instance, the outcome of fear can take on what is called protective responses including flight, while the outcome to sexual desire is desiring your partner.

ANCESTRAL INDICATIONS ELICT SPECIFIC EMOTIONS
Fear and Ancestral Sources of Danger
As already stated, conceivably nowhere is there better evidence for the domain-specificity of emotion than in the domain of fear. Current surroundings hold a large quantity of dangerous terrorizations that hardly evoke a minute’s warning. People consistently drive speedy vehicles, be employed around bases of electrical hazard, and expose themselves to hazardous materials without sweating. Nevertheless, if an insect bites you can see and hear behavior changes that are noticeable a block away. The question here is “Isn’t it strange how people are not in fear of things that can really kill them (vehicles and toxic waste materials) and yet display an almost debilitating fear of things that present only a small threat (rats and cats)?
According to evolutionary psychologists the spreading of fear stimuli is dated back to the legacy of evolutionary past. The absence of fear responses to evolutionarily novel sources of danger (automobiles, electrical outlets, etc.), for example, suggests that emotional responses are not simply the product of rational deliberation. Instead of people fearing driving cars, electrical outs, or dangerous setting they fear ancient mechanisms that are of harm to include dangerous animals, bodily insults, heights, social evaluation, and the risk of social exclusion (Ohman & Mineka, 2001). Research has reveal that fear of snakes is perhaps the best example yet. Although in current surroundings snakes do not pose much of a threat they bite and can still be lethal to humans. There have been studies conducted in science laboratories by researchers where they did mild electrical shocks to cause people to have a fear for snakes and snake like stimuli. However trying to condition fear to other stimuli is difficult and even more difficult for people who a strong semantic association for shock (Ohman & Mineka, 2001). It is most difficult to distinguish biologically prepared fear responses versus responses to evolutionarily sources of harm.
Nesse (2005) concluded that one out of the several curiosities of evolved fear responses is that they often appear over responsive. For instance, creatures that hid to seek their prey show reactions of being scared and because of their flight reaction clearly demonstrates that they are that they are scared creatures that target prey show scare and flight reactions at rates that propose that they miscalculating the risk (Bouskila & Blumstein, 1992). And when taking a look at the human tendency to obtain and maintain snake fears on the basis of slim evidence can also be regarded of as a bias (Haselton & Nettle, n.d). Rather than signifying irrationality, this hyper-sensitivity to specific environmental signs may be due to error management.
For example, when expressing the costs of defensive reactions are minor (time spent fleeing), whereas not fleeing can cause consequences to become deadly (failing to escape a predator). According to Haselton & Nettle (nd), it pays to error on the side of making false positive errors rather than false negative errors, even if this increases overall error rates. Overall, sometimes our emotional reactions of over responsiveness may have an erroneous effect that may make assumption that (fear, anxiety, and aggression) are not well intended.
Specific Emotions and Sex-Linked Adaptive Problems
Not only is function specificity manifested in cross-species conflicts (animals vs. humans), but also appears in a diversity of within-species conflicts for which humans appear to have evolved special-purpose emotional machinery. For instance, when it comes to the domain of mating men and women have historically faced different adaptive difficulties, and it has been proposed by evolutionary psychologists that the sexes have developed dissimilar solutions to a number of sex-linked adaptive difficulties.
Buss (1989) suggested that sometimes dealing with a person could hinder one’s goals that they are trying to accomplish, for example through anger and fear. When a some type of intrusion is identified, pessimistic emotions (anger) can attract attention to the type of intrusion, mark imperative occasions for storage in memory, and initiate behavioral practices that serve to lessen present and forthcoming intrusion. To the degree that the sources of strategic interference change amongst the sexes, one expects to notice sex dissimilarities in the emotional reactions that they stimulate.
A widely studied example is sexual jealousy. Because of female fertilization, men are unclear of paternity, while women are at all times confident of maternity, therefore women do not face this difficulty. As a result, evolutionary psychologists suggested that men may experience greater jealousy in reaction to indications to sexual adultery than women do (Daly, Wilson, & Weghorst, 1982). Even though study on this hypothesis is apprehensive with disagreement (Buller, 2005), the majority of the proof, comprising countless multicultural studies, has establish that men report larger amount jealousy in reaction to imagined adultery than do women, however obviously both men and women find all methods of unfaithfulness exceptionally displeasing (Haselton, Buss, Oubaid & Angleitner, 2005). According to Buss & Shackelford (1997) reliable with the jealousy hypothesis, men demonstrate more jealousy if their spouses are greater in reproductive value and Haselton & Gangestad (2005) proposed that when men spouses are reaching ovulation and the possibility of extra-pair conception as a result of an affair is greatest.
When it comes to mating deception, women can become far angrier when dealing with a partner who exaggerates his feelings to have sexual intercourse and cannot uphold his promises after sexual intercourse, while men are greater disappointed in response to being sexually led on (Haselton et al., 2005). Deceptive manipulations of sex-linked partner partialities also produce sexual dissimilarities in degree of emotional disappointment. Women are known to become very upset as well as disappointed if her partner lies or is not truthful about his yearly income, however men can also become very upset or disappointed if a woman lies about her level of sexual involvement (Haselton et al., 2005).
Emotions also track experience-contingent shifts in costs and benefits for the sexual partners. Having sexual intercourse for the first time can have the possibility for a woman to become pregnant so it is important for her to secure commitment from her partner of choice. A man having sexual intercourse with his partner for the first time most often has achieved what he was out to get but he also stand the chance of being in a unwanted relationship. After having sexual intercourse for the first time men and woman feelings are indeed different. Women more frequently than men experience feelings of wanting to be committed to their partner (Haselton & Buss, 2001), while on the other hand men because of the numerous partners they have been engaged with do not want to move towards making commitments with their partners (Haselton & Buss, 2001). When in this situation women are more prone to trying to secure their investment of their partner are removed themselves from embarrassing situation with partners who does not want to consider long term relationships.
The two partners may have different feeling of regret about sexual intercourse. The feeling of regret is designed to help the two partners make better decisions in the future by enabling them to avoid making mistakes that have imperative consequences (Roese, 2005). If this is a correct finding feelings of regret should alleviate problems for making the right choices when choosing a partner for women and alleviate men from having problem with attracting several partners. Haselton and his colleagues projected that the cost for sexual opportunities that have been missed would have been more for ancestral men then the women, whereas having sexual intercourse with and undesirable partners would have been more costly for women the men. As anticipated, in response to regret women reported that they would regret having sexual intercourse in a relationship that was short term. On the other hand men reported missing a sexual intercourse attractive opportunity (Haselton et al., 2005). These results were gather by participants with these past experiences. Both men and woman stated that they regretted sexual commission more than sexual omission, but women reported more intensely on the regrets for sexual commission.
Overall, because of evolutionary history the emotions men and woman experienced during that time made a great impact on specific adaptive problems. Because of this history men react more aggressive to being lied to about being faithful by his partner, being led on by sexual intercourse, and cheated on. Men tend to like the idea of first time sex and stated that if they missed the first time sex it would be regrettable. Women tend to react aggressive when men lie about making commitments in order to receive sex and their status level. After having sex for the first time women are ready for commitment because of the feeling changing. But a woman will feel the feeling of regret when her partner turns out to be not desirable. .
The Function of Moral Disgust When considering the sensitivity of emotions it should not just focus on fitness costs and benefits between the sexes but also the cost and benefit for people of the same sex.
Rozin, Lowery & Elbert (1994) stated that several researchers looked at disgust as a way intended to discard poisonous or pathogenic substances, and to escape the expense of sexual behaviors for instance, committing incest with relatives (Fessler & Navarrete, 2003). There are several sources that state that the feeling of disgust is surely different from the feeling of sexual of evidence point out that feelings of disgust are certainly different to feelings of sexual arousal (Fessler & Navarrete, 2003).
When woman start to ovulate the risk of conceiving a child is increased. Fessler & Navarrete (2003) stated that when a woman is ovulating she feels a little more sensitivity in the sexual domain area then in other areas. It is proposed that a woman chance of conceiving is based on the day her minstrel period starts the sensitivity in sexual domain is said to also have started (Haidt et al., 1994). The results shows that the two cues were much likely to predict the ancestral sex the length of the female cycle position and the elicit in sexual disgust.
EMOTIONS AND BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES Because of ancestrally circumstances emotions have been viewed as the adaptive fit with the situations that produce them. Even though emotions are said to be triggered by highly specific stimuli it does not just evolves like that, but they do evolve when functional responses with real effects are present. Examples of this are by adaptively shifting perceptions, behaviors, and decisions. Clore, Schwarz, & Conway (1994) stated that some well-known emotional influences are considered perception, behavior, and decision-making. Because of the research conducted by Clore and his colleagues much of this research has focused on detailed accounts of the proximate mechanisms through which emotions influence these phenomena.
LOVE AND COMMITMENT
Humans tend to have the ability to pursue many different mating strategies. There are some men that are highly desirable that tend to have multiple female partner’s this is either done through the maintaining of simultaneous affairs with several women (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). Therefore can be done by the selection remating of progressively younger women that is effectively taking over by the reproductive careers of many females (Buss, 2003). There are some men that do not have the pleasure of this process of selection are still able to gain the advantage of sexual partnership by investing in a long term relationship where there is an investment in a child that ensures the greater offspring, health, and success (Hurtado & Hill, 1992). In according to Gangestad & Simpson (2000), women also tend to engage into mating strategies. Women engage into mating strategies that suggests that they have a strong preference for a long-term partnership than to have a short term affair (Buss, 2003). There are other mating strategies that are inherited from the ancestral human that are all not the same, and therefore have been benefited from the exclusive coupling at some point in life (Pillsworth & Haselton, 2005). With the temptations of other romantic advances and the human proclivity there is an overweight in the desire of short-term temptations. According to Frank 1988, have hypothesized that the emotions of love have served to be a commitment device. The feeling of guilt of even considering cheating can be deterred by romantic defection, the feeling of love and the ability to stay committed to one mate helps a person to want the commitment of a single relationship (Ketelaar & Goodie, 1998). People that say that they are in love believe that there is no one else other than their specific other. They feel like they can only experience good feelings with their partner and turn away from the temptation of other mating chances.
As stated by Frank (1998) searching for a partner should be alleviated if love is considered a device for commitment. Gonzaga and colleagues (2005) founded that the feeling of being in love should cause attractive opportunities to cease. Gonzaga and his colleagues continued their study and hypothesized that a desire for sex, closely related emotion, are tentatively not commitment devices, and the effect will not be the same. The used thought suppression to test their hypothesis. Many studies have been conducted on people trying to suppress their thoughts and experienced an inconsistent flow of the thoughts as linked to people who never tried to suppress their thoughts. If thought suppression is used as a commitment device, it may suppress also your romantic thoughts and alternatives. To examine this hypothesis, Gonzaga and colleagues asked people to participate in a study by writing essays on suppressing or expressing their thoughts of their love or sexual desire for the one whom they call their partner. The results of this study indicated that the suppress thought of attractive other and relative to the sexual desire condition, people who participated in the love condition had less thoughts of the attractive other, indicating successful suppression of thoughts of the attractive other (Wegner & Gold, 1995).
There has been research conducted that provided support to back the commitment theory for emotions to suggest that emotions that are discrete and the effects may also pass off as being discrete. Also both desire and love were reference to the participants’ romantic partner and the others were attractive by only thoughts of love.
Specific Emotions and Decision Making: Fear, Anger, & Disgust
Research on the social cognition of emotion and decision-making has took focus on the contiguous mechanisms through which valenced mood states influence decision-making.In recent times, researchers have decided that there was a need to move past the research they were conducting on valence to look at the impact of specific emotional states on decision making (Van Kleef, de Dreu, & Manstead, 2004). According to Zeelenburg & Pieters (2005) a portion of the research focused on intrapersonal emotions, which motivated people to pursue opportunities that they had rejected at one point in their life and regretted it. This action is known as post-decision regret. Another line of research conducted on intrapersonal emotions were one where anger motivates someone to punish another in a public game (Fehr & Gaetcher, 2002). Studies show that there are both positive and negative emotions on decision making. And neither effects emotion the same. For instance, Fessler, Pillsworth, & Flamson (2004) projected that because anger, disgust, and valance are similar they do not effect behavior the same. Anger is a form of aggressive behavior but can be controlled by trying to deter it through action against the source. Disgust motivates distancing from the source. Lerner, Small, & Loewenstein, (2004) suggest that even though both emotions are considered negative, they both should still have very different effects. Consistent with these hypotheses, anger in males increased drastically in the economic game; disgust had no effects. In the same economic game anger did not affect women, but decreased by disgust. For women, one might expect even more dramatic effects if the task involved risks directly linked with contamination.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, approaches that are used to determine the effect of emotions are not new to psychology. A multiplicity of social cognitive and clinical approaches have impacted the role of emotion. It impacted mental health, subjective happiness, and wellbeing. The evolutionary approach is very unique in emotions. Instead of placing focus on what it does it places focus on why emotions functions the way it does. It also indicates that emotion irrational emotions can sometimes aid in reasoning and not hinder. When viewed through a Darwinian lens, many of the proximate effects of emotion that appear to illustrate defects in reason can be viewed, instead, as evidence for well-designed influences on perception, decision-making, and behavior.

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