Anusuya Ghimire

Emotions play an integral role in human existence. Be it experiencing happiness at something good happening to us, or anger upon going through something we perceive to be unjustified; we all experience emotions. Ekman (1992) outlines six basic emotions present in all human beings, namely, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. However, the question remains: are emotions innate or is it something we have learned over time? Do emotions serve a purpose or are they simply a byproduct of evolutionary processes with no adaptive significance?

Evolutionary psychology aims to explain the existence of emotions from a natural selection standpoint. Proponents of evolutionary psychology like Nesse state that the presence of emotions - be it positive or negative - grant us a clear fitness advantage. According to Nesse, emotions have two major roles: enhancing adaptive response to critical situations and enhancing goal-directed behaviour.

Quick Reactions
The presence of emotions enables us to react quickly to opportunities and threats to our survival, giving us “gut feelings” on whether we should approach or avoid certain situations. While negative emotions like anxiety and fear might not appear to be beneficial at first sight, ignoring these negative emotions is more detrimental for survival than the consequences of not responding to positive stimuli. Negative emotions, Nesse argues, enable us to act appropriately in the presence of negative stimuli. As such, negative emotions serve the function of narrowing the focus of attention on negative stimuli and increasing vigilance to counteract these threats.
However, research has shown that we have a specific way of reacting to emotions and acting out negative emotions can incur heavy costs for the actor. For instance, the feeling of fear caused due to a negative stimulus in our ancestors caused them to be hypervigilant of their surroundings but the same emotion of fear in us might lead us to develop anxiety disorders, excessive rumination and a myriad of other problems.

To explain this better, Seligman posited the “Preparedness Theory” which argues how negative emotions are safety-signal conditioning which has equipped us to make snapshot decisions regarding environmental threats, giving us survival and reproductive advantage. This perspective argues that emotions are learned responses and thus malleable. As such, holding the belief of emotional malleability could be positive as our responses can be unlearned and replaced with something useful based on personal experiences.

Negative emotions are more abundant and function-specific than positive emotions because of the presence of a greater number of threats than opportunities in the ancient environment (Nesse, 1990). But what about positive emotions? What functions do they serve? Positive emotions are found to be fewer and less differentiated than negative emotions, but they still play a vital role in survival. Positive emotions have been found to expand attentional focus and knowledge in humans (Fredrickson, 1998). For instance, the feeling of joy drives us to seek new opportunities and engage in play to develop social resources for future use.
Similarly, engaging in different stages of love has been known to promote inclusive fitness. Affectionate emotions have also been linked to reciprocity and altruism, improving the overall rate of survival and harmony. With the evidence in hand, we have clear support for the use of positive emotions.

Research has outlined that the occurrence of emotions relies on proximate causes (event immediately responsible for the observed result) rather than ultimate causes. Evolutionary psychology takes the stance that emotions are innate and exist as a result of evolutionary adaptation. This comes from Darwin’s theories on emotions where he argued for the universality of these innate emotions, i.e., every human being has emotions, and they express it in a certain way regardless of culture and upbringing.

Darwin theorised that emotions reflect internal psychological states. Similarly, psychologist William James stated that the brain monitors our physical state and generates appropriate internal responses- emotions (James, 1884). Similarly, experiments in the past few decades have shown how physical states lead to feeling appropriate emotional states. Emotions, thus, result in psychological, cognitive and behavioural reactions to internal and external states.

Evolution Theory
Darwinian theorists and adherents of evolution posit both the innateness and universality of emotions with the theory that emotions are evolutionary adaptations. The innateness of emotions can be best supported by studies in infants as they’ve had minimal cultural influence.
To investigate whether we are born with the ability to recognise and categorize emotions or whether it is a result of cultural influence, we look at a study that employed a series of experiments to test: the recognition of variation in the intensity of facial expressions, categorization of the intensity of facial expression (smiling), discrimination of facial expressions (smile vs. fear) and the discrimination of novel expression on a novel face from a novel smile.

The findings showed that by 5 months, infants can discriminate between individuals with similar facial expressions, the various intensity of emotional expression and different facial expressions- both in same and different faces. It can thus be said that emotions are innately present in humans.
The universality of emotions has been extensively studied through facial expressions. One such study supporting universality and thus innateness of emotional expression was done in a remote culture in New Guinea that had little to no contact with other cultures outside of their own.

This study consisted of two groups: those who had no contact with other cultures and those who had considerable exposure to Western culture. The participants were told a story, shown pictures of varying facial expressions of Caucasian individuals and asked to identify the appropriate emotional display of the story. Participants, even those who had ever been familiarised with Western culture, could correctly identify correct emotional display through facial expressions indicating facial expression and emotions to be universal.
However, these theories of universality and innateness proposed by evolutionary psychology have been challenged by the proponents of the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) who hold a “tabula rasa” view of human nature.

For instance, a key figure in refuting any suggestions about emotions being shaped by anything other than cultural factors is Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist who posited that emotions are uniquely developed by each culture in individuals. According to the SSSM model, universality nor innateness of emotions is possible as we learn all that we are from our environment.
The support for the SSSM model comes from studies on cultural differences in facial expressions of emotions. One particular study was done on seventy-nine adults from a western culture who were shown pictures of Japanese and American individuals and asked to identify their nationality based on their display of emotions.

The results showed that the participants could accurately identify the cultural background of individuals based on their facial expression of emotions indicating that nonverbal accents differ across individuals from different cultures. The findings can further be extrapolated to the theory that there are cultural differences in how individuals express emotions, suggesting that extreme positions regarding the universality of emotions lack concrete and complete evidence.

Cultural Norms
However, amidst the polarising theories of culture vs. genes/ nature vs. nurture debate lies the answer. Research in the field of emotions has shown that the display of emotions depends upon the culture as cultural norms dictate the frequency and intensity of emotional expressions.

This phenomenon also called “display rules” explained how the universal expression of emotions through facial expressions is managed and modified concerning socio-cultural context. Similarly, Ekman’s neuro-cultural theory of emotional expression also shows how the biological underpinnings of prototypes of universal expressions are affected by cultural norms. As such, the presence of emotions is universal. However, how we express these emotions is largely influenced by one’s cultural upbringing.

Extant literature, while supporting the evolutionary origins of emotions, also shows that culture and learning play a large part in how emotions are expressed. Therefore, while emotions are universally present and innate, the expression of said emotions also largely rest on cultural norms and learning.

The question of whether emotions are evolutionary adaptations can be answered not through nature vs. nurture, but rather through a combination of nature and nurture. Yes, emotions are evolutionary adaptations, but these very emotions are also shaped by culture and learning.

(Ghimire is currently pursuing Bachelor’s degree in psychology at Webster University)