Emotions adaptively mobilize attention, behavior hierarchies, and physiology to respond to environmental demands.

Evidence

Emotions are short-lived psychological-physiological phenomena that represent efficient modes of adaptation to changing environmental demands. Psychologically, emotions alter attention, shift certain behaviors upward in response hierarchies, and activate relevant associative networks in memory. Physiologically, emotions rapidly organize the responses of disparate biological systems including facial expression, somatic muscular tonus, voice tone, autonomic nervous system activity, and endocrine activity to produce a bodily milieu that is optimal for effective response. Emotions serve to establish our position vis-a-vis our environment, pulling us toward certain people, objects, actions and ideas, and pushing us away from others’. — Michael T. Schmitt, Daniel A. Miller, Nyla R. Branscombe, and Jack W. Brehm, The Difficulty of Making Reparations…, 24

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Emotional intensity is capped by the subjective importance of the emotion’s function. — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 589; Adaptive problems reduce to reading imperfect environmental cues of two kinds. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 31; Emotions function as motivational drives that organize behavior toward valued outcomes. — Michael T. Schmitt, Daniel A. Miller, Nyla R. Branscombe, and Jack W. Brehm, The Difficulty of Making Reparations…, 22 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Fear adaptively prompts avoidance while anger mobilizes group response #exemplifies (0.90) — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 19
• Emotions function as motivational drives that organize behavior toward valued outcomes. #expands (0.85) — Michael T. Schmitt, Daniel A. Miller, Nyla R. Branscombe, and Jack W. Brehm, The Difficulty of Making Reparations…, 22
• Evolution tuned humans to feel distinct emotions for distinct intergroup threats #exemplifies (0.82) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2275
• Genetically evolved sentiments can motivate action against self-interest #exemplifies (0.78)
• Emotions function as pedagogical signals demanding agenda flexibility #expands (0.76)
• Evolutionary psychology explains present psychological processes as adaptations to ancestral environmental problems. #corroborates (0.75) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 489