Contextualising the Concept of the Basic Emotion: An Historical Examination of the Theories of Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer

Abstract

Much Psychological research into affect, both historically and currently, focuses on examining emotions in terms of how basic or fundamental they are to human behaviour. This paper will present an historical examination of the idea of basic emotions by describing the views of two of the major theorists of the mid-nineteenth century, Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer. It will examine the debate between them in order to illustrate how different constructions of the concept of basic emotions are produced and will conclude that these are contingent on particular theorists’ views about the most salient or prominent aspects of human emotional states and, further, are subject to influence from particular social and academic assumptions of the time.