Social Situations Shape Social Emotions That Benefit Genes

This article by two distinguished emotions researchers proposes “Social Function Theory” as “a next chapter in emotion science.” It hopes to transcend a perceived individualist slant of Paul Ekman’s six basic emotions theory (Ekman 1992), and a perceived excess reliance on two dimensions in Lisa Feldman Barrett’s constructivist position (Barrett 2017) by positing “upwards of 20 discrete emotions” for social situations that co-evolve with cultures. Ekman’s six basic emotions are emphasized to the neglect of scores of other attempts to define alternative sets of basic emotions; the deficit of social emotions is understandable given his aim of documenting universal emotions. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s constructivist view is presented as if two dimensions are at its core, but it seems to me that she acknowledges the evolutionary origins of capacities for responses even as she emphasizes variations in how they are categorized, described, and experienced (Barrett 2013). Attempting to synthesize and transcend these approaches by including more social emotions and more emphasis on cultural variation is worthwhile, but a more radical reframing is required or the effort will likely be merely another attempt to mediate a truce in the “hundred years war” between those who view emotions as natural kinds and those who view them as socially constructed (Lindquist et al. 2013). To reach its full potential, Social Function Theory needs to step away from those old battles and build on an evolutionary foundation of how natural selection shaped social emotions, and how genes that give rise to social emotions increase the fitness of individuals (Nesse 1990). This evolutionary perspective explains why social emotions are somewhat consistent, but neither distinctly separate nor natural kinds. It also is congruent with recognition that varying emotion categories are constructed from observations of organic systems that are fundamentally different from designed systems.