Deliberately and Emotionally Behaving to Live

Behavior is strongly influenced by emotions, not simply our early or later judgements of a situation or by cost-benefit analyses. For this reason, human decision-making is far from technological accuracy and more in the direction of socially adaptive responses (see work by Kahneman and Taversky from the 1970s). As humans, we basically give better priority to living long while being correct generally, and most of the time. If we were ruthlessly accurate, relationships and friendships wouldn't exist. Moreover, peace wouldn't be possible despite relatively absurd conditions throughout society, we wouldn't even begin to work toward long-term goals and may even be at the brink of depression most of the time due to knowing ourselves and others entirely.

So why are emotions useful despite being 'mathematically incorrect' many times?

For a long time in psychology, the mere mention of the term 'emotion' felt like a mistake, error, or even noise -- an illegitimate child of the conscious and unconscious. Good serious experimenters 'controlled' for emotion until recent times. Emotion was the lost or overly expressed uncontrollable stream that led to behavioral extremity or an unhealthy personality. In essence, according to this antiquated view, any poorly understood emotion made us closer to animals and hence had to be controlled properly. Then came the phase of emotions being seen as unusual expression by mainly women, particularly if not understood by wooden Victorian men of the 1920s. Fortunately, due to commendable research-based efforts, particularly after the 1960s, emotion became better understood which then made the regulation of emotions better recognized, eventually even helping us understand how we could use our emotions to our advantage, blended with thought, to generate adaptive behaviors beneficial in the long run.

The scholarly idea of emotions developing for our advantage isn't a new thought though. For better insight, Charles Darwin's The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals published in 1872 is a good source attesting this fact. Later this work was empirically shaped further by Paul Ekman and colleagues. In recent decades, the model of emotion and thought influencing behavior became common consensus, affectionately called the ABC of the human experience (affect, behavior, and cognition).

My own interest in emotion began as an undergraduate student in 2004 when I used to observe emotional expressions while waiting to administer human factors research as a research assistant. By next semester, I was in a psychology lab closer to emotion research. Over the decades, from what I have learned about emotions, one question that's been central to me is 'How can we use the adaptive functions of emotions in systematically changing behavior?" Even in this, what has been clear, so far, is how different emotions work differently when considering behavioral outcomes. Some emotions such as contentment don't even have a clear behavioral outcome. Other behavioral outcomes such as ones evoked by anger may vary depending on the righteous or ill understood nature of the circumstances, before and after. However, one thing is clear -- How emotion is going to shift can determine if intention will get translated into behavior. This may work differently for separate emotions or for a set of emotions working together in relation to the contextual demands.

Systematic research may want to explore the way in which different emotions make particular behavior(s) more or less likely while keeping the threshold for adaptability in mind.

Some emotions may be better at higher levels, in intensity and frequency, others not so much. As a speculation, fear can be useful if well-understood and at moderate levels coupled with concrete steps to mitigate the fear. Here, the threshold for adaptive response for fear may be predicted as mild to moderate. In contrast, disgust may have to be more survival or morality based coupled with public commitment meaning a higher threshold to encourage behavioral shift. The term 'threshold' in emotional expression means how much external or internal discomfort is required for the resulting behavior to get expressed. If a person has a low threshold for anxiety, for example, they easily become nervous in social situations. A socially gregarious person will have a higher threshold for anxiety in social scenarios.

Positive emotions may also lead to behaviors in systematic ways. For example, gratitude generates prosocial behaviors, becomes better when set as a norm and rooted in generative tendencies, all found in relevant research (e.g., see work by David DeSteno and others who study the social psychology of gratitude. For frequency of gratitude, personality and developmental factors tend to matter more). Therefore, for gratitude, the threshold for changing behavior would matter in terms if immediacy or if based on benefits that impacted one's life course. In rest of the gratitude experiences, more deliberate effort is typically required.

Similarly, social and cultural factors can influence other emotions more closely to bring about behavior based on pride. Here, internalized goals and identity would matter more, followed by collectively felt authentic pride (rather than hubristic pride) leading to more dynamic behavioral scenarios in which bringing change for many people might be crucial. Other emotions such as inspiration, awe, guilt, embarrassment, hope, and even blended emotions may be considered similarly.

The space from intent to behavior has often been the farthest distance in psychological research, particularly when the joining emotional and contextual processes weren't understood well. This has been true in decision making, in expressing altruism, and in resolving moral dilemmas when we have little information and time. Fortunately, today, we have the psychometric tools to propel constructive movement in this direction.