 |
|
|
Why have we evolved to experience emotions? |
|
|
|
|
The emotions have long been ignored by psychologists, who have concentrated on more easily measurable processes like memory and learning. But social scientists are now finally focussing on feelings, as evidence piles up that we are at the mercy of our emotions.
|
|
|
 |
|
Listen again to Series 1 here >>
Listen again to Series 2 below
Emotions are defined as complex reactions that engage our bodies and minds. After the success of the first series of Emotional Rollercoaster, Claudia Hammond climbs aboard again to examine 5 more emotions. In each programme she'll range from why we've evolved to experience it to how the brain produces it, introducing us both to the scientists who are conducting the latest research and to people like you and me who ride the emotional rollercoaster daily.
Programme 1 - Disgust - 2 March 2004
It's been described as 'the pull-away' emotion, yet we're also fascinated by disgusting things, particularly as children. There's a huge range of things that make us go 'ugh!' and this programme asks why? Could it be a way of making us shun contamination and potential disease-threat? Is what we're pulling away from actually a reminder of our own mortality? Or is disgust simply a way of providing the rules we need if we're to function as a social group? And could sufferers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder simply be hyper-sensitive to disgust?
 Listen again to Programme 1
Taking part:
- Senior Lecturer in Hygiene Promotion at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Hygiene in the Home: relating bugs and behaviour - Social Science and Medicine 57
Talking Dirty: How to save a million lives - International Journal of Environmental Health Research 2003
- at University of Pennsylvania
Mary Douglas - Professor of Anthropology, University College London (retired)
Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo - Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books
Paperback - 12 September, 2002 ISBN: 0744800110
, Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco
Emotions Revealed: Understanding Faces and Feelings - Weidenfeld and Nicholson 2003 ISBN: 029760757X
Paperback due out June 2004 Phoenix ISBN: 0753817659
Michael Rosen
Howler - Bloomsbury 2004 ISBN: 0747556369
This is Not My Nose - Penguin Books 2004 ISBN: 0141015837
Programme 2 - Joy - 9 March 2004
While we have endless ways of describing sadness and misery, joy and happiness occupy a very small portion of our everyday vocabulary. Yet we find joy in many and varied ways, right from the start of life - scans have even shown babies smiling in the womb. But what is joy? Is it simply a label we give to a certain sense of well-being we get when we laugh? Research shows that the simple act of laughing makes us feel happy, and now there's evidence that just by imagining ourselves laughing we can capture that joyful feeling.
Listen again to Programme 2
Taking part:
- artist
Nicola presents Laugh Out Loud here on Radio 4 at 8.30pm on May 3rd.
, Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco
(see series 1)
The Science of Emotion: Research and Tradition in the Psychology of Emotions - Randoph R Cornelius 1997
US Imports & PHIPEs; ISBN: 0133001539
- Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Autonomous Systems, University of the West of England
Emotion: The Science of Sentiment - Oxford University Press 2001; ISBN: 019285433X
- Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge
- , Michigan State University
Programme 3 - Sympathy - 16 March 2004
It used to be thought that the ability to feel sympathy did not emerge until an infant was well over a year old - until they had the beginnings of a theory of mind, and were able to distinguish themselves from the world around them. But new research shows that even small babies cry when they hear other babies crying; it seems that we're born sympathetic. But the danger lies in feeling too much empathy; if you put yourself in another's shoes, you may experience their distress to such an extent that you're rendered incapable of helping them. General practitioners have to tread this fine line daily.
Listen again to Programme 3
Taking part:
(see series 1)
- Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Autonomous Systems, University of the West of England
- Regents Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University
- Professor of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London
Programme 4 - Love - 23 March 2004
It's the emotion we all crave, yet it's the one that can cause the most pain. Why do we not learn the lesson of love, but continue to seek out the partner of our fantasies, instead of settling for the steady, reliable one next door? Is it simply a way of re-creating an adrenolin rush? And is mother-love best, after all? New research shows that oxytocin, the brain chemical which controls the mother-infant bonding process, also features in sexual love.
Listen again to Programme 4
Taking part:
- Professor of Psychology, University of Hawaii
Love, Sex, and Intimacy: Their Psychology, Biology, and History - by Elaine Hatfield, Richard L. Rapson 1994
Longman ISBN: 0065007026
(see series 1)
The Science of Emotion: Research and Tradition in the Psychology of Emotions - Randoph R Cornelius 1997
US Imports & PHIPEs; ISBN: 0133001539
- Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Autonomous Systems, University of the West of England
- Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
Programme 5 - Hope - 30 March 2004
How realistic are our hopes? Researchers have now coined the term 'false hope syndrome' to account for our regular and repeated failures to stick with our new year's resolutions. Yet without hope, it seems, we die. Depression can be defined as the condition of hopelessness, but while we're depressed we're actually much more realistic in our expectations of what is achievable - a gauge of recovery from depression is when the patient's outlook returns to one of unrealistic optimism. So hope is essential, but we must make it realistic if we're to avoid being constantly disappointed.
Listen again to Programme 5
Taking part:
- Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto
The False Hope Syndrome: Unfulfilled Expectations of Self Change - Janet Polivy and C Peter Hermann, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol 9, No 4, August 2000
- Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan
(see series 1)
The Science of Emotion: Research and Tradition in the Psychology of Emotions - Randoph R Cornelius 1997
US Imports & PHIPEs; ISBN: 0133001539
- Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Autonomous Systems, University of the West of England
|
|
|
RELATED LINKS |
|
|
Emotional Rollercoaster - Series 1:
Fear, Anger, Guilt & Shame, Sadness and Jealousy
(including extended Related Links and Further Reading)
|
|
|
|
FURTHER READING |
|
|
The Emotional Brain, by Joseph Le Doux - Orion, 1999
ISBN 0753806703
Seeing Red & Feeling Blue, by Dr Susan Aldridge. Century, 2000
ISBN 071268073X
The Synaptic Self, by Joseph Le Doux - Macmillan, 2002
ISBN 0333781872
|
|
|
|
|
|
