The Motivational Theory of Emotion

Abstract

Abstract The natural emotions, including both “affect programs” like fear and anger and complex social emotions like envy and guilt, are explained as universal psychological kinds of motivational state. They arise in bouts involving distinctive goals and action tendencies that take control precedence, and they motivate actions that are discontinuous from practical rationality and sometimes conflict with it. The underlying nature of these emotions is revealed in familiar patterns of irrationality, including acting without thinking and emotional recalcitrance. A motivational theory of emotion is defended on the basis of its explanatory power. Objections to natural emotions from neuroscience and the constructivist approach are addressed. It is argued that an episodic approach to emotion also offers the best account of when a durable state should and should not be understood as emotional. Durable emotions should be attributed by their resemblance to emotional bouts and dispositions to them, and their tendency to produce behavior that is similarly discontinuous with practical rationality.