Emotions at the Service of Cultural Construction

Abstract

Emotions signal flaws in the person’s anticipation systems, or in other words, in aspects of models of how the world works. As these models are essentially shared in society, emotional challenges experienced by any individual are of relevance to the community of others. Emotions emerge at the heart of the individual experience, the only place where collective knowledge can be tested against the world. Once felt, emotions generate a cascade of psychological facts: compelling concern, cognitive work, social sharing, and propagation of the social sharing. The larger the fault detected, the more intense the emotion, the more intensive the cognitive work it generates, and the broader the social sharing of the episodic information. Through the social sharing of emotions, common knowledge is updated and enriched.