Vygotsky, L.S. (1987) “lectures on Psychology’ in L.S. Vygotskii, R.W.Rieber and A.S. Carton (eds), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Volume 1: Problems of General Psychology pp. (325-337). New York: Plenum Press.
Lecture 4
Emotions and their development in Childhood.
1930s views about emotion
- Attempts to describe sequential relationships of an emotion prevailed.
- Distinction between higher and lower emotions – a form of dualism also V refers and therefore recognises judgement as a psychological process.
- Related to the former point is the developmental nature of emotional life both in the life time of an individual and in an evolutionary context. From instinct – to – aesthetic.
V’s interpretations
V interpreted the James work as p328 ‘ the internal organs provide the foundation for the emotions’ ‘ similarly to Ribot James defined a theory where in V’s opinion ‘ emotions are torn from a unified whole, from the rest of man’s mental life. The James Lange theory provided the anatomical and physiological foundation for this notion’ also ‘theory stripped emotions from consciousness’ he therefore saw Canon’s work as important in that it p332 ‘shifted the emotions from the periphery to the centre’ ( at that point he links up with Freud ).
(KRO - Emotion as a pruning of animal behaviour
Cognition as a development of animal behaviour)
Review approach
Darwin P325 ‘ ‘In sketching the evolution and origin of human expressive movements, Darwin was pursuing his basic evolutionary concept’ it was accepted by religious tradition ‘from their perspective Darwin had shown that man’s earthly passions ….. do actually have animal origins’
Ribot - (1897) The Psychology of Emotion. P326 ‘ emotions…. Are the sole domain of the human mind that can only be understood retrospectively’ ….. ‘man’s affective reactions are remnants of his animal existence, remnants that have been infinitely weakened in their external expression and their inner dynamics’
Fear as inhibited flight, anger as inhibited fight
Spencer argued that p326 ‘ if we compare animals with man, the child with the adult, or the primitive with the cultured man, we see that the emotions fall back to a less prominent plane as the development process moves forward.’ i.e. logical conclusion that man will become a – emotional.
Comment -Vygotsky p326 ‘ our immediate psychological experience and our experimental research demonstrate the absurdity of this position’
James – Lange P326 ‘ Independently of one another, Lange and James assumed the task of locating the source of the vitality of the emotions in the human organism itself . Each followed his own path, James consciously as a psychologist and Lange as a physiologist. Both found the source of vitality of the emotions in the organic reactions that accompany emotional processes’ ‘key to this theory was the introduction of a change in the traditional view of the sequential relationship between the various components of the emotional reaction’
i.e previously perception : experience of emotion : reflexively elicited organic change then J-L perception : reflexively elicited organic change : emotional experience.
P327 ‘ critics argued that James and Lange wanted to reduce human feelings to the reflection of organic processes in consciousness’
P328 ‘James himself argued that it is the historical period of man’s development that higher human feelings of a kind unknown to animals have been developed and perfected’
Comment ‘ Vygotsky p327 ‘ nowhere, for example, were the higher and the elementary functions separated so clearly as in James’s theory of emotions. The further development of his theory was consistently based on this initial separation of the higher and lower emotions.’ ‘ he isolated the emotional experiences that are directly intertwined with our thinking processes , those that constitute an inseparable part of the integral process of judgement, from organic foundations’
Canon
A physiologist who used a range of method contemporary at the time. Evidence challenged the J-L claim that each basic ‘emotional trigger’ leads to a specific pattern of visceral change’ i.e. Canon showed that the organic expressions of different emotions such as rage, fear etc are identical. For example Canon removed a significant part of an animal’s sympathetic nervous system p300’ According to James if we mentally subtract organic expression eg shivering, heart rate, we will find nothing remains of emotions. Canon attempted this subtraction experimentally and found that emotions remain..’ i.e. emotional states are present in animals that lack the corresponding vegetative reactions. Similarly when subjects were injected with substances known to stimulate autonomic reactions similar to those experienced during emotion, it depended on the prior state of the organism as to whether or not these would be effective. ( KRO hence onwards to Schacter and Singer). Overall the J-L theory did not stand up to experimental evidence of Canon ( the physiologist). P331 however ‘as a biologist, Canon had to explain the paradox that emerged from his experiments. If the profound organic changes that occur with intense emotional reactions in animals are completely inessential for the emotions, if the emotions are preserved despite the elimination of all these organic changes, why are these changes necessary from a biological perspective?..............’Canon explained the contradiction in the following way: An intense emotional reaction in an animal is not the end but the beginning of an action. A reaction of this kind arises in a situation of critical life significance for the animal’ …… The organic reactions associated with emotions exist not for the emotion as such but for what logically follows the emotion’ i.e. preparation of the organism for action….. p332 ‘the bodily symptoms are not so much the companions of the emotions as supplements to certain emotional factors that are associated with instincts’ implied that during evolution emotions have become isolated from the ‘ instinctive domain’.
Freud
Dismissive of organic explanation so of emotion. Whatever the current view of Freud’s contribution to the study of emotion he did p333’ demonstrate that the emotions were not always as they are in adult life……. They cannot be understood outside the dynamic of human life. It is within this context that the emotional processes acquire their meaning and sense’
Adler
P333 ‘ demonstrated that in man the functional significance of the emotions is not linked exclusively to the instincts as it is in animals. The emotions are one of the features which constitute the character of an individual’s general view of life. The structure of the individual’s character is reflected in his emotional life and his character is defined by these emotional experiences’
Buhier
P333 ‘took the critique of the Freudian perspective on emotional life as his point of departure’ he argues that what constitutes pleasure changes during development. In this way similar to Freud he sees pleasure as a motivator. However Buhier ‘when pleasure occurs in an activity shifts in accordance with the degree of the child’s development, changing it relationship to other mental processes with which it is connected’
Initially during development pleasure comes at the end. At a later stage e.g. early stage of children’s play, p334 the child receives satisfaction not so much from the result of the activity as the process itself’. Necessary part of gaining essential skills and habits for survival as a human being.. Finally the focal point shifts to onset of an activity p334 ‘ the characteristic of the process involved in creative play.
Claparede
P335 C raises an important question ‘how do we explain the fact that human emotions become more varied with every step mankind takes on the path of historical development. This development and differentiation of the emotions leads not only to the kinds of disorders of mental life that have been explored by Freud but to the entire vast and diverse content of mankind’s mental life including domains such as art………. Why are the individual’s experiences associated with such intense emotion? Why is every critical moment in the fate of the adult or child so clearly coloured by emotion?’
