does a thesis statement include feelings and emotions

Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

• Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
• Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
• Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
• Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
• Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

• Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
• Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

• The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
• The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

• This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
• I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

• nature = peaceful
• war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
• need for time and space to mourn the dead
• war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

• although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
• _______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
• phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

• Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
• Question each part of your draft thesis
• Clarify vague phrases and assertions
• Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

• Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

• Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
• As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
• Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
• Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revising an Argumentative Paper

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

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Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

• In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
• While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
• Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

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Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement: 4 Steps + Examples

What’s Covered:

What is the purpose of a thesis statement, writing a good thesis statement: 4 steps, common pitfalls to avoid, where to get your essay edited for free.

When you set out to write an essay, there has to be some kind of point to it, right? Otherwise, your essay would just be a big jumble of word salad that makes absolutely no sense. An essay needs a central point that ties into everything else. That main point is called a thesis statement, and it’s the core of any essay or research paper.

You may hear about Master degree candidates writing a thesis, and that is an entire paper–not to be confused with the thesis statement, which is typically one sentence that contains your paper’s focus. 

Read on to learn more about thesis statements and how to write them. We’ve also included some solid examples for you to reference.

Typically the last sentence of your introductory paragraph, the thesis statement serves as the roadmap for your essay. When your reader gets to the thesis statement, they should have a clear outline of your main point, as well as the information you’ll be presenting in order to either prove or support your point. 

The thesis statement should not be confused for a topic sentence , which is the first sentence of every paragraph in your essay. If you need help writing topic sentences, numerous resources are available. Topic sentences should go along with your thesis statement, though.

Since the thesis statement is the most important sentence of your entire essay or paper, it’s imperative that you get this part right. Otherwise, your paper will not have a good flow and will seem disjointed. That’s why it’s vital not to rush through developing one. It’s a methodical process with steps that you need to follow in order to create the best thesis statement possible.

Step 1: Decide what kind of paper you’re writing

When you’re assigned an essay, there are several different types you may get. Argumentative essays are designed to get the reader to agree with you on a topic. Informative or expository essays present information to the reader. Analytical essays offer up a point and then expand on it by analyzing relevant information. Thesis statements can look and sound different based on the type of paper you’re writing. For example:

• Argumentative: The United States needs a viable third political party to decrease bipartisanship, increase options, and help reduce corruption in government.
• Informative: The Libertarian party has thrown off elections before by gaining enough support in states to get on the ballot and by taking away crucial votes from candidates.
• Analytical: An analysis of past presidential elections shows that while third party votes may have been the minority, they did affect the outcome of the elections in 2020, 2016, and beyond.

Step 2: Figure out what point you want to make

Once you know what type of paper you’re writing, you then need to figure out the point you want to make with your thesis statement, and subsequently, your paper. In other words, you need to decide to answer a question about something, such as:

• What impact did reality TV have on American society?
• How has the musical Hamilton affected perception of American history?
• Why do I want to major in [chosen major here]?

If you have an argumentative essay, then you will be writing about an opinion. To make it easier, you may want to choose an opinion that you feel passionate about so that you’re writing about something that interests you. For example, if you have an interest in preserving the environment, you may want to choose a topic that relates to that. 

If you’re writing your college essay and they ask why you want to attend that school, you may want to have a main point and back it up with information, something along the lines of:

“Attending Harvard University would benefit me both academically and professionally, as it would give me a strong knowledge base upon which to build my career, develop my network, and hopefully give me an advantage in my chosen field.”

Step 3: Determine what information you’ll use to back up your point

Once you have the point you want to make, you need to figure out how you plan to back it up throughout the rest of your essay. Without this information, it will be hard to either prove or argue the main point of your thesis statement. If you decide to write about the Hamilton example, you may decide to address any falsehoods that the writer put into the musical, such as:

“The musical Hamilton, while accurate in many ways, leaves out key parts of American history, presents a nationalist view of founding fathers, and downplays the racism of the times.”

Once you’ve written your initial working thesis statement, you’ll then need to get information to back that up. For example, the musical completely leaves out Benjamin Franklin, portrays the founding fathers in a nationalist way that is too complimentary, and shows Hamilton as a staunch abolitionist despite the fact that his family likely did own slaves. 

Step 4: Revise and refine your thesis statement before you start writing

Read through your thesis statement several times before you begin to compose your full essay. You need to make sure the statement is ironclad, since it is the foundation of the entire paper. Edit it or have a peer review it for you to make sure everything makes sense and that you feel like you can truly write a paper on the topic. Once you’ve done that, you can then begin writing your paper.

When writing a thesis statement, there are some common pitfalls you should avoid so that your paper can be as solid as possible. Make sure you always edit the thesis statement before you do anything else. You also want to ensure that the thesis statement is clear and concise. Don’t make your reader hunt for your point. Finally, put your thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph and have your introduction flow toward that statement. Your reader will expect to find your statement in its traditional spot.

If you’re having trouble getting started, or need some guidance on your essay, there are tools available that can help you. CollegeVine offers a free peer essay review tool where one of your peers can read through your essay and provide you with valuable feedback. Getting essay feedback from a peer can help you wow your instructor or college admissions officer with an impactful essay that effectively illustrates your point.

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Module 4: Putting Your Source Material to Work

Developing a strong, clear thesis statement, learning objectives.

• Develop a strong, clear thesis statement with the proper elements.
• Revise your thesis statement.

Have you ever known a person who was not very good at telling stories? You probably had trouble following his train of thought as he jumped around from point to point, either being too brief in places that needed further explanation or providing too many details on a meaningless element. Maybe he told the end of the story first, then moved to the beginning and later added details to the middle. His ideas were probably scattered, and the story did not flow very well. When the story was over, you probably had many questions.

Just as a personal anecdote can be a disorganized mess, an essay can fall into the same trap of being out of order and confusing. That is why writers need a thesis statement to provide a specific focus for their essay and to organize what they are about to discuss in the body.

Just like a topic sentence summarizes a single paragraph, the thesis statement summarizes an entire essay. It tells the reader the point you want to make in your essay, while the essay itself supports that point. It is like a signpost that signals the essay’s destination. You should form your thesis before you begin to organize an essay, but you may find that it needs revision as the essay develops.

Elements of a Thesis Statement

For every essay you write, you must focus on a central idea. This idea stems from a topic you have chosen or been assigned or from a question your teacher has asked. It is not enough merely to discuss a general topic or simply answer a question with a yes or no. You have to form a specific opinion, and then articulate that into a controlling idea —the main idea upon which you build your thesis.

Remember that a thesis is not the topic itself, but rather your interpretation of the question or subject. For whatever topic your professor gives you, you must ask yourself, “What do I want to say about it?” Asking and then answering this question is vital to forming a thesis that is precise, forceful and confident.

A thesis is one sentence long and appears toward the end of your introduction. It is specific and focuses on one to three points of a single idea—points that are able to be demonstrated in the body. It forecasts the content of the essay and suggests how you will organize your information. Remember that a thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather dissects it.

A Strong Thesis Statement

A strong thesis statement contains the following qualities.

Specificity. A thesis statement must concentrate on a specific area of a general topic. As you may recall, the creation of a thesis statement begins when you choose a broad subject and then narrow down its parts until you pinpoint a specific aspect of that topic. For example, health care is a broad topic, but a proper thesis statement would focus on a specific area of that topic, such as options for individuals without health care coverage.

Precision. A strong thesis statement must be precise enough to allow for a coherent argument and to remain focused on the topic. If the specific topic is options for individuals without health care coverage, then your precise thesis statement must make an exact claim about it, such as that limited options exist for those who are uninsured by their employers. You must further pinpoint what you are going to discuss regarding these limited effects, such as whom they affect and what the cause is.

Ability to be argued. A thesis statement must present a relevant and specific argument. A factual statement often is not considered arguable. Be sure your thesis statement contains a point of view that can be supported with evidence.

Ability to be demonstrated. For any claim you make in your thesis, you must be able to provide reasons and examples for your opinion. You can rely on personal observations in order to do this, or you can consult outside sources to demonstrate that what you assert is valid. A worthy argument is backed by examples and details.

Forcefulness. A thesis statement that is forceful shows readers that you are, in fact, making an argument. The tone is assertive and takes a stance that others might oppose.

Confidence. In addition to using force in your thesis statement, you must also use confidence in your claim. Phrases such as I feel or I believe actually weaken the readers’ sense of your confidence because these phrases imply that you are the only person who feels the way you do. In other words, your stance has insufficient backing. Taking an authoritative stance on the matter persuades your readers to have faith in your argument and open their minds to what you have to say.

Even in a personal essay that allows the use of first person, your thesis should not contain phrases such as in my opinion or I believe . These statements reduce your credibility and weaken your argument. Your opinion is more convincing when you use a firm attitude.

On a separate sheet of paper, write a thesis statement for each of the following topics. Remember to make each statement specific, precise, demonstrable, forceful and confident.

• Texting while driving
• The legal drinking age in the United States
• Steroid use among professional athletes

Examples of Appropriate Thesis Statements

Each of the following thesis statements meets several of the following requirements:

• Specificity
• Ability to be argued
• Ability to be demonstrated
• Forcefulness
• The societal and personal struggles of Troy Maxon in the play Fences symbolize the challenge of black males who lived through segregation and integration in the United States.
• Closing all American borders for a period of five years is one solution that will tackle illegal immigration.
• Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony in Romeo and Juliet spoils the outcome for the audience and weakens the plot.
• J. D. Salinger’s character in Catcher in the Rye , Holden Caulfield, is a confused rebel who voices his disgust with phonies, yet in an effort to protect himself, he acts like a phony on many occasions.
• Compared to an absolute divorce, no-fault divorce is less expensive, promotes fairer settlements, and reflects a more realistic view of the causes for marital breakdown.
• Exposing children from an early age to the dangers of drug abuse is a sure method of preventing future drug addicts.
• In today’s crumbling job market, a high school diploma is not significant enough education to land a stable, lucrative job.

You can find thesis statements in many places, such as in the news; in the opinions of friends, coworkers or teachers; and even in songs you hear on the radio. Become aware of thesis statements in everyday life by paying attention to people’s opinions and their reasons for those opinions. Pay attention to your own everyday thesis statements as well, as these can become material for future essays.

Now that you have read about the contents of a good thesis statement and have seen examples, take a look at the pitfalls to avoid when composing your own thesis:

• A thesis is weak when it is simply a declaration of your subject or a description of what you will discuss in your essay. Weak thesis statement: My paper will explain why imagination is more important than knowledge.
• A thesis is weak when it makes an unreasonable or outrageous claim or insults the opposing side. Weak thesis statement: Religious radicals across America are trying to legislate their Puritanical beliefs by banning required high school books.
• A thesis is weak when it contains an obvious fact or something that no one can disagree with or provides a dead end. Weak thesis statement: Advertising companies use sex to sell their products.
• A thesis is weak when the statement is too broad. Weak thesis statement: The life of Abraham Lincoln was long and challenging.

Read the following thesis statements. On a separate piece of paper, identify each as weak or strong. For those that are weak, list the reasons why. Then revise the weak statements so that they conform to the requirements of a strong thesis.

• The subject of this paper is my experience with ferrets as pets.
• The government must expand its funding for research on renewable energy resources in order to prepare for the impending end of oil.
• Edgar Allan Poe was a poet who lived in Baltimore during the nineteenth century.
• In this essay, I will give you lots of reasons why slot machines should not be legalized in Baltimore.
• Despite his promises during his campaign, President Kennedy took few executive measures to support civil rights legislation.
• Because many children’s toys have potential safety hazards that could lead to injury, it is clear that not all children’s toys are safe.
• My experience with young children has taught me that I want to be a disciplinary parent because I believe that a child without discipline can be a parent’s worst nightmare.

Writing at Work

Often in your career, you will need to ask your boss for something through an e-mail. Just as a thesis statement organizes an essay, it can also organize your e-mail request. While your e-mail will be shorter than an essay, using a thesis statement in your first paragraph quickly lets your boss know what you are asking for, why it is necessary, and what the benefits are. In short body paragraphs, you can provide the essential information needed to expand upon your request.

Thesis Statement Revision

Your thesis will probably change as you write, so you will need to modify it to reflect exactly what you have discussed in your essay. Remember from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” that your thesis statement begins as a working thesis statement , an indefinite statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process for the purpose of planning and guiding your writing.

Working thesis statements often become stronger as you gather information and form new opinions and reasons for those opinions. Revision helps you strengthen your thesis so that it matches what you have expressed in the body of the paper.

The best way to revise your thesis statement is to ask questions about it and then examine the answers to those questions. By challenging your own ideas and forming definite reasons for those ideas, you grow closer to a more precise point of view, which you can then incorporate into your thesis statement.

Ways to Revise Your Thesis

You can cut down on irrelevant aspects and revise your thesis by taking the following steps:

The linking verb in this working thesis statement is the word are . Linking verbs often make thesis statements weak because they do not express action. Rather, they connect words and phrases to the second half of the sentence. Readers might wonder, “Why are they not paid enough?” But this statement does not compel them to ask many more questions. The writer should ask himself or herself questions in order to replace the linking verb with an action verb, thus forming a stronger thesis statement, one that takes a more definitive stance on the issue:

• Who is not paying the teachers enough?
• What is considered “enough”?
• What is the problem?
• What are the results

It is true that some young women in today’s society are more sexualized than in the past, but that is not true for all girls. Many girls have strict parents, dress appropriately, and do not engage in sexual activity while in middle school and high school. The writer of this thesis should ask the following questions:

• Which teenage girls?
• What constitutes “too” sexualized?
• Why are they behaving that way?
• Where does this behavior show up?
• What are the repercussions?

In the first section of Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?”, you determined your purpose for writing and your audience. You then completed a freewriting exercise about an event you recently experienced and chose a general topic to write about. Using that general topic, you then narrowed it down by answering the 5WH questions. After you answered these questions, you chose one of the three methods of prewriting and gathered possible supporting points for your working thesis statement.

Now, on a separate sheet of paper, write down your working thesis statement. Identify any weaknesses in this sentence and revise the statement to reflect the elements of a strong thesis statement. Make sure it is specific, precise, arguable, demonstrable, forceful, and confident.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

In your career you may have to write a project proposal that focuses on a particular problem in your company, such as reinforcing the tardiness policy. The proposal would aim to fix the problem; using a thesis statement would clearly state the boundaries of the problem and tell the goals of the project. After writing the proposal, you may find that the thesis needs revision to reflect exactly what is expressed in the body. Using the techniques from this chapter would apply to revising that thesis.

Key Takeaways

• Proper essays require a thesis statement to provide a specific focus and suggest how the essay will be organized.
• A thesis statement is your interpretation of the subject, not the topic itself.
• A strong thesis is specific, precise, forceful, confident, and is able to be demonstrated.
• A strong thesis challenges readers with a point of view that can be debated and can be supported with evidence.
• A weak thesis is simply a declaration of your topic or contains an obvious fact that cannot be argued.
• Depending on your topic, it may or may not be appropriate to use first person point of view.
• Revise your thesis by ensuring all words are specific, all ideas are exact, and all verbs express action.
• Successful Writing Section 9.1: Developing a Strong, Clear Thesis Statement. Authored by : Anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/successful-writing/s13-01-developing-a-strong-clear-thes.html . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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8.1: The Place of Emotion in Argument

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We have spent the bulk of this book analyzing arguments’ logical structure. We have mapped out arguments and assessed their reasoning, evidence, and assumptions without referring to our feelings about them. And yet we all know that arguments are not won and lost solely on the merits of the ideas. Humans are not robots. As Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor put it in A Rhetoric of Argument, emotions are “powerful incentives to belief and action." Philosophers and laypeople have long asked what role emotions should have in shaping our ideas. Is it right for arguments to appeal to emotion, or is it a cheap trick? Should we guard against feeling what an argument asks us to feel? Or should we let emotions play a role in helping us decide whether we agree or not?

In one oversimplified view, logic is a good way to decide things and listening to emotions is a bad way. We might make this assumption if we tell ourselves or others, “Stop and think. You’re getting too emotional.” According to this view, no one reasons well under the influence of emotion. Pure ideas are king, and feelings only distort them.

Of course, sometimes emotions do lead us astray. But emotions and logic can work together. Consider Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. Was it illegitimate for him to ask listeners to feel deeply moved to support racial equality? He famously proclaimed, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Should listeners have guarded themselves against feeling sympathy for those four children? If we care about things that matter and an argument is about something that matters, then we will and should have feelings about it. King intertwines his logical argument against racism with an appeal to our empathy, tenderness, and sense of justice.

Not all arguments are as intense as that one. Many, such as scientific journal articles, are calm and dispassionate. But all arguments must call on emotion, broadly defined, because they must motivate readers to stay engaged. Even a captive audience could potentially tune out. Every argument needs a reason to exist, a reason why it is important or relevant or just worth reading. It needs to keep us interested, or, failing that, to keep us convinced that reading on will be worthwhile. This reason to exist is sometimes called exigence . An argument can create exigence and motivate readers in many ways, but all these ways depend on emotion.

Besides the basic human emotions we might recognize on a toddler’s face--anger, joy, sadness, fear, disgust, desire, and surprise--each one with many options for levels of intensity, there are others that we don’t always think of as emotion. If we appeal to readers’ self-interest, we play on fear and hope and desire for emotional, physical and economic wellbeing. Another kind of emotion is the desire for belonging, for a sense of being seen and validated. We feel pride in a group or sense of identity or social status, so references to that shared identity or status appeal to this sense of belonging. Our motivation to uphold our most precious values is bound up in deep feeling.

Another form of emotion present in the most seemingly objective arguments is curiosity. This is often combined with an appeal to a sense of pride in our intellectual capacity. Academic journal articles and popular newspaper and magazine articles and nonfiction books must all appeal to readers’ curiosity about the world and its workings and surprises to encourage them to keep reading. An argument may implicitly invite us to enjoy learning and discovery. It can offer a sense of relief, comfort, and pleasure in ideas laid out clearly in an ordered fashion.

Arguments can call on emotions in support of claims, but they can also make shaping readers’ emotions their primary purpose. An argument may set out to define or change how a reader feels about something. Or, it may set out to reinforce emotions and amplify them. A eulogy, for example, is a speech that praises a person who has passed away, a person usually already known to the audience. It serves to help people feel more intensely what they already believe about the value of the person's life.

In this chapter, we will explore how writers use examples, word choice, and tone to affect readers’ feelings. We will look at how writers can vary their emotional appeals in the course of an argument and adapt them to specific audiences. Finally, we will consider how to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate emotional appeals, between those that fit the logic of the argument and those that stray from it.

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How Emotions Guide Our Lives

Why we should take our emotions seriously..

Posted January 22, 2018 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

Emotions guide our lives in a million ways. Whether we’re inclined to hide and avoid or ponder and express them, most of us don’t realize the extent to which they are driving our thoughts and behavior.

Exploring our emotions is a worthy endeavor for anyone hoping to know and develop themselves, build healthy relationships, and pursue what they want in life. Recent research has even suggested that emotional intelligence is more important than IQ , showing that it “predicts over 54% of the variation in success” in relationships, health, and quality of life.

Our emotions can offer us clues into who we are as well as how we’ve been affected by our history. Many of our actions are initiated by emotion , which leads to the natural question of which emotions are being surfaced and why. Which of these emotions are adaptive and maladaptive? Which may be triggered by the present but rooted in our past?

Dr. Les Greenberg, the primary originator of Emotion-Focused Therapy , suggests we “need to live in mindful harmony with our feelings, not attempt to control them.” Much of that harmony comes from understanding our emotional reactions and distinguishing when our emotions are primary or secondary in nature as well as when they are adaptive or not.

Primary emotions are our first emotional reaction. They’re often followed by a more defended secondary emotion. Sometimes, we are only consciously aware of the secondary emotion: the anger that covers up feeling hurt, the embarrassment overpowering our sadness, or the anxiety masking a deeper fear . For example, if our partner doesn’t show up for us or lets us down in some way, we may feel righteous and enraged. We may stonewall or erupt in our next interaction with him or her. However, if we look at our initial reaction, our primary emotion, we may recognize that we had more vulnerable feelings, such as feeling hurt, unwanted, or ashamed.

These primary feelings give us a glimpse into our needs. When we allow ourselves to get in touch with them, we can then express them to our partner, and we are more likely to generate a very different reaction because we are allowing him or her to feel for us.

Primary emotion “is not the stale resentment followed by resignation at remembering being overlooked for a promotion two years ago; neither is it the sense of complaint that comes from unresolved hurt,” wrote Greenberg in his book Emotion-Focused Therapy . “Instead, it is a vital feeling that often leaves the [person] feeling very open and perhaps vulnerable.” Greenberg further described primary emotions as “less rapid and less action-oriented” than secondary emotions. They are “poignant and full” and “more likely to slowly wash over a person.”

If we imagine a moment of feeling tense, frustrated or stuck in a bad feeling, driven to react without a sense of relief, we were probably caught in a secondary emotion. However, if we were able to access the deeper, more vulnerable feeling, perhaps a want or a need, or a core feeling of sadness or shame , we were then experiencing a primary emotion. Initially, we may have noticed the feeling building, but then easing like a wave. When we allow ourselves to feel a primary emotion, we often experience relief. We aren’t necessarily inclined to act. Instead, we feel more in touch with ourselves, softened yet more alive.

Primary emotions can be either adaptive reactions to the moment or maladaptive reactions based on schemas from our past. Maladaptive primary emotions may be sparked by current events, but they’re tied to a way we felt early in our lives. For example, if we were seen or treated like we were unintelligent or incapable in our family, being called “stupid” or related to as if we’re incompetent in the current day can trigger us to feel deeply pained or ashamed. However, before we can acknowledge this pain or shame, we’re swept up in a secondary emotion like anger, resentment, or defensiveness.

According to Dr. Greenberg, we can identify the thoughts that generate our maladaptive emotional reactions. We may experience what I often refer to as a “ critical inner voice ,” a negative internal commentary that tells us things like, “You made such a fool of yourself. Look at how they’re looking at you. They all think you’re an idiot. You should just get out of here.” This destructive inner coach often gets louder when we feel triggered emotionally.

These critical thoughts can drive us to feel a range of emotions that are painful and maladaptive, which contribute to self-defeating behavior, like holding ourselves back, turning to psychological defenses , or pushing away loved ones. The maladaptive secondary emotions can also lead us to react in ways that are not in our best interest: lashing out to defend ourselves, acting resentful or enraged, driven by thoughts like, “How dare they treat you that way. That was so disrespectful. Who do they think they are to talk to you like that?”

Our maladaptive emotions are based on past schemas. Although, they are not an accurate reflection of who we really are, when we fail to identify these emotions, we may feel stuck living in their shadows. The ironic comfort of their familiarity can even cause us to distort ourselves and others or provoke reactions and scenarios that recreate the emotional climate to which we’re accustomed. We may relate to others based on these old feelings rather than what’s really going on or what we really want.

The good news is we can transform our emotions to become adaptive. Maladaptive emotions often leave us feeling stuck, as if they’re unresolvable, but if we can get to the underlying emotion from an old schema, we can feel the feelings, gain insight into the need underlying the emotion, and take actions to get the need met. We can do this by asking a partner or someone close to us to meet our need or, if necessary, by soothing ourselves. We can take our side by challenging our critical self-attacks and, thereby, offering ourselves compassion and love. We can be more willing to feel our sadness, anger, or the deeper primary emotions that make us feel more connected to ourselves. We can feel our feelings rather than suppressing them and allowing them to silently dictate our lives.

When we live in harmony with our emotions, we become more in touch with who we are. We gain insight into the real core emotions that are causing our reactions, and we can be the one at the wheel, choosing our actions. Feeling is an adaptive mechanism to give us critical information. By focusing on emotion with compassion and curiosity, we can discover who we are and what we want. As Dr. Greenberg put it, “People can find the gem of their adaptive, essential self.”

Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. , is a clinical psychologist, an author, and the Director of Research and Education for the Glendon Association.

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Emotion Theory and Research: Highlights, Unanswered Questions, and Emerging Issues

Carroll e. izard.

Psychology Department, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716-2577; email: ude.ledu.hcysp@drazi

Emotion feeling is a phase of neurobiological activity, the key component of emotions and emotion-cognition interactions. Emotion schemas, the most frequently occurring emotion experiences, are dynamic emotion-cognition interactions that may consist of momentary/ situational responding or enduring traits of personality that emerge over developmental time. Emotions play a critical role in the evolution of consciousness and the operations of all mental processes. Types of emotion relate differentially to types or levels of consciousness. Unbridled imagination and the ability for sympathetic regulation of empathy may represent both potential gains and losses from the evolution and ontogeny of emotion processes and consciousness. Unresolved issues include psychology’s neglect of levels of consciousness that are distinct from access or reflective consciousness and use of the term “unconscious mind” as a dumpster for all mental processes that are considered unreportable. The relation of memes and the mirror neuron system to empathy, sympathy, and cultural influences on the development of socioemotional skills are unresolved issues destined to attract future research.

INTRODUCTION

This prefatory chapter, like every essay, review, or data-based article, is influenced by its author’s feelings about the topics and issues under consideration as well as the author’s personality and social and cultural experiences. To help counterbalance the effects of such influences on this article and provide some perspective on its contents, I present below the major theses that have emerged in my theorizing and research on emotions.

THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES

The key principles of differential emotions theory (DET; Izard 2007a ) have changed periodically. They change primarily because of advances in methodology and research. They may also change as a result of theoretical debates that highlight the need for some clarifications and distinctions among constructs. The current set of principles highlight distinctly different types of emotions and their roles in the evolution and development of different levels of consciousness/awareness and of mind, human mentality, and behavior. The ongoing reformulations of DET principles are facilitated by advances in emotion science, cognitive neuroscience, and developmental clinical science, as well as in social and personality psychology. For the present article, the seven principles below guided the choice of topics and the selective review of the literature on emotions and their relations to cognition, action, and consciousness. They led to a new perspective on emotion-related gains and losses from evolution and opened the door to theoretical development and research on emerging topics such as the role of the mirror neuron system in emotion experiences, empathy, and sympathy and memes and their relations to emotion schemas.

An overarching aspect of the theoretical perspective represented in the following principles and in this article is that emotion and cognition, though often treated correctly as having functionally separate features and influences (e.g., Bechara et al. 2000 , Talmi & Frith 2007 ), are interactive and integrated or mingled in the brain (cf. Lewis 2005 , Pessoa 2008 , Phelps 2006 ). This thesis is consistent with the long-standing recognition of the high degree of connectivity among the brain’s neural structures and systems. I hypothesize that emotion will have substantial and measurable effects on cognition and action when the stimulus or situation is a personally or socially significant one. The foregoing general thesis and the more specific hypothesis seem to run counter to extreme constructivist positions. Such positions (e.g., Barrett 2006 ) define or locate emotion at the level of perception and apparently have no place for the idea of interactions among distinct features of emotion (e.g., motivation/feeling) and cognition (e.g., higher-order conceptual processes). The present position may bear some similarity to componential–dynamic approaches, at least in terms of continuously changing aspects or configurations of mental processes (e.g., Ellsworth 1994 , Scherer 2000 ). However, the present position may differ from the latter in viewing emotion and cognition as always interacting and thus normally precluding pure cognitive and emotion states.

SEVEN PRINCIPLES

• Emotion feeling ( a ) derives from evolution and neurobiological development, ( b ) is the key psychological component of emotions and consciousness, and ( c ) is more often inherently adaptive than maladaptive.
• Emotions play a central role in the evolution of consciousness, influence the emergence of higher levels of awareness during ontogeny, and largely determine the contents and focus of consciousness throughout the life span.
• Emotions are motivational and informational, primarily by virtue of their experiential or feeling component. Emotion feelings constitute the primary motivational component of mental operations and overt behavior.
• Basic emotion feelings help organize and motivate rapid (and often more-or-less automatic though malleable) actions that are critical for adaptive responses to immediate challenges to survival or wellbeing. In emotion schemas, the neural systems and mental processes involved in emotion feelings, perception, and cognition interact continually and dynamically in generating and monitoring thought and action. These dynamic interactions (which range from momentary processes to traits or trait-like phenomena) can generate innumerable emotion-specific experiences (e.g., anger schemas) that have the same core feeling state but different perceptual tendencies (biases), thoughts, and action plans.
• Emotion utilization, typically dependent on effective emotion-cognition interactions, is adaptive thought or action that stems, in part, directly from the experience of emotion feeling/motivation and in part from learned cognitive, social, and behavioral skills.
• Emotion schemas become maladaptive and may lead to psychopathology when learning results in the development of connections among emotion feelings and maladaptive cognition and action.
• The emotion of interest is continually present in the normal mind under normal conditions, and it is the central motivation for engagement in creative and constructive endeavors and for the sense of well-being. Interest and its interaction with other emotions account for selective attention, which in turn influences all other mental processes.

Elaboration and empirical support for principles 1–6 can be found in the following sources and their reference lists ( Ackerman et al. 1998 ; Izard 2002 , 2007a ; Izard et al. 2008a , b , c ; Silvia 2006 ). Principles 1–3 apply to all emotions, and 4–6 primarily concern emotion schemas. Principle 7 consists of propositions about the most ubiquitous of all human emotions—interest-excitement. Specific empirical support does not exist for the hypothesis of continual interest in the normal mind.

In this article, I discuss the issues of defining the term “emotion” and types of emotion, emotion-cognition interactions, emotions and consciousness, relations among types of emotions and types of consciousness, and note some remarkable gains and losses from the evolution of emotions and multiple levels consciousness.

This article addresses a critical need for clear distinctions between basic positive and basic negative emotions and particularly between brief basic emotion episodes and emotion schemas. Unlike basic negative emotions that occur in brief episodes and involve very little cognition beyond minimal perceptual processes, emotion schemas involve emotion and cognition (frequently higher-order cognition) in dynamic interactions ( Izard 1977 , 1984 ; cf. emotional interpretation, Lewis 2005 ).

This article also contrasts phenomenal (primary) and access (reflective) consciousness, considers the construct of levels of consciousness, and questions the integrity of current conceptualizations of the unconscious mind. Typically, psychologists ignore the concepts of phenomenal consciousness and levels of consciousness and do not distinguish these constructs from the unconscious. I conclude by identifying some unanswered questions and briefly comment on a few emerging topics—continuous emotion-cognition interactions, memes and emotions, and the mirror neuron system and empathy—that seem destined to become more prominent in psychological science in the coming years.

ON THE ORIGINS AND NATURE OF EMOTIONS

None of the many efforts to make a widely acceptable definition of emotion has proved successful ( Izard 2006 , Panksepp 2003a ). Yet, I dare once again to raise the 124-year-old storied question asked by James (1884) : What is emotion? It happens that the answer James gave to his own question has a rather popular reprieve in the annals of contemporary neuroscience. Like James, Damasio (1999) argued that brain responses constitute emotion or the body expression of emotion and that emotion feeling is a consequence of the neurobiological (body) expression. In contrast, I propose that emotion feeling should be viewed as a phase (not a consequence) of the neurobiological activity or body expression of emotion (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ).

The Origins of Emotions

Russell (2003) proposed that core affect is continuous in the brain and provides information on the pleasure/displeasure and arousal value of stimuli. In contrast, I have maintained that a discrete emotion or pattern of interacting emotions are always present (though not necessarily labeled or articulated) in the conscious brain ( Izard 1977 , ch. 6; Izard 2007a , b ). Barrett (2006) suggested that discrete emotions arise as a result of a conceptual act on core affect or as a function of “conceptual structure that is afforded by language” ( Barrett et al. 2007 , p. 304). In contrast, we have proposed that discrete emotion feelings cannot be created, taught, or learned via cognitive processes ( Izard & Malatesta 1987 ; Izard 2007a , b ). As Edelman & Tononi (2000) observed, “… emotions are fundamental both to the origins of and the appetite for conscious thought” (p. 218, cf. Izard 1977 , ch. 6). So, perceptual and conceptual processes and consciousness itself are more like effects of emotions than sources of their origin. Discrete emotion experiences emerge in ontogeny well before children acquire language or the conceptual structures that adequately frame the qualia we know as discrete emotion feelings. Moreover, acquiring language does not guarantee that emotion experiences can always be identified and communicated verbally. Even adults have great difficulty articulating a precise description of their emotion feelings (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ).

Thus, emotion feelings can be activated and influenced by perceptual, appraisal, conceptual, and noncognitive processes ( Izard 1993 ), but cannot be created by them. In describing the origins of qualia—conscious experiences that include emotion feelings— Edelman & Tononi (2000) wrote, “We can analyze them and give prescription for how they emerge, but obviously we cannot give rise to them without first giving rise to appropriate brain structures and their dynamics within the body of an individual organism” (p. 15). They maintained that such structures arise as a result of brain changes due to “developmental selection” (p. 79), an aspect of neural Darwinism. Eschewing the cognitive-constructivist approach advocated by Barrett (2006) , Edelman & Tononi (2000) concluded that “the development of the earliest qualia occurs largely on the basis of multimodal, bodycentered discriminations carried out by proprioceptive, kinesthetic, and autonomic systems that are present in the embryo and infant’s brain, particularly in the brainstem” (p. 157).

Emotion Feeling as Neurobiological Activity

Apparently consistent with the position of Edelman (2006) , Langer (1967/1982) , and Panksepp (2003a , b ), I propose that emotion feeling is a phase of neurobiological activity that is sensed by the organism. It is sensed and expressed even in children without a cerebral cortex ( Merker 2007 ). This component of emotion is always experienced or felt, though not necessarily labeled or articulated or present in access consciousness.

Emotion feeling, like any other neurobiological activity, varies from low to high levels of intensity. The autonomic nervous system may modulate the emotion feeling but does not change its quality or valence (cf. Tomkins 1962 , 1963 ). Neither a moderate nor a high level of autonomic nervous system activity is necessary for the emergence of emotion feelings. The conscious mind is capable of detecting and discriminating among slight changes in neurobiological activity and among the resultant qualia ( Edelman 2006 ) that include emotion feelings. [Contrary to earlier formulations ( Izard 1971 , Tomkins 1962 ), neural processes in observable facial expressions may or may not be a part of the critical neurobiological activity involved in emotion feeling.]

Emotion feelings arise from the integration of concurrent activity in brain structures and circuits that may involve the brain stem, amygdale, insula, anterior cingulate, and orbitofrontal cortices (cf. Damasio 2003 ; Lane et al. 1997 ; Panksepp 2003a , b ). Levels of emotion feelings, like other neurobiological activities, range from low and subtle to high and extreme. Current theory and evidence suggest that the feeling component of emotions contributed to the evolution of consciousness and to the affective, cognitive, and action processes involved in goal-oriented behavior.

Defining emotion feeling as a phase of a neurobiological process circumvents the argument that feeling is nonphysical and hence cannot be causal. A counterargument, though, is that at best, feelings are only the qualia of neurobiological processes and not neurobiological activity per se. However, even if this were true, Edelman (2006) maintains that qualia could still be described as causal because they are true representations of core thalamo-cortical activity. Thus, whether or not one accepts the present proposal that feelings are a phase of neurobiological activity, they can still be conceived as causal processes.

The present formulation of the origins and nature of emotion feelings differs from those that describe emotion feeling and emotion state (or emotion-related neurobiological activity) as separate and independent (e.g., Lambie & Marcel 2002 ). Moreover, the view of emotion feeling as a phase of the neurobiological activity or body expression of emotion differs from the idea that neurobiological or body expression must precede emotion feeling ( Damasio 1999 , p. 283). The current description of emotion feeling is tantamount to saying that it is evolved and unlearned neurobiological activity. For those who think that the idea of emotion feelings as evolved neurobiological processes is strange or unfounded, the tough questions are: Where else could emotion feelings come from? What else could they be?

Feeling is the Key Psychological Aspect of Emotion: Motivation and Information

Feeling is the dynamic component in emotion (cf. Panksepp 2003a , b ) and in two related psychobiological processes—entrainment and individuation (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ). The motivational, cue-producing, and informational functions of feelings enable them to entrain, or simplify and organize, what might become (particularly in challenging situations) an overwhelming number of impulses into focused cognitive processes and a few adaptive actions (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ). Such feeling-mediated entrainment of impulses across situations and developmental time facilitates the formation of feeling-cognition-action patterns that constitute individuation—the organization of traits and their assembly into a unique personality. However, feeling an emotion does not guarantee that it will be labeled, articulated, or sensed in reflective consciousness or at a high level of awareness. The level of awareness of an emotion feeling depends in part on its intensity and expression, and after language acquisition, on labeling, articulating, and acknowledging the emotion experience. These capacities, critical to personality and social development, depend on the neural activity and resultant processes involved in symbolization and language.

Through development, the conceptual self becomes important to the process of feeling and expressing an emotion, but a higher-order conceptual “self ” is not essential for either. Infants experience and express basic emotions long before they can provide any evidence of a self-concept ( Izard et al. 1995 ), and so do children without a cerebral cortex ( Merker 2007 ).

Motivational and cue-producing emotion-feeling provides information relevant to cognition and action ( Izard 1971 , p. 185). Others have conceptualized emotion as information, and the topic has inspired a considerable body of related research ( Clore et al. 2001 , Schwarz & Clore 1983 ). Consistent with the idea that emotion feelings are cue-producing and informational phenomena, they may also afford a kind of prescience. Feelings may predict the effect of future stimulations by anticipating the link between future critical situations and subsequent emotion experiences and needs, e.g., danger→fear→safety or loss→sadness→social support (cf. Langer 1967/1982 , Vol. 1, p. 101). Such anticipatory activities can facilitate the socialization processes associated with the learning of emotion-related social skills in an imagined or “as if ” world.

Although an emotion feeling may begin to form reciprocal relations with perception or cognition by the time that it is fully sensed, there is no reason to assume that its quality is altered by perceptual and conceptual processes ( Panksepp 2003a , b ). Actually, the particular quality of each discrete emotion feeling evolved because its effects on other senses, cognition, and action are generally adaptive (cf. Edelman & Tononi 2000 ). For all basic emotions, motivational and action processes occur in similar fashion across situations. Among emotion schemas, however, there are wide differences in motivational, cognitive, and action processes across individuals. The determinants of which particular emotion feeling and what cognitive content occurs in a specific emotion schema include individual differences, learning, culture, and the conceptual processes influenced by them ( Izard 2007a ; cf. Shweder 1994 ).

Agreement on Components and Characteristics of Emotion

Though there is no consensus on a general definition of the term “emotion” (cf. Kleinginna & Kleinginna 1981 ), many experts do agree that emotions have a limited set of components and characteristics ( Izard 2006 ). Although they do not agree in all details, they agree that emotions have an infrastructure that includes neural systems dedicated, at least in part, to emotion processes and that emotions motivate cognition and action and recruit response systems. We may also be reaching a consensus that there are different forms of emotions, e.g., basic emotions rooted and defined primarily in evolution and biology and emotion schemas that include cognitive components that differ across individuals and cultures ( Izard 2007a , Panksepp 2007 ).

Emotions as Causal Processes

Although experts agree that emotions motivate or influence cognition and action, not all agree on precisely what mediates the effects of emotions. The answer may depend on whether it is a basic emotion or an emotion schema. It may also depend on whether and how a distinction is made in the roles of emotion neurophysiology and emotion feelings (cf. Panksepp 2003a , b ).

Arguably, no one thing (even emotion) is ever the sole mediator of personally or socially significant behavior. Other person and contextual variables typically contribute to the causal processes. Yet, I propose that emotion feeling is virtually always one of the mediators of action in response to basic emotion and a mediator of thought and action in response to emotion schemas. Thus, the specific impact of emotion feeling in generating and altering behavior depends on the type of emotion involved in the causal process. Feeling in basic emotion affects action but not higher-order cognition, which has little or no presence in basic emotion processes. Feeling in emotion schemas may frequently affect action and will surely affect cognition. Thinking is a key agent in regulating (sometimes suppressing; Gross 2002 ) and guiding behavior that stems from emotion schemas.

TYPES OF EMOTIONS

Emotions can be usefully divided into two broad types or kinds—basic emotion episodes and dynamic emotion-cognition interactions or emotion schemas. Failure to make and keep the distinction between these two kinds of emotion experiences may be the biggest source of misunderstandings and misconceptions in current emotion science ( Izard 2007a , Gray et al. 2005 ). I included an update on the distinction between types of emotions here for two reasons. First, I see the fundamental nature of emotions and the closely connected issue of emotion-cognition-action processes as central to emotion science, now and for the foreseeable future. Second, I think researchers often look for the correlates and effects of basic emotions (labeled simply as emotions) when the variables in their experiments are actually emotion-cognition interactions or emotion schemas.

Basic Emotions

In the past, I have used the term “basic emotion” in referring to any emotion that is assumed to be fundamental to human mentality and adaptive behavior ( Izard 1977 ). Recently, misunderstandings and debates about its meaning led me to draw a sharp distinction between basic emotions and affective-cognitive structures or emotion schemas ( Izard 2007a ). Here, consistent with that distinction, the term “basic emotion” refers to affective processes generated by evolutionarily old brain systems upon the sensing of an ecologically valid stimulus ( Izard 2007a ).

Basic positive emotions

The basic positive emotions of interest and joy (e.g., an infant’s interest activated by the human face; Langsdorf et al. 1983 ) and joy activated by the familiar face of her mother ( Izard et al. 1995 ) are equally essential to survival, evolution, and development. However, their structure and time course may differ significantly from each other. The infant’s experiences of joy may be relatively brief by comparison with experiences of interest. The basic positive emotion of interest motivates play in early development and thus may have short or relatively long duration.

Basic positive emotions emerge in early ontogeny ( Izard et al. 1995 ). Like the basic negative emotions, they are subject to developmental changes. The most critical of these changes is mediated by the acquisition of language and emotion labels and the ability to communicate (or share) emotion experiences through symbolic processes or language ( Izard 1971 , Izard et al. 2008 ).

Basic negative emotions

Basic negative emotions (sadness, anger, disgust, fear) typically run their course automatically and stereotypically in a brief time span. The basic emotion of fear (or a fear-action episode) was described rather precisely in the earliest human records: “A man who stumbles upon a viper will jump aside: as trembling takes his knees, pallor his cheeks; he backs and backs away …” (Homer’s Iliad , c. 7000 BCE, p. 68).

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that in mammals, the experience and expression of basic fear is mediated by the amygdala ( LeDoux 1996 , Mobbs et al. 2007 ). Typically, basic negative emotions are activated by subcortical sensory-discriminative processes in response to ecologically valid stimuli ( Ekman 2003 , LeDoux 1996 , Öhman 2005 ). Perceptual processes and action usually follow and run their course rapidly and automatically to enhance the likelihood of gaining an adaptive advantage (cf. LeDoux 1996 , Öhman 2002 , Tomkins 1962 ). Because of their nature, some basic negative emotions (e.g., sadness, anger, fear) are difficult to study in the laboratory. Thus, most extant research on what are usually called emotions (most often negative emotions) actually concerns negative emotion schemas.

Basic or fundamental emotions?

The discrete emotions of shame, guilt, and contempt (sometimes called the social or self-conscious emotions) and the pattern of emotions in love and attachment may be considered basic in the sense that they are fundamental to human evolution, normative development, human mentality, and effective adaptation. After language acquisition, the emotions related to the self-concept or self-consciousness are typically emotion schemas that involve higher-order cognition (e.g., about self and self-other relationships) and have culture-related cognitive components ( Tangney et al. 2007 ).

Emotion Schemas: Dynamic Emotion-Cognition Interactions

The core idea of dynamic interaction between emotion and cognition has a long and venerable history dating back at least to the earliest written records: “… Peleus … lashed out at him, letting his anger ride in execration …” (Homer’s Iliad , c. 7000 BCE). The idea was prominently displayed in seventeenth-century philosophy ( Bacon 1620/1968 , Spinoza 1677/1957 ) and was most eloquently elaborated by Langer (1967/1982) .

In the vernacular, as well as in much of the literature of emotion science, the term “emotion” most frequently refers to what is described here as an emotion schema. An emotion schema is emotion interacting dynamically with perceptual and cognitive processes to influence mind and behavior. Emotion schemas are often elicited by appraisal processes but also by images, memories, and thoughts, and various noncognitive processes such as changes in neurotransmitters and periodic changes in levels of hormones ( Izard 1993 ). Any one or all of these phenomena, as well as goals and values, may constitute their cognitive component. Appraisal processes, typically conceived as mechanisms of emotion activation (for a review, see Ellsworth & Scherer 2003 ), help provide the cognitive framework for the emotion component of emotion schemas. Their principal motivational component of emotion schemas consists of the processes involved in emotion feelings. Emotion schemas, particularly their cognitive aspects, are influenced by individual differences, learning, and social and cultural contexts. Nevertheless, the feeling component of a given emotion schema (e.g., a sadness schema) is qualitatively identical to the feeling in the basic emotion of sadness. Though there may be some differences in their underlying neural processes, the sadness feeling in each type of emotion shares a common set of brain circuits or neurobiological activities that determine its quality (cf. Edelman 2006 , Edelman & Tononi 2000 ).

Positive and negative emotion schemas may have a relatively brief duration or continue over an indefinitely long time course. A principal reason why they can endure more or less indefinitely is because their continually interacting cognitive component provides a means to regulate and utilize them. Evidence indicates that experimentally facilitated formation of emotion schemas (simply learning to label and communicate about emotion feelings) generates adaptive advantages ( Izard et al. 2008a ; cf. Lieberman et al. 2007 ). Although we have very little data relating to their normative development, neuroscientists have begun to increase our knowledge of the substrates of emotion-cognition interactions ( Fox et al. 2005 , Gross 2002 , Lewis 2005 , Northoff et al. 2004 , Phelps 2006 ).

Emotion schemas and traits of temperament/personality

Frequently recurring emotion schemas may stabilize as emotion traits or as motivational components of temperament/ personality traits ( Diener et al. 1995 , Goldsmith & Campos 1982 , Izard 1977 , Magai & Hunziker 1993 , Magai & McFadden 1995 ; cf. Mischel & Shoda 1995 , Tomkins 1987 ). In normal development, the cognitive content of emotion schemas should enhance the regulatory, motivational, and functional capacities of their feeling components. However, in some gene X environment interactions, a cluster of interrelated emotion schemas may become a form of psychopathology (e.g., anxiety and depressive disorders: Davidson 1994 , 1998 ; J.A. Gray 1990 ; J.R. Gray et al. 2005 ; Izard 1972 ; Magai & McFadden 1995 ).

Early-emerging emotion schemas

Aside from the simple emotion-cognition connections that a prelinguistic infant forms (e.g., between her own feelings of interest and joy and a perception/image of her mother’s face), the earliest emotion schemas probably consist of attaching labels to emotion expressions and feelings. Development of emotion labeling and the process of putting feelings into words begin toward the end of the second year of life and continue during the preschool and elementary school years ( Izard 1971 ) and throughout the life span. Indeed, games and activities that promote the accurate labeling of emotion expressions and experiences have been a component of intervention processes for many years (see Domitrovich & Greenberg 2004 and Denham & Burton 2003 for reviews).

Emotion schemas or affective-cognitive units?

The concept of affective-cognitive structure or emotion schema ( Izard 1977 , 2007a ) seems quite similar to that of the affective-cognitive unit as described in the cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS) theory of personality ( Mischel & Shoda 1995 , 1998 ). One significant difference may be that in the CAPS approach, an affective-cognitive unit is conceived mainly as a stable or characteristic mediating process or part of the personality system. In DET, an emotion schema may be either a temporally stable trait-like phenomenon (affective-cognitive structure) or a brief emotion-cognition interaction that may mediate behavior in a specific situation. Compared to the CAPS approach, DET gives emotion a greater role in motivation and assumes that the emotion component of the emotion schema drives the behavior mapped or framed by perceptual-cognitive processes. DET also emphasizes that, as seen particularly clearly in early development and in emotion-based preventive interventions, connecting appropriate cognition to emotion feelings increases the individual’s capacity for emotion modulation and self-regulation ( Izard et al. 2008a ). DET and CAPS agree in assigning a significant causal role to the dynamic interplay of emotion and cognition in determining human behavior. Both approaches also conceptualize the interplay of emotion and cognitive processes as sources of data on ideographic or within-subject differences in emotion-cognition-behavior relations.

In brief, emotion schemas are causal or mediating processes that consist of emotion and cognition continually interacting dynamically to influence mind and behavior. It is the dynamic interaction of these distinct features (emotion and cognition) that enables an emotion schema, acting in the form of a situation-specific factor or a trait of temperament/personality, to have its special and powerful effects on self-regulation and on perception, thought, and action ( Izard et al. 2008a ).

Transitions from Basic Emotions to Emotion Schemas

In early development, the first steps in the transition from basic positive emotions to positive emotion schemas consists simply of the infant using her increasing cognitive and emotion processing capacities to make connections between positive emotion feelings and positive thoughts, memories, and anticipations of people, events, and situations. Through learning and experience, the same stimuli that once elicited a basic positive emotion may become stimuli for positive emotion schemas and greater expectations (cf. Fredrickson 1998 , 2007 ).

Basic negative emotions occur relatively more frequently in infancy than in later development. Moreover, the transition from basic negative emotions to basic negative emotion schemas and the regulatory advantage provided by their cognitive component may prove difficult and challenging. The transition from basic anger (protests) and sadness (withdrawal) of a toddler being separated from mom, to the interest-joy response of a four-year-old being dropped off at kindergarten, may involve several rather stressful times for many children.

For adults, transitions from a basic emotion to an emotion schema may start abruptly but finish smoothly and quickly. Simply sensing that the object in your path and just a step ahead of you is long, round, and moving may activate the basic emotion of fear and the accompanying high-intensity neurobiological reactions. However, if language, learning, and another 50 ms enable you to recognize and label the object as a harmless garden snake (i.e., construct an emotion schema), you might even take it gently into your hands rather than engage in extreme behavior. The concomitant change in neural and neuromotor circuits would constitute a paradigmatic transition across types and valences of emotion and emotion-related phenomena. In this case, one would make a transition from basic fear to interest-cognition-action sequences in a positive emotion schema.

EMOTIONS AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Whatever else it may be, emotion feeling is at bottom sensation. Thus emotion feelings, like other sensations, are by definition processes that are felt or at least accessible (in the broad sense of that term) in some level of consciousness. Level of cognitive development as well as top-down processes, such as attention shifting and focusing, may influence (or preclude) the registration of feeling in reflective or cognitively accessible consciousness ( Buschman & Miller 2007 ). When that happens, emotion feelings/experiences occur in phenomenal consciousness (or at a low level of awareness). Phenomenal consciousness of an emotion feeling, the experience itself, generally co-occurs with some level of reflective/reportable consciousness (cf. Chalmers 1996 ). Thus, I propose that there are usually interactions among the neural systems that support these two types of consciousness (cf. Pessoa 2008 ). These interactions between the two sets of neural systems enable emotion feelings to retain their functionality in influencing thought and action, even in prelingual infants ( Izard et al. 2008b ).

Factors Affecting Emotion-Consciousness Relations

Another determinant of our level of awareness of emotion is the intensity of the neurobiological activity involved in emotion feeling. Low-intensity emotion feeling (e.g., interest arousal motivating learning skills related to aspects of one’s work) would not ordinarily grab attention in the same way as a viper and might go unnoticed. In this case (and in other instances of low arousal), “unnoticed” does not mean that the feeling is “unconscious.” It may register and be fully functional at some level of consciousness (cf. Lambie & Marcel 2002 ). The development of theory and techniques to examine the operations of emotion feelings in different levels of awareness should help reduce the number of psychological processes that are currently relegated to the ambiguous concept of the unconscious ( Izard et al. 2008b ; cf. Bargh & Morsella 2008 ).

Emotion Feelings and Consciousness

As the foregoing formulation suggests, the neurobiological processes involved in emotions generate conscious experiences of feelings (emotional sensations) just as in seeing green neurobiological activities in the visual brain create the experience/sensation of greenness (cf. Humphrey 2006 ). The sensory processes involved in emotion feelings like joy, sadness, anger, and fear may represent prototypical emotion experiences. Such emotion feelings are critical to the evolution of human mentality and reflective consciousness (cf. Edelman 2006 , Langer 1967/1982 ).

Emotion experiences/sensations continue to be critical in the maintenance and functioning of consciousness. When trauma leads to damage or dysfunction of a sensory system, it affects the whole person, including the sense of self and of others as self-conscious. For example, when a dysfunctional visual cortex resulted in blindsight, the blindsighted person could guess rather accurately the location of objects in the environment and learn to navigate around them. Yet, she experienced her sensation-less vision as emotionless and reported that “seeing without emotion is unbearable” ( Humphrey 2006 , p. 68–69). She may also think of herself as “less of a self ” and one that could not feel “engaged in the ‘hereness, nowness, and me-ness’ of the experience of the moment” ( Humphrey 2006 , p. 70). In the social world, the blind-sighted person lacks a basis for empathy and for understanding the mental states of others by simulation.

Taken together, these observations on the aftermath of the loss of the visual sensory system (which provides the bulk of our incoming information) suggest that having sensations may be the starting point of consciousness ( Humphrey 2006 , pp. 66–71). The emergence of the capacity to experience and respond to emotion feelings may have been the most critical step in its evolution (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ). Discrete emotion feelings play a central role in anticipating the effects of future stimulations and in organizing and integrating the associated information for envisioning strategies and entraining impulses for targeted goal-directed cognitive processes and actions. The coalescence of the emotion-driven anticipatory processes, entrainment (organizing and integrative processes), and the resultant individuation and sense of agency may have constituted the dawn of human consciousness (cf. Edelman 2006 , Humphrey 2006 , Langer 1967/1982 ).

TYPES OF EMOTION AND TYPES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The concepts of consciousness and awareness have received very little attention in contemporary psychology. With a few exceptions, the contributors to a recently edited volume on emotion and consciousness dealt with many interesting issues other than some critical ones on the nature of consciousness and its relation to emotions ( Barrett et al. 2005b ). Most contributors explicitly or implicitly assumed that access or reflective consciousness was either the only kind of consciousness or the only one that mattered to psychologists (cf. Lambie & Marcel 2002 , Merker 2007 ).

Basic Emotions and Phenomenal Consciousness

It is quite reasonable to assume that human infants (and all nonhuman mammals; Panksepp 2003a , b ) have some form of consciousness ( Izard et al. 2008b , Merker 2007 ). Wider acceptance of this notion should save young infants a lot of pain. Various invasive procedures (including circumcisions and needle pricks to draw blood for analyses) are still performed without analgesic. The facial expression of infants undergoing such procedures constitutes the prototypical expression of pain. With increasing age, the prototypical expression of pain in response to these procedures alternates with the prototypical expression of anger ( Izard et al. 1987 ).

Developmental data suggest that young infants experience basic emotions ( Izard et al. 1995 ). Their inability to report their emotion experiences via language rules out the idea that they experience emotions in access (verbally reportable) consciousness and suggests that their emotion feelings must occur in some other level of awareness or in phenomenal consciousness. Current conceptualizations of phenomenal consciousness, however, may not explain all emotion experiences in infancy ( Izard et al. 2008b ).

Developmental scientists have obtained evidence that shows that prelinguistic infants not only experience objects and events, but they also respond to and communicate nonverbally about objects and events in meaningful ways ( Izard et al. 2008b ). Moreover, their experience often involves emotion that is indexed by emotion-expressive behavior and other forms of action that influence the social and physical world ( Claxton et al. 2003 , Izard et al. 1995 ). Apparently, these behaviors reflect the development of different levels or complexities of awareness, and further studies of them may offer possibilities of extending current conceptualizations of ways to access phenomenological experiences. These experiences do not fit precisely into the categories of “phenomenal” or “access” consciousness as traditionally defined. Yet these experiences are surely part of the infant’s phenomenology, and the functionality of these experiential processes clearly demonstrates that they are accessible by noncognitive routes ( Izard et al. 2008b , Merker 2007 ; cf. Block 2008).

Emotion Feelings and Phenomenal Consciousness

The conceptualization of emotion feeling as a phase of a neurobiological process is congruent with the idea that emotions can be sensed and registered in phenomenal consciousness and at low levels of awareness without being perceived. Such emotion feelings are often described erroneously, I think, as unconscious emotion (cf. Clore et al. 2005 , Lambie & Marcel 2002 ). What may be unconscious is not the feeling but the perception of the feeling, and this lack of perception could account for the failure of the feeling to register in access consciousness. Insofar as emotion feeling is at bottom sensation, then generating a feeling ipso facto generates a state of consciousness. Thus, an emotion feeling always registers in phenomenal consciousness. Often, if not always, it also registers in some other level of consciousness that is accessible by various routes. After language acquisition, emotion feelings can often (but not always) be reported via symbolic processes. In prelingual infants, young children, and others with insufficient emotion vocabulary, it may be manifested in emotion-mediated behavior (cf. Izard et al. 2008b ). Evidence suggests that emotion feelings are operative and expressible via facial and body movement and other behavior even when not reportable (cf. Lambie & Marcel 2002 ).

Happily, an enormous amount of information processing proceeds very well in the realm of the unconscious, but I propose that the functionality of emotion feelings (that are not in access or reflective consciousness) might be explained better in terms of phenomenal or other levels of consciousness. The term “unconscious” emotion implies nonfelt emotion. It seems very difficult if not impossible to identify and explain the mediators of the effects of nonfelt or nonconscious emotion (e.g., de Gelder 2005 ). Much of what has been called nonconscious emotion has not met the “requirement of deliberate probing by indirect measures” ( Lambie & Marcel 2002 , p. 16). Nor have data on unconscious emotions been examined in terms of the functional correlates of hypothesized emotion feelings. Such research might suggest replacing the concept of psychological unconscious with that of phenomenal consciousness or some other level of consciousness that cannot be verbally reported.

The concept of unlabeled, unarticulated, and linguistically inaccessible emotion feeling in phenomenal consciousness or some other cognitively inaccessible level of consciousness is compatible with the notion that this component of emotion is felt and functions as a mediator of behavior (cf. Clore et al. 2005 , Izard et al. 2008b , Lambie & Marcel 2002 ). Because it is felt, the emotion feeling retains its characteristic motivational and informational qualities. To say that the feeling component of emotion can reside unfelt in phenomenal consciousness, any other level of consciousness, or the unconscious seems to be a pure non sequitur.

To acknowledge that the subjective component of emotion is felt and real in phenomenal and other cognitively inaccessible levels of consciousness may inspire theory and research on how an emotion feeling remains functional and motivational without being symbolized and made accessible in reflective consciousness via language. Evidence of the functionality of emotion feelings in prelingual infants and children without a cerebral cortex seems to support the argument for more research on the functionality of emotion feelings in phenomenal consciousness. So do the observations that patients who suffer blindsight report feelings without having corresponding visual experiences ( Weiskrantz 2001 ). On the other hand, subjects with blindsight can perceive objects and make accurate perceptual judgments without any corresponding sensation or feeling at all ( Humphrey 2006 ). The extent to which these seemingly disparate observations on people with blindsight inform normative relations among perception, sensation, and emotion feelings is not yet clear. Neither are the effects and limits of top-down control of sensation in relation to perception and to emotion feelings and their registration at some level of consciousness ( Buschman & Miller 2007 ).

Emotion Schemas and Access Consciousness

Emotion feelings can operate in phenomenal consciousness with little or no cognitive content. This fact is easy to appreciate while remembering that phenomenal experience is the modal variety in prelingual infants and nonhuman mammals. Although prelingual infants apparently demonstrate higher levels of awareness than phenomenal consciousness, they definitely cannot exhibit reflective consciousness as traditionally defined in terms of cognitive accessibility.

Once development enables emotion experiences to become connected to higher-order cognition, children begin to link emotion feelings and concepts and to form more and more complex emotion schemas. The language associated with a given emotion feeling in particular situations becomes a tool in emotion management, self-regulation, and other executive functions ( Izard et al. 2008a ).

Gains and Losses in the Evolution of Emotions and Consciousness

Darwin recognized many turns in evolution that pointed to the seeming cruelty of natural selection—life-threatening parasites, killer reptiles, and the bloody work of predators ( Dawkins 1989 ). He also recognized the adaptive advantages in positive emotions and their expressions in social interactions: “… the mother smiles approval, and thus encourages her children on the right path, or frowns disapproval” ( Darwin 1872/1965 , p. 304). Gains related in some way to the emotions and their interactions with perception and cognition may represent the finest—and possibly most challenging—products of evolution.

Among the finest and most interesting products of evolution was gaining the capacity for language and eventually the learning of vocabulary for labeling emotions and describing and sharing emotion experiences. These gains also helped enable humans to anticipate future desirable and undesirable emotion feelings. Taken together, these newly emerged capacities represent enormous gains in executive functions, particularly for understanding and managing emotions and self-regulation ( Izard 2002 , Izard et al. 2008a ). They have direct and indirect benefits for the cognitive and action processes involved in adaptive idiosyncratic and social functioning ( Izard et al. 2008b , Lieberman et al. 2007 ). Some have argued that the enormous gains that resulted from brain evolution, the acquisition of language, and the accompanying increases in cognitive abilities did not come without some accompanying losses ( Langer 1967/1982 ).

A possible loss: the evolutionary empathy-sympathy exchange

Basic empathy depends mainly on neurophysiological response systems that do not require or involve the higher-order cognitive processes involved in sympathy ( Hoffman 2000 ). Thus, long before human evolution produced language and its accompanying cognitive prowess, a high-level of ability for empathy and empathic responding emerged in nonhuman animals ( Langer 1967/1982 ). This great capacity for empathy apparently accounts for the lack of con-specific predation and cannibalism among nonhuman mammals. “Among the higher animals few, if any, of the carnivores—bears, wolves, lions and other great cats—habitually prey on their own kind” ( Langer 1967/1982 , Vol. 1, p. 141). They are restrained from predation, not by signals of appeasement or surrender, but by “a ready empathetic response, so common and effective that it takes no principle, moral or other, to safeguard the members of a species against each other’s appetites in ordinary conditions” ( Langer 1967/1982 , Vol. 1, p. 142).

The animal empathy that constitutes a safeguard against con-specific predation establishes a special kind of relationship that enables an essentially physiological transmission of the “feeling of one creature to another so it appears to the latter as its own” ( Langer 1967/1982 , Vol. 1, p. 140). In contrast, as the media are wont to remind us through blow-by-blow accounts of flagrantly aggressive and ethically and morally devious behavior, humans prey on each other with considerable frequency. And such predation often leads to death and destruction, even genocide. Furthermore, although cannibalism (a total breakdown in empathy) is generally absent among higher-order nonhuman animals, it has been observed in many human cultures.

Compared to instantaneous empathy, sympathy depends in important ways on conceptual processes (including the projected costs and benefits of helping) that are notably slower and less certain of occurrence. Sympathetic responses are also more subject to top-down control (e.g., mental manipulations stemming from biases and imagined consequences) than rapid, automatic, animal empathy. Thus, sympathetic responses may often be too little and too late for the victims of disasters, some of which result from only slightly disguised human predation exemplified in transactions between rich and poor and between high- and low-status ethnic groups. Thus, a potentially grave question remains: Does the evolutionary shift in capacities for empathy and sympathy represent a net loss or a net gain?

The pros and cons of unbridled imagination

There is also some question as to whether the evolutionary increases in the power of imagination should be judged a net gain or loss in weighing the emotion-related products of evolution. In some individuals and circumstances, unbridled imagination can facilitate tragedies on a personal as well as a national and global scale. Imagination can be fueled by either positive or negative emotion feelings or the interaction of both, and in turn, it can produce a cornucopia of both positive and negative emotion stimuli and behavioral responses (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ). Imagination doubtless played a role in the creation of nuclear weapons and still plays a role in planning their projected uses. It is also a factor in the development of factories, products, and policies that increase global warming and the pollution of the earth and the atmosphere at a dangerous rate.

In contrast, during early ontogeny the feeling-thought patterns of unbridled imagination facilitate cognitive and social development from the first moment that the young child engages in make-believe or pretend play. In these developmental processes and throughout the life span, imagination remains part emotion feeling and part cognition. It continues to add to individual and cultural accomplishments through the creative endeavors of artists and scientists.

Thus, “In the evolution of mind, imagination is as dangerous as it is essential” ( Langer 1967/1982 , Vol. 1, p. 137). Nurturing imagination through the life span with a good balance of emotion feelings and the encouragement of empathy, sympathy, and reason, and an appreciation of how these ingredients can interact and work together for the common good, ubiquitous peace, and the preservation and flourishing of the species seem equally essential.

Remarkable Gains from Linking Emotion Feelings and Language

The process of symbolizing emotion in awareness has the potential to add significantly to adaptive personality and social functioning. Language is by far the most common method of symbolization across individuals and cultures, and researchers have verified at the behavioral and neural levels the positive effects of linking words to discrete emotion expressions and feelings ( L. Greenberg & Paivio 1997 , Izard 1971 , Izard et al. 2008a , Kennedy-Moore & Watson 1999 , Lieberman et al. 2007 ). Major among the positive effects that accrue when we can use language to symbolize emotion feelings, especially in early development but also throughout the life span, are those relating to increases in emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and emotion utilization.

Emotion utilization is the harnessing of an emotion’s inherently adaptive motivation/feeling component in constructive affective-cognitive processes and actions ( Izard 1971 , 2002 , 2007a ; Izard et al. 2008c ; cf. Mayer & Salovey 1997 ). Emotion utilization involves spontaneous as well as planned actions, and it is conceptually different from direct attempts to regulate emotion or emotion-related behavior (cf. Eisenberg & Spinrad 2004 ). Although emotion regulation and emotion utilization are different constructs, they interact dynamically. Emotion utilization may be viewed as the optimal mode of emotion regulation, and various forms of the latter enhance the former.

It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of the civilizing and socializing effects of learning to recognize, articulate, and utilize emotion feelings constructively, not only in early development but also throughout the life span. A key process here is developing connections between feelings, words, and thoughts. Unfortunately, linking emotion feelings to maladaptive thoughts like those that characterize racism, sexism, ageism, unbridled profit motives, and plans for vengeance, revenge, or terrorism can wreak extensive havoc to individuals, ethnic groups, and all of human kind. For an abundance of evidence supporting the foregoing assertion, read history and watch or listen to any daily news program.

UNRESOLVED ISSUES AND TOPICS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Two unresolved issues seem to impede scientific advances in the study of consciousness and levels of awareness. The first concerns the role of phenomenal consciousness and various linguistically inaccessible levels of awareness in research on mind and behavior. The second concerns the relation of phenomenal consciousness and the psychological unconscious, their similarities and differences.

Psychologists’ Neglect of Phenomenal Consciousness

Several factors may have contributed to the general neglect of phenomenal consciousness in psychological theory and research. The first is a long-standing reluctance to acknowledge the extent to which emotions drive cognition and action and the possibility that some of the driving emotions register only in phenomenal consciousness. The second is the strong tendency of mainstream psychology to neglect developmental perspectives on critical issues and thus to ignore evidence of the existence and functionality of phenomenal consciousness and other linguistically inaccessible levels of awareness in early development and probably in various forms of psychopathology. A third problem is that many psychologists think that most emotions are episodic, of limited duration, and in focal awareness. A related misconception is that once an emotion episode ends, the mind is free for purely rational processes. This notion persists despite eloquent arguments suggesting that there is no such thing as pure reason ( Creighton 1921 , Langer 1967/1982 ), especially in relation to personally or socially significant matters. Evidence suggests that in humans it may not be possible to study cognition and emotion separately ( Lewis 2005 , Phelps 2006 ). This conclusion is quite consistent with the present position, if the term “emotion” refers to emotion schemas.

A more appropriate goal would be to develop more effective ways to study emotion-cognition interactions and integration/mingling and consequent behavior change, particularly in research that involves constructs like emotion schemas ( Izard 1977 , 2007a ), emotional interpretations ( Lewis 2005 ), or affective-cognitive units ( Mischel & Shoda 1995 ). This would include most emotion research that does not focus on basic negative emotion episodes.

A final and perhaps most worrisome reason why phenomenal consciousness is still not a major concern of psychologists is that it is conflated with the psychological “unconscious.” Clearly, a vast amount of the processes of the brain and the rest of the body (blood circulation, digestion) often do occur without our awareness of them and, in normal circumstances, without direct effects on thought and action. When significant behavioral effects do occur without readily observable causes, they are often assigned to the psychological unconscious, where mechanisms are difficult to identify and explain ( Kihlstrom 1999 ).

More parsimonious and accurate explanations of unconscious behavior might accrue if we looked for mediators of thought and action (e.g., emotions) that reside in phenomenal consciousness. An example is the phenomenological (feeling) component of an unlabeled and thus unarticulated emotion experience, a feeling that you know you are experiencing but cannot specifically identify or describe. Inability to put the feeling into words bars it from linguistic accessibility and thus from access consciousness as typically defined, but not from phenomenal consciousness and various levels of awareness. An emotion feeling in phenomenal and other nonlinguistic levels of consciousness retains its properties, including its power to motivate and regulate cognition and action. Thus, conceptualizing fully functional emotion feelings as processes in phenomenal consciousness ( Panksepp 2005 ) provides an alternative way of explaining much of what has been attributed by others to the psychological unconscious (e.g., Kihlstrom 1999 , Winkielman et al. 2005 ; cf. Clore et al. 2005 , Lambie & Marcel 2002 ).

Concern about types of consciousness may stimulate further thought and research about which mental processes relate to phenomenal consciousness and which are truly unconscious. Such research could look for processes that reside at a level of awareness that is unavailable via cognitive or verbal access but not necessarily via other forms of access. Several types of nonverbal behaviors reflect the operations of mental processes that clearly are not in linguistically accessible consciousness and that may reside in phenomenal consciousness ( Izard et al. 2008b ; cf. Merker 2007 ). The lack of linguistic accessibility does not render an emotion or emotion feeling nonfunctional.

Phenomenal consciousness and other forms of linguistically inaccessible consciousness may be better concepts for psychology than is the concept of unconscious. The latter concept is notoriously vague and ill defined in the psychological literature. Dictionary definitions characterize it as not conscious as a state, without awareness, or sensation, virtually nonphysical, and thus make some uses of it very close to the domains of spookiness and Cartesian dualism.

The Psychological Unconscious: A Default Explanatory Construct?

Although there is considerable agreement on the qualities of thought processes in psychological or access (verbally reportable) consciousness, there is no consensus on the contents and processes of the unconscious (cf. Bargh & Morsella 2008 ). The behavior of prelingual infants suggests that it is not prudent to label all verbally unreportable processes as unconscious, a practice that may impede or misguide the search for causal processes. Better heuristics might come from the conceptualization of causal-process mechanisms operating at different levels of awareness and as accessible by multiple behaviors other than verbal report. Dividing the mind and all mental processes into two domains—conscious and unconscious—might be the greatest oversimplification in current psychological science. Moreover, misattribution of causal processes to the unconscious may open a Pandora’s Box replete with blind alleys and dead ends.

Four things have contributed to psychologists’ penchant for attributing causal processes to the unconscious rather than to emotion feelings, including emotion feelings in phenomenal consciousness. First, many psychologists have typically looked for nonemotion mediators to explain changes in cognition and action. Second, emotion feelings (and their roles in influencing cognitive processes) are notoriously difficult to identify and describe in words ( Creighton 1921 , Langer 1967/1982 ). However, infants and young children experience emotions and respond to them in meaningful ways long before they can label or describe emotions ( Izard et al. 2008b ). Such evidence points to the utility of assessing emotion feelings by measuring their functional correlates. Third, many psychologists remain reluctant to attribute to emotion a significant causal role in ordinary as well as critical thinking, decision making, and action despite a growing body of evidence to the contrary (e.g., Bechara et al. 2000 , DeMartino et al. 2006 , Lerner & Tiedens 2006 , Miller 2006 , Naqvi et al. 2006 ). Fourth, many psychological scientists tend to think that emotions are typically brief and that emotion feelings are always sufficiently intense to grab and hold attention. Actually, plausible arguments suggest that emotion feelings are phenomena that vary on a very wide dimension of intensity while retaining their functional/causal properties ( Izard 2007a ).

Emerging Issues: Continuous Emotion, Memes, and the Mirror Neuron System

The topics of continuous emotion or continuous emotion-cognition interaction and integration, memes, and the mirror neuron system (MNS) may prove to be critical for emotion science and to psychology in general. The idea of continuous emotion in phenomenal consciousness or access consciousness will prove difficult to address in empirical research, but that may soon change with improved technology for studying brain-emotion-behavior relations. Already there is some convergence among theorists and researchers who argue that there is no such thing as a conscious mind without emotion or affect ( Izard 2007a ; cf. Lewis 2005 , Phelps 2006 , Russell 2003 ). The other two, memes and the MNS, relate to emotion and behavior in ways not completely understood. Yet, they have already become hot topics for those interested in new approaches to understanding within- and across-generations transmission of cognitive and action structures and the neurobiological bases for the transmission of emotion feelings in empathy and the processes in empathic and sympathetic responding.

Continuous Emotion-Cognition Interaction

The notion that some emotion or emotion-cognition interaction is continuous in phenomenal or access consciousness or some level of awareness is not new (e.g., Bacon 1620/1968 ). The hypothesis implicit in that idea may prove difficult to falsify. Yet, without the attribution of causal power to emotion (feeling) and the concept of continual emotion-cognition interaction, we may have no way to explain selective attention. And selective attention is a necessary factor in the simplest forms of exploration and learning as well as in higher-order cognition and sequences of organized behavior.

I have hypothesized that the brain automatically generates the emotion of interest to capture and sustain attention to particular objects, events, and goals. This mode of operation is standard when the brain is not responding to internal or external conditions that activate other emotions, emotion schemas, or emotion-cognition-environment interactions ( Izard 2007a ; cf. Panksepp 2003a , b ).

A major challenge for future research is to understand how emotion and cognition behave in their continual interaction. One possibility is that they achieve complete integration and influence behavior as a unified force or single factor. However, I propose that although emotion and cognition continually interact, they do not lose their separate identities. They retain separate and distinct functional properties (cf. Pessoa 2008 ). Whereas emotion feeling undoubtedly contains a kind of information ( Clore et al. 2001 ) or cues for behavior ( Izard 1971 , 2007a ), emotion remains primarily about motivation. Cognition (particularly about goal concepts that typically have an emotion component) may be conceived as having a motivational aspect, but it remains primarily about knowledge.

Memes and Emotions

Memes are one of several epigenetic mechanisms that challenge the dominance of DNA as the central life force (cf. Noble 2006 ). Natural selection may operate on not only genes, DNA, or RNA. It can also act on “replicant” units (memes) that consist of cognition and action patterns, things other than biological structures that can be transmitted through imitative learning ( Dawkins 1989 ). Apparently, memes emerged to serve unique adaptive functions in social interactions.

In the course of evolution, the brain continued to evolve and increase in complexity until learning via imitation became a major tool in the human repertoire and a way of acquiring memes. Imitation and make-believe play in early development should prove a fertile ground for studying the transmission of memes. Even newborn infants can imitate simple facial behavior ( Meltzoff & Moore 1994 ) that may constitute part of the emotion expressions that they display later in infancy ( Izard et al. 1995 ). By age three years, children show great imitative skills while enjoying the fantasyland of make-believe play and learning socioemotional skills by assuming the roles of persons far beyond them in age, knowledge, skills, and experience. Thus, it was both phylogenetic transmission and the highly creative processes of ontogenetic development ( Noble 2006 ) that produced the capacity for imitative learning, which in turn essentially created a context where memes could replicate and compete ( Jablonka & Lamb 2005 ).

Though memes were originally described in terms of cognition and action patterns ( Dawkins 1989 ), the exclusion of emotion as a component may have been inadvertent. Indeed, emotion schemas seem perfect candidates for attaining status as memes. They not only have a cognitive component but also an emotion component and a kind of action component (the action tendencies in emotion states; Izard 2007a , b ). Thus, emotion schemas are well suited to emerge and operate as memes. Their emotion feeling component is often expressed through facial, vocal, and body-movement signals that are easily imitated, even by young children. In addition, imitating the expressive behavior of another person may activate neural and sensory motor processes that increase the likelihood of experiencing the emotion (and action tendencies) of the other person ( Izard 1990 , Niedenthal 2007 ). Young children’s imitation of their parents’ positive emotion expressions and interactions may contribute to the development of memes that represent significant social skills. Thus, emotion-schema memes (ESMs) as replicant units with a feeling/motivational component seem to be an expectable (epigenetic) extension of biogenetic-evolutionary processes.

Because emotions are contagious ( Hatfield et al. 1993 , Tomkins 1962 ), memes that are essentially emotion schemas can propagate profusely. They can do so for two reasons. First, such schemas have the attention-grabbing and motivational power of an emotion ( Youngstrom & Izard 2008 ). Second, they are highly functional phenomena independent of their relations to biological fitness and survival (cf. Aunger 2002 , Blackmore 1999 , Distin 2004 ). The idea that an emotion schema might form a replicant unit opens another door to investigations of the transfer of adaptive as well as maladaptive patterns of emotion, cognition, and action within and across generations.

Emotion schema memes begin to develop early in ontogeny, become plentiful, and may relate substantially to the MNS. There has been a surge of interest in the MNS, in part because it may be among the neural substrates of social perspective taking and empathy (e.g., Carr et al. 2003 , Keysers & Perrett 2004 , Rizzolatti & Craighero 2004 ).

Mirror Neuron Systems, Emotions, and Empathy

If the concept of memes becomes a staple in psychology, it may happen for two reasons. First, perhaps the most interesting and socially significant memes have an emotion component and are essentially emotion schemas whose behavioral manifestations (facial, vocal, gestural expressions of emotion) can be readily observed and analyzed. Second, they may depend in part on the MNS, which seems to mediate capabilities for perspective taking and empathy. The MNS may enable one to take the perspective of another and provide the shared emotion feeling that defines the essence of empathy (cf. Dapretto et al. 2006 , Keysers & Perrett 2004 ). The MNS apparently translates one’s sensory-perceptual experiences and accompanying conceptions of the expressions and movements of others into patterns of neural activity in the observer (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ). This neural activity and its products help the observer to understand and predict the thoughts and feelings of the observed person.

The MNS may relate to sympathy and altruism as well. The cognitive component of an emotion schema, in interaction with its feeling component, may transform empathy to sympathy. This transformation would entail a shift from a response governed primarily by neuro-physiological or motor-system contagion to one that requires conceptual processes (cf. Langer 1967/1982 ). An MNS that facilitates sympathy, altruism, and mimetic processes would facilitate highly adaptive advantages ( Miller 2008 , Talmi & Frith 2007 ).

Empathy alone is not always sufficient to motivate helping behavior ( Rosenthal 1964/1999 ). The cognition (particularly the action plans) in an ESM provides the context for its feeling component, and the interaction of the cognition and feeling in the meme can guide sympathetic actions. Dysfunction of the MNS may help account for the deficits in socialization that are observed in autism spectrum disorders ( Oberman & Ramachandran 2007 ) and in antisocial personality or perhaps in any disorder involving deficits or dysfunction in social skills ( Iacoboni 2007 ).

The possibility that the MNS and associated emotion systems mediate the generation and propagation of memes suggests the fruitfulness of studying memes that can be clearly identified as ESMs. ESMs should prove plentiful because they have an enormous appeal to forces that generate and propagate memes. The emotion component of an ESM has the motivational power to influence perception, grab attention, generate more emotion-cognition structures, and influence action. ESMs may constitute a major factor that shapes consciousness, personality and social functioning, and culture ( Youngstrom & Izard 2008 ).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Emotion research has increased exponentially since Tomkins’s (1962 , 1963 ) landmark volumes helped bring a nascent emotion science into an unevenly matched competition with the forces of the contemporaneous revolution that produced cognitive science. The two disciplines are becoming increasingly collaborative and progressing toward becoming one. As the realization of this exciting prospect proceeds, great challenges await scientists who will seek to understand how the brain assigns weights or significance to emotion and cognition (which assumedly retain distinct functions) as they are integrated or mingled in different periods of development, personalities, and contexts. They will find equally interesting challenges in research on ways to facilitate these processes to gain adaptive advantages, bolster constructive and creative endeavors, and prevent destructive and maladaptive behavior.

SUMMARY POINTS

• Emotion feelings are a phase of neurobiological activity and the key psychological/motivational aspect of emotion. They constitute the primary motivational systems for human behavior.
• Emotion feelings are prime factors in the evolution, organization, and operations of consciousness and the different levels of awareness.
• The ability to symbolize feelings and put them into words provides a powerful tool for emotion regulation, influencing emotion-cognition relations, and developing high-level social skills.
• The term “emotion” has defied definition mainly because it is multifaceted and not a unitary phenomenon or process. Use of the unqualified term “emotion” makes for misunderstandings, contradictions, and confusions in theory and research.
• Basic emotions, emotion schemas, and emotion-schema memes are distinctly different in terms of their origin, content, causes, and effects.
• Transitions from basic emotions to emotion schemas and emotion-schema memes are major milestones in development and in achieving social and emotion competence.
• The psychological unconscious is an ill-defined and potentially misleading term. There is no consensus regarding its contents and functions. The concept of levels of awareness may provide a better bridge to understanding human mentality and brain/mind processes.
• Emotion utilization is the harnessing of an emotion’s inherently adaptive emotion motivation/feeling component in constructive affective-cognitive processes and actions. Symbolization and effective communication of emotion feelings play a key role in emotion utilization, particularly in real or simulated social interactions.
• The concept of emotion-cognition interaction, well validated in neuroscience and behavioral research, suggests that the presence of functionally distinct features in the interactants would increase both the flexibility and generality of the resultant processes.

FUTURE ISSUES

• Experimental validation of the hypothesis that the feeling component of some emotion or emotion schema is continuous at some level of awareness should prove an interesting challenge for future research. So should studies designed to verify the hypothesis that interest or an interest schema is the default emotion or emotion-cognition interaction.
• Insights on the early development and life-span growth of emotion-schema memes should add substantially to our understanding of the contributions of social and cultural factors in mental processes and behavior.
• Distinguishing between emotion regulation and emotion utilization may provide new insights on the independence and interdependence of these two constructs.
• Determining how the emotion and cognitive components of emotion schemas and emotion-schema memes integrate or mingle in the brain should provide leads for translational research. The findings from such research should contribute to preventive interventions that facilitate the development of emotion and social competence and the prevention of psychopathology.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Work on this article was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grants R21 MH068443 and R01 MH080909.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The author is not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

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