Examine+the+Evolutionary+Explanation+of+Emotions-+Hae-In

 According to Levenson, emotions are short-lived psychological-physiological phenomena that represent efficient modes of adaptation to changing environmental demand. Basically, emotions are defined as episodic, relatively short-term, biologically based patterns of perception, experience, physiology, action and communication that occur in response to specific physical and social challenges and opportunities. Some theorists have given new voice to the position in Western philosophy that emotions serve no useful functions, and in fact disrupt ongoing activity, rationality and cognitive processes. On the other hand, others have argued that emotions serve clearly specialized functions, organizing ongoing behaviors in ways that optimize the individual’s adjustment to the demands of the physical and social environment (Barret & Campos, 1987; Ekman, 1992).

 One perspective is that emotions do not serve adaptive functions any more, and in fact are harmful to human adjustment. This perspective holds that emotions once served function in the environment of human evolution, but no longer do so in their present form in the present environment. Traces of this view are also evident in the writing of Darwin (1872), who believed that emotions are rudiments of once-serviceable actions, and that although emotions may now serve a secondary communicative function, this is not why emotions evolved.

The other perspective holds that emotions serve functions now as they have previously. Emotions are adaptations to problems in the current human environment. Therefore, inferences about functions of emotions can be based on analyses of causes and consequences of emotion within the current environment. Although even the strongest adherent to this view would not go so far as to say that all occurrences of every emotion at every intensity level are adaptive for every individual, the general claim would be that, by and large, most emotions have a functional basis most of the time.

In conclusion, over the centuries, theorists have grappled in different ways with whether emotions have functions (Calhoun & Solomon, 1984). This theorizing has yielded three major perspectives on the question of whether emotions have functions or not.