Final Report Summary - SCECI (Scientific Concepts of Emotion and Cultural Identities)
SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OF EMOTION AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES (SCECI) The project investigates (a) the concepts of emotion that medical and psychological research produced between the 1950s and 2000s, and asks (b) if and how these concepts have informed emotional culture and identity in post-industrial Western societies, assessed through audio-visual media productions (movies and TV). The project takes an innovative stance on how scientific studies of emotion and cultural analysis of societal change and of processes and dynamics of identity formation can be studied as mutually dependent variables. It will be continued at the Institute for Advanced Study in Marseille, France, 2015-2016.
Results/Conclusions/Socioeconomic Impact:
Since functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the 1990s, opened up the human brain for study to a vast community of researchers, a true avalanche of publications on emotions has been published, which no single researcher can master. For example, in 2014 the database Medline listed 18.923 hits for the keyword emotion, compared to 558 publications in the decade of 1977-87 (Wassmann forthcoming).
Three themes stand out among the most prominent concepts used to frame emotions in scientific studies: stress, basic emotions, and fear. These overarching themes link research agendas from the twenty-first century back to the early twentieth century. They allow tracing concepts of emotion as they move from one academic discipline to another shifting meaning in the process, as well as their cultural expression in audio-visual media.
For instance, the concept of stress moved from physiological research in the 1950s to psychology and sociology. What is understood by “stress” has shifted from designating a precise set of bodily reactions to nocive stimuli in physiology (Cannon 1914, 1936; Selye 1956, 1974, 1975, 1998; Mason 1975; Sapolsky 2004) to a broad “social keyword” in the 2000s in sociology, which proved widely useful to express the emotional discomfort with all kinds of ills of society in a vast range of contexts, often work related (Kury 2010; Neckel & Wagner 2014).
The theme of “basic emotions” is a good example that allows tracing the fate of a scientific concept of emotion in cultural dissemination. The concept of basic emotions relates to facial expressions of emotions and the question whether there is a set of emotions, which is universal among human beings and conveyed by similar facial expressions. It was made popular by Paul Ekman’s (1972, 2003) research in the 1970s and witnessed a revival in the early 21st century in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack (Wassmann 2016). At that moment, audio-visual productions took up the concept, for instance, in the remake of the 1970s science fiction series Battlestar Galactica (ABC, 1978-79; Sci-fi, 2003-9). The concept is also used as an analytical tool to access media reception (Bartsch, Eder, Fahlenbach 2014). While historians of emotions are highly skeptical as to the existence of basic emotions and rather stress the cultural contingency of emotions and their expression (Plamper 2015), the cultural outflow of the basic emotions concept is vast, as one can see in the widespread use of emoticons in social media.
Fear, finally, is a broad theme that has a wide range of reverberations in psychological, medical, and sociological research. “Anxiety” and “fear” are the most frequent terms that come up in the literature retrieved when searching for the keyword emotion in the database Web of Science. The emotion of fear is often used in movies to generate suspense and viewer attention; but film has a more complex relation to this emotion, as several contributions to our conference by Stella Bruzzi, Miguel Huerta, and Robin Kurilla amply demonstrated (in: Wassmann 2015c).
As one might expect, there is neither a linear representation of bio-medical research in the media, nor do audio-visual media productions inform the medical research agendas. Brain imaging research, using fMRI, placed fear and the amygdala centrally on the agenda of neuroscience studies on emotion (Damasio 1994; LeDoux 1994, 1996). Among the most important aspects of this research figure fundamental genetic differences among individuals, which impact brain chemistry, emotional experience and behavior (Hariri et. al 2002, Hariri & Holmes 2006). This crucially important aspect of emotion processing is not reflected in social science research on emotions, which instead emphasizes the need of emotion control or emotional management (Hochschild 2003). While sociological approaches to emotion stress emotional reflexivity as the preeminent feature in characterizing late-modern societies (González 2013), neurophysiological research delineates the limitations of an individual’s capacity to “unlearn” emotional reactions. This research also touches on the emotion-cognition relationship and processes of unconscious information processing, which are widely debated.
Films have documented, reflected upon, and enacted a paradigm-shift with regard to the emotions that took place at the turn of the 21st century promoted by research in neurology/neuroscience and psychology/economy (Damasio, Kahneman). This research led to the belief that emotions are highly important in rational decision making rather than being their opposite. These research findings found direct expression in audio-visual media productions. This can be seen most prominently in a comparison of the popular science fiction series in the 1960s, Star Trek (NBC 1966-9), and the remake movie, Star Trek, in 2009, which now carries the explicit message: “Listen to your emotions.”
Conclusion
Developments of research on emotion are divergent. As one can see from the survey of the literature no one straight line links research agendas in the life sciences, sociology and cultural productions. The “high on emotion” that we witness at the turn of the 21st century, and that recalls the “age of sensibility” with an inflationary number of publications on emotions, is only partly explainable by scientific research which promoted knowledge about emotions, and partly an indication of “upheavals of thought,” of the dislocations of their social worlds that people experience at the turn from the 20th century into the 21st century.
While the consumption of supra-national fiction, in particular Anglo-American TV series and movies, is part of a cultural-emotional identity, the educational processes of identity formation and adoption of emotional pattern of behavior seem more strongly informed by direct interaction in local national settings and religious beliefs (including their absence). The impact of audio-visual productions as role model of identity and emotional values needs to be further explored in particular in the context of mixed societies that characterize our contemporary world.
(See the attached file for full report including bibliography.)
Results/Conclusions/Socioeconomic Impact:
Since functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the 1990s, opened up the human brain for study to a vast community of researchers, a true avalanche of publications on emotions has been published, which no single researcher can master. For example, in 2014 the database Medline listed 18.923 hits for the keyword emotion, compared to 558 publications in the decade of 1977-87 (Wassmann forthcoming).
Three themes stand out among the most prominent concepts used to frame emotions in scientific studies: stress, basic emotions, and fear. These overarching themes link research agendas from the twenty-first century back to the early twentieth century. They allow tracing concepts of emotion as they move from one academic discipline to another shifting meaning in the process, as well as their cultural expression in audio-visual media.
For instance, the concept of stress moved from physiological research in the 1950s to psychology and sociology. What is understood by “stress” has shifted from designating a precise set of bodily reactions to nocive stimuli in physiology (Cannon 1914, 1936; Selye 1956, 1974, 1975, 1998; Mason 1975; Sapolsky 2004) to a broad “social keyword” in the 2000s in sociology, which proved widely useful to express the emotional discomfort with all kinds of ills of society in a vast range of contexts, often work related (Kury 2010; Neckel & Wagner 2014).
The theme of “basic emotions” is a good example that allows tracing the fate of a scientific concept of emotion in cultural dissemination. The concept of basic emotions relates to facial expressions of emotions and the question whether there is a set of emotions, which is universal among human beings and conveyed by similar facial expressions. It was made popular by Paul Ekman’s (1972, 2003) research in the 1970s and witnessed a revival in the early 21st century in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack (Wassmann 2016). At that moment, audio-visual productions took up the concept, for instance, in the remake of the 1970s science fiction series Battlestar Galactica (ABC, 1978-79; Sci-fi, 2003-9). The concept is also used as an analytical tool to access media reception (Bartsch, Eder, Fahlenbach 2014). While historians of emotions are highly skeptical as to the existence of basic emotions and rather stress the cultural contingency of emotions and their expression (Plamper 2015), the cultural outflow of the basic emotions concept is vast, as one can see in the widespread use of emoticons in social media.
Fear, finally, is a broad theme that has a wide range of reverberations in psychological, medical, and sociological research. “Anxiety” and “fear” are the most frequent terms that come up in the literature retrieved when searching for the keyword emotion in the database Web of Science. The emotion of fear is often used in movies to generate suspense and viewer attention; but film has a more complex relation to this emotion, as several contributions to our conference by Stella Bruzzi, Miguel Huerta, and Robin Kurilla amply demonstrated (in: Wassmann 2015c).
As one might expect, there is neither a linear representation of bio-medical research in the media, nor do audio-visual media productions inform the medical research agendas. Brain imaging research, using fMRI, placed fear and the amygdala centrally on the agenda of neuroscience studies on emotion (Damasio 1994; LeDoux 1994, 1996). Among the most important aspects of this research figure fundamental genetic differences among individuals, which impact brain chemistry, emotional experience and behavior (Hariri et. al 2002, Hariri & Holmes 2006). This crucially important aspect of emotion processing is not reflected in social science research on emotions, which instead emphasizes the need of emotion control or emotional management (Hochschild 2003). While sociological approaches to emotion stress emotional reflexivity as the preeminent feature in characterizing late-modern societies (González 2013), neurophysiological research delineates the limitations of an individual’s capacity to “unlearn” emotional reactions. This research also touches on the emotion-cognition relationship and processes of unconscious information processing, which are widely debated.
Films have documented, reflected upon, and enacted a paradigm-shift with regard to the emotions that took place at the turn of the 21st century promoted by research in neurology/neuroscience and psychology/economy (Damasio, Kahneman). This research led to the belief that emotions are highly important in rational decision making rather than being their opposite. These research findings found direct expression in audio-visual media productions. This can be seen most prominently in a comparison of the popular science fiction series in the 1960s, Star Trek (NBC 1966-9), and the remake movie, Star Trek, in 2009, which now carries the explicit message: “Listen to your emotions.”
Conclusion
Developments of research on emotion are divergent. As one can see from the survey of the literature no one straight line links research agendas in the life sciences, sociology and cultural productions. The “high on emotion” that we witness at the turn of the 21st century, and that recalls the “age of sensibility” with an inflationary number of publications on emotions, is only partly explainable by scientific research which promoted knowledge about emotions, and partly an indication of “upheavals of thought,” of the dislocations of their social worlds that people experience at the turn from the 20th century into the 21st century.
While the consumption of supra-national fiction, in particular Anglo-American TV series and movies, is part of a cultural-emotional identity, the educational processes of identity formation and adoption of emotional pattern of behavior seem more strongly informed by direct interaction in local national settings and religious beliefs (including their absence). The impact of audio-visual productions as role model of identity and emotional values needs to be further explored in particular in the context of mixed societies that characterize our contemporary world.
(See the attached file for full report including bibliography.)
