The issue that this chapter is addressing is that emotions differ in different cultures. If you take those differences seriously enough, you might conclude that people in one culture simply do not have the same emotions as people in another culture. If you take that itself sufficiently seriously, you might come to think that any given individual does not have the same emotion as any other individual, even if their perception of society plays a determining role in what emotions they have. This is an old problem that has plagued many areas of thought. The problem simply put is that every single one of us is trapped inside of ourselves and cannot know anything about anyone or anything else with certainty.
By and large, Griffiths is not terribly impressed with the argument that emotions cannot be the same across cultures, and he does not even entertain the notion that they are not the same from one individual to the next within a single culture: he thinks that it makes good sense to talk about "the same" emotion across cultures. Nonetheless he agrees that emotions differ across cultures and even agrees that society plays a large role in what emotions individuals have. He explains this sameness combined with difference by using the idea of heterogeneity. All of us have certain biological things in common. In one culture, a certain biological trait leads to one emotion. In another, the same biological trait develops differently. It has a different appearance (also called a different "phenotype"). But it still makes sense to call it the same emotion, because it has the same biological basis. Thus we have heterogeneity of appearance, and yet an underlying homogeneous cause. But that underlying cause is not the only causative force operating on emotions: the environment and culture is the other causative force, and that is what is responsible for the multiplicity of phenotypes.
Emotions seem to involve a judgement about the world: in other words, they involve forming something like a statement about the world, a proposition. Even if we do not put it into actual words, we can call it a proposition. Thus emotions seem to be propositional. That is why Griffiths puts forth what he calls a "propositional attitude" theory of emotion. Emotions are propositional attitudes. For example, if one is afraid, one has formed something like the proposition that "the current situation is dangerous." He rejected that notion, at least in large part, in an earlier chapter, but nonetheless he needs to use it here.
The first section of Chapter 6 dissects the idea of constructionism into two types of constructionism, the social concept model and the social role model. The social concept model holds that emotions are a product of one's concepts. If you don't have a certain concept, you cannot have the emotion attaching to it. The social role theory holds that emotions involve taking on certain roles that are defined by society. For now, I will explain the social role model theory, because that is the one Griffiths favors. Later in the chapter, Griffiths explains why.
One problem with emotions is that they are usually thought to "just happen." They are things we undergo rather than things we do, according to that thought. The social role model explains this by saying that emotions have functions, and the belief that we have that we are not in control, direct or indirect, of our emotions is something that helps them to fulfill their functions. For instance, society generally prohibits harming another on purpose. Anger, however, often involves wishing to harm or actually harming another person on purpose. Thus someone can say that they are "overcome" by anger, and so simultaneously hold the two contradictory propositions: 1) One should not willingly harm another, and 2) I should harm that person now. Thus an emotion is a "disclaimed action" or perhaps it leads to "disclaimed action." Whatever I do under the influence of an emotion is not willingly done. It is not due to any conscious decision to act.
Although disclaimed actions are still punishable, the individual can at least claim that they fit into a recognizable societal role, and society can "understand" that individual's action. The individual will receive societal acceptance as having undergone something, even if society simultaneously punishes the individual. Support groups and therapy will be brought to bear. People will not be confused by such things done out of a recognizable emotion, even if they do not approve of them.
An extreme example of this is the recent rash of young males (and a couple females) who "go postal." We now have a social role for that, and people who are faced with situations that they do not understand and by which they are frustrated can now put on that role.
Another model of emotion that differs from the "disclaimed action" model holds that emotions are responses to situations, but those responses have become automatic because of many reinforcing factors in the situations. It is called the "reinforcement model." Just as you do not think about all the things you do and are supposed to do when you negotiate an intersection in your car, so you do not think about your emotion. But the emotion, like negotiating the intersection, is the product of a number of factors in the past which reinforce the emotion. With the intersection, your expectation that someone turning will use a blinker, that brake lights will work, that people will stop on red, go on green, etc. reinforce your own behavior at the intersection. So this reinforcement model holds that your emotional responses to situations are reinforced by the societal role which you are in.
In sum, the social role model "suggests that having an emotion is manifesting the behavior that constitutes a culture's model of a particular emotion." In the "disclaimed action" social role model, one deliberately tries to fit into a social role. In the "reinforcement" model, one does not necessarily deliberately try to fit into a role, but one's social environment reinforces patterns of action that fit the social role, and so you find yourself slipping into that role automatically.
By this point, Griffiths has decided to jettison the social concept model, not because it is bad, but because the social role model includes it and more. In the social role model, one's appraisal of the situation (i.e. one's concept of the situation), is part of what an emotion is. He spends a good deal of time in the center of the chapter explaining why he jettisons the social concept model, and on the way says some interesting things.
The social concept model says that fear, for example, just is the appraisal of a situation as dangerous. That very appraisal IS fear. The social role model would say that fear is the role that people take on when they appraise a situation as dangerous. That role includes the appraisal of the situation as dangerous, but is not limited to the appraisal. The biggest problem with the social concept model is that it leads to a view of emotions that makes it impossible to compare emotions across cultures, and even in the extreme between individuals (P 144), because one cannot compare personal judgements, I guess. Whether or not there is some true thing that emotions REALLY are, the social concept model seems deficient in that it does not give a good reason for us to ignore all the other factors that seem to be important in emotions. Those other factors are things that are not our appraisal of the situation.
In a further attempt to reject the social concept model, Griffiths identifies ways that something can be socially constructed: 1) A trivial way to be socially constructed: all concepts are socially constructed: even the concept of an electron, of cadmium, etc. are socially constructed in the sense that without some group of thinkers and speakers, there would be no such concept. That is a trivial and uninteresting sense of social construction. 2) A more substantial way to be socially constructed: "Citizen," "licensed dog owner," and "friend" are social constructions, but "electron," and "cadmium," and "dog" are not. The things in the second list would exist whether or not someone thought about them or spoke about them. The first list would not. In this sense, there is an interesting idea to be considered: dynamic nominalism. Things like "Multiple personality disorder" seem to be neither in the first list nor in the second, because MPS does at least seem to exist rather like electrons or a disease, but on the other hand, the way a society defines it influences what it IS. Thus the concept of MPS influences what MPS is. Griffiths says that the sociolinguistic context determines what it is. 3) A third way that is also substantial, but is "merely socially constructed" (i.e. there is nothing but a pretend situation to make the thing what it is): When everyone pretended that the emperor's new clothes were wonderful, his clothes were a socially constructed thing. But when the little boy pointed out that the emperor was naked, that revealed the emperor's new clothes as a pretense. They were "just" socially constructed: that was all there was to them, being a social construction!
Griffiths says that 1 is uninteresting. 2 and 3, however, are interesting. The social role model holds that emotions are social constructions in the 3rd sense, but social concept models hold that emotions are constructions in the 2nd sense.
People are happy to think of nations, laws, etc. as social constructions in the 3rd sense-they are not things that exist naturally, but are things that society builds based on nothing other than the societal building process. There is no natural reality to a nation or a law. Our curent paper money economy is a little like that too. But emotions, people think, are not just social constructions, there is also something about them that is REAL. Sort of like the gold standard: sure, gold-standard money is socially constructed, but there is an underlying thing of value to back it up.
6.3
If emotions are social constructions in the 3rd sense, that does not mean that people are aware of that fact when they have an emotion. In fact, they deny that their emotions are just social constructions. How do we explain that? Griffiths says that people are not pretending: the things inside of us that make us have emotions are unconscious processes. Jean Paul Sartre, however, rejected that notion of the unconscious, or at least tried to. Griffiths points out that Sartre actually accepts the notion, but does not realize it.
In order to explain why Sartre really accepts an unconscious, Griffiths explains that there are first and second-order mental occurrences. A first order occurrence is, for instance, 1) seeing red, 2) thinking that that is beautiful, 3) whatever your brain tells you that makes you stay upright instead of falling down, etc. Second-order occurrences are, for example, the thought that 1') "I am now thinking that I see red," 2') "I am now thinking that I am seeing something beautiful," 3') "My brain is now telling my body to perform this action that will keep me from falling on my face," etc. We do not usually have second-order thoughts that correspond to all of our first order things. For instance, all the signals that my brain is now sending to my fingers to type this stuff are first order, but most of the time I do not think about them: I have no second order thoughts about them usually.
First order thoughts are sometimes connected to second order corresponding thoughts. But not always. When they are not so connected, the first order thoughts are not conscious. I am not sure that that is enough to make them "unconscious," however, or rather perhaps there are degrees of unconsciousness. It seems to me that they are particularly unconscious when I just cannot access them: for instance, there are many things that happen in my brain that keep my heart beating, but I can never ever be aware of any individual one of those things via introspection. No matter how hard I think, I cannot see myself having those thoughts. I can merely conclude via logic that since my heart is beating, I must be having those "thoughts." Other things I do that I could pay attention to (like turning on a blinker, moving my fingers to type) but don't, unless I decide to. In that case, they are "unconscious," but not like the things that keep my heart going.
Griffiths thinks that emotions are largely first-order happenings that I am only occasionally aware of. Some of them I might not be able to be aware of at all. Nonetheless, I can think that I understand why I am doing the things I am doing when I am angry. I might be mistaken, however. I might form a conscious belief about why I am angry that has nothing to do with the "real" reason. An ingenious experiment proves that that is possible. On P. 153, Griffiths tells us about an experiment in which a person whose brain is split has to explain why he or she does something. I'll explain it as I understand it: I am sure that it is not accurate in all particulars, but I am also sure it is accurate in general (Lauren might help us here! she seems to know a bit about this). The left half of the person's brain, let us say, contains that mechanism that actually leads the person to perform that action. The right half, however, contains all the things that allow the person to explain an action. So, when asked why he or she is doing what he or she is doing, the person explains it, but the explanation has NOTHING to do with the real reason, because the two parts of the person's brain are not connected in such a way that he or she can explain it.
Just so, perhaps some emotional processes are hidden from the parts of our brain that let us examine what our brain is now doing or explain what it is doing.
The really cool thing about this is that it can explain both the fact that some things about emotions are amenable to consciously changing them, because we can introspect and reveal our pretense, and yet it leaves some of them perhaps utterly hidden from our conscious thought.
The end of the chapter is about heterogeneity: how is it that there are so many different phenotypes of emotion if we are all hardwired similarly? Well, environment and how you are raised does influence how your emotions manifest themselves, but the same underlying original hardwiring can explain emotions that appear quite different. It may be the case that cultural and environmental factors change our hardwiring too! (learning a foreign language actually changes structural things in your brain!!!) Emotions seem to be a result of a combination of an underlying reality that is something like cadmium and electrons, combined with a history that is more like "citizen" or "licensed dog owner."
I am loving Griffiths' book: I hope you do too.