WE'RE ALL INNATE TOGETHER

One mind myth that never ceases to annoy me is so-called 'left-brain' and 'right-brain' thinking. This is obviously the popular oversimplification that suggests that individuals are either dominated by their left hemisphere of the brain, making them more logical and analytical, or by their right hemisphere, making them more creative and intuitive. While it's true that certain functions are more localised to one hemisphere or the other - language tends to be located in the left hemisphere for most people - both sides of the brain work together for most cognitive tasks.

And there's precisely zero scientific evidence to support the idea that personality traits, such as being analytical or creative, are determined by the dominance of one brain hemisphere. Personality and cognitive abilities emerge from distributed networks across the entire brain, not from one hemisphere alone.

Yet the myth persists. Meme fitness.

?But that’s not the most annoying one. I’ll give that dubious honour to the current vogue for The Constructed Theory of Emotions, as first asserted by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and consequently soup du jour in advertising planning departments, (presumably because of its similarities to other 'theories' like ‘cultural relativism’ as lapped up by the educated classes.)

Barrett's theory, in a nutshell, posits that emotions are not innate, universal categories pre-wired into our brains but are instead constructed, in the moment through a combination of bodily sensations, past experience/learning, and social context. This theory takes a truth about the brain's role in interpreting and making predictions about our internal and external environment and stretches it to the function of 'creating' emotional experiences.

My beef is that this places her theory up against evolutionary psychology's view that emotions are innate, universal responses shaped by natural selection to solve specific adaptive problems faced by our ancestors.

Of course, all science is provisional. ?Occasionally a new discovery/theory turns things upside down.

While observing the Coma Cluster, a large cluster of galaxies in 1933, the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky found that the visible mass of all the galaxies within the cluster was far too small to account for the gravitational effects holding the cluster together. He proposed that there must be some unseen mass, which he called 'dunkle materie' (dark matter), contributing to the gravitational pull.

Dark energy, on the other hand, was discovered much later, in the late 1990s. Two independent research teams, the High-Z Supernova Search Team and the Supernova Cosmology Project (band names up for grabs, kids...), made the groundbreaking discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

This acceleration was unexpected and could not be explained by the known forces of gravity acting on the matter in the universe, leading to the hypothesis of dark energy. Dark energy is thought to make up about 68% of the universe and acts as a repulsive force, counteracting gravity and causing the universe's expansion to accelerate.

Both dark matter and dark energy remain some of the most profound mysteries in science. So it does happen.

But if we a looking for a theory that is going to upend evolution by means of natural selection then it will need to be a better one than Feldman-Barratts semantic trickery and taxonomy.

Here’s a heuristic. If any new theory doesn’t make sense from the evolutionary perspective, then it's not going anywhere.

Everything?in biology must make sense from an evolutionary perspective. And emotions are biology.

The facts, as we know them, are this.

Emotional responses are universal and have clear evolutionary purposes, such as fear in response to a threat, which prepares the body for a fight-or-flight response. This is evidence of evolved, specialised mechanisms.

From an evolutionary psychology perspective, emotions are adaptations that served specific functions in our ancestral environment. Barrett's model discounts the specificity of emotional responses in relation to specific evolutionary challenges.

?Aha, but what about culture?

Many, many cross-cultural studies have found solid evidence of universal emotional expressions, suggesting that these are not socially constructed or learned but have a biological basis that predates cultural differences.

Barrett's theory also fails to address how constructed emotions directly relate to the solving of adaptive problems—such as finding mates, cooperating with others, or avoiding predators—that have historically guided the evolution of psychological mechanisms.

?We’re only here today because our ancestors with the preloaded innate fear of sabre-tooth tigers legged it. The ones who stood around waiting to ‘learn’ about the fear didn’t get to contribute much to the gene pool.

Emotions are innate and universal among humans. This is a biological fact.

These primary emotions, such as happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, and anger, are biologically determined, universally experienced, and expressed in similar ways across different cultures and societies.

These emotions have evolved because they offered adaptive advantages to our ancestors.

The primary emotions and their corresponding expressive behaviours, like facial expressions, are recognised across various cultural contexts, further indicating a biological basis. Yes, some expressions vary in different cultures, but the basic emotions being expressed are the same. It’s a language.

Social emotions, like guilt, pride, or embarrassment, might be slightly more influenced by cultural factors. They more complex cognitive processes, including self-awareness and and nuanced by learning and socialisation to an extent.

But these secondary emotions are rooted in biological processes, nonetheless.

Don’t get side-tracked by Lisa Feldman-Barrett’s heavy emphasis on the role of language and conceptual knowledge in the construction of emotions.

Pre-linguistic babies display evidence of experiencing emotions despite lacking conceptual knowledge. Likewise, non-human animals.

Either Feldman-Barrett has never had a dog, or if she did, it was in the yard most of the time.