affective communication, social and biological roots

Nelson Zagalo (and Albertino Gonçalves)

University of Minho, Portugal

9th Conference of the European Sociological Association

2-5 September 2009 - Lisbon

Studies in fields of neuroscience (Damásio, 1994) and psychology (Frijda, 1986) demonstrated the importance of emotion for the survival system as an organism and as a subject.

Survival would be only manageable for

humans if we took into account the human bonding possibility (Bowlby, 1969), which would be dependent of the mammalian evolution (Whybrow, 1999).

(McLean, 1967)

Reptilian - responsible for the vital body functioning (Fear)

Limbic – responsible for "the attachment

structures” (mammalians)

Neocortex - responsible for the execution of high level actions (language, imagination)

The limbic system is built with a memorizing capacity of behaviors of pleasure and unpleasure (learning) (Dubuc, 2002) which generates the continuous creation of an attachment database for the species.

“What happens when the mammals come along is that they have a much greater ability to learn, and they live in social groups. This is totally distinct from the ancient reptile” (Whybrow, 1999).

To Ekman (1999), basic emotions can be defined by the universality he found through decades in human faces along the planet.

To Damásio (1994), are “scripts to act in a predefined mode when determined characteristics of stimuli are found in the world or in our bodies”. These emotions occur almost automatically and unconsciously.

fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, anger, surprise

The six basic emotions relates to universal concerns

“human beings in large measure are moved by the same basic concerns – concern for our own physical well-being (tied to fear), concern for knowing what is going on (tied to surprise or anxiety), concern for close ties to others (tied to sadness, shame, love, jealousy), concern for achieving goals (tied to joy, anger)” (Planalp, 1999: 20).

the mammalian species appearance was defined by the novelty of living together.

"the union makes us strong”.

social network diagram neurons 3d representation

social interaction expands neuroconnections, therefore evolution

How then is communication evoked by emotion?

Definitions of sadness

Present its functions

Demonstrate correlation

Frijda (1986) "defines sadness as "the situational meaning structure of emptiness.. the explicit absence of something valued... (as) loss" (p.199). This absence should then be framed within "the notion that absence will be forever" (p.200)

Barr-Zisowitz (2000) defined the distinctions between sadness and: fear, guilt and anger. Against fear, sadness responds to something already happened, while fear answer anticipates events. From guilt, sadness shows no responsibility for what happened. Anger is the response against someone responsible for the situation, while sadness blames no one.

Following the circumplex model (Russell, 1980), sadness means a negative non-active experience - Passivity. The opposite polar from the continua dimension of happiness.

Sadness enhances the attention of the self focus (Sedikides 2000). Turning inside, avoids remembrances of loss.

On the other side, Passivity and absence of communication, enhances the call for attention, the call for comforting (following the principle of the Impossibility to Not Communicate from Watzlawick et al. (1967)).

BiologicalSadness, as a pre-wired emotion, is responsible for the survival at birth: no cry, no feed.

SocialSadness as a basic emotion, has only one goal, maintain the bonds and learn what’s bad and good.

CommunicationCrying and becoming too inactive, communicates the message to the others that something is wrong, and some change needs to occur.

emotions are the cement holding social interaction and cohesion.

emotions, albeit being biological defined, have strong effects upon human communication.

communication is responsible for emotions operation.

communication enhances human evolution.