Tasks for a theoretical psychology of emotion

ABSTRACT

In the first part of the article, the central role of theory in emotion psychology is underscored and reasons are given why more theoretical psychology of emotion is needed. In the second part, nine tasks for the theoretical psychology of emotion are defined, by refining and extending three of the general tasks of theoretical psychology proposed 70 years ago by Sigmund Koch [Theoretical psychology, 1950: An overview. Psychological Review, 58(4), 295. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055768]. The nine tasks are: (1) Analysis, rational reconstruction and critique of existing emotion theories. (2) Comparison of different theories. (3) Systematization and integration of theories. (4) Reconstruction of the development of theories over time. (5) Analysis, reconstruction and critique of theory-data and data-theory inferences. (6) Analysis, reconstruction and critique of the complete set of arguments for and against specific emotion-theoretic assumption and whole theories. (7) Analysis, reconstruction and critique of measurement theories for emotions. (8) Development of new emotion theories and theories of emotion measurement. (9) Information about theoretical and methodological developments of interest to emotion psychology in other subdisciplines of psychology and in neighbouring sciences, and export of theories and methods to other disciplines.

KEYWORDS:

• Theoretical psychology
• theoretical psychology of emotion
• theory comparison
• theory integration

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Christian Becker-Asano, Norbert Bischof, Christiano Castelfranchi, Jonathan Gratch, Eva Hudlicka, Agnes Moors, Andrew Ortony, James Russell, Klaus Scherer, Uli Schimmack and Marco Viola, for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Introductory psychology textbooks usually state that the goal of psychology is to explain (plus predict and show ways of influencing) the “real-live” behavior and experience of humans. This may indeed be the ultimate goal of psychology, but the indispensable means to achieve it is to develop valid (empirically supported) theories, and this is the goal of psychological research. The behaviors and experiences predicted in the process of testing psychological theories are usually not of interest in themselves, but only as diagnostic signs of the correctness of the theory.

2 Ortony et al. (1988) call their proposal for a cognitive theory of emotion an “exercise in theoretical psychology” (p. 14), Christiano Castelfranchi (see Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2015) holds a professorship in Theoretical Psychology, and Agnes Moors (personal communication, May 29, 2021) confirms that “theoretical psychology” appropriately describes part of her work.

3 An intentional-level theory (Dennett, 1971) explains the behavior of a system by assuming that this behavior is produced by intentional (i.e. object-directed, or representational) internal states of the system of the same type as those distinguished in the implicit psychology of common-sense: Perceptions, beliefs, desires, emotions, intentions and the like. Nearly all existing emotion theories are formulated, at least among others, at this level of system analysis. Some emotion theories combine intentional-level descriptions with assumptions about the design level, and others combine them with assumptions about the physical level, i.e. the level of neural implementation. A theory formulated on the design level (Dennett, 1971) specifies the inner representations and the operations performed with them that, according to the computational-representational theory of the mind (Fodor, 1987), underlie the processes described at the intentional level. Neurophysiological theories of emotion typically combine intentional-level assumptions with assumptions about the neurophysiological realization of emotions (e.g. Arnold, 1960) but some strive to rid themselves, eventually, of folk psychology (e.g. LeDoux, 2014).

4 Imre Lakatos (1968), a student of Popper, proposed that scientific research can be rationally reconstructed as the development of so-called research programs, by which he means a temporal sequence of theories about a domain (plus associated methods), where each later theory claims to be an improvement over its predecessor. Theory changes often occur in response to empirical challenges; however, because the core assumptions of theories are shielded against refutation by a “protective belt” of peripheral assumptions, it is the hypotheses in the protective belt that are modified first. This can appear to critics as an illegitimate attempt to protect the theory against refutation (e.g. Crivelli & Fridlund, 2019). However, this reaction to challenges can be defended as rational as long as the successor theory allows more successful predictions than its predecessor. As long as this is the case, there is scientific progress; if not, the research program is degenerating (Lakatos, 1968). Even degenerating research programs are not simply abandoned, however, but are given up only when a more successful research program becomes available.