Spontaneous Emotion

The leaderless revolutions in the Middle East reflect long-repressed emotions that with social media can be expressed and communicated directly, leading naturally, effortlessly, and inevitably to massive changes in social structure Read More

The question of the nature of subjective emotional experience, or affect, remains a central issue in both psychology and philosophy, intimately related to the question of the nature of consciousness. Read More

The fact that viewing media violence increases aggressive behavior and decreases empathy is not news. The fact that this well-established relationship is being challenged is news. Read More

Maturation of neurochemical systems at puberty is associated with increases in sexual and aggressive feelings and desires that are difficult to deal with via social biofeedback, resulting in motives to model and imitate sexual and violent behaviors via media. Read More

Sigmund Freud's account of oral, anal, and genital stages of development were suffused with emotion, but recent accounts of development have tended to neglect emotions. An exception, not so recent, but well respected, is the account of Harry F. Read More

In a previous post I considered how emotion differs from other sorts of phenomena in the behavioral and social sciences because different aspects of emotion are differentially accessible to the self and others over the course of emotional development. Read More