title: From moods to modules: preliminary remarks for an evolutionary theory of mood phenomena
creator: Evans, Dylan
subject: Sociobiology
subject: Evolutionary Psychology
subject: Philosophy of Mind
subject: Social Psychology
description: In the past few decades, research in the psychology of emotion has benefited greatly from being located in a firm evolutionary framework. It is argued that research in the psychology of mood might attain equal rigour by taking a similar approach. An evolutionary framework for mood research would be based on evolutionary psychology, the main thesis of which is the Massive Modularity Hypothesis. Translating the folk-psychological language of moods into the scientific language of modules might clarify many theoretical questions and provide a sound basis for empirical research. It is argued that such an evolutionary approach would reveal mood to be a much more heterogeneous category than emotion. While the six basic emotions identified by Paul Ekman are probably each subserved by a single module, prototypical moods such as elation, depression, anxiety and irritability are likely to be subserved by a wide range of modules. An evolutionary approach to mood might therefore lead to the elimination of the concept of mood from scientific psychology altogether.
date: 1999
type: Conference Paper
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: text/html
identifier: http://cogprints.org/814/1/BBS1.html
identifier:   Evans, Dylan  (1999) From moods to modules: preliminary remarks for an evolutionary theory of mood phenomena.  [Conference Paper]    (Unpublished)  
relation: http://cogprints.org/814/