Towards a Clarification of the Concept of Emotion

Abstract

The author develops the thesis that feeling, or affect, is the psychologic concomitant of preparatory attitude or physiologic set. Feeling, accordingly, constitutes an intermediary or parenthetic phase between the assumption of a preliminary motor attitude and the subsequent activity. Mental disorder is considered as beginning with overlapping motor attitudes which produce embarrassment and inability to function. A neuro-muscular sequence is offered in which the "expression" of emotion is first divided into two serial phases of motor attitude and action. Feeling is then shown as belonging to an intermediate stage, being dependent on a delay occurring after the assumption of a pre-liminary motor attitude. It is actually the feeling of the motor attitude and indicates a holding up of final adequate activity. This sequence in 3 stages is suggested as explaining the seemingly divergent points of view of Darwin, James and Dewey, and as offering a concrete basis for the study of conflicting motor attitudes and resulting psychosomatic symptoms.