Self-EvolvingTue, Mar 30, 2010 Thanks for your comment XiXiDu, you raise some interesting points.
Here is a short response to those points:
The bias, I would surmise, is a process of automaticity, as are the majority, if not all, of our cognitive biases. For if they were deliberatively rendered humans would not have the same set of across-the-board biases (minus of course some mediating effects of culture, see Kitayama). Also, many of these biases disappear when we are made aware of them, at least temporarily, and contrariwise, they come back once we have forgotten about them (see, Kahneman & Tversky, 1982).
Evolutionary psychology is a very useful theoretical tool with which to understand, human emotions in particular, however, it is not empirical it is all retro-speculative. I agree that perpetual happiness was not useful to our ancestors adapting to survive in multi-millennial old environs, and so it is unrealistic to pursue this now, when much of our emotional hardware is ancient. The most pragmatic emotion systems in our Darwinian development were fear, anger, and sadness; and so they pervade our lives today: Fear to recognize, internalize, and remember dangers, anger to deter dangers, and sadness to preserve valuable resources by avoiding the pursuance of futile goals.
This is precisely why, the majority of research that has focused on emotions in psychology has typically been on the three I just mentioned, in addition to other negative affective states, such as disgust. However, there are researchers now that argue for the existence of a unique evolutionary-molded set of discrete positive emotions with specific adaptive functions as well (see Fredrickson, 1998; Fredrickson and Cohen, 2008). For instance, pride has been found to have a unique set of phenomenology, behavior, goals, and expressions and may serve its own survival functions, liking broadening cognition and attention, and stimulating resource building as well as opportunity seeking (Roseman et al, 2008; this paper is unpublished, but I have it if you are interested).
I think as we learn more about positive human psychology new biases will come to the fore – glass is half full biases – that will give us a deeper appreciation of the adaptive systems that inhere in our genetic architecture and underlie the actions of even the most disciplined and deliberative human. The great thing is that although our biases limit our understanding of the world, and also, ironically, our understanding of our biases, we are in a position to discover and override them when they are no longer useful – taking our evolution into our own hands.
Thanks for your comment XiXiDu, you raise some interesting points.
Here is a short response to those points:
The bias, I would surmise, is a process of automaticity, as are the majority, if not all, of our cognitive biases. For if they were deliberatively rendered humans would not have the same set of across-the-board biases (minus of course some mediating effects of culture, see Kitayama). Also, many of these biases disappear when we are made aware of them, at least temporarily, and contrariwise, they come back once we have forgotten about them (see, Kahneman & Tversky, 1982).
Evolutionary psychology is a very useful theoretical tool with which to understand, human emotions in particular, however, it is not empirical it is all retro-speculative. I agree that perpetual happiness was not useful to our ancestors adapting to survive in multi-millennial old environs, and so it is unrealistic to pursue this now, when much of our emotional hardware is ancient. The most pragmatic emotion systems in our Darwinian development were fear, anger, and sadness; and so they pervade our lives today: Fear to recognize, internalize, and remember dangers, anger to deter dangers, and sadness to preserve valuable resources by avoiding the pursuance of futile goals.
This is precisely why, the majority of research that has focused on emotions in psychology has typically been on the three I just mentioned, in addition to other negative affective states, such as disgust. However, there are researchers now that argue for the existence of a unique evolutionary-molded set of discrete positive emotions with specific adaptive functions as well (see Fredrickson, 1998; Fredrickson and Cohen, 2008). For instance, pride has been found to have a unique set of phenomenology, behavior, goals, and expressions and may serve its own survival functions, liking broadening cognition and attention, and stimulating resource building as well as opportunity seeking (Roseman et al, 2008; this paper is unpublished, but I have it if you are interested).
I think as we learn more about positive human psychology new biases will come to the fore – glass is half full biases – that will give us a deeper appreciation of the adaptive systems that inhere in our genetic architecture and underlie the actions of even the most disciplined and deliberative human. The great thing is that although our biases limit our understanding of the world, and also, ironically, our understanding of our biases, we are in a position to discover and override them when they are no longer useful – taking our evolution into our own hands.
Cheers.