Is Contempt An Emotion? Emotions are inseparable to our daily lives. We often heard of others use emotions to describe an event happened in their lives, we can even post our expressions on social media. However, are all those words we used to describe our “feelings” count as an emotion? There are numerous arguments about what counts as an emotion, researchers try to identify emotions based on subjective experiences, physiological arousal, behavior change and cognitive appraisals. Other than those basic emotions that we are commonly aware of, some researchers extend their research on negative emotions such as guilt, shame and contempt. We are going to examine “contempt” based on those four components, in order to explore the following question:
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(Ekman, 1999). Ekman had successfully identified the facial expression of contempt, they are: eye rolling and upper lip raised on one side. However, Montag and Panksepp have a different perspective in their journal, “Panksepp’s primary emotional systems, a state of contempt might arise from concurrent activity of the ANGER and the homeostatic/sensory affect disgust circuitry… A primal interpretation of contempt clearly represents a debatable item in Ekman’s taxonomy, because contempt is not a hot-headed affective state, but more a cool-headed cognitive-affective reaction when disapproving of other persons.” Panksepp believes contempt is not a primary emotional but a tertiary process from combined activity of disgust and anger together with activity in the neocortex, therefore it is not included in the primary emotional systems. Even though contempt does not being considerate as a primary emotion by Panksepp, it does not mean that it is not an emotion since Ekman and Fischer both being abled to find evidences to support and agree on including contempt as an emotion. The unifying key point of these studies on contempt is that the emotion demonstrations to flag some distance between the contemptuous individual and the target individual along …show more content…
The result suggested that contemptuous individuals are motivated by ruling over and criticizing others, By and by, with regard to the confusing way of dispositional contempt, contempt inclined individuals expressed a need of connection and a tendency toward attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. In study 5, they were abled to identify contempt posts the most threat to the romantic relationship. Then they conducted study 6 to gather more data of the relationship between contempt and romantic ties, and the result is:
The optimum models identified for each outcome were as follows: (a) one’s commitment was best predicted by partner’s perceived dispositional contempt (B = —.58, SE = .17, p = .01, R2 = 13); (b) one’s satisfaction was best predicted by partner’s perceived dispositional contempt (B = .61, SE = .14, p = .01, R2 = .18);©qualityof alternatives was best predicted by one’s own dispositional contempt (B = .46, SE = .22, p = .03, R2 = .05); and (d) investment was best predicted by one’s own Disagreeableness (B = .80, SE = .33, p = .02, R2 = .07) (Schriber, Chung, Sorensen, and Robins,
(Ekman, 1999). Ekman had successfully identified the facial expression of contempt, they are: eye rolling and upper lip raised on one side. However, Montag and Panksepp have a different perspective in their journal, “Panksepp’s primary emotional systems, a state of contempt might arise from concurrent activity of the ANGER and the homeostatic/sensory affect disgust circuitry… A primal interpretation of contempt clearly represents a debatable item in Ekman’s taxonomy, because contempt is not a hot-headed affective state, but more a cool-headed cognitive-affective reaction when disapproving of other persons.” Panksepp believes contempt is not a primary emotional but a tertiary process from combined activity of disgust and anger together with activity in the neocortex, therefore it is not included in the primary emotional systems. Even though contempt does not being considerate as a primary emotion by Panksepp, it does not mean that it is not an emotion since Ekman and Fischer both being abled to find evidences to support and agree on including contempt as an emotion. The unifying key point of these studies on contempt is that the emotion demonstrations to flag some distance between the contemptuous individual and the target individual along …show more content…
The result suggested that contemptuous individuals are motivated by ruling over and criticizing others, By and by, with regard to the confusing way of dispositional contempt, contempt inclined individuals expressed a need of connection and a tendency toward attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. In study 5, they were abled to identify contempt posts the most threat to the romantic relationship. Then they conducted study 6 to gather more data of the relationship between contempt and romantic ties, and the result is:
The optimum models identified for each outcome were as follows: (a) one’s commitment was best predicted by partner’s perceived dispositional contempt (B = —.58, SE = .17, p = .01, R2 = 13); (b) one’s satisfaction was best predicted by partner’s perceived dispositional contempt (B = .61, SE = .14, p = .01, R2 = .18);©qualityof alternatives was best predicted by one’s own dispositional contempt (B = .46, SE = .22, p = .03, R2 = .05); and (d) investment was best predicted by one’s own Disagreeableness (B = .80, SE = .33, p = .02, R2 = .07) (Schriber, Chung, Sorensen, and Robins,