Evolutionary Psychology and Emotion: A Brief History

T. Ketelaar () Department of Psychology, New Mexico State University, MSC 3452, Las Cruces, NM, 88001-8001, USA e-mail: [email protected] The first rumblings of a modern evolutionary psychology of the emotions began in the late 1880s in the form of William James’ writings on instinct and emotion. James’ most notable attempt to combine Darwin’s insights on human nature with a scientific discussion of emotion appeared in his 1890 textbook, The Principles of Psychology. Although James’ writings on emotion published in the Principles (and in his 1984 paper, “What is an Emotion?”) were arguably the first modern scientific accounts of human emotion, his writings did not constitute an “adaptationist” approach to emotion in the sense that evolutionary psychologists use that term today. Although he was familiar with Darwin’s views on evolution and human nature, James was not Darwin’s bulldog when it came to theorizing about human emotions. In many instances, James’ use of Darwin’s insights revealed more sympathy than willingness to carry Darwin’s evolutionary insights to their full conclusion. James’ reticence in his evolutionary theorizing about emotion was not due to a lack of sophistication in his psychological thinking; indeed, the Principles of Psychology was hailed at the time as “the most important contribution that has been made to the subject for many years” (Perry 1935, p. 104) and James’ theory of emotion “is still the starting point for much contemporary theory and research into emotions” (Dixon 2003, p. 231). Nor is it plausible to claim that James’ restraint in applying Darwinian thinking to the study of emotion was due to a lack of familiarity with Darwin’s writings. As a medical student at Harvard in the 1860s, James published two reviews of Darwin’s (1868) book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication in the same year it was published. James’ reticence in exploring the ultimate causes of human emotion appears to be due less to a lack of familiarity with Darwin’s views on evolution and more to James’ peculiar views on teleology (discussed below). James’ failure to apply an adaptationist analysis to human emotion can perhaps be forgiven by modern evolutionary psychologists because it turns out that Darwin was, despite numerous erroneous modern claims to the contrary, among the least “Darwinian” of emotion scholars in the past 150 years (Dixon 2003; Fridlund 1994; Griffith 1997). If by employing the term “Darwinian” one refers to an evolutionary account of a psychological trait that invokes evidence of special design in biology, then Darwin’s views on emotional expression did not constitute an “adaptationist” treatment of emotion (Dixon 2003; Fridlund 1994). In his 1872 book, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animal, Darwin focused instead on rejecting the theological account of emotional expressions that had been popularized by Sir Charles Bell. Bell, a Scottish surgeon and theological philosopher, was well known for his anatomical expertise, and published a number of works on facial expression, including his (1806)