भावः Mental state

प्रयोजनम्

भगवद्गीतानुसन्धानेनापि दुर्लभां शान्तिं मनोयन्त्रावलोकनकौशलवर्धनेन लभामह इति भाति। नाम - मनोयन्त्रं कथं चलतीति स्फुटेन ज्ञानेन भावग्रहः शिथिलतरो भवति, तेन शीघ्रं शान्तिं लभामहे - नैवं चमत्कारो भगवद्गीताध्ययनस्य।

Mental factulties and states

  • Conventional classification - cognition, affect, and conation (or motivation).
    • Some add consciousness to the above.

Conation/ Motivation

  • the proactive (as opposed to habitual) part of motivation that connects knowledge, affects, drives, desire, and instincts to behavior
  • Related to Goal and agency.
  • Goal - an end state that the organism has not yet attained (and is focused towards attaining in the future) and that the organism is committed to approach or avoid

Classes

Hindu puruṣārtha classification.

Schmuck, Kasser, & Ryan (2000)

  • intrinsic (e.g., self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling)
  • extrinsic (e.g., financial success, appearance, popularity)

Chulef, Read, and Walsh (2001) have classified behavior-relevant human goals into

  • family-related goals (including family, marriage, sex, and romance),
  • interpersonal goals (including physical appearance, health, social life, friends, helping others, leadership, etc.),
  • intrapersonal goals (including ethics, freedom, entertainment, intellect, aesthetics, religion, finances, etc.).

Cognition

  • all forms of knowing and awareness, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving

Affect/ Emotions

Study approaches

  • Basic emotions approach (good for basic emotions)

Cognitive appraisal approach

  • emotions are equated with „emotion episodes‟
  • Bidirectional relationship between the components of an emotion (stimulus, perception, appraisal etc..) episode
  • Some studying emotions using non-linear dynamical systems models

Psychological constructionist approach

  • subjective experience. Commencing with a change in core affect, can culminate in categorizing and labeling the episode as fear, anger etc..
  • core effect
    • a neurophysiological primitive building block for all mental states (emotion included)
    • constantly changing (because of more or less obvious, internal or external, stimuli) along its two dimensions
      • pleasure-displeasure (valance)
      • activation-deactivation (arousal)
  • categorization and labeling of core affect
    • Important in determining action that is optimized for goal-attainment in a given stimulus situation

Social constructionist approach

  • cultural and social contexts determine which stimulus must give rise to which response.
  • cultural contexts supply norms - embedded in the nervous system or in language.
  • actual unfolding of an emotional episode calls for an immediate social context

Narrative methodology

Components
  • paying attention to the structure of emotional narrative
    • whether events described end in a climax or not,
    • pace of the narrative, order of events
    • temporal and cause-effect relationships among events
    • juxtaposition of opposing or comparative narratives
    • emotional nature of an entire narrative such as in structuring it as a comedy or tragedy
  • narrative construction of agency,
  • expression of emotions at the level of words, sentences, and prosody
Construction
  • Construction by discourse, i.e., through the use of language (including emotion words) and language-like signs (i.e., expressions) in accordance to local norms.
  • Construction by stories
    • mental states (including emotions) are akin to stories in having a beginning, middle, and end as well as in forming a unified whole
    • Stories become narratives when we give them a verbal or non-verbal form
    • prototypical narratives as those that “have a telic structure including an agent, a goal, and a causal sequence connecting the agent’s various actions with the achievement or nonachievement of the goal”, some of them have sustained cultural interest
      • prototype of sorrow, for example, is “what you feel like when someone you love dies and express through weeping”
      • junctural emotions - fear, disgust, anger, wonder, mirth that are temporally limited in their scope within the narrative
      • outcome emotions - happiness and sorrow “define the enduring feelings we prototypically consider the final evaluation points for junctural emotions”
      • prototypical narratives from across the globe are similar: their heroes pursue the goals of romantic union or power; realization or nonrealization of goals results in the end emotions of happiness or sorrow; and depending on whether its end emotion is happiness or sorrow, a prototypical narrative can fall under the genre of tragi-comedy or tragedy respectively.
    • close relationship between our real-life “ego-centric” emotions and the “empathetic” emotions that we experience while reading a piece of literature

Aspects

  • vibhāva, bhāva and anubhāva - considered separately.
  • (a) stimulus object, event, or situation;
  • (b) perception of the stimulus;
  • (c) cognitive appraisal or evaluation of the perceived stimulus;
  • (d) psychological preparation (action tendency) for responding to the appraised stimulus in a specific way;
  • (e) bodily preparation, via physiological changes, for responding to the appraised stimulus in a specific way;
  • (f) coordinated set of verbal and/or nonverbal behavioral responses;
  • (g) subjective experience (feeling); and
  • (h) regulation of subjective feeling.

Basic emotions

  • sadness, fear, anger, etc.
  • emerge early in life,
  • perform a survival-related function,
  • associated with a universally recognizable facial expression
  • rigid stimulus-response pairing
  • have a well-documented neurobiological basis - subcortical neural circuit or „affect program‟
  • recruit fewer cognitive processes; aspects such as feeling and appraisal are not integral to basic emotions

Self-conscious emotions

  • Aka „emotions of self-assessment‟, „self-evaluative emotions‟, „self-reflexive emotions‟, „non-basic emotions‟, „moral emotions‟
  • “an emotion generated when events reflect on the worth or value of the self in one’s own or others‟ eyes”.
  • occur only when people “become aware that they have lived up to, or failed to live up to, some actual or ideal self-representation”.
  • Positve vs Negative types
    • positive emotions such as pride, empathy, respect, honor
    • negative ones such as envy, jealousy, shame, guilt, embarrassment, and humiliation
  • self-evaluative vs social comparison
    • self-evaluative - guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride
    • social comparison - envy and jealously
  • Provides feedback for (regulating) future behavior
    • inform us about our “social and moral acceptability”
    • individual chooses a future behavior after evaluating the emotional consequence (in terms of shame, guilt, pride, etc.) of performing it
  • Contrast wit21ceh basic emotions
    • have a less clear-cut neurobiological basis,
    • emerge later in life
    • perform a social (rather than survival-related) function
    • are not associated with a universally recognizable facial expression,
    • require complex cognitive mechanisms. necessitate an extended self.

Thought process model

According to this model, self-conscious emotions are an important class of emotions whose elicitation from a stimulus event (e.g., securing the first rank in an exam, failing in an exam) involves the following processes:

  • (a) Appraisal of the event as not relevant for survival
  • (b) One’s focus on one’s own self-representations, either actual (e.g., “I am a successful student”) or ideal (e.g., “I want to be a successful student”)
  • (c) Appraisal of the event as identity-goal relevant, i.e., as important for one’s actual or ideal self-representations
    • (e.g., one may appraise either securing the first rank or failing in an exam as important for one’s self-representation “I am a successful student” or “I want to be a successful student”)
  • (d) Comparison of current self-representations with actual or ideal self-representations for the presence or absence of any discrepancy between the two
    • (e.g., comparing one’s current self-representation “I am a failing student” with an actual self-representation “I am a successful student” or ideal self-representation “I want to be a successful student” reveals a discrepancy between the two)
  • (e) Appraisal of the event, on the basis of the above comparison, as congruent or incongruent with the goals for one’s actual or ideal self-representations, i.e., identity-goal congruence
    • (e.g., one of the goals for the actual self-representation “I am a successful student” may be to obtain the appreciation of teachers - a goal with which failing in an exam is appraised as incongruent based on the discrepancy between one’s current self-representation “I am a failing student” and actual self-representation “I am a successful student”)
  • (f) Appraising something about oneself or related to oneself as the cause of the event
    • (e.g., appraising one’s lack of intelligence or inadequate preparation as the cause of failing in an exam)
  • (g) Appraising the cause’s
    • stability (whether the cause is something about oneself that is permanent such as lack of intelligence or impermanent such as lack of preparation for this exam),
    • globality (whether the cause is something about oneself that is non-specific such as being unintelligent in everything one does or specific such as being poor in maths),
    • and controllability (whether the cause is something one can control such as lack of preparation or one can‟t such as intelligence)

According to the model described above,

  • shame results from internal, stable, uncontrollable, and global attributions
  • guilt from internal, unstable, controllable, and specific attributions.
  • Embarrassment can result from attributions of either kind (internal, stable/unstable, uncontrollable/controllable, and global/specific) in relation to one’s public self.
  • hubristic pride from Internal, stable, uncontrollable, and global attributions lead
  • authentic pride from internal, unstable, controllable, and specific attributions.
आभिमानिक-भावेष्व् आत्मचित्रणभेदाः
  • कुपितस्य “+आदरार्हो ऽहम्” इत्य् आत्मचित्रणे सति, “निन्द्यस् त्वम्” इति परिसराद् अनुभवः।

Basic emotions approach

According to Ekman and Cordaro (2011), shame, guilt, embarrassment, envy, Yiddish „naches‟, and Italian „fiero‟ (the last two being variations of pride) could join the rank of basic emotions whereas others (e.g., jealousy) have a debatable status even as emotions.

  • shame as “the response when a person feels that if their true nature was to be known, others would be repulsed”,
  • guilt as “the response when a person regrets having violated an agreement, principle, or value”,
  • embarrassment as “the response when people feel they have broken a social rule, and also when a person has been praised”,
  • envy as “the response to another person’s awards which the envious person wishes to have”,
  • jealousy as “an „emotional scene‟, with a particular plot and cast of persons” in which the jealous person feels an array of emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, etc. (p. 366).
  • Naches is “the feeling a parent/caregiver, or teacher, feels when witnessing the achievement of their offspring”
  • fiero “the emotion felt while meeting a difficult challenge” (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011, p. 365).

Keltner and Buswell (1996) claim that shame, guilt, and embarrassment are distinct emotions by studying the recalled antecedents and facial displays specific to each of them.

  • shame
    • the antecedents of shame include poor performance, hurting others emotionally, failing to meet others‟ expectations, disappointment in oneself usually over not reaching a personal goal and role-inappropriate behavior.
    • Its facial display includes head and gaze down.
  • guilt
    • The antecedents of guilt are failures at duties, lying, neglect of another, breaking a diet or exercise, and cheating.
    • The study did not find any specific guilt display.
  • embarrassment
    • The antecedents of embarrassment include physical pitfalls such as slipping in the mud, cognitive shortcomings such as forgetting someone’s name, loss of control over the body such as burping, shortcoming in physical appearance such as walking around with toilet paper stuck to one’s shoes, and failure at privacy regulation such as accidentally walking in on others engaged in sexual intercourse.
    • Its display includes a non-Duchenne (non-enjoyment) smile, lip press, gaze down, head movement to the left and down, and a face touch.

49 vṛtti-s

  • 49 modes (vṛtti-s) in which the mind (citta) can exist. Aka bhāva-s.
  • not all mental states are capable of being communicated to the same degree.

sthāyibhāva

  • 8 or 9 enduring mental states (sthāyibhāva-s).
    • रति, हास, शोक, क्रोध, उत्साह, भय, जुगुप्सा, विस्मय (desire, mirth, sorrow, heroism, anger, fear, aversion, and astonishment).
  • Examples of enduring mental states include love, anger, fear, and sorrow.
  • Communicated using accessory mental states.
  • Communication to a sahRdaya transforms it into its aesthetic counterpart - its ‘rasa’ in him.
    • शृङ्गार-वीर-बीभत्स-रौद्र-हास्य-भयानकाः । करुणाद्भुत-शान्ताश् च नव नाट्या रसाः स्मृताः ॥
  • Certain sthāyibhāvas can be vyabhicāri, based on another sthāyibhāva appearing in the character, and itself be the base for other vyabhicāri-bhāvas.

vyabhicāri-bhāva

  • 41 accessory transient (vyabhicāri-bhāva-s)
  • 33 purely mental states. Eg. pride, jealousy, recollection, shame, and apprehension.
  • 8 psychophysical states (sāttvika-bhāva-s).
    • Eg. tear flow, perspiration, palpitation, and goose bumps.
    • Understood as having an internal (psychophysiological) and an external (physical) aspect to them. The सात्त्विकभावs have a dual nature, of अनुभाव (tear flow) and व्यभिचारिभाव.

Consciousness

  • According to Northoff (2014), consciousness can be characterized in terms of
    • its content (persons, objects, and events),
    • level (related to the degree of wakefulness),
    • form (the organization of discretely occurring content into a spatiotemporal continuum),
    • qualitative feel,
    • unitary (as opposed to fragmented) nature of experience,
    • intentionality (object-directedness),
    • relatedness to a particular self.
  • Stages
    • „anoetic‟ („unknowing‟).
      • sensory, affective, and homeostatic experience in the absence of objective awareness.
    • „noetic‟ („knowing‟).
      • factual, momentary, and non-experiential knowledge about oneself and the world.
    • „autonoetic‟ („self-knowing‟). indicative of trans-temporal and trans-spatial, experientially rich self-reflection.

Well-being

  • Well-being is a function of dominant puruṣārtha and traits as per bhoja. Considered separately.
  • According to some, well-being of an individual is a function of the type of goal (i.e., intrinsic or extrinsic), reason why he/she pursues them (i.e., whether due to reflective volition or because of feeling pressurized), personality, traits.