Some would have called it an emotional roller coaster, others an enlightening and educational feast of information.
For three days, researchers explored emotions ranging from anger to love during an interdisciplinary conference aimed at discussing the seven dimensions of emotion. It was attended by anthropologists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, historians and philosophers from around the world who gave talks and offered commentaries on emotion.
The conference was hosted by UCLA and the Foundation for Psychocultural Research, or FPR, which funds research in neuroscience, psychiatry and anthropology.
The incorporation of multiple views of one complex topic can lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon itself, said Robert Lemelson, president of FPR and a lecturer in UCLA’s psychology department.
The conference, “Seven Dimensions of Emotion,” was an attempt to construct new bridges among clinical, cultural and neurobiological understandings of emotion, Lemelson said.
The emotions covered were fear, disgust, empathy, grief, anger, love and hope. Three to four panelists explored each emotion through the perspectives of their fields of study.
About 40 speakers at the event emphasized that human emotions are felt and expressed by all individuals, but have been shown to have more than personal significance, extending to larger communities and cultures, controlled by multiple mechanisms.
“These speakers are usually never in the same room together ““ neuroscientists talk to neuroscientists, anthropologists talk to anthropologists,” said Susan Townsley, event coordinator with the UCLA Graduate Division, which co-sponsored the event and is responsible for the quality and progress of graduate education at UCLA.
A society can be transformed through fear and anger, as was the case in the collective emotional state of the country following the events of Sept. 11, said Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, dean of the UCLA Graduate Division.
After anger, the society became overwhelmed with disgust toward military actions and violence, followed by feelings of immense social grief for those who were lost in this process, Mitchell-Kernan said.
But she added that there have also been positive emotions present among Americans over the past four years, including feelings of empathy for the pain others have felt, as well as love and hope for a brighter future.
The speakers at the conference discussed the interdependence of the seven human emotions and their tendency to interact and blend with each other.
Simply put, no emotion occurs in isolation.
“The different colors of emotion are universal, although they blend in a variety of ways across cultures and have differing value and range across individuals,” said Charles Lindholm, professor of anthropology at Boston University.
Besides fear, the feeling of disgust was also explored by Daniel Fessler, professor of anthropology at UCLA.
He shared an evolutionary perspective of emotion, suggesting that certain emotions such as disgust reflect adaptive functions that evolved through time to protect animals from pathogens.
The neurobiological basis of emotion was presented by Dr. Emeran Mayer, professor of medicine at UCLA. He spoke of the physiology of emotions and their ability to set off certain systems in the body. For example, the act of making an angry facial expression triggers an increase in heart rate and inhibits stomach activity, Mayer said.
University of Illinois professor of psychiatry Sue Carter and Rutgers University professor of anthropology Helen Fisher presented research about the development of love and attachment in regards to the significant role of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, responsible for pleasure, and hormones such as oxytocin, in creating this emotion.
But Fisher’s research on the brains of individuals in love concluded that love is more of a drive than an emotion.
“Love can be a stronger drive than the drive to live,” Fisher said during her presentation. “People die for love, kill for love, live for love.”
Throughout the conference, the perspectives of “brain versus culture” were repeatedly discussed. Panelists ultimately agreed that understanding emotions requires all perspectives from biology to culture.