Human Emotions

In recent years-especially the past decade, in sharp contrast to preceding decades-knowledge in the field of emotions has been steadily increasing. This knowledge comes from many different specialties: Emotion is a truly interdisciplinary subject. Workers in the fields of physiology, neurology, ethology, physiological psychology, personality and social psychology, clinical psychology and psychiatry, medicine, nursing, social work, and the clergy are all directly concerned with emotion. Professions such as law and architecture have an obvious concern with emotions as they affect human motives and needs. The various branches of art, especially the performing arts, certainly deal with the emotions, especially with the expression of emotions. Constantine Stanislavsky, the Russian theatrical genius, revolu- tionized modem theater by developing a training method for actors and actresses that emphasized creating genuine emotion on the stage, the emotion appropriate to the character and the life situation being depicted. Indeed, one can hardly think of any human activity that is not related in some way to the field of emotion. Since the contributions to the subject of emotions come from so many different disciplines, it is difficult to find the important common themes that can yield an understanding of the field as a whole. This volume will attempt to make that task easier, but I recognize that no one can treat all of the diverse material expertly and in detail. My aim will be to represent all important types of contributions and perhaps point the way for further and more intensive study of special topics.