This paper proposes a way of conceptualizing the role of representation in emotion causation from the perspective of Vygotskian cultural psychology. It is argued that emotion is caused by the agency of the object within activity, but this agency is mediated by representations. It is argued that the kind of representation which mainly mediates emotion causation is what Vygotsky called perezhivanie, which, we suggest, is the same as what in the literature on emotion has been called appraisal. This position diverges from the two most widespread hypotheses on emotion causation: (1) representation causes feeling and emotion; and (2) representation enters the emotional process once feeling has already been caused by the environment.
ArnoldM. B. (1960a) Emotion and personality. Volume I: Psychological aspects, New York: Columbia University Press.
2.
ArnoldM. B. (1960b) Emotion and personality. Volume II: Neurological and physiological aspects, New York: Columbia University Press.
3.
BarrettL. F. (2006a) Solving the emotion paradox: Categorization and the experience of emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review10(1): 20–46.
4.
BarrettL. F. (2006b) Are emotions natural kinds?Perspectives on Psychological Science1: 28–58.
5.
BerridgeK. C.WinkielmanP. (2003) What is an unconscious emotion? The case for unconscious “liking.”. Cognition and Emotion17(2): 181–211.
6.
BlundenA. (2010) An interdisciplinary theory of activity, Leiden: Brill.
7.
BodkerS.AndersenP. B. (2005) Complex Mediation. Human-Computer Interaction20: 353–402.
8.
BosseT.JonkerC. M.TreurJ. (2008) Formalisation of Damasio’s theory of emotion, feeling and core consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition17: 94–113.
9.
BrancoA.ValsinerJ. (2010) Towards cultural psychology of affective processes: Semiotic regulation of dynamic fields. Estudios de Psicología31(3): 243–251.
10.
CannonW. B. (1927) The James-Lange theory of emotions: A critical examination and an alternative theory. American Journal of Psychology39: 106–124.
11.
ClaràM. (2013) The concept of situation and the microgenesis of the conscious purpose in cultural psychology. Human Development56(2): 113–127.
12.
CloreG. L. (1994) Why emotions are never unconscious. In: EkmanP.DavidsonR. J. (eds) The nature of emotion. Fundamental questions, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 285–290.
13.
ColeM. (1996) Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
14.
DamasioA. (1999) The feeling of what happens: Body, emotion and the making of consciousness, New York: Harcourt Brace.
15.
DanielsH. (2001) Vygotsky and Pedagogy, London: RoutledgeFalmer.
16.
DeweyJ. (1991) Logic: The theory of inquiry. In: BoydstonJ. A. (ed.) The later works of John DeweyVol. 12, Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.
17.
EngeströmY. (1987) Learning by expanding, Helsinki: Orienta-Konsulfit Oy.
18.
EngeströmY. (2001) Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work14: 133–156.
19.
Ferholt, B. (2009). The development of cognition, emotion, imagination and creativity as made visible through adult-child joint play: Perezhivanie through playworlds (unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California, San Diego.
20.
ForgasJ. P. (2008) Affect and cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science3: 94–101.
21.
Gal’perinP. I. (1992a) Stage-by-stage formation as a method of psychological investigation. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology30(4): 60–80.
22.
Gal’perinP. I. (1992b) The problem of activity in soviet psychology. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology30(4): 37–59.
23.
GendronM.BarrettL. F. (2009) Reconstructing the past: A century of ideas about emotion in psychology. Emotion Review1(4): 316–339.
24.
HarréR. (1986) The social constructionist viewpoint. In: HarréR. (ed.) The social construction of emotions, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 2–14.
25.
HolodynskiM. (2013) The internalization theory of emotions: A cultural historical approach to the development of emotions. Mind, Culture, and Activity20: 4–38.
26.
IlyenkovE. V. (1977) The concept of the ideal. In: KuleshovV.DaglishR. (eds) Philosophy in the USSR: Problems of dialectical materialism, Moscow: Progress, pp. 71–97.
27.
IrishD. P.LundquistK. F.NelsenV. J. (1993) Ethnic variations in dying, death and grief. Diversity in Universality, Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis.
28.
IvoninL.ChangH.-M.ChenW.RauterbergM. (2013) Unconscious emotions: Quantifying and logging something we are not aware of. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing17(4): 663–673.
29.
IzardC. E. (2007) Basic emotions, natural kinds, emotion schemas, and a new paradigm. Perspectives on Psychological Science2: 260–280.
30.
JamesW. (1884) What is an emotion?Mind9: 188–205.
31.
KihlstromJ. F.MulvaneyS.TobiasB. A.TobisI. P. (2000) The emotional unconscious. In: EichE. (ed.) Cognition and Emotion, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 30–86.
32.
LangeC. G. (1922) The emotions: A psychophysiological study (trans. by I. A. Haupt). In: DunlapK. (ed.) The emotions, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins Company, pp. 33–90.
33.
LatourB. (1996) On interobjectivity. Mind, Culture and Activity3: 228–245.
34.
LazarusR. S. (1984) On the primacy of cognition. American Psychologist39(2): 124–129.
35.
LazarusR. S. (2006) Emotions and interpersonal relationships: Toward a person-centered conceptualization of emotions and coping. Journal of Personality74(1): 9–46.
36.
LeDouxJ. E. (1994) Emotional processing, but not emotions, can occur unconsciously. In: EkmanP.DavidsonR. J. (eds) The nature of emotion. Fundamental questions, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 291–292.
37.
LeontievA. N. (1978) Activity, Consciousness, and Personality, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
38.
LeontievA. N. (1981) Problems of the development of the mind, Moscow: Progress.
39.
LindquistK. A.WagerT. D.KoberH.Bliss-MoreauE.BarrettL. F. (2012) The brain basis of emotion: A meta-analytic review. Behavioral and Brain Sciences35(3): 121–143.
40.
Mahn, H., & John-Steiner, V. (2002). The gift of confidence: A Vygotskian view of emotions. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century: Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp. 46–58). Malden: Blackwell.
MesquitaB. (2010) Emoting: A contextualized process. In: MesquitaB.BarrettL. F.SmithE. (eds) The mind in context, New York: Guilford, pp. 83–104.
43.
MiettinenR. (2006) Epistemology of transformative material activity: John Dewey’s pragmatism and cultural-historical activity theory. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour36: 389–407.
44.
MoorsA. (2009) Theories of emotion causation: A review. Cognition & Emotion23(4): 625–662.
45.
PankseppJ. (2007) Neurologizing the psychology of affects: How appraisal-based constructivism and basic emotion theories can coexist. Perspectives on Psychological Science2: 281–296.
46.
PessoaL. (2008) On the relationship between emotion and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience9: 148–158.
47.
PhelpsE. A. (2006) Emotion and cognition: Insights from studies of the human amygdala. Annual Review of Psychology57: 27–53.
48.
RatnerC. (2000) A cultural-psychological analysis of emotions. Culture & Psychology6: 5–39.
49.
RatnerC. (2007) A macro-cultural psychological theory of emotions. In: SchutzP. A.PekrunR. (eds) Emotion in Education, San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 89–104.
50.
RivièreA. (1991) Objetos con mente, Madrid: Alianza.
51.
RosenblattP. C. (2013) Family grief in cross-cultural perspective. Family Science4(1): 12–19.
52.
RothW.-M. (2007) Emotion at work: A contribution to third-generation cultural-historical activity theory. Mind, Culture, and Activity14: 40–63.
53.
RussellJ. A. (2009) Emotion, core affect, and psychological construction. Cognition & Emotion23(7): 1259–1283.
54.
SalzmanC. D.FusiS. (2010) Emotion, cognition, and mental state representation in amygdala and prefrontal cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience33: 173–202.
55.
SchererK. R. (1994) Toward a concept of “modal emotions.”. In: EkmanP.DavidsonR. J. (eds) The nature of emotion. Fundamental questions, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 25–31.
56.
SchererK. R. (2009) The dynamic architecture of emotion: Evidence for the component process model. Cognition & Emotion23(7): 1307–1351.
57.
SheppesG.CatranE.MeiranN. (2009) Reappraisal (but not distraction) is going to make you sweat: Physiological evidence for self-control effort. International Journal of Psychophysiology71: 91–96.
58.
Storbeck, J., & Clore, G. L. (2007). On the interdependence of cognition and emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 21 (6), 1212–1237.
59.
TongE. M. W.TanD. H.TanY. L. (2013) Can implicit appraisal concepts produce emotion-specific effects? A focus on unfairness and anger. Consciousness and Cognition22: 449–460.
60.
TuringA. M. (1950) Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind59: 433–460.
61.
UrryH. L. (2010) Seeing, thinking, and feeling: Emotion-regulating effects of gaze-directed cognitive reappraisal. Emotion10(1): 125–135.
62.
Valsiner, J. (2001). Cultural developmental psychology of affective processes. Invited Lecture at the 15 Tagung der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Potsdam, September 5.
63.
ValsinerJ. (2007) Culture in minds and societies. Foundations of cultural psychology, New Delhi: Sage.
64.
Vasilyuk, F. (1988). The psychology of experiencing: An analysis of how critical situations are dealt with. Moscow: Progress.
65.
VygotskyL. S. (1971) The psychology of art, Cambridge: MIT Press.
66.
VygotskyL. S. (1978) Internalization of higher psychological functions. In: ColeM.SteinerV. J.ScribnerS.SoubermanE. (eds) Mind in Society: The development of higher psychological processes, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 58–78.
67.
VygotskyL. S. (1987) Thinking and Speech (trad. de N. Minick). In: RieberA. R. W.CartonA. S. (eds) The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Volume 1: Problems of general psychology, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 39–285.
68.
VygotskyL. S. (1994) The problem of the environment. In: van der VeerR.ValsinerJ. (eds) The Vygotsky reader, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 338–354.
69.
VygotskyL. S. (1999) The teaching about emotions. Historical-psychological studies. In: RieberR. (ed.) The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 6: Scientific Legacy, New York: Plenum, pp. 71–235.
70.
Wartofsky, M. W. (1979). Models. Representation and the scientific understanding. Dordrecht: Reidel.
71.
WikanU. (1988) Bereavement and loss in two Muslim communities: Egypt and Bali compared. Social Science & Medicine27(5): 451–460.
72.
ZajoncR. B. (1980) Feeling and thinking. Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist35(2): 151–175.
73.
ZajoncR. B. (1994) Evidence for nonconscious emotions. In: EkmanP.DavidsonR. J. (eds) The nature of emotion. Fundamental questions, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 293–297.
74.
ZittounT.GillespieA.CornishF.PsaltisC. (2007) The metaphor of the triangle in theories of human development. Human Development50: 208–229.
