Contribution
The paper gives a theory of impulsive action and builds it from Frijda’s theory of emotion. An impulsive action is “a non-deliberate action that serves the purpose of rendering one’s relation to the object, event, or state of the world more pleasant or less unpleasant”. The purpose comes from appraisal, which elicits action readiness. The paper then argues that impulse control and emotion regulation are largely the outcome of several states of action readiness interacting, not of a reflective system overriding an impulsive one.
Key insight
A motive does not need a goal representation. An appraised object in front of the agent, together with a state of readiness to change one’s relation to it, is enough to select and steer an action. The same mechanism regulates: seeing what one’s impulse would do sets off another readiness, which checks the first. “Reflective and deliberate processes seek to help solving impulsive dilemmas that impulsive processes alone are unable to solve.” They do not govern the impulses.
Assumptions
- Emotion is action readiness. “Action readiness and changes in action readiness form the key to what we call ‘emotions’” (Frijda 1986, 2007), so “all impulsive actions qualify as emotional actions”, though not all emotional actions are impulsive (“Impulsive actions”).
- Appraisal elicits action readiness, “in a fraction of a second”, and largely “automatically and non-consciously”. The central appraisal is concern pertinence: whether an event promotes or obstructs the person’s goals, needs, values or concerns (“Action readiness elicitation”).
- Engagement is a further necessary condition: the capacity for interest, identified with dopaminergic and related neuromodulatory systems (“Engagement”).
- States of action readiness are “subthreshold preparatory potentiations” of relational actions and coping skills, and can be felt without overt action (“States of action readiness”).
Key results
No data. The results are the theory’s propositions, summarized in the conclusion as five points:
- Elicitation. Impulsive actions are instigated by non-reflective appraisal of an event’s relevance to concerns, which elicits a motive to establish or modify a self–object relationship.
- Selection. Action is selected neither by deliberate goals nor by habit, “but from non-reflective action priming by affordances met and recognized along the way”. Priming elicits a “pragmatic anticipation” of the action’s effects, including its exteroceptive and interoceptive sensory consequences, which makes the action purposive.
- No exclusive regulation processes. “There is no clear distinction between processes of emotion and processes of emotion regulation. In large measure, emotion regulation also proceeds impulsively”.
- Against dual-process models. Regulation as the interaction of multiple states of readiness is “an alternative” to a shift from an “impulsive” to a “reflective” system (Strack & Deutsch 2004). Not “the rider controlling the horse”: “our perspective accords with Hume (1739), in viewing reason as the slave of the passions.”
- Control by recruiting concerns. Impulse control “can be expected to be served by enhancing relevant multiple emotions by focusing on non-obvious but relevant concerns, such as moral concerns and self-esteem.”
Supporting points in the body:
- Modes of action readiness and emotion names. Hostility corresponds to anger, avoidance to fear, submission to awe, and disinclination to act to apathy (Frijda & Parrott 2011) (“States of action readiness”).
- Control precedence: persistence until an end state, resumption after interruption, selective attention, and priority over other actions. Rated control precedence correlates with rated emotion intensity (Sonnemans & Frijda 1994) (“Impulsive actions”).
- Multiple emotions are common. 31% of diary-reported emotions were multiple (Oatley & Duncan 1992). Observers rate expressions for action tendencies about as consistently as for emotion labels (Tcherkassof et al. 2007) (“Perceived events may induce multiple appraisals”).
- Regulation is grounded in concerns. “Emotions are moderated or controlled to the extent that one emotionally cares about the affective consequences of their being uncontrolled” (“Emotion regulation and impulse control”).
- Neural sketch. Pragmatic anticipation is formed in posterior parietal cortex and mapped to premotor and motor regions, with the cerebellum doing state estimation. Interruption and override engage inferior frontal cortex, pre-SMA and the basal ganglia (“Neural bases of impulsive action”).
- Loss of action readiness. Where an event is unbearable but no aim presents itself, the result is the “background of urges toward suicide”, of “true anxiety”, dissociation or apathy (“Engagement”).
Claims
| id | claim | strength | support |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Emotions are distinguished by their mode of action readiness, a motive to change a self–object relation | theoretical, cited to Frijda 1986, 2007 | ”States of action readiness” |
| C2 | Without appraised concern pertinence there is no action readiness, and so no emotion | theoretical (definitional within the theory) | “Action readiness elicitation” |
| C3 | Impulsive action is purposive without a goal representation, guided by the appraised object and affordances | argued | ”The aims of impulsive actions” |
| C4 | Felt emotion intensity tracks the control-precedence features of the action | moderate, one cited study | Sonnemans & Frijda 1994 |
| C5 | Emotion regulation is largely the interaction of concurrent states of action readiness, not a separate process | argued with examples; untested here | ”Multiple emotions can exert control”; Conclusion |
| C6 | Purposive impulsive action depends on parietal–premotor anticipation of sensory effects, and its control on frontostriatal circuits | moderate, cited neuroscience | ”Neural bases of impulsive action” |
Concepts
- action readiness: a state of being set for a kind of relational action; “not representations of desirable states, but actual preparations for action”. The term is borrowed from Dewey (1895).
- control precedence: the urgency of an impulse and its claim on attention and action, including persistence, resumption and priority.
- concern: what an individual cares about, from survival to values. Concern pertinence is “the condition for an event to operate as an emotional event”.
- appraisal: “the information that confers personal meaning to brute perceived events”. It is drawn from the stimulus, its context, interaction with it, and memory, and covers what the event may do to one and what actions it affords.
- impulsive action: non-deliberate action aimed at making one’s relation to an object more pleasant or less unpleasant.
- pragmatic anticipation: the anticipated sensory effects of an action, used to retrieve and tune it.
Connections
- Frijda, The Emotions (LIT-546), Deferred. This paper extends the book. Action readiness and control precedence are both cited to it (with The Laws of Emotion, 2007), and the paper’s “earlier work” is the book’s theory. Equivalence of actions within one mode of readiness is also cited to it (“When angry one can kick, shout insults, turn one’s back”).
- Gross (LIT-554), read. Not cited. Gross (1998, p. 286) records that “some theorists argue that emotion regulation is best seen as part and parcel of emotion (Frijda, 1986)” and keeps the distinction. This paper is that argument at full length. The two can be reconciled in part: Gross’s cognitive change (choosing among meanings) is close to this paper’s appraisal of consequences raising a competing readiness. The difference is whether the regulator is a distinct process.
- Barrett (LIT-542), read. Not cited. The two share a predictive framing, citing Friston (2012) and Clark (2013) for motives as expectations. They also share action-first sensory anticipation, which runs through interoceptive as well as exteroceptive consequences. They differ on appraisal. Here appraisal “is what generates the person’s state of action readiness”. For Barrett, meaning “results from” action, and appraisals are descriptions produced by categorization.
- Damasio (LIT-384, LIT-388). Not cited. The paper’s “affective appraisals of action options” are close to the somatic-marker idea that emotion prunes the option space. This paper puts that role on action readiness, not on re-enacted body states.
- Deci and Ryan (LIT-558), read. Not cited. They argue the opposite of this paper’s regulation claim: needs, not emotions, are the higher-order regulators, “because emotions themselves must be self-regulated for effective functioning” (LIT-558, p. 254). This paper’s concerns, which give events their pertinence, include the person’s goals, needs and values, which is where the two accounts touch. The disagreement is recorded in THEORY-056.
Bearing on the record
- It is the read source for the appraisal side of the rivalry proposed as a THEORY in this batch’s report. Lazarus’s theory is unread (LIT-550 is Deferred), so this paper is the record’s only read statement of an appraisal theory of emotion in its author’s own words.
- It also bears on a candidate THEORY on regulation: whether emotion regulation is a distinct process or emotions regulating one another. Gross (1998) and this paper take the two positions.
- No instruction for machine-learning practice.
- It is the source of THEORY-055 and, with LIT-542, of THEORY-056.
Limitations
- Theory without new tests. Every empirical point is cited. The central regulatory claim (C5) is supported by everyday examples.
- Scope is impulsive action. Emotional experience, the laws of emotion, expression and physiology are treated only in passing. As a substitute for The Emotions, this paper covers the book’s core constructs, not its range.
- The mapping from action readiness to emotion names is sketched by example (hostility to anger and so on) and not defended against the constructionist objection that instances of one emotion vary in action.
Open questions
- Can the interaction account predict which state of readiness wins? The paper says only that it depends “upon their relative strengths”.
- Can multiple-readiness regulation be distinguished experimentally from deliberate reappraisal? The paper predicts it can, since it is effortless and impulsive, but proposes no test.