Strong Feelings: Emotion, Addiction, and Human BehaviorEmotion and addiction lie on a continuum between simple visceral drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire at one end and calm, rational decision making at the other. Although emotion and addiction involve visceral motivation, they are also closely linked to cognition and culture. They thus provide the ideal vehicle for Jon Elster's study of the interrelation between three explanatory approaches to behavior: neurobiology, culture, and choice. The book is organized around parallel analyses of emotion and addiction in order to bring out similarities as well as differences. Elster's study sheds fresh light on the generation of human behavior, ultimately revealing how cognition, choice, and rationality are undermined by the physical processes that underlie strong emotions and cravings. This book will be of particular interest to those studying the variety of human motivations who are dissatisfied with the prevailing reductionisms. *Not for sale in Belgium, France, or Switzerland. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Emotion | 13 |
22 What Emotions There Are | 20 |
Phenomenological Analysis | 25 |
Causal Analysis | 42 |
Addiction | 51 |
32 What Addictions There Are | 56 |
Phenomenological Analysis | 58 |
42 Culture and Emotion | 98 |
43 Culture and Addiction | 114 |
Choice Emotion and Addiction | 135 |
52 Choice and Emotion | 149 |
53 Choice and Addiction | 165 |
Conclusion | 193 |
Notes | 207 |
References | 229 |
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Common terms and phrases
abstain action tendency addictive behavior addictive cravings addictive substances agent alco alcohol amphetamine amygdala anger animals argued arousal beliefs bicameralism brain causal cigarette cited cocaine compulsive compulsive gambling concept consequences consume consumption costs cue-dependent culture desire discussed dopamine drinkers dysphoria Elster emotion and addiction emotional dispositions emotions and cravings envy euphoria example experience expressions fact fear feedback feel Frijda gamblers gambling Gary Becker George Loewenstein guilt harm heavy drinking hedonic human emotions hyperbolic discounting idea important individuals induce instance intentional objects involved irrational irrationality LeDoux limerence Loewenstein mechanism motivated neurobiology nicotine observed occur occurrent emotions one's pain person phenomenon physiological placebo preference reversal produced rational addiction rational choice reason relapse reward reward-sensitive risk Robinson and Berridge section 4.2 self-control shame smoking social norms societies Sournia specific Stendhal strategy thalamus theory tion valence values visceral whereas withdrawal