Secondary Emotions

In relation to secondary emotions Christian Becker-Asano and Ipke Wachsmuth state that they “arise from higher cognitive processes, based on an ability to evaluate preferences over outcomes and expectations. Accordingly, secondary emotions are acquired during ontogenesis through learning processes in the social context” (Becker-Asano, Wachsmuth, 2008).

They also explain that Damasio uses the adjective “secondary” to refer to “adult” emotions, which utilize the machinery of primary emotions by influencing the acquisition of “dispositional representations”, that are necessary for the elicitation of secondary emotions. According to Becker-Asano and Wachsmuth these “acquired dispositional representations” are believed to be different from the “innate dispositional representations” underlying primary emotions. Furthermore, secondary emotions influence bodily expressions through the same mechanisms as primary emotions.

The differences between primary and secondary emotions could be summarized as follows:

• Secondary emotions are based on more complex data structures than primary ones.
• The appraisal of secondary emotions depends much more on the situational and social context than that of primary emotions. Thus, secondary emotions are more dependent on the agent’s cognitive reasoning abilities.
• The releasers of secondary emotions might be learned based on the history of primary emotions in connection with memories of events, agents and objects.
• The agent’s facial expressions of primary emotions may accompany secondary emotions.
• Secondary emotions also modulate the agent’s simulated embodiment. (Becker-Asano, Wachsmuth, 2008)
• They are acquired, rather than innate, dispositional representations. (Damasio, 1994, 136)

According to Damasio, the elicitation of secondary emotions involves a “thought process”, in which the actual stimulus is evaluated against previously acquired experiences and online generated expectations. Every secondary emotion has first to be triggered by a cognitive process, before it gains the potential to get aware to the agent. (Becker-Asano, Wachsmuth, 2008)

From a neuroscientific point of view, the generation of secondary emotions depends to a great degree on the functions of prefrontal cortex. As Damasio puts it “The prefrontal acquired dispositional representations needed for secondary emotions are a separate lot from the innate dispositional representations needed for primary emotions.” (Damasio, 1994, 137)