Integrating basic and higher-cognitive emotions within a common evolutionary framework: Lessons from the transformation of primate dominance into human pride

Abstract

Many argue that higher-cognitive emotions such as pride arose de novo in humans, and thus fall outside of the scope of the kinds of evolutionary explanations offered for basic emotions, like fear. This approach fractures the general category of emotion into two deeply distinct kinds of emotion. However, an increasing number of emotion researchers are converging on the conclusion that higher-cognitive emotions are evolutionarily rooted in simpler emotional responses found in primates. I argue that pride fits this pattern, and then consider some of the possible mechanisms by which the basic forms of these emotions have been transformed, arguing that we can see this transformation in part as the progressive internalization of originally externalized processes associated with norms, selfhood, and social structure. This connects the emotion literature with the literatures on the Social/Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis and situated cognition, offering the possibility of a more unified theory of human emotions.