Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Emotion

Editing the emotions section of the Psychology Project
(Note: text starting at and finishing just before  has been moved from Talk:List_of_emotions on 2007-09-28, but it may now include comments signed on a later date.)

One goal of WikiProject Psychology is to "Construct a coherent framework for categorization of psychology articles". Articles on emotions especially need a more coherent categorization framework. It is suggested to begin this work here. One question I have is the following: why are there two templates for listing emotions, one vertical and one horizontal (footer)? Robert Daoust 17:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Relevant sections copied from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Psychology:
 * 1)Under section titled Request for assistance:

Several articles relating to specific emotions have been nominated for inclusion in a release version of wikipedia at Release Version Nominations/Set Nominations. If any uninvolved editor from this project would be interested in reviewing the articles for scientific accuracy and neutrality, it would be very much appreciated. Thank you. John Carter 16:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I reiterate my request from above: would another participant in WikiProject Psychology come with me to bring some more order to classification under the emotion category? It is relatively easy and not long to do. At least two minds are required for validating judgmental decisions... This little task is much needed for at least two reasons: first, Wikipedia handling of affective notions lacks global coherence presently, and well-informed choices cannot be made at this time regarding emotion articles for inclusion in next release versions of Wikipedia. Robert Daoust 14:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Please specify what you mean by "classification" above. John Carter 15:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * By classification I mean the way that matters are arranged in such pages as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Emotion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Motivation, Category_talk:Psychology/Notepad, Template:Emotion-footer, Template:Emotion, Template:Positive_emotions_footer, List_of_emotions, and in the articles Emotion, Feeling, Affect, Affective, as well as under Core_topics_-_1%2C000, Vital_articles, Vital_articles/Expanded, Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Core_topics.


 * Robert - I'd be happy to undertake this with you. Kindly give me some direction, and I'm off! --DashaKat 21:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks DashaKat. Please have a look at Emotions template hereunder. Robert Daoust 16:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * 2)Under section titled Emotions template :

I would like to undertake a revision of both the Emotions Template and the Emotions-footer. Many of the items listed are not appropriate, and some are feelings...not emotions. Further, I believe an internal categorization scheme within the templates may useful. Thoughts? --EmpacherPuppet 01:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I am with you on this matter, and DashaKat shows to be interested too. I suggest that we take Talk:List of emotions as a central place where to speak together while we will be editing the emotions section of the Psychology Project... Let's meet there if you please. Robert Daoust 16:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Other relevant matters are to be found at Emotion, and at Talk:Emotion (see discussions on emotion vs feeling, System of emotions, and especially NPOV in the list of emotions with its ref to http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/recognizing.htm). Robert Daoust 18:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

At this time, I'd suggest there are three successive tasks to do: 1) Agreeing on a working definition of emotion (feeling aspect, affective aspect, physiological emotionality...: what 'emotions' will be included or not). 2) Agreeing on a working classification of emotion (I would say 1 template only, with an internal categorization scheme, yes). 3) Arranging all the relevant pages and links...(and completing the alphabetical list of emotion). Robert Daoust 01:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Toward a working definition of emotion
Manifestly, Wikipedia approach to psychology is short on the whole 'affective' dimension of that subject matter. This reflects, seemingly, psychology's retard or difficulty in dealing with the more 'subjective' aspects of mind. This is rather strange, given the paramount importance of emotions in human psychology.

A quick review shows the following.
 * The article psychology mentions emotion in an enumeration of subjects of study, but that's about it as far as affective matters are concerned. Some mentions of emotion are made under cognitive psychology or cognition, but this is misleading since cognition is sometimes understood as involving 'every psychological phenomenon', while usually cognitive is understood as opposed to affective, and in any case cognitive psychology of emotion deals mainly with relationships of emotions with things like memory or thought.
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Psychology shows two affective topics subcategories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Emotion and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Motivation. It shows also the following relevant articles: feeling, meta-emotion, motivation, and a dozen articles beginning with emotion(al).
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Branches_of_psychology has nothing affective.
 * List_of_psychology_disciplines has nothing affective either.
 * List_of_basic_psychology_topics is much incomplete. It has nothing on affective matters except under 'Basic psychology concepts' which is a list too disparate to be meaningful.
 * template shows emotion as an item (good), which stands for everything affective, could we say.
 * template has nothing.
 * Portal:Psychology has a link to emotion, and motivation.
 * Portal: Mind and Brain has nothing affective.

This is approximately how emotions and affective subjects are organized in wikipedia. The article affective says: Affective means having to do with emotion. It is most commonly used in psychology and psychiatry to describe emotions. The word affective is something of an opposite to cognitive. Psychological theory is that one half of the brain is affective or emotional. The other half of the brain is cognitive, logical, and language-oriented. This is misleading in more than one way. Let's have a look rather to affective science: Affective science is the scientific study of emotion. An increasing interest in emotion can be seen in the behavioral, biological and social sciences. Research over the last two decades suggests that many phenomena, ranging from individual cognitive processing to social and collective behavior, cannot be understood without taking into account affective determinants (i.e. motives, attitudes, moods, and emotions). I suggest that we plan editing the emotions section of the Psychology Project according to the affective science approach. Further reading section of affective science article refers to Oxford University Press: Series in Affective Science. Several excellent books can be found there. See for instance The Nature of Emotions – Fundamental Questions.

All this initiative to bring a more coherent categorization framework for emotions may seem a long and difficult work, but it is not really. With a little help from my friends, I guess this could be done in a week or so. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will be able to present the elements of a working definition of emotion. I would like someone else would have a quick look about what we can do concerning motives, attitudes, and moods for organizing Wikipedia's general approach to affective psychology... Robert Daoust 04:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem, I am realizing again, is that in psychology there is no coherent general theory at all concerning mind or behavior… So that analysis cannot come out with reliable elements of a definition of emotion. Let's make do with it. The affective category has primarily to do with feeling, emotion, mood, and sentiment. For the sake of simplicity, let us keep out things like motivation, or attitude, or temperament, which could belong to other categories anyway (volition, or cognition, or personality)… Feeling, emotion, mood, and sentiment are all the same, in a certain sense: they are affective experiences. In another sense, they deserve to be distinguished, but Wikipedia cannot decide which current meanings are the right ones. For articles categorization purpose, the problem seems to lie in the use of the term emotion for referring to all affective experiences: such a stretched meaning is objectionable indeed. Emotion should refer only to relatively short affective experiences (mood lasts longer), and it should not refer, for instance, to soft affective experience of calmness or ease (feeling is then used instead…). It should be noted however that the adjective emotional looks like an acceptable synonym of affective! Feeling does not seem appropriate as a category heading: it seems not suitable for an enumeration of a variety of feelings… So, what term should be used for referring to the category of affective experiences or emotional states in general?  Robert Daoust 01:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Here are the elements that I suggest for establishing a working definition of 'emotion' in the context of categorization of articles in Wikipedia. In short, the term Emotion is operationally replaced by (1) 'Affective topics' on one hand, and (2) 'Emotions and feelings' on the other hand.

1) The general category 'Emotion' (a subcategory under category 'psychology') would become 'affective topics', which includes affective states (emotion, feeling, mood, sentiment), motivation, attitude, temperament, and other topics. The page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Emotion would become http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Affective_topics.

2) The template 'Emotion' or 'Emotion (footer)' would become 'Emotions and feelings'. List of emotions would become List of emotions and feelings.

The following table is offered for what it might worth:

Note: according to this table, all emotions are feelings, but some feelings are not emotions. Moods (or sentiments) are not feelings or emotions or sentiments (or moods). Robert Daoust 20:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Robert, your contribution here is appreciated. The short answer is this...an emotion has a measurable physiological component.  A feeling is psycho-social response filtered through social constructionistic criteria and cultural codes.  --EmpacherPuppet 02:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you Empacher. Your definitions are as good or bad as any other ones, including mine. I regret having written that moods (or sentiments) are not feelings or emotions or sentiments (or moods). Things could be said more coherently perhaps in the following manner: moods (or sentiments) may have any of the three other states in them in various ways… Likewise it could be said that emotions are not feelings, but they have feelings in them, while feelings may have or have not emotions in them. Can feelings and emotions have moods or sentiments in them? I cannot tell... In any case, these four states have relationships and definitions that are not known well enough to be used as reliable classification scheme. So, perhaps it would be wiser to speak of 'affective states' instead of 'emotions and feelings'. Thus we would have two categories: 'affective topics' (general category) and 'affective states' (subcategory), and we would have also a page list named 'Affective states', and a template also titled 'Affective states'. Looking at the 'Positive emotions' template, I wonder suddenly by what criterium we would not include a lot of virtues and vices among the emotions! The important thing presently, I guess, is to agree on a working terminology for categorization, classification, organization purposes. Robert Daoust 03:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

So, perhaps it would be wiser to speak of 'affective states' instead of 'emotions and feelings'. Thus we would have two categories: 'affective topics' (general category) and 'affective states' (subcategory), and we would have also a page list named 'Affective states', and a template also titled 'Affective states'.


 * Robert - brilliant. --EmpacherPuppet 12:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

So, let's say the working definition of emotion will be simply 'affective state' or 'affective topics', depending on the context. At this time, I think this two persons agreement is sufficient for closing the present section. Robert Daoust 16:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sadly that is circular as the definition of affect would be to do with emotion. In any case the definition of emotion agreed here maybe very close to original research, whatever we are doing. This is a problem without an easy solution I am afraid Arnoutf 07:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Toward a working classification of affective topics
(Note: text starting at and finishing just before  has been moved from Talk:List_of_emotions on 2007-09-28, but it may now include comments signed on a later date.)

There are three features where classification is to be considered: category, list, infobox (portal can be set aside for now). Category is for Wikipedia coherence. List page is for informing the reader on the subject matter. Infobox is for navigation purpose.

Renaming category 'Emotion' to 'Affective topics' will require making a request at Categories_for_discussion. Once this will be done, we will be able to proceed at subcategorization under 'Psychology', 'Branches of psychology', and over 'Affective states', 'Motivation', 'Psychological attitude'...

List of emotions should be renamed List of affective states. I would include emotions, feelings, moods (sentiments could be considered as included in the three others). The internal organization of that page could be discussed further here below.

Infobox templates can be as numerous and varied as people want, but from the WikiProject Psychology point of view we should promote one coherent and well-ordered 'Affective states' template, based on the list of affective states page, and referring only to the main substantial articles which will display the template. Robert Daoust 16:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It appears to me, after having gone around category, list and infobox on emotion quite a bit, that the list page should be organized quite simply: alphabetical list, list according to old classical schemes, list according to contemporary schemes (a table rather), list according to other than occidental sources if any can be found, and that's it more or less... The most interesting place for classification, and for inspiring our main infobox template, appears to be the category page. Presently there are 6 subcat there, and 148 pages are stamped as belonging to the main category 'emotion'. Those 148 pages could inspire us in setting up new subcategories. Robert Daoust 23:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Going through the pages on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Emotion, I have been able to add existing articles such as anxiety and a few others, as well as important existing categories such as Category:Anxiety disorders, Category:Appeals to emotion, Category:Mood disorders, Category:Phobias. I am now looking at articles under letter J. Robert Daoust 23:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Finished letter J to Z. My resulting suggestions for category and infobox should be coming soon. Robert Daoust 01:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Here are my suggestions for the Category:Affective Topics. Take Category:Emotion and keep the following subcategories, Anxiety disorders, Mood disorders, Motivation, Psychological attitudes. Reclassify (without renaming) the following subcategories, Appeals to emotion, Emo, Facial expressions, Hate, Love, Pain, Phobias, Shyness. Add one or more of the followings as possible new subcategories (names may vary), Affective states, Affective neuroscience (regrouping brain parts etc.), Theories in affective science or emotional research, Scientitst in affective science or emotional research... Subcategories and subsubcategories could be arranged in appropriate ways.

For the infobox, I am still not sure if it should be about affective topics or affective states. Let's say that its title would mean something like 'WikiProject Psychology selection of interesting articles concerning affective topics'. Then it could include articles such as the followings: List of affective states (the present List of emotions), emotion, feeling, mood, attitude (psychology), motivation, emotional intelligence, pain or suffering, pleasure or happiness, fear, anger, anxiety, love, hate, and some other emotions or feelings... It seems that affective topics or affective states are not organized well enough at this time in Wikipedia, or even in psychology science, to warrant an infobox with articles organized under headings!

The best we can do now is to organize really well Category:Affective topics. As we will proceed at 'Arranging all the relevant pages and links' (which is the 3rd phase of the present work, which I have already begun by necessity), a lot of things will fall into place... We will be able to collect all or most relevant matters in Wikipedia, and we will have at our disposal the complete picture with every (sub)categories. So, let's do some more order, and then let's make a request for renaming our main category. Robert Daoust 18:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, I went around a lot, arranging somewhat 'the relevant pages and links' (still by necessity), and I think a 'working classification' can now be proposed. I will try here tomorrow to present a full picture of what will be the modified Category:Emotion, so that an agreement can be reached on the changes. Robert Daoust 03:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Your agreement is required. New provisional working classification of affective topics is submitted at User:Robert_Daoust/Affective. An agreement has now to be reached before making a request for changing one (or perhaps two or more) category name. Robert Daoust 04:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, be very very careful that you are not conducting original research through putting up such structures. These issues are contested (even whether all mentioned words are true emotions is not accepted by all emotion-psychologists). Any decision made here based on the (literally metres of) published material on this topic is likely to be synthesis (ie original research) or intuitive (even more original research). This is really a problem in this field, and I am sad to say, probably one without an easy solution. Arnoutf 07:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Toward a working classification of affective topics (continued)
I realized that the present initiative was presented or commented on a page, Talk:List_of_emotions, that was not the most appropriate! So, I moved it all from that page there to this page here. My suggested "working classification of affective topics" can now be found at WikiProject_Psychology/Emotion/Affective. Any reaction from any Wikipedian will now be welcome. Robert Daoust 03:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Arnoutf has just made two very welcome comments here above. He says:


 * Sadly that is circular as the definition of affect would be to do with emotion. In any case the definition of emotion agreed here maybe very close to original research, whatever we are doing. This is a problem without an easy solution I am afraid Arnoutf 07:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, be very very careful that you are not conducting original research through putting up such structures. These issues are contested (even whether all mentioned words are true emotions is not accepted by all emotion-psychologists). Any decision made here based on the (literally metres of) published material on this topic is likely to be synthesis (ie original research) or intuitive (even more original research). This is really a problem in this field, and I am sad to say, probably one without an easy solution. Arnoutf 07:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I guess Arnoutf is talking of ontologic definitions of affect and emotion while I am talking of working definitions for categorization purposes. I say that instead of using the appellation emotion in category names, let's rather used the appellation affective, which is more inclusive (see affective) and thus goes around what Arnoutf is pointing to: "even whether all mentioned words are true emotions is not accepted by all emotion-psychologists". Organizing Wikipedia categories does not go against the NOR (no original research) rule because it has nothing to do with the inner contents of Mainspace articles. This is original research in the sense that Wikipedia is in itself original research, like every good encyclopedia. When Arnoutf says: "This is really a problem in this field", he is right, but the solution to the problem in the field of psychology is not necessarily the same as in the (coherent, useful, pleasant) organization of matters in Wikipedia. Robert Daoust 14:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, that is reasonable response. I wanted to add a note of caution as non-experts in certain fields sometimes adopt whatever Wiki comes up with as the TRUTH. And I would be very wary of that happening here. By the way, yes please, we need a working definition but we should be very clear about it; it is only a working definition and should not be quoted as a full definition of emotion anywhere (especially not in student papers ;-) Arnoutf 18:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think there should be a note caution on the category page, something like this that I added to my Version 3: "This category includes topics related to emotion, but due to controverse in defining and using emotion as a concept, it is recommended to avoid that word for naming Wikipedia categories, and to use instead the more inclusive term affective." Robert Daoust 20:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Arnoutf has added this comment on page WikiProject_Psychology/Emotion/Affective about Version 4 of modifications to category Emotion: Seems reasonably ok. I would merge Grief and Suffering subcategory as e.g. putting sadness and grief in distinct cats seems over the top. Also I would aggression to the anger category. I am not sure whether the kissing items are indeed emotions. I think they should be removed. Besides these minor issues the categorisation seems comprehensive and flexible. Arnoutf 18:46, 4 September 2007 (UTC) After that, I brought the whole matter to Category_talk:Emotion and toWikiProject_Categories. I put also a 'cleancat' banner at Category:Emotion. Robert Daoust 01:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you are mixing up Psychology with Psychiatry. I do not like what you are doing at all. Please leave Psychology out of those nonsense list you are coming up with. The fact that Kissing should even be considered is ridiculous. This is why I stay away from the whole mess on Wikipedia. Psychology has become a junk science here. --Mattisse 00:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Judging from your last fifty edits or so, you seem on the contrary not far from the whole mess! Please understand that 'articles' are not my concern for the moment: categories are. So, I am keeping discrimination at a minimum. I don't care much about Kissing, but I can see that it relates somewhat closely to affective states and processes, so that I leave it there. Categories are notoriously a matter of personal taste... Now, if you want to defend psychological science, so much the better, it would be quite welcome given Wikipedia's mess around psychology, a mess to which I am trying to bring order rather than more nonsense, whatever your views on the matter. Feel free to set up that category and to keep it clean. But in my humble opinion, we cannot regulate all what people see as belonging to psychology. --Robert Daoust 00:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yesterday and today are the first days I have edited in Psychology for a whole year. It is very depressing because of people like you. Do you think you "own" Psychology for some reason? What you are doing is ludicrous. But it just drives away knowledgeable psychologists, which it sounds like is your aim anyway. Mattisse 01:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Disagree
I disagree with your approach to this project. And I do not like that my comments are removed because you do not like them. Mattisse 01:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Where is this being discussed under Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories?
I cannot find the discussion. Where is the discussion on your proposal? --Mattisse 01:54, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Main page is presently at Talk:Emotion Category_talk:Emotion. --Robert Daoust 17:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * (sorry, my mistake, corrected here 2 days later --Robert Daoust 18:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC))

Failure to agree
Finally, a request for renaming Category:Emotion to Category:Affective states and processes has been made at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_September_12. It appears that such a renaming is unacceptable. People want to keep the term emotion as a category. Then, this means one of two alternatives: (1) category emotion includes all affective topics, (2) category emotion is reserved for 'strong' feelings. Alternative (1) is the present problematic situation. Alternative (2) seems to me the way to go for a solution, but the problem of naming and organizing the category 'all affective topics' will require another initiative than mine. For now, I must declare a failure. My call resulted in no commitment from other Wikipedians to "construct a coherent framework for psychology articles", beginning with affective topics. I still believe that with appropriate collaboration, we could settle the whole matter in a few weeks, in spite of 'the problem of psychology', as described in Tree of Knowledge System, a novel, theoretical approach to the unification of psychology developed by professor Gregg Henriques. I hope someone else will know how to proceed more successfully than me. --Robert Daoust 17:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Categories in Psychology should reflect the field as it is, not some "novel" system as you suggest. The Tree of Knowledge System article (the system you are suggesting) does not even have reference citations or any indication that it is not Original Research. --Mattisse 18:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * False: all references are on the page, this is not OR. And I am talking of Henriques' work as a resource for dealing with our problem, not as the solution to apply­. --Robert Daoust 18:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)