Behav. Sci. 2013, 3, 536–540; doi:10.3390/bs3040536
behavioral
sciences
ISSN 2076-328X
www.mdpi.com/journal/behavsci/
Editorial
Functional Perspectives on Emotion, Behavior, and Cognition
Heather C. Lench *, Kathleen E. Darbor and Logan A. Berg
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 4235 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA;
E-Mails: kedarbor@tamu.edu (K.D.); lberg86@gmail.com (L.B.)
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: hlench@tamu.edu.
Received: 26 September 2013; in revised form: 28 September 2013 / Accepted: 29 September 2013 /
Published: 1 October 2013
Abstract: This Editorial reviews the challenges and advantages posed by a functional
perspective on the relationships among emotion, behavior, and cognition. We identify the core
themes among the articles published as part of this Special Issue. The articles generally
address two important questions: (1) are emotions functional and what is their impact on
behavioral and cognitive processes, and (2) how do the interactions among emotion,
cognition, and behavior play out in particular situations that present adaptive challenges?
We also identify two core questions raised by the articles included in this Special Issue.
Future research must address the extent to which emotions are best represented as discrete
emotional constructs (e.g., anger, sadness, fear) versus emotions that vary along
dimensions, such as valence and arousal. Functional perspectives would also be facilitated
by identification of situations or environments that are likely to elicit particular emotions
and reactions.
Keywords: emotion; behavior; cognition; functional perspectives
1. Introduction
The articles that compose this Special Issue tackle a critical and complex issue in modern
psychology—the intersection of emotion with behavior and cognition. It has long been acknowledged
that emotions, behavior and cognition represent core intrapsychic processes in humans. Indeed, these
components are considered to be so fundamental that they are often referred to as the “ABCs of
OPEN ACCESS
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psychology”, for affect, behavior, and cognition [1]. Despite recognition that these components
interact and exert powerful influences on one another, theories and evidence have traditionally been
developed with a focus on only one component. While this focus has permitted greater understanding
of emotion, behavior, and cognition within particular subareas of psychology, the proliferation of theories
specific to one area has made it difficult to understand and predict reactions to events that occur across
systems [2]. For example, the presence of a threat alters almost every aspect of experience and action,
but most theoretical approaches only predict a subset of those reactions and it is often unclear how
reactions might interact. The purpose of this Special Issue was to gather articles that utilize theoretical
perspectives that transcend a focus on only one component. In this Editorial, we identify the main
issues addressed in the individual articles and propose a set of additional questions for the field related
to functional perspectives. Functional perspectives, which broadly propose that mental states and
behaviors evolved to meet environmental demands, have the potential to unify our understanding of all
three components as serving goals within particular environments.
In a famous retrospective on autobiographical memory research, Allan Baddeley [2] prompted
researchers to take a functional perspective. He suggested that, after an effect is demonstrated,
researchers should ask themselves: “but what the hell is it for?” Asking this question about the
function of processes prompts studies to identify how those processes impact an organism and allows
prediction of how effects are likely to play out in different environments and situations. Such a
perspective also prompts researchers to consider how processes influence the daily lives of people [3].
Effectively, the focus of inquiry changes from whether outcomes and actions are “correct” in a rational
objective sense, to how the processes meet the challenges currently faced by the person. Even actions
or biases that seem irrational or non-optimal at first glance might serve some broader need for
adaptation. Optimism, for example, can reflect unrealistically positive illusions about the self, but such
irrational cognitions can help motivate people to attain goals [4]. Although Baddeley’s comments were
specific to research on memory, the functional perspective he endorses can allow for theory
development with implications across areas and better understanding of the human mind.
The current Special Issue was intended to highlight theories and studies that apply a functional
perspective to understand emotional, behavioral, and cognitive processes. The articles generally
address two important questions: (1) are emotions functional and what is their impact on behavioral
and cognitive processes, and (2) how do the interactions among emotion, cognition, and behavior play
out in particular situations that present adaptive challenges?
2. Are Emotions Functional?
Weisfeld and Goetz [5] explore how a functional perspective could enhance empirical investigations
of emotion. They use this perspective to integrate research on emotions across species and on the
development of emotions in humans. They also present evidence that emotions correlate with behavior
and physiology. Such a correlation would be expected if emotions arise as part of a coordinated
response to environmental challenges, and would allow for fast and effective reactions to address those
challenges. Their article delineates the contribution that functional perspectives can provide to the
study of specific components, such as emotion, and opens new lines of inquiry for future research.
Behav. Sci. 2013, 3 538
Trimmer, Paul, Mendl, McNamara, and Houston [6] present a model to understand the contribution
that moods, rather than emotions, make to adaptive decision making. They argue that moods can be
used as information about the relative costs and benefits of preparing to take action. Taking an
evolutionary perspective, they argue that moods allow people to quickly determine the behavior that
would be appropriate—to approach desirable stimuli such as prey or to avoid undesirable stimuli such
as a predator. In this model, then, emotional processes provide information that is critical to the
survival and flourishing of humans.
Bench and Lench [7] provide a functional perspective on a particular emotion – boredom. They
propose that boredom is a functional discrete emotion with important consequences for goal pursuit,
namely in the form of prompting pursuit of alternative goals and experiences with greater reward and
risk. They explore potential distinct effects of boredom on behavior, cognition, experience, and
physiology, making predictions about how boredom will impact cognition and behavior that can serve
as the basis for future empirical work. This proposal serves as a potential framework for the
development of functional accounts of other emotions that have been under researched.
Together, these papers present functional approaches to the study of emotion as an adaptation to
environmental challenges, either as information to other systems or as factors that broadly influence
cognitive and behavioral responses. They also identify important questions for future empirical study.
Perhaps the most important among these is whether the traditional distinction held between emotion
and cognition is worthwhile. On one hand, all of the papers present evidence of the far-reaching
consequences of emotional experiences on cognition and behavior. On the other hand, the fact that
emotion and cognition are so strongly integrated might indicate that they cannot be easily parsed.
Taking a functional perspective might offer one avenue through which emotional and cognitive
theories and predictions could be either combined or, when different predictions are made, compared.
3. What is the Impact of the Interdependence of Systems in Particular Situations?
One benefit of a functional perspective is that it encourages researchers to consider how processes
play out in daily life [2]. Given that emotions, behavior, and cognition are interdependent, how does
their interaction impact particular situations that pose adaptational problems? Two manuscripts
addressed this question by examining how the interaction among components impacts situations
common to daily experience. Sass, Fetz, Oetken, Habel, and Heim [8] focused on how emotions relate
to executive functioning, which broadly reflects the ability to control and regulate cognition and
behavior. They present evidence that emotional processes likely play a role in tasks that measure
executive functioning. Keren, Boyer, Mort and Eilam [9] also focused on a commonly encountered
adaptational challenge in the need to identify and address threats. They present evidence that
idiosyncratic behaviors function to reduce anxiety in threatening environments. Using a functional
perspective, they predicted and found that people react to threat by exploring multiple potential actions
and taking more time to consider their responses. Although outside the scope of their investigation, it
is likely that such an approach to threatening situations would improve the chances of surviving
a threat.
Two articles examined the impact of interactions among systems when there is less than optimal
functioning in one of the components. The studies reported in these articles reveal that when there is an
Behav. Sci. 2013, 3 539
issue in emotional or cognitive functioning, it has far-reaching implications for cognition, and
potentially behavior. John and DiLalla [10] examined the influence of emotional biases on reports of
child peer victimization from children and their parents. They found that parents and children who had
difficulty recognizing emotional expressions were more likely to disagree in their reports of
victimization. This finding has implications for understanding the consequences of emotional
processes in threatening situations, as well as how emotions impact perceptions of the self and others.
Radaelli, Benedetti, Cavallaro, Colombo, and Smeraldi’s [11] findings suggest that responses to emotional
material are related to cognitive delusions. Schizophrenic patients with psychotic symptoms demonstrated
biases in processing self-generated material and had difficulty evaluating their mental experiences.
Together, these articles provide evidence that the interdependence among emotion, cognition, and
behavior that is predicted by functional accounts have implications for daily experience, both normal
and abnormal. The findings reported in these studies suggest that a functional approach might offer
unique insight into traditional treatments and therapies that attempt to alter emotion, cognition, or
behavior to improve quality of life, as well as suggest new avenues for intervention.
4. Conclusions
The articles in this Special Issue provide perspectives on how functional approaches can be applied
to the study of the interactions among emotion, cognition, and behavior. The articles also highlight
areas for future investigation. One question raised by the articles as a whole is whether emotions
represent discrete organized reactions to situational circumstances, such as anger in response to
obstacles to goal attainment, versus reactions that vary along some dimension, such as valence and
arousal. Additional research is needed to identify whether discrete emotions, such as anger, sadness,
and fear, represent discrete emotional states with a unique evolutionary history. Alternatively, negative
emotions might be separable from positive emotions, with discrete emotions varying only in terms of
how they are culturally represented.
Another core question remains the extent to which observed changes in emotion, cognition, and
behavior, and the correlations among them, are related to specific environmental conditions and
produce positive outcomes in those conditions. It is remarkably easy to start with an observed effect
and weave a narrative about how the effect might have developed in early evolutionary history. Those
narratives often risk simply reflecting our current cultural stereotypes and understanding and are
notoriously difficult to test empirically. For functional accounts to be compelling, it is critical that
predictions derived from those accounts be ultimately tested [12]. To do so, researchers must identify
the environmental challenges faced by early humans and use those environmental constraints to make
predictions about the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions that would allow adaptation to
the challenges.
Each article in this Special Issue presents a facet of how a functional approach can integrate
disparate theories and empirical findings and offers the potential to transcend typical disciplinary
boundaries to predict and understand human reactions.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Behav. Sci. 2013, 3 540
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