Feelings as agents of selection : putting Charles Darwin back into (extended neo-) Darwinism

Packard, Andrew and Delafield-Butt, Jonathan (2014) Feelings as agents of selection : putting Charles Darwin back into (extended neo-) Darwinism. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 112 (2). 332–353. ISSN 0024-4066 (https://doi.org/10.1111/bij.12225)

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Abstract

This cross-disciplinary essay employs some illustrations ('vignettes') of behavioural interactions examined by the authors (man, mammals, fish, octopus) to show feelings and emotions (affects) acting as essential regulators of the process of living. The notion of the primacy of feelings as both necessary feed-backs operating in self-preservation and growth, and as agents of selection during inter-subjective and predator-prey exchanges, is supported by a wealth of human and comparative neuroscience findings. The trans-species core self of vertebrates, identifiable with ancient brain structures on or near the midline, and studies of the vasopressin/oxytocin (VP/OT) system that have uncovered a functional and epigenetic continuum traceable to pre-Cambrian times, helps to re-align evolutionary theory upon Darwin’s original unabashed notion of a place for emotions, separate from ‘cognitive’ ideas.

ORCID iDs

Packard, Andrew and Delafield-Butt, Jonathan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8881-8821;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:47874
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    June 2014
    Published
    25 April 2014
    Published Online
    Keywords:physiology, evolution, emotion, process of living, learning and imprinting, cooperation, affective neuroscience, evaluation, head versus heart, meteoropathy, POL, Natural history, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
    Subjects:Science > Natural history
    Department:Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > School of Education > Education
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:12 May 2014 08:57
    Last modified:26 Mar 2023 01:21
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/47874
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