creators_name: Evans, Dylan type: confpaper datestamp: 1999-06-28 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:18 metadata_visibility: show title: From moods to modules: preliminary remarks for an evolutionary theory of mood phenomena ispublished: unpub subjects: bio-socio subjects: evol-psy subjects: phil-mind subjects: soc-psy full_text_status: public keywords: emotion, mood, modularity, depression, euphoria, anxiety, irritability, automatic appraisal mechanism, adaptation abstract: In the past few decades, research in the psychology of emotion has benefited greatly from being located in a firm evolutionary framework. It is argued that research in the psychology of mood might attain equal rigour by taking a similar approach. An evolutionary framework for mood research would be based on evolutionary psychology, the main thesis of which is the Massive Modularity Hypothesis. Translating the folk-psychological language of moods into the scientific language of modules might clarify many theoretical questions and provide a sound basis for empirical research. It is argued that such an evolutionary approach would reveal mood to be a much more heterogeneous category than emotion. While the six basic emotions identified by Paul Ekman are probably each subserved by a single module, prototypical moods such as elation, depression, anxiety and irritability are likely to be subserved by a wide range of modules. An evolutionary approach to mood might therefore lead to the elimination of the concept of mood from scientific psychology altogether. date: 1999 date_type: published refereed: FALSE citation: Evans, Dylan (1999) From moods to modules: preliminary remarks for an evolutionary theory of mood phenomena. [Conference Paper] (Unpublished) document_url: http://cogprints.org/814/1/BBS1.html