Unconscious Emotion

Authors: Winkielman P.¹; C. Berridge K.²

Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science, Volume 13, Number 3, June 2004 , pp. 120-123(4)

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Abstract:

Conscious feelings have traditionally been viewed as a central and necessary ingredient of emotion. Here we argue that emotion also can be genuinely unconscious. We describe evidence that positive and negative reactions can be elicited subliminally and remain inaccessible to introspection. Despite the absence of subjective feelings in such cases, subliminally induced affective reactions still influence people's preference judgments and even the amount of beverage they consume. This evidence is consistent with evolutionary considerations suggesting that systems underlying basic affective reactions originated prior to systems for conscious awareness. The idea of unconscious emotion is also supported by evidence from affective neuroscience indicating that subcortical brain systems underlie basic “liking” reactions. More research is needed to clarify the relations and differences between conscious and unconscious emotion, and their underlying mechanisms. However, even under the current state of knowledge, it appears that processes underlying conscious feelings can become decoupled from processes underlying emotional reactions, resulting in genuinely unconscious emotion.

Keywords: affect; automaticity; consciousness; emotion; neuroscience

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00288.x

Affiliations: 1: University of California, San Diego, and 2: University of Michigan

Publication date: 2004-06-01