In a recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, we pointed out that while research in emotions and other affective processes has historically been marginalised or ignored, over the past decades, such research has demonstrated the vital role these processes play in the way we think and behave. So powerful has the impact been of this research, we asked whether we have now gone beyond the eras of behaviourism and cognitivism, to an era of affectivism.

 

Personally, this paper marked the culmination of one direction of my research which has always tried to push at the boundaries of what can be considered ‘affective’. This began during my doctoral thesis when I argued that ‘interest’ was an emotion rather than a cognitive state, and by pointing out the vital role that affect plays in social learning. I have also worked with colleagues to challenge developmental psychologists to consider emotion as an integral part of social cognition, and linguists to consider the role that emotion research can play in pragmatics, with particular focus on ‘relevance’.

For a read-only version of the paper: https://rdcu.be/cmiCz
For updates on this project: https://www.unige.ch/cisa/affectivism
For the ISRE pre-conference: https://www.unige.ch/cisa/affectivism/isre-pre-conference