Descriptive Psychopathology: The Signs and Symptoms of ...

74 Section 1: Present, past, and futurefear and anger help maintain primate social hierarchies. Happiness and sadnessalso aid in the maintenance of social structures, particularly in the bonding ofindividuals within the group. Interacting with playmates and grooming mateselicits happiness. The loss of these individuals is associated with sadness. 103Primary emotions also function by coordinating physiological, cognitive, andbehavioral processes for immediate response to environmental requirements. 104Psychiatric and neurologic illnesses that affect emotion affect primary emotion.Secondary emotions may also be perturbed in persons with personality disorder.Secondary, or “social”, emotions are variations or combinations of primaryemotions, and may be unique to humans. Secondary emotions are elicited aftera second appraisal beyond the immediate appraisal that generates primary emotions.This second appraisal is cognitive, 105 and is subserved by the cerebralcortices. 106 The content and trappings of secondary emotional experiences arelearned. What stimuli elicit the secondary emotion, the intensity of the emotionand its associated behavioral display are influenced by culture. 107Secondary emotions also have biological importance. Pride (a variation ofhappiness in response to a sense of accomplishment) internally reinforces behaviorleading to the acquisition of resources and power. Gratitude (happinessderived from appreciating another person’s assistance in relieving one’s anxiety)strengthens pair bonding and stabilizes relationships. Jealousy can be understoodas an evolved protective response activated by threats to a valuable relationship(e.g. a mate) or a resource (e.g. a food source). It has a motivational functionto initiate actions to deter the threat. 108 Because of their cultural content, theexpression of secondary emotions also involves left hemisphere processes. 109The distinction between primary and secondary emotions has clinical relevance.Both mania and melancholia are characterized by measurable perturbationsof the generators of primary emotion and require interventions thatnormalize the system and its associated abnormal stress response state. Cognitiveinterventions are minimally effective for these conditions. Secondary emotions, incontrast, have a substantial cortical component and non-melancholic depressiveconditions characterized by themes of disappointment, low self-esteem, andunrealistic expectations are more amenable to cognitive-based therapies. 110Present classification combines deviant expressions of primary and secondaryemotions in the diagnostic criteria for major depression, explaining, in part, theheterogeneity in the category.Chronic emotionAcute emotional expression serves an evolutionary function. Chronic emotion isassociated with chronic stress that elicits disturbed diurnal rhythms and a failureto shut off mediators of stress. Over time, chronic stress leads to wear and tear on