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What Are So-Called
Secondary Emotions?

December 23, 2024 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

It isn’t exactly news, but the evidence that we are all walking around, unaware, inside our personal fog of vagueness is becoming hard to ignore. We not only lack clarity, but we are also unable to pin down (be specific about) what’s important to us. We use words, we engage in verbal communication, we consider and think about things, but we are often in the dark about the meaning of our own words, let alone the words of others.

So it is not such a surprise that much like investigating the ephemeral concept of empathy, investigating what is meant by secondary emotions leads to less clarity and more confusion. Empathy, as I previously discovered, is not a thing. The same can be said about secondary emotions.

Psychologists, psychotherapists, and other wellness-minded individuals don’t agree on what constitutes secondary emotions in the first place. In other words, the meaning is vague.

“Secondary” as a Characteristic

Some of them believe “secondary” is an attribute of particular emotions, meaning that those emotions labeled as such are never “primary.” But they do not agree about which emotions are secondary and which are primary. Nor is it easy to determine what this theory is based on or how it serves us in terms of survival.

There is a commonly-held belief that secondary emotions “mask” other emotions, but that would actually defeat the purpose of emotions, which is to provide us with information. Emotions are generated by the brain to keep us apprised of our current state of affairs. We may consciously attempt to hide our feelings from others or to change our emotional experience (for which we can’t blame emotions, since they don’t have intentions). But it’s one thing for us to want to keep that information to ourselves; it’s another thing altogether to want to keep it from ourselves.

The brain is attempting to tell us what it perceives we need to know (11 million bits of information condensed into a 40-bit stream); nothing more and nothing less. It’s not playing games with us or actively attempting to mislead us. If, for example, you’re feeling guilty, your brain generated that emotional response based on the circumstances and your personal mental model of the world. The conscious you may not enjoy feeling guilty. Your brain doesn’t care. It’s giving it to you straight—and automatically. It’s telling you that you violated your own moral code in some manner or to some extent. You get to brush it off, distract yourself, examine the situation and/or underlying beliefs, or rationalize it away. That’s on you, not your brain.

The same goes for psychology’s favorite secondary emotion, anger, which I’ve also written about. In that post from two years ago, I mentioned being unsuccessful in my attempt to determine the source of this concept of secondary emotions. I also considered that people who are uncomfortable with expressions of anger might be motivated to view it as a secondary emotion:

I suspect the secondary emotion idea is an attempt to cut anger down to size, so to speak. So-and-so isn’t really angry; he or she is actually sad or anxious or depressed or afraid or hurt: wounded in some manner. They’re not threatening; they’re vulnerable.

Of course, people may also apply this reasoning to themselves.

At this point, I’m more inclined to view the reaction from a broader perspective, though: less as discomfort with expressions of anger and more as discomfort with discomfort. Discomfort with expressions of anger is situational. Discomfort with discomfort is existential.

“Secondary” as a Sequence

Others believe secondary emotions are those that immediately follow the initial, primary, emotion. In that case, “secondary” is not an attribute of the emotion: any emotion can be either primary or secondary depending on where it shows up in an apparent sequence of emotional responses. But is that 10 seconds later, 10 minutes later, 10 days later, or 10 months later?

If you don’t understand that the brain is focused on what to do right now, then it seems conceivable that an emotion you’re experiencing today is a result of an experience you had two days ago. Your brain uses past experience to determine current action, but it doesn’t live in the past. The emotions you’re experiencing now are a response to what is going on, externally and internally, in the present.

I don’t know what makes a secondary emotion, in this context, significant. Are there always secondary emotions—emotions that are a reaction to a previous emotion? (If not, why not?) If so, aren’t all emotions secondary emotions given that there was always a prior emotion? But then the term is meaningless because there are no actual primary emotions. There are just emotions, one after another. Which, as it turns out, happens to be the case.

Categorizing Emotions

There are many different ways one could classify or categorize emotions. The brain categorizes things in order to get a quick grasp of what something is and how it pertains to us so it can figure out what to do about it. Speed is of the essence if you’re pursuing rewards but even more so if you’re dodging threats. Classifying emotions as primary or secondary is completely unhelpful to this process. In my opinion, it’s nothing more than psychobabble. Classifying emotions as good or bad may be easier to justify (potential reward or potential threat). But it’s not fail safe given that context and personal neurochemistry play a bigger role in determining how we experience an emotion than these black or white categories suggest.

What I’ve learned from those who specialize in researching the origins and functions of emotions is that there are many benefits and few, if any downsides, to getting granular (specific, not vague) and to getting comfortable experiencing a wide range of them.

Bite Me! The Anger Post

November 25, 2022 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Anger is defined as a strong feeling of displeasure or hostility. It’s considered by Paul Ekman, among others, to be one of six basic emotions, the others being surprise, disgust, enjoyment, fear, and sadness. (I have issues with Paul Ekman and his take on emotions, but so be it.)

There are many gradations and flavors of anger. In no particular order (and definitely not an exhaustive list):

annoyance
rage
frustration
contrariness
bitterness
fury
irritation
resentment
resistance
vengeance
agitation
outrage
disgruntlement
vexation
grumpiness

There are numerous theories and opinions about anger, some of which quite honestly just seem to be fabricated. I think we tend to interpret anger primarily based on our personal response to it. Someone’s agitation, for example, might be easy for one person to ignore, but another person might feel uncomfortable or even threatened by it; they might perceive it to be something stronger, such as outrage. If anger activates your brain’s threat detection system, you’re bound to have a lower tolerance for it than someone else might have.

An organization promoting a Buddhist perspective made the claim that anger was delusional. I responded that the relentless pursuit of happiness is far more delusional, not to mention destructive. Why is there so much less concern about that?

In addition, a wide variety of mental and emotional states are commonly interpreted as expressions of anger: excitement, unbridled enthusiasm, intensity, insistence or persistence, directness, and even passion or passionate engagement.

Feeling vs. Doing

“The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.” —Edward Abbey

Anger tends to be viewed, more often than not, as a negative emotion, something that needs to be “managed,” like time (good luck with that). The emotion of anger is also frequently conflated with the expression of anger (aggression), as if you can’t have one without the other. It’s probably the verbal or physical expression of anger that people want to manage and not the actual emotion.

It’s true that the Latin root of the word emotion is emovere, which means “move out, remove, agitate.” More recently neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio and Lisa Feldman Barrett have described emotions as providing information from the body/brain to conscious awareness. Damasio refers to them as homeostatic indicators. Are things going well or is something amiss? The purpose of this information is to assist us in determining if we want to do something to adjust our current condition.

We don’t have to respond to sadness by weeping uncontrollably or crawling into bed for the duration just as we don’t have to respond to anger by throwing or smashing things or pushing other people around. Emotions let us know what is going on with us and give us an opportunity to acknowledge that and determine what, if any, action we want to take. In a way, all emotions are somewhat agitating since they’re intended to get at least some of our attention.

State vs. Trait

It’s important to make the distinction between states (or incidences) of experiencing anger (reacting to being cut off while driving or to having someone else take credit for your work or good idea) and the trait of anger (a tendency to be pissed off by the mildest—or sometimes even positive—provocation). Given enough incitement, anyone can experience anger. But for some of us, anger comes preloaded; it’s our default emotional response.

Defaulting to anger has consequences, of course. My experience is that being so familiar with anger, I tend not to be blown away by someone else’s expression of anger. I may or may not like it or approve of it, but I’m rarely freaked out by it. I don’t automatically equate anger with danger or even discomfort, so I have a higher tolerance for it. Those with a low tolerance for anger appear to more quickly or easily interpret intensity or directness as anger.

The downside of defaulting to anger is that it can feel very compelling, energizing, motivating and even righteous. That can lead to stewing in angry juices at the very least or taking ill-advised action that can be destructive or hurtful. I got a handle first on not acting on anger and then on not automatically expressing it. That left me with the inner experience of stewing in angry juices, which I did not enjoy! But eventually I gained greater control over that, too.

Hide and Seek

Deciding to limit the stewing helped me recognize a significant fact of life: I was probably not going to stop having the impulse to anger, given I’d been having it since infancy, but I could alter the effect it had on me. I didn’t have to run with it. I could change, but there were limits to what I could change.

There’s a fairly widespread notion that anger is a “secondary” emotion—that it’s covering up something else, something we don’t want to experience or express, as if emotions are under our immediate control. As if we choose to experience one emotion instead of another. If you understand how the brain works and how slow ordinary consciousness is compared to the unconscious you realize how impossible this is.

I’ve tried to locate the source of the secondary emotion idea, but so far haven’t been successful. Ultimately, I don’t think it matters where it came from. What does matter is that it’s been absorbed as a fact by many psychologists, therapists, and people in general in spite of the fact that it makes no sense from a survival standpoint.

It doesn’t make sense from a homeostatic indicator standpoint, either. There is nothing at all to be gained by being forced to figure out how we’re really feeling while we’re in the grip of another—entirely different—strong emotion. That’s like being provided with intentionally obscure or misleading information. The brain doesn’t work like that, either.

Deception vs. Self-Deception

I suspect the secondary emotion idea is an attempt to cut anger down to size, so to speak. So-and-so isn’t really angry; he or she is actually sad or anxious or depressed or afraid or hurt: wounded in some manner. They’re not threatening; they’re vulnerable. You wish! (Sorry; couldn’t resist.)

Obviously, it’s possible to behave in a hostile or combative manner without experiencing the emotion of anger. Just like it’s entirely possible to behave in a pleasant and congenial manner without experiencing friendly feelings toward one’s companions. We do it all the time. We can also express interest in something someone else is talking about when we not only don’t care but fervently wish they would shut up right now. When we act one way while we’re feeling something else, we know we’re doing it. We have a good idea of what we’re feeling in spite of the fact that we’re not acting in accord with it. We’re hiding our emotions from others but not from ourselves.

The secondary emotion promoters want us to believe that when we’re experiencing anger, however, we’re hiding our emotions from ourselves.

Fortunately, not everyone subscribes to the secondary emotion theory. And, anyway, the most important thing to remember about emotion, any emotion, is that you have no idea what I’m feeling, and I have no idea what you’re feeling. Instead of making assumptions and interpretations based on our own biased perceptions or beliefs (if that happened to me or if I were in that situation or did that, I would be feeling [fill in the blank]), we could instead be curious—about both ourselves and others. We could check in; we could ask.

On a side note, being comfortable with a wide range of emotions has many benefits and few downsides.

Anger, Adrenaline, and Arrogance: Addiction to Certainty

September 21, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 8 Comments

Strong emotions—the ones that amp up adrenaline and cortisol levels—increase our confidence. When we’re angry, for example, we’re more likely to feel certain about whatever position we’ve taken. We’re sure we not only know what we’re talking about, but also that we’re right and any other parties involved are wrong.

This feeling of certainty is an illusion, generated by the amphetamine-like effects of anger, which include kicking our metabolism into a higher gear while narrowing our mental focus. The unconscious part of our brain has a natural tendency to discount anything that doesn’t jibe with what we believe. It already automatically narrows our focus. Adding anger (or actual amphetamines, for that matter) to the mix further constricts our focus, sometimes closing our mind altogether.

When we’re angry, we filter out anything that doesn’t support our position. We focus on one or two aspects of a situation, sometimes taking them entirely out of context, and ignore the rest. Our confidence swells, bolstered by the boost of adrenaline, into over-confidence, even arrogance.

Our brain craves certainty and being right. This can be difficult to compensate for under the best of circumstances. When we’re emotionally aroused, it can be impossible—especially when we don’t recognize what’s going on. We’re used to thinking that the level of confidence we have about something is an accurate indicator of whether or not we’re right about it. Sometimes we are right. But the unconscious part of our brain isn’t concerned with such petty details. It’s less interested in whether we’re actually right and more interested in whether we feel right.

The illusion of certainty can be hard to let go of. Who wants to feel uncertain? Who wants to admit they’re wrong? Who wants to think the powerful sense of confidence they feel isn’t altogether reliable? Too often, we do whatever we can, whatever we have to do, to maintain the illusion of certainty. We refuse to give up the fight, no matter what damage it causes to us or to other people. We’d rather be right than happy. We’d rather be right than free. We’re so addicted to certainty that instead of using our brain, we’re willing to let our brain use us.