Disclosure statement

Emma Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

What happens when disgust, anger and fear take control? ©2015 Disney Pixar. All rights reserved.

The latest Disney Pixar film Inside Out takes the viewer inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl, Riley. Her brain’s “headquarters” are run by five emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust. The film follows joy and sadness as they accidentally leave this control centre and search for their route back. In doing so, they navigate the collapse of “personality islands”, take short cuts through “imagination” and “abstract thought” and try to avoid the dreaded “memory dump” where once-treasured childhood memories are discarded.

One of the most striking aspects of this film is the way that emotions are placed in control. This is a radical shift away from society’s traditional concept of emotions and the way in which young people are taught to suppress them in favour of reason. Universities have a part to play in this, and lecturers could learn a lesson from the film.

In Inside Out, it is emotions which are guiding Riley’s every waking moment and even influencing her dreams. They decide her reactions and create new actions, such as running away at a point where events seem overwhelming. But for centuries, stemming from the work of philosophers such as Plato and Descartes, emotions have been viewed largely as a series of reckless impulses that were unthinking and potentially destructive.

In contrast, the cognitive function of the brain was viewed as imposing reason and rationality. It controlled emotions by suppressing or disregarding them, overwhelming dangerous urges with a calm and controlling logic. If Inside Out’s producer, Pete Docter, had subscribed to this theory, the five emotions would have been relegated to a small broom cupboard in the far corner of “headquarters” and the console guiding Riley would have been firmly in the control of a large, overbearing figure known as cognition or reason.

In fact, Inside Out follows more recent philosophical and scientific thinking in ascribing a value and importance to emotions. Although there are differing theories on this, the general approach typified by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio is to view emotions as inextricably entwined with cognition and reason. Some researchers, such as psychologist Richard Lazarus viewed emotions as an actual part of cognition and reason. According to these theories, emotions are no longer seen as close to the bottom of the mind’s hierarchy, instead, they are being acknowledged as an essential part of its workings.

Поиск по сайту: