Gervais & Fessler (G&F) set out to frame “contempt” as a uniquely human emotion notoriously characterized by the unilateral lip curl. It is described as a non-basic emotion that is however intimately related with, primarily, anger and, secondly, disgust. “Contempt” is further conceptualized as a dispositional social stance with various societal-sociological ramifications, including rejection and exclusion motivation and behaviors, feeling superior to others, and influence on high-level social judgments.
We applaud this psychological account of human “contempt” as modern, also from a neurobiological perspective on human behavior. The human amygdala is an excellent example of the pertinence of such accounts, as this brain structure not only features the much cited reactivity to emotion-laden stimuli, but also readily responds to abstract social stimuli and even non-emotional, non-social behaviorally relevant environmental information. For instance, the human amygdala has not been confirmed to be specific or sufficient for processing fear, although this is still a widespread thought. The idea of the human insula as the neural seat of processing disgust is similarly outdated. Even more drastically, various affective stimuli elicit neural activity in the so-called salience network without qualifying as emotion-specific This is because this brain network recollects the set of most activated brain regions across experimental paradigms (Yarkoni et al. Reference Yarkoni, Poldrack, Nichols, Van Essen and Wager2011).
Further, the authors' account of “contempt” as a sentiment is reminiscent of the de-reification of the Ekmanian basic emotions proposed by Barrett and Satpute (Reference Barrett and Satpute2013). Both a qualitative literature review and a quantitative meta-analyis confirmed a lack of specificity in brain responses to emotion appraisal. These authors went on to criticize the traditionally embraced distinction into affective, social, and cognitive processing facets based on the ubiquitous implicit modular-mind assumption, and adopted a constructionist perspective on human emotions instead. In the spirit of the “contempt” contemplations by G&F, Barrett and Satpute have argued for domain-agnostic distributed functional networks that exhibit complex interaction to produce a range of affective states. The conceptual relatives of the discussed conceptual framework of “contempt” hence agree with recent brain-imaging investigations in that brain activity patterns underlying neural responses to various emotions are frequently more similar than different, let alone distinct. Further evidence for a constructivist, componential vision of human affective categories on the brain level has also been provided by a recent computational Bayesian study (Wager et al. Reference Wager, Kang, Johnson, Nichols, Satpute and Barrett2015). These investigators have advocated against a direct mapping of the five basic emotions to a single region, network, or other brain system. Rather, a configuration of these would subserve distinct affective categories by combining cognitive facets from sensory, memory, motivational, and other domain-general processes. More globally, a reconfiguration of general-purpose functional networks prompted by changing environmental challenges might be an important feature that enables specific task performance (Bzdok et al. Reference Bzdok, Eickenberg, Grisel, Thirion, Varoquaux, Cortes, Lawrence, Lee, Sugiyama and Garnett2015).
Finally, we also identified a few potential weak points in the conceptual proposal by G&F. A very important argument for the initial establishment of the five basic emotions was their intercultural consistency. Similar data could have been discussed for “contempt” to describe this phenomenon as rather innate or learned during infancy. While much convincing evidence exists for the very early developmental onset of the five basic emotions, analogous pieces of evidence for “contempt” have not been discussed in detail. The typical developmental trajectory of “contempt” perception and expression therefore remains fragmentary. Additionally and relatedly, it would have been interesting to discuss the impact of a neurological brain lesion on the onset and characteristic properties of “contempt” behavior. Its heritability strikes as similarly missing and could have introduced more matter-of-fact elements into the authors' conceptual framework. Moreover, “contempt” is qualified as situation-enduring. Yet, this psychological concept has not been explicitly posed within the state–trait dichotomy. Clinically, it would also have been pertinent to more exhaustively discuss the relationship between contempt and personality structure, in addition to the relation to psychopathy traits.
Apart from these blind spots when examined from a social neuroscience perspective, we are grateful to G&F for the comprehensive and thought-provoking account of perhaps one of the most complicated emotional sentiments specific to the complex societies of human primates.
Gervais & Fessler (G&F) set out to frame “contempt” as a uniquely human emotion notoriously characterized by the unilateral lip curl. It is described as a non-basic emotion that is however intimately related with, primarily, anger and, secondly, disgust. “Contempt” is further conceptualized as a dispositional social stance with various societal-sociological ramifications, including rejection and exclusion motivation and behaviors, feeling superior to others, and influence on high-level social judgments.
We applaud this psychological account of human “contempt” as modern, also from a neurobiological perspective on human behavior. The human amygdala is an excellent example of the pertinence of such accounts, as this brain structure not only features the much cited reactivity to emotion-laden stimuli, but also readily responds to abstract social stimuli and even non-emotional, non-social behaviorally relevant environmental information. For instance, the human amygdala has not been confirmed to be specific or sufficient for processing fear, although this is still a widespread thought. The idea of the human insula as the neural seat of processing disgust is similarly outdated. Even more drastically, various affective stimuli elicit neural activity in the so-called salience network without qualifying as emotion-specific This is because this brain network recollects the set of most activated brain regions across experimental paradigms (Yarkoni et al. Reference Yarkoni, Poldrack, Nichols, Van Essen and Wager2011).
Further, the authors' account of “contempt” as a sentiment is reminiscent of the de-reification of the Ekmanian basic emotions proposed by Barrett and Satpute (Reference Barrett and Satpute2013). Both a qualitative literature review and a quantitative meta-analyis confirmed a lack of specificity in brain responses to emotion appraisal. These authors went on to criticize the traditionally embraced distinction into affective, social, and cognitive processing facets based on the ubiquitous implicit modular-mind assumption, and adopted a constructionist perspective on human emotions instead. In the spirit of the “contempt” contemplations by G&F, Barrett and Satpute have argued for domain-agnostic distributed functional networks that exhibit complex interaction to produce a range of affective states. The conceptual relatives of the discussed conceptual framework of “contempt” hence agree with recent brain-imaging investigations in that brain activity patterns underlying neural responses to various emotions are frequently more similar than different, let alone distinct. Further evidence for a constructivist, componential vision of human affective categories on the brain level has also been provided by a recent computational Bayesian study (Wager et al. Reference Wager, Kang, Johnson, Nichols, Satpute and Barrett2015). These investigators have advocated against a direct mapping of the five basic emotions to a single region, network, or other brain system. Rather, a configuration of these would subserve distinct affective categories by combining cognitive facets from sensory, memory, motivational, and other domain-general processes. More globally, a reconfiguration of general-purpose functional networks prompted by changing environmental challenges might be an important feature that enables specific task performance (Bzdok et al. Reference Bzdok, Eickenberg, Grisel, Thirion, Varoquaux, Cortes, Lawrence, Lee, Sugiyama and Garnett2015).
Finally, we also identified a few potential weak points in the conceptual proposal by G&F. A very important argument for the initial establishment of the five basic emotions was their intercultural consistency. Similar data could have been discussed for “contempt” to describe this phenomenon as rather innate or learned during infancy. While much convincing evidence exists for the very early developmental onset of the five basic emotions, analogous pieces of evidence for “contempt” have not been discussed in detail. The typical developmental trajectory of “contempt” perception and expression therefore remains fragmentary. Additionally and relatedly, it would have been interesting to discuss the impact of a neurological brain lesion on the onset and characteristic properties of “contempt” behavior. Its heritability strikes as similarly missing and could have introduced more matter-of-fact elements into the authors' conceptual framework. Moreover, “contempt” is qualified as situation-enduring. Yet, this psychological concept has not been explicitly posed within the state–trait dichotomy. Clinically, it would also have been pertinent to more exhaustively discuss the relationship between contempt and personality structure, in addition to the relation to psychopathy traits.
Apart from these blind spots when examined from a social neuroscience perspective, we are grateful to G&F for the comprehensive and thought-provoking account of perhaps one of the most complicated emotional sentiments specific to the complex societies of human primates.