The basic emotions and brain laterality: the feeling–function model

Long-standing debate concerns the lateralization of emotion. Four competing views prevail: The Right-Hemisphere Model claims that all emotions are right lateralized; the Valence Model, that negative and positively-valanced emotions are right- and left-lateralized, respectively; the Approach-Avoidance Model, that approach- and avoidance-type emotions are right- and left lateralized, respectively; and the Emotion-Type Model, that all primary emotions are right-lateralized and all others are left lateralized and socially constructed. A focused review finds four basic emotions - sadness, fear, anticipation, and acceptance - to be predominantly right lateralized; their opposites - happiness, anger, surprise, and disgust - left lateralized. All four models fail to explain the lateralization of these eight emotions. A new conceptualization, the Feeling-Function Model, hypothesizes that the right-lateralized emotions significantly involves global feeling states, or states of awareness of physiological changes in mind, body, and self that are partially unconscious processes; the left-hemisphere-based emotions, in contrast, are goal-oriented and functional; they enable the individual to act to address problems and opportunities in the world. The Function-Feeling Model correctly classifies the eight basic emotions: The right-lateralized basic emotions (sadness, fear, anticipation, acceptance) emphasize feelings; the opposite left-lateralized basic emotions (joy-happiness, anger, surprise, and disgust) are action-oriented and emphasize functions.