The Emotional Niche – Both the Positive and the Negative
Can one really argue that positive emotion usually has survival benefits or conveys reproductive fitness? Despite early definitions of happiness or joy as a basic emotion, the continuing science of the evolution of emotion has emphasized the negative -- hostile and fearful emotions in animals and depression and hostility in humans (McGuire, 1993). A larger research literature reports on the stimuli that govern negative emotions as well as the patterns of response, secondary effects, and individual differences that emerge in their expression (for reviews, see Lewis and Haviland-Jones, 2000). It is clear that both plants and animals use defenses that elicit emotional fear or disgust reactions through the sensory modes of taste and smell, vision and audition. Snakes and spiders are not necessarily poisonous and the stinking, slimy mushroom may even be edible. It is not necessary that defense mechanisms be physically damaging, only that they produce an emotional reaction leading to avoidance or withdrawal. A plant or animal that can frighten or disgust a predator has gained fitness by exploiting an emotional niche. Withdrawal without physical contact is better than an active physical defense, which might lead to damage or death of the defending species. The ability to produce negative avoidant emotion in a predator has long been considered a possible defense and could be seen as the exploitation of an emotional niche.
That positive emotion could operate in a similar emotional niche has emerged recently but the evidence remains exploratory (Grinde, 2002; Seligman, 2002). Attraction mechanisms for plants have some socio-emotional features. For example, Hawk moths (Manduca species.) repeatedly visit Datura flowers (jimsonweed) for a hallucinogenic reward (Grant and Grant, 1983). Some species of orchids produce very little nectar and attract pollinators with perfumes. Orchid bees (Eulaema, Euplusia and Euglossa genera) collect perfumes/pheromones from these orchids into specialized pouches; they then use the perfumes as sex attractants. Other species of orchids mimic female sex pheromones and attract males who mate with the flower (Scheistl, et al., 1999). Interestingly, after “mating” the flowers then produce an anti-aphrodisiac pheromone (Schiestl and Ayasse, 2001). The well-known bower bird decorates its nest with flowers (Uy and Borgia, 2000). A number of bat-pollinated flowers emit a sulfur-like odor that mimics odors used in bat mating and social recognition (von Helversen, Winkler, and Bestmann, 2000). Many other plants provide non-nutritional chemical compounds, which insects can use for defense or sexual attraction (Weller, Jacobson, and Conner, 2000). There does not appear to be
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