Historically, emotions have been an “uncomfortable” element within the investigation of human cognitive and behavioral abilities.

Some researchers have defined them as “noise”, which constantly interferes with the really important processes, such as attention, cognition, consciousness or decision making.

Why are emotions important in therapy?

In recent decades, however, the importance of emotions has been gaining ground , finding its own place within the field of psychology and neuroscience. Nowadays it is commonly accepted that we cannot understand the human psyche in its complexity without taking into account the emotions and their relationship with the rest of the executive capacities.

However, we do not yet fully understand these relationships, nor do we have models that allow us to integrate them naturally.

These limitations in our knowledge are caused by two main factors. The first is the fact that emotional experiences are subjective phenomena that can hardly be scientifically evaluated in all their complexity; the second is the need to address their functionality within an evolutionary context, reasoning their existence within the milestones that have defined us as a species and as individuals.

ETR (Emotional Theory of Rationality): what is it?

Recently, a new paradigm called ETR (Emotional Theory of Rationality , Garcés and Finkel 2019) has provided an original approach that allows us to address these gaps in knowledge from a different perspective.

This new approach assumes that every living being, in order to survive, is subjected to a series of constraints that force it to develop a subtle balance between the capacities it acquires and the energy and resources needed to maintain them.

This means that, the fundamental physical laws, together with evolutionary and adaptive processes sustained over long periods of time, have configured the nervous system as a highly optimized mechanism in the processing of information, which allows the development of responses that facilitate the effective and efficient interaction of living beings with the environment, thus improving their chances of survival and reproduction.

As part of the optimization mechanism, due to the uncertainties about the characteristics and simultaneity of the stimuli that an individual will face, evolution has designated the emotional system as responsible for carrying out three main functions:

  • Implement innate responses of a broad spectrum that allow exploration and quickly address new or unexpected stimuli for which there is no specific response.
  • To activate the cognitive systems , responsible for the search and development of new answers, only on demand, thus improving the response time and the consumption of resources.
  • To evaluate the criticality of the stimuli to be resolved , modulating the attention to allow priority access to the most advanced and scarce resources, if there is concurrence with other processes.

Its influence on cognitive systems

According to the ETR model, the emotional system is always active and controls attention, which in turn is in charge of regulating and prioritizing the access of information to the cognitive systems.

Cognitive systems develop responses by modulating emotional responses, thus closing a circular, complementary, dynamic and interdependent architecture. According to this model, emotion and cognition do not compete, but collaborate and complement each other to achieve a more efficient way of solving the challenges faced by the individual.

This new approach clearly describes and supports the relationship between emotional mechanisms , attention and cognitive capacities, which in turn modulate the emotional response, thus closing the system and defining its global dynamics.

Thus, within this new paradigm, the emotions would be the element of optimization of the brain’s functioning, allowing us to understand how and why they are the ones that regulate the relationships of the rest of the executive functions, conditioning their dynamics and, sometimes, generating behavioral phenomena far from the socially established ideal, but very close to the evolutionary ideal of survival.

Likewise, the model opens the door to incorporate the somatic component, associated with emotional responses, as a new stimulus that enters to be processed by the system, generating dynamics that give rise to very diverse and complex mental and behavioural phenomena.

Applications of this new model

This new model has important implications for explaining these psychological and behavioral phenomena that until now could only be described. It also allows the identification of specific factors that can help to improve the approach and understanding of these phenomena , having important applications in areas such as education, motivation, decision making or the explanation of certain non-adaptive behaviours, among many others.

At the organizational level, this new model is already being used to develop personal capacities related to adaptation to change, creativity and innovation, as well as to improve interpersonal relations, leadership or restructuring of the organizations themselves.

Bibliographic references:

  • Garcés, M., & Finkel, L. (2019). Emotional Theory of Rationality. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2019.00011