Reflections on Carroll Izard’s Contributions: Influences on Diverse Scientific Disciplines and Personal Recollections

Introduction

Carroll Izard is one of the world’s premier theorists and researchers on the emotions and emotional development. With some trepidation, in this article I provide a necessarily brief historical overview of his career and its influences on diverse scientific disciplines. As an important part of this special section honoring this incredible scientist and human being, I also include some examples of personal recollections I have of Cal that illustrate his caring for others, compassion, and longstanding loyalty. Although these reflections cannot begin to do justice to his yeoman contributions to science, society, and humanity, I hope that including these recollections will provide a glimpse of his personal elegance and his genuineness, kindness, and feelings for others.

Two predominant psychological traditions during the 20th century hindered, or minimally did not encourage, the study of the emotional domain in humans: behaviorism and Piagetian cognitive psychology. On the one hand, the behaviorist perspective reduced emotions to propensities or likelihoods to act in particular ways in response to a diverse range of stimuli (Berlyne, 1978; Skinner, 1953). Thus, behaviorism rejected the accepted view of emotion as a unique domain of the human mind, distinguishable through introspection (Brentano, 1924; Wundt, 1912). On the other hand, Piaget’s (1951, 1952) decision to focus on the investigation of cognitive development played a major role in the waning of interest in the study of emotional development (Hesse & Cicchetti, 1982). The power of the compelling experimental paradigms Piaget created engendered great excitement and contributed to the field’s emphasis on the study of cognition (Hesse & Cicchetti, 1982). Because an exclusive focus on cognition provided an incomplete understanding of the developmental process, scientists became motivated once again to undertake research on the human emotions.

Historical support for the renascence of interest in the emotions can be found in the longstanding tradition of distinguishing among the three faculties of the human mind: cognition, emotion and will (Baldwin, 1890; also see Hesse & Cicchetti, 1982). Moreover, researchers interested in the cross-cultural universality of the production and recognition of facial expressions among adults (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1975; Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972) became increasingly interested in the origins of these emotions to draw clearer distinctions between their innate and learned aspects and to search for the evolutionary underpinnings of emotions and emotion expression (Izard & Tomkins, 1966; Tomkins, 1962, 1963; Tomkins & Izard, 1965). Furthermore, although Piaget proffered a theoretical framework for the study of cognitive development, there remained a vital need for the development of an integrative theory of the emotions and their relation to other domains of the human mind (Cicchetti & Hesse, 1983; Hesse & Cicchetti, 1982).

Izard’s Work and Scientific Contributions

Carroll Izard’s theoretical and empirical work in the 1960s and 1970s played a preeminent role in energizing the renaissance in the study of the emotions that occurred during the last 40 years of the 20th century. Moreover, he has continued to provide increasing sophistication to the understanding of the emotions and their relation to personality, motivation, perception, social processes, psychophysiology, and cognition throughout his dynamic and ever-evolving academic career.

Beginning in graduate school at Syracuse University where he received his PhD in Clinical Psychology and during the decades afterwards, Cal embarked on research examining the personality characteristics of adults. He utilized both projective and objective measures in these investigations. In addition, he initiated his work on emotions in the human face, and, consistent with his training in clinical psychology, Izard studied mentally healthy individuals, persons with schizophrenia (Dougherty, Bartlett, & Izard, 1974; Izard, 1953, 1957, 1959), and individuals with anxiety (Izard, 1972; Izard & Tomkins, 1966), which he viewed as an unstable combination of fundamental emotions.

During the 1970s Izard authored three books on the emotions that exerted a major impact on several disciplines, including anthropology, ethology and evolutionary biology, primatology, and psychology. Izard’s trilogy: The Face of Emotion (1971), Patterns of Emotions (1972), and Human Emotions (1977), helped to usher in a golden era of research on the emotions and emotional development (cf. Sroufe, 1979, 1996). Virtually all definitions of emotions acknowledge that they involve neural, psychomotor, and experiential components and that emotion typically exists in intimate interaction with perception and cognition.

Izard conceptualized emotions as complex constructs that necessitated cross-disciplinary, multidomain, and multilevel investigations. Izard viewed emotions as emerging as they became adaptive. Emotions also were seen as purposive and, therefore, as having a highly teleological bent. They were thought to serve a wide variety of functions that are essential to survival and adaptation and play a key role in goal-directed behavior. For Izard, facial expressions were not seen as the vestigial remains of our primate communication system; rather, they were viewed as the essential mode of social expression and the mediator for subjective emotional feeling. Emotions as feeling states prepare organisms for action, and expressive displays have communicative value to self and others (cf. Thompson, 2011, 2015).

In Izard’s perspective, strong and intense emotions are not necessarily maladaptive. Rather, one way in which emotions may become maladaptive is when they are unconnected to cognitive or affective-cognitive control structures or are connected to cognitive processes and actions that are contextually inappropriate. Another situation in which emotions may become maladaptive may involve emotional flooding, where an emotion overwhelms control structures and strategies. Such a situation represents what Wakefield (1992a, 1992b) called “harmful dysfunction,” whereby an evolutionary control mechanism cannot perform its natural functions.

Izard’s differential emotions theory (DET; 1977) is one of the very first efforts to integrate the vast array of information on human emotions. Unlike many extant theories of emotion, Izard did not posit an undifferentiated state of arousal at any stage of development. Rather emotions are discrete and, even in infancy, the discrete emotions of sadness, anger, fear, interest, and enjoyment were thought to be present in rudimentary form. The discrete emotions are considered to be fundamental because their properties cannot be attributed to any smaller unit of emotional organization.

The discrete emotions have the capacity to combine and create dyadic, triadic, and even more harmonious or conflicting emotions. Sensitive periods in development may optimize the formation of adaptive connections between the emotions and other systems. Conversely, experiencing harsh environments during these sensitive periods may increase the likelihood that maladaptive development or serious psychopathology may ensue (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1995; Izard, 2009; Izard & Harris, 1995).

The emotion system is viewed as the primary motivational system throughout the life span. Emotions are conceived as the principal organizing factors in the evolution of consciousness and play a major role in influencing the emergence of higher levels of complexity of consciousness throughout the life course (Izard, 1977, 2009).

Izard (1977) further theorized that the neural mechanisms for emotional expression and emotional experience are innate. Facial expressions were thought to serve a dual function. First, they provide sensory data to the brain, which in turn activates hormonal and other systems and produces an emotional experience (facial feedback hypothesis). Second, facial expressions provide social signals that are important to the caregiver and to subsequent social interactions with peers, adults, and romantic partners.

Over the years, due to advances in scientific research and methodology, the theoretical principles of DET have been periodically modified (Izard, 2007, 2009). The reformulations of DET’s core principles have been facilitated by advances in cognitive, affective, and social neuroscience, and by discoveries in developmental, personality, and social psychology (Abe, 2015; Cicchetti & Posner, 2005; Panksepp, 1998; Russell, 2003). For example, over the years, Izard placed less emphasis on the role of facial feedback in activating emotion experiences (Izard, 1997; Izard, Woodburn, & Finlon, 2010). He also emphasized that it is possible either to feel an emotion and display no physical sign, or, to reveal signs but not subjectively experience the emotion (Izard, 1997; Izard et al., 2010). In a recent updating of his views on discrete emotions in infants, he proposed that “evolutionarily adapted neurobiological systems enable infants to experience and express basic or first-order discrete emotions only as they become adaptive through the growth of emotion–cognition–action connections over developmental time” (Izard et al., 2010, p. 134). Izard also noted limitations of relying solely on facial behavior to identify discrete emotions, and discussed initial efforts to develop a multiaspect behavioral coding system—the Behavior and Emotion Expression Observation System (BEEOS)—which involves coding hypothesized facial, vocal, gesture, and bodily signals of four discrete emotions (Izard et al., 2010). Likewise, throughout his career, Izard continually refined his views on forms and functions of emotions, in particular, emotion–cognition interactions (Izard, 2007, 2009, 2011; see also Youngstrom, 2015).

Illustrative Influences of Izard’s Work

Personal Remembrances

I first met Cal Izard in February of 1977. At that time I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. My dissertation adviser and mentor, Alan Sroufe, was invited to attend and speak at an influential small conference entitled “The Development of Affect” held at the Educational Testing Service that was organized by Michael Lewis and Leonard Rosenblum. Alan was unable to attend and suggested to Michael Lewis that I take his place at the meeting. The topic of my research focus was appropriate, and Michael graciously agreed to have me attend and give a presentation on my work—a longitudinal study on the relationship between affect and cognition in infants with Down syndrome (Cicchetti & Sroufe, 1978).

When I arrived at the conference, I saw that the participants were a veritable “who’s who” in the field of emotional development. I had met several of them previously at large conferences; however, I was daunted being a graduate student in the midst of these leading emotion researchers. To complicate matters, I was applying for assistant professorship positions, and several of the speakers at the conference were faculty members at universities where I was seeking employment.

Knowing that I was a graduate student who had replaced his mentor as a speaker, Cal approached me, introduced himself, and engaged me in conversation about my research and how I felt about being at the conference. He helped me to feel comfortable as I was scheduled to be the second speaker on the second day of the meeting. My talk was well received, and several of the speakers later inquired as to whether I would be interested in interviewing for a position in their department. Cal was one of these individuals, and Jerome Kagan was another. After interviewing at several universities, I had to make a difficult decision. The most challenging for me was whether or not to accept a job at Harvard or to choose following Cal to the University of Delaware shortly after his move from Vanderbilt University. When I decided to begin my professional career at Harvard, I worried that I might have jeopardized my collegial relationship with Cal. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Although he was not my mentor, Cal nurtured me during my early career and gave me opportunities to participate on important national committees on social and emotional development. Moreover, he invited me to contribute chapters to two major cutting-edge volumes that he coedited. One was a chapter on emotion–cognition interaction in atypical infants in Izard, Kagan and Zajonc’s (1984) edited book entitled Emotions, Cognition and Behavior. The other was a chapter on an organizational approach to childhood depression that appeared in Rutter, Izard, and Read’s (1986) edited volume Depression in Young People: Clinical and Developmental Perspectives.

In the early 1980s, I met Cal at the Society for Research in Child Development Meeting in Detroit. I was in the midst of a difficult period of depression, and he expressed great concern about my well-being. He invited me to Delaware and spent time urging me to seek professional help. As I left Delaware for Cambridge, Massachusetts, I told him I would do so. A week later, he followed up with a phone call to me and I told him I had kept my word to him and had entered into treatment. As was the case with Cal’s facilitating my career development, he had nothing personal to gain from caring about my mental health. Rather he was just being himself—one of the most compassionate, high-integrity, and remarkable persons I have ever known. We have continued a longstanding close and meaningful friendship over the ensuing decades and my life, academic and personal, has been greatly enriched as a result of knowing him.