t is at this point of the cycle that psychologists diverge on their interpretation of the evoked responses attributed to emotion.Behaviorists, for instance, argue that emotions as a mental construct does not exist in any organism, rather the behaviors are simply unconditoned responses. Cognitive psychologists, in contrast, firmly insist that emotions are the essence and result of mental life. De Waal (1991) summarized this conceptual dilemma as characteristic of Cognitive parsimony versus Evolutionary parsimony with no acceptable compromise between the two.Cognitive parsimony, the law of the Behaviorists, demands that higher mental capacities not be evoked when lower ones will adequately explain behavioral phenomenon. Evolutionary parsimony, the position adopted by Cognitivists, stresses that underlying mental processes are the same for phylogentically related species. Behaviorists strongly condemn anthropomorphism, ...
