Since emotional processing was described in 1980 by Rachman, it has been referred to in the literature but not researched in its own right to any great extent. It has not seen the sort of exponential growth as cognitive theories have, either in experimental or clinical realms. However, emotion and cognition are similarly inferred mental states. Does this represent, as Thomas Scheff argued (1984), a sort of scientific taboo or wariness about emotion research; is cognition just more important and interesting to researchers; or are there major scientific shortcomings, vagueness and wooliness inherent in the concepts of emotion and emotional processing?
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Not another concept of processing!
Does the concept of emotional processing commit the
fallacy of tautology?
‘Science is built up of facts, as a house is built up of stones;
but an accumulation of facts is no more a science
than a heap of stones is a house’