Cognition and affect

Bower (1992 ) has argued that if goal-seeking systems are to operate effectively in an uncertain environment, they must be capable of monitoring their internal states and deciding which states take preference. At minimum, he suggests that such cognitive vigilance calls for (1) discriminating the urgency associated with different need states, (2) using this information to decide issues of priority, (3) converting needs into action plans, and (4) resetting the planning agenda quickly whenever circumstances warrant a change. Without these abilities, a goal-seeking system will be seriously at risk in a hostile and changing environment. A system with these components will tend to experience emotion-like states as a “by-product” of converting its needs into overt behaviour.