ABSTRACT
Unlike any other type of behavior, the emotional reaction is not a positive response to a stimulus but rather a failure of a stimulus-response coordination to operate. What happens is that the organism is left in a crucial situation (in the most striking cases) without certain expected or desirable means of adaptation, either because of not having a response system for the particular stimulating circumstances or because of some failure of such an acquired response system to operate. Emotions are therefore essentially “no-response” activities. 2
