Categorizing the function of positive emotions

This paper considers the principles of a functionalist perspective with regard to positive emotions. We discuss various ways that positive emotions have been studied historically and how these approaches bear on discussions of function. We then cover more recent attempts to categorize positive emotions and make recommendations for future endeavors. Our aim is not to pick and promote an existing view of emotions but rather to demarcate the various perspectives through which emotion scientists have viewed the question of function, which have in turn driven research on positive emotions. Taken together, this paper provide a brief introduction to the possible ways of focusing one's scope when viewing the function of positive emotions.