Abstract
The person who is unable to feel and display emotion is viewed with suspicion. In the popular science-fiction novel, The Body Snatchers (Finney, 1955), alien beings in the form of pods invade the Earth. In order to sustain life and reproduce, these beings must take over the bodies of humans. The process is painless, and the victims retain much of their former identities: There is not dramatic change in morphology (although life span is somewhat shortened); and intellectual capacities, memories, and so forth, remain intact. The most obvious change resulting from a takeover is a loss of the capacity for feeling and emotion. This loss is sufficiently threatening that the hero of the story risks almost certain death to destroy the pods. Considering the popularity of the story (it has twice been made into a movie), many persons would agree: The loss of one’s capacity for emotion is, in and of itself, dehumanizing.
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Averill, J.R. (1985). The Social Construction of Emotion: With Special Reference to Love. In: Gergen, K.J., Davis, K.E. (eds) The Social Construction of the Person. Springer Series in Social Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5076-0_5
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