70 basic emotions and feelings. Discussion on LiveInternet

“It would be better if I didn’t feel anything!” - bursts out of us when negative emotions take over. Or “I can’t express my inner state in words!” - in cases where a person is overwhelmed with positivity. Emotions can be negative, positive and neutral.

And also mixed (you feel both negative and positive emotions at the same time), do you know about this? Understanding your emotions and the emotions of others is an essential social skill. It will be useful for you to know what emotions are and what functions they perform.

In this article:

The concept of emotions in psychologyClassification of emotionsPositive emotionsNegative emotionsNeutral emotions

A complete list of positive human emotions

So, we will look at what emotions a person has in our complete list. There will be a description in only some of them, so you can understand what we are talking about. I will also note that the italicized ones will be the basic emotions that were identified by the famous psychologist Izard. I don’t take Paul Ekman’s classification, because the only positive thing in it is joy. I really want to expand the basic list a little! Go.

Tranquility is a state of peace and balance.
Relaxation is that feeling when you don’t owe anything to anyone, and you don’t owe anything to yourself either.
Contentment is a feeling of complete contentment with the moment.
Clarity – there is no need to worry or think about something.
Definition.
Flexibility is the ability to accept changes in life without harm.
Smoothness.
Susceptibility.
Warmth – a feeling of joyful affection.
Adoption.
Empathy is the ability to understand what another person is feeling.
Sympathy.
Compassion.
Tenderness is affection with sensitivity and a supportive attitude.
Love.
Gratitude is a feeling of appreciation for something good.
Trust is a feeling of complete security.
Caring is the need to look after someone.
Location – favorable attitude.
Kindness.
Cheerfulness.
Kind irony is an affectionate and friendly joke.
Confidence.
Stability is the ability to maintain one's current state.
Readiness.
Composure - “everything is under control.”
Sexuality is a person’s experiences associated with the manifestation and satisfaction of sexual desire.
Passion is a strong attraction to the object of passion or inexhaustible enthusiasm.
Grace is subtlety and a sense of beauty, proportionality in everything.
Ease.
Freedom.
Liberation - a person practically does not criticize his behavior.
Rejoicing is a high degree of manifestation of joy and triumph.
Joy.
Happiness.
Bliss is a state of complete happiness.
Ecstasy is a passionately enthusiastic state.
Serenity is a calm attitude towards the world, acceptance of all its manifestations.
Kindness - mercy and kind attitude, kindness.
Security is a state of reliable security.
A sense of security is a feeling of complete security, “soil under your feet,” a calm life and development.
Prudence is an attentive and careful attitude to upcoming events.
Attentiveness.
Hope.
Premonition - intuitive forecasting.
Anticipation is a mental feeling of something, a preliminary experience in the imagination.
Interest.
Openness is a characteristic of a noble and generous person who does not feel the need to hide his deeds and thoughts.
Reverence is deep reverence.
Tenderness.
Delight.
Devotion.
Commitment – craving, inclination, predisposition.
Perseverance is the ability to achieve a goal.
Perseverance is a persistent pursuit of something.
Intention.
Aspiration.
Rapidity.
Swiftness is the ability to perform the maximum number of actions in the minimum time.
Respect.
Self-respect.
Self-esteem - awareness of one’s worth, respectful attitude towards oneself.

There are also neutral emotions, the “positivity” of which depends on the context of events:

concreteness, conviction, directness, inflexibility, softness, regret, fluidity, repentance, pliability, light sadness, pity, pride, seriousness, surprise, detachment, spontaneity, impartiality, naivety, impartiality, awe, abstraction, caution, thoughtfulness, dreaminess - especially expressed in women

Functions of emotions

Every person understands that life without emotions is impossible. Any event, conversation, sound, picture - all this causes a certain response in the body. Emotions influence our actions, views and relationships with people. So, emotions perform a number of important functions:

Organizational and incentive

Many people believe that emotions interfere with sound judgment and decision making. Actually it's not like that

Emotions help a person highlight the main thing that is worth paying attention to at this moment and motivate him to action. Emotion can reorganize activity rather than disorganize it.

For example, a friend called you at work and asked you to come urgently. The response may vary. You can quit work and rush to a friend (who was probably just joking), or ask him to explain everything over the phone. The main thing is that a person will no longer be able to calmly carry out his previous work. In itself, this function has neither a positive nor a negative connotation. It all depends on the situation and individual characteristics of the person.

Communicative

Emotions are closely related to nonverbal communication. Joy, sadness, contempt, etc. - all this is reflected in the facial expression. For some, this manifests itself more clearly, while others try to restrain their impulses and hide their true emotions. Be that as it may, a person immediately senses the inner mood of the interlocutor. This helps us understand each other and interact.

Protective

This emotion manifests itself in case of danger. For example, when we see a car moving quickly towards us, our fear turns on and we start to run.

Signal-reflective

Thanks to this function, a person better understands his needs. When we are sad, we look for a reason. After a little reflection, a person begins to understand what exactly bothers him. For example, he is very tired and wants to see his family.

Trace education

Emotions are involved in consolidating life experiences. In the future, every action taken “reminds” the person of past experience. The individual is already subconsciously prepared for a positive or negative outcome.

Emotions directly affect a person's life. The more often the subject experiences positive emotions, the happier he feels. This is due to the inner attitude, character and temperament. Also, a lot depends on the circumstances, quality of life and environment.

The same goes for negative emotions. They paint life in dark colors, cause stress, loss of strength and imbalance of internal mental balance.

However, without these emotions a person will not be able to experience all the pleasure of positive moments. Neutral emotions also play an important role. They represent a bridge that leads to knowledge and connection with other basic emotions.

It is important to remember that any emotion is a reaction of an internal state to the external environment. It should not be suppressed or tried to be hidden.

Of course, this does not mean that you need to demonstratively show boredom and glee. Still, no one has canceled the rules of social behavior. But by pretending, making emotional efforts on ourselves, we risk losing our peace of mind and “earning” health problems.

Meditation exercise for understanding emotions

People turn to psychologists who cannot compare thoughts and feelings, feeling discomfort because of this. Failures in understanding and accepting one's own emotions occur for a number of reasons related to childhood, adolescence or adulthood. For example, a soft person, getting into a leadership position, in order to hold out and manage the team, must overcome pity or fear of misunderstanding by employees.

To remember what it’s like to feel the world “like a child” and distinguish between emotions, experts recommend a number of meditative practices that allow you to hear yourself. Psychologists say: if he cannot answer a simple question about what the client is feeling now, the time for the exercise has come. Eastern practice allows you to understand sensations through the physical reactions of the body.

To begin the practice, it is recommended to sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes. After this, you need to calm your mind and feel what is happening in your body. To tune in to work, a person needs to feel himself here and now. The position of the body in space and the degree of comfort in the present moment are mentally analyzed.

While in a relaxed state, listen to your own breathing. They note to themselves the degree of relaxation and whether it is pleasant and calm to breathe with their eyes closed. With an internal glance, they analyze all parts of the body and identify where the feeling of anxiety or discomfort comes from.

First of all, pay attention to the head and throat. Concentrating on the speech apparatus and neck, listen for several minutes to the signals coming from there

Then they describe the feelings in words or write them down without opening their eyes. It is necessary to identify the weakest shocks and vibrations. The words “normal” or “usually” cannot be used, because they are a defensive reaction of the subconscious that does not allow analysis.

At the second stage, they descend lower, to the area of the chest and heart. With an internal glance, they analyze the sensations there. The answers and reactions received are recorded or spoken out loud, as in the analysis of the throat.

The chest may feel empty or full, light or heavy. During analysis, they feel pressure, stiffness or relaxation, comfort and calm.

At the next stage, without opening the eyes, they move to the area of the solar plexus and abdomen. Having spoken or written down the “indications of the body”, you need to choose from everything felt what was repeated most often. Then you need to analyze what is causing the recurring sensation. It’s good if cases subconsciously come to mind. This means that the person is tuned in to the right wave.

Vibration frequency

Emotions have strength (intensity) and energy - and these are different concepts. If we consider an emotion as energy, then the energy is determined by the vibrational frequency - the higher it is, the higher the energy of the emotion. Energy does not depend on the strength (intensity) of emotions.

A good analogy is the phenomenon of the photoelectric effect, explained by Einstein in the early 20th century. The photoelectric effect is the knocking out of electrons from a substance by incident light. As you know, colors also differ in frequency and are located in a certain frequency order. Of visible light, the lowest frequency is red, and the highest frequency is violet. So, the photoelectric effect was observed for light with high frequencies even at very low intensity, and was not observed for red low-frequency light even at very high intensity.

Einstein suggested (he later received a Nobel Prize for this assumption) that for light energy intensity does not matter, only frequency matters. Therefore, the energy of red color is not enough, no matter how intense it is.

This means that low energy (low vibration levels = low frequency) emotions, such as sadness or fear, can be just as strong (intense) as higher frequency emotions, but their energy is dramatically less. Since their energy is radically less, their ability to evoke desires is also radically less. In this sense they are “weak” even at high intensity.

Accordingly, in order to evoke the right desires, it is advisable for us to choose emotions of a higher frequency - the likelihood of their occurrence will be much higher.

In addition to the mystery of the photoelectric effect, Einstein’s theory also solved another paradox of the physics of those years. Shortly before this, Edison invented the incandescent light bulb. Thermal energy was converted into light, and the light bulb first glowed red, and as the temperature increased, it turned orange and then yellow. But further increase in temperature (power) did not lead to the appearance of other colors of higher frequencies, for example, blue.

The answer is the same. The higher the frequency of light radiation, the higher the power (temperature) should be. To obtain blue light, a temperature of about 9,000 degrees is required, and violet - 18,0000 degrees, which the spiral material of those years could not allow (for comparison, yellow color at a temperature of 2,500 degrees). In other words, the higher the frequency, the more energy is required to produce it.

Frequently used emotions

Basic human emotions have not changed in thousands of years, and we still experience fear, lust, love and joy. The basic emotions of a person can be counted on one hand, but there are a great many derivatives. The more developed the society, the richer the palette of emotions. In primitive societies, such as the indigenous tribes of the Amazon forest, there is no such diversity. They know what fear, joy, lust, sorrow, pleasure, regret are, and this is quite enough to survive in the wild.

Civilized people also most often experience precisely this set of emotions, but in a “diluted” and modified form. This is due to the active mental work that we all carry out. The simpler life is, the more primitive the emotions. The richer a person’s inner world (readability, education, curiosity, developed nervous system, subtle mental organization), the richer his emotional baggage.

Human Emotions: 20 Incredible Facts

1. Often we do not have time to realize and experience the full depth of an emotion before it is affected. It works in “silent mode”, triggering cognitive processes, influencing behavior and even a person’s physical condition and actions.

2. Emotions are one of the strongest motivators. This is a mechanism of influence on a person, especially on his behavior in a social environment. Emotions motivate us to desire to live, communicate, interact, follow morals and principles.

3. The emotions that women experience are no different from those experienced by men. All people are equally angry, happy and sad. The only difference is that everyone is used to expressing emotions in different ways.

4. The number of emotions known to us at the moment is about a hundred.

5. In continuation to the previous point: but they are all based on seven basic emotions: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, surprise, joy and contempt.

6. The most ambiguous, although the most basic human emotion is happiness. Perhaps it is due to the influence of literature and films and various other works in which this emotion is given meaning not so much as an emotion, but as a way of life, belonging to something or possessing something. There are too many and different interpretations of this concept.

7. 43 muscles on our face are responsible for facial expressions: nature has endowed us with so many specifically for expressing emotions.

8. The duration of a person’s emotion is from a split second to several minutes: the rest is a consequence of a certain emotion (which can also be another emotion).

9. Don’t confuse a person’s emotions with their mood.

The mood can last and persist for up to several days. It can enhance or weaken certain emotions. For example, when everything is fine and you are in a good mood, a random pleasant find (50 rubles in a winter jacket) will please you more than if you were angry at the whole world.

10. The emotional state can affect the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for the basic functions of the body. Such as breathing, digestion, blood circulation. Therefore, expressions like “angry to the point of pain in my bones” or “I feel it in my guts” are not without reason.

11. Emotions are universal for all people. The facial expressions of people, regardless of their gender, place of residence, origin and nationality, will be identical. But making different people experience the same emotion in the same ways is unlikely to work. This is where the phenomenon of feeling triggers comes into play.

12. Love is not an emotion. This is a condition that lasts much longer. This concept is more comparable to your mood or your attitude towards a certain occupation, person, etc.

13. Curbing your emotions is not a myth, you really can do it. The prefrontal cortex allows you to master this skill. With long and diligent efforts, you can teach yourself to react differently to an emotion, change its meaning, interpret it in your own way, or completely forget it.

14. Also, through various practices of working with self-awareness, you can learn to “intercept” an emotion in time and recognize it. Working with an emotion will help you find the reasons for its occurrence, its impact on you and many other useful things.

15. If you imitate emotions for a long time, they will really embrace you. Such is self-deception. Are false smiles so bad now?

16. There is such a thing as emotional intelligence. It characterizes a person’s ability to express their emotions and the ability to control them.

Interesting fact: a person’s success depends 85% on emotional intelligence and only 15% on erudition

17. Human emotions have their own history of development and keep up with the times. All actions and thoughts about justice, good and evil are accompanied by emotions such as compassion, gratitude, awe and embarrassment. The moral foundations of society are reborn on the basis of these emotions. This is the cycle.

18. Only 1% of people on the planet have the ability to completely hide their emotions from others.

19. Alexithymia is a dysfunction in a person in which he does not know how he feels. Such people are not able to distinguish different emotions from each other, cannot describe their emotions in words, or understand the mood of the people around them. There are currently about 10% of these.

20. People who abuse Botox injections cannot only express emotions with the muscles we are used to, which this substance paralyzes. Therefore, it seems to us that they do not feel anything at all. But that's not true. They continue to experience emotions and only outwardly we may not be able to distinguish this.

These are the interesting facts about human emotions: adjust them to your advantage and use them wisely. Have a good mood!

"Emotional states"

Any person gets acquainted with and comprehends the surrounding reality through the means of cognition: attention, sensations, perception, thinking, imagination and memory. Each subject reacts in some way to current events, feels some emotions, experiences feelings towards certain objects, people, phenomena. Subjective attitude towards situations, facts, objects, persons is reflected in the consciousness of the individual in the form of experiences. Such relationships, experienced in the inner world, are called “emotional states.” This is a psychophysiological process that motivates a person to perform certain actions, regulates his behavior, and influences thinking.

In the scientific community, there is no single universal definition that precisely explains what constitutes an emotional phenomenon. Emotional state is a general concept for all relationships experienced by a person that arose in the course of his life. Satisfying a person’s demands and requests, as well as dissatisfying an individual’s needs, gives rise to a variety of emotional states.

Types and characteristics of emotional states.

The emotional world of a person is represented by five components:

emotions;
affects;
feelings;
moods;
stress.

All of the above components of a person’s emotional sphere are one of the most important regulators of the subject’s behavior, act as a source of knowledge of reality, express and determine the variety of options for interaction between people.

It should be noted that the same emotional process can last from a few seconds to several hours.

Moreover, each type of experience can be expressed with minimal force or be very intense.

Emotions

Emotion is the experience of a subject at a specific moment in his life, conveying a personal assessment of an ongoing event, informing about his attitude to the actual situation, to the phenomena of the inner world and events of the external environment.

Human emotions arise instantly and can change very quickly.

The most significant characteristic of emotions is their subjectivity.

Like all other mental processes, all types of emotional states are the result of the active work of the brain.

The trigger for the emergence of emotions is the changes that are currently occurring in the surrounding reality.

The more important and significant the ongoing changes are for the subject, the more acute and vivid the emotion he experiences will be.

Emotions also vary in intensity - their strength.

For example: anger, anger and rage are essentially identical experiences, but they manifest themselves with different strengths.

Emotions are also classified into two types: sthenic (active) and asthenic (passive). Active emotions motivate and encourage a person to perform actions, while passive emotions relax and deplete energy.

Joy is a positive emotional state associated with the ability to sufficiently fully satisfy an actual need.

Surprise is an emotional reaction to sudden circumstances that does not have a clearly defined positive or negative sign.

Suffering is a negative emotional state associated with received reliable or apparent information about the impossibility of satisfying the most important needs of life.

Anger is an emotional state, negative in sign, usually occurring in the form of affect and caused by the sudden emergence of a serious obstacle to the satisfaction of a need that is extremely important for the subject.

Disgust is a negative emotional state caused by objects (objects, people, circumstances, etc.), contact with which comes into sharp conflict with the ideological, moral or aesthetic principles and attitudes of the subject.

Contempt is a negative emotional state that arises in interpersonal relationships and is generated by a mismatch in the life positions, views and behavior of the subject with the life positions, views and behavior of the object of feeling.

Fear is a negative emotional state that appears when the subject receives information about a real or imagined danger.

Shame is a negative state, expressed in the awareness of the inconsistency of one’s own thoughts, actions and appearance not only with the expectations of others, but also with one’s own ideas about appropriate behavior and appearance.

Affects

The second type of emotional states is affects.

This is a short-term state, which is characterized by a special intensity and expressiveness of experiences.

Affect is a psychophysiological process that rapidly takes possession of the subject and proceeds very expressively.

It is characterized by significant changes in consciousness and a violation of the individual’s control over his behavior, loss of self-control.

Affect is accompanied by pronounced external manifestations and active functional restructuring of the work of internal systems.

A special feature of this type of emotional state is its connection to the situation of the present.

Affect always arises in response to the existing state of affairs,

that is, it cannot be future-oriented and reflect

experiences of the past.

Affect can develop for various reasons.

A violent emotional process can be caused by a single psychotraumatic factor, a long-term stressful situation, or a serious human illness.

Feelings

The third type of emotional states is feelings. These are more stable psycho-emotional states in comparison with emotions and affect. Feelings are manifestations of a person’s subjective attitude to real facts or abstract objects, certain things or general concepts. Moreover, such an assessment is almost always unconscious. The origin and affirmation of feelings is the process of forming a stable attitude of a person towards some object or phenomenon, which is based on the individual’s experience of interaction with such an object.

The peculiarity of feelings - unlike emotions, they are more or less permanent in nature; they are an ingrained personality trait. Emotion, at the same time, is a fleeting experience of a given situation.

Feelings are directly related to personality traits; they reflect a person’s attitude to life, his worldview, beliefs, and views. A feeling is a type of emotional state that is complex in its structure.

In addition to valence (color), there is another feature of this species - the intensity of feelings. The stronger and deeper a person’s feeling, the more pronounced its external (physiological) manifestations, the more significant its influence on the subject’s behavior.

Moods

Mood is a fairly long-term emotional state that colors all a person’s experiences and influences his behavior.

Peculiarities of mood – lack of accountability, insignificant severity, relative stability.

If the mood acquires significant intensity,

then it has a significant impact on a person’s mental activity and the productivity of his work.

Another feature of this emotional state is the lack of attachment to any specific object.

Mood expresses the general attitude of an individual towards the current state of affairs as a whole.

How is a person's mood formed?

This type of emotional state can have very different sources: both recent events and very distant situations.

The main factor influencing a person’s mood is his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life in general, or with some individual phenomena.

Despite the fact that a person’s mood always depends on certain reasons, the sources of the present emotional state are not always clear and understandable to the individual.

Stress

The term “stress” is commonly used to describe specific emotional experiences,

which are similar in their characteristics to affect and analogous

according to its duration of mood.

The causes of stress are varied.

A single intense extreme exposure to external factors can cause a stressful state.

Long-term monotonous situations in which the individual feels threatened or offended can also lead to stress.

Often this emotional state occurs in a subject if he feels nervous tension and experiences negative emotions for a long period.

At the same time, he understands that changing the current situation at the moment and in the near future is impossible.

Physiological bases of emotional states.

Like all mental processes, emotional states are the result of brain activity.

Their occurrence is caused by changes that occur in the external world.

These changes lead to an increase or decrease in vital activity, the stimulation of some needs and the extinction of others, to changes in the processes occurring inside the human body.

Physiological processes characteristic of emotions are based on both complex unconditioned and conditioned reflexes.

It is known that systems of conditioned reflexes are closed and reinforced

in the cerebral cortex.

And complex unconditioned reflexes are carried out through the subcortical nodes of the hemispheres, the visual hillocks related to the brain stem, and other centers that transmit nervous excitation from the higher parts of the brain to the autonomic nervous system.

The experience of feelings by a person is always the result of the joint activity of the cortex and subcortical centers.

The greater the significance for a person of the changes occurring around him and with him, the deeper the experiences of feelings will be.

The resulting restructuring of the systems of temporary connections causes excitation processes that, spreading across the cerebral cortex, capture the subcortical centers.

In the parts of the brain lying below the cerebral cortex, there are various centers of physiological activity of the body:

respiratory,
cardiovascular,
digestive,
secretory, etc.

Therefore, excitation of the subcortical centers causes increased activity of a number of internal organs.

In this regard, the experience of feelings is accompanied by a change in the rhythm of breathing (the person is choking from excitement, breathing heavily and intermittently)

and cardiac activity (the heart stops and beats intensely),

changes in the blood circulation of individual parts of the body

(they blush from shame, turn pale from horror), disruption of the functioning of the secretory glands (tears from grief, dry mouth from excitement, “cold” sweat from fear), etc.

Under normal conditions, the cerebral cortex exerts a regulating, mainly inhibitory, influence on the subcortical centers, thus restraining external expressions of feelings.

If the cerebral cortex comes into a state of excessive excitation and its regulatory functions are disrupted when exposed to strong stimuli, overwork, or intoxication, then as a result of irradiation, the centers lying below the cortex are overexcited, as a result of which control over expressive movements is lost, and normal restraint disappears.

Simply put, during emotional states the intensity of various aspects of human life changes.

Psychological theories of emotions.

Evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin.

Emotions and the expressive actions that accompany them are the vestiges of instinctive movements.

Emotions are a positive evolutionary acquisition.

Emotions appeared in the process of evolution of living beings as vital adaptive mechanisms that contribute to the adaptation of the organism to the conditions and situations of its life.

The bodily changes that accompany various emotional states, in particular those associated with the corresponding emotions of movement, according to Darwin, are nothing more than the rudiments of real adaptive reactions of the body.

Example:

An angry person blushes, breathes heavily and clenches his fists because in primitive history, any anger led people to a fight, and this required vigorous muscle contractions and, therefore, increased breathing and blood circulation, ensuring muscle work.

He explained the sweating of hands in fear by the fact that in the ape-like ancestors of humans, this reaction in case of danger made it easier to grab tree branches.

Peripheral theory of James - Lange (1880-1890).

Emotions are the sum of organic sensations caused by bodily changes.

First, a peripheral functional change occurs in the internal organs, and then emotion appears.

Scheme: external event - perception of a stimulus - bodily reactions of the body => occurrence of emotions. “A person is sad because... He is crying".

American psychologist W. James (1884) put forward a “peripheral” theory of emotions, based on the fact that emotions are associated with certain physiological reactions.

Crying, trembling, laughter are sources of emotions.

The person is sad because... He is crying.

According to James, the emergence of emotions is caused by changes in the voluntary motor sphere, the sphere of involuntary acts of cardiac, vascular, and secretory activity caused by external influences.

The totality of sensations associated with these changes is an emotional experience. “We are afraid because we are trembling.”

Independently of W. James, the Danish pathologist K. G. Lange published a work in 1895 in which he expressed similar thoughts.

But if for James organic changes were reduced to visceral (internal organs), then for the second they were predominantly vasomotor (vasomotor).

Lange reduced his theory to the following scheme:

Weakening of motor innervation + vasoconstriction = sadness.

Increased motor innervation + spasms of organic muscles + dilation of blood vessels = joy.

The James-Lange theory was an attempt to turn emotions into objects that could be studied naturally.

But by associating emotions exclusively with bodily changes, she transferred them to the category of phenomena unrelated to needs and motives, and deprived emotions of their adaptive meaning and regulatory function.

Criticism by physiologists (C.S. Sherrington, W. Cannon, etc.) is based on data obtained in experiments with animals: the same peripheral changes occur with a variety of emotions, as well as in conditions not associated with emotions.

“Associative” theory of emotions by W. Wundt.

Emotions are internal changes characterized by the direct influence of feelings on the course of ideas.

Wundt considers “bodily” reactions only as a consequence of feelings.

According to Wundt, facial expressions arose initially in connection with elementary sensations, as a reflection of the emotional tone of sensations; higher, more complex feelings (emotions) developed later.

However, when some kind of emotion arises in a person’s consciousness, it each time evokes by association a lower feeling or sensation corresponding to it, close in content.

It is this that causes those facial movements that correspond to the emotional tone of sensations.

Example: facial expressions of contempt (pushing the lower lip forward) are similar to the movement when a person spits out something unpleasant that has fallen into his mouth.

Emotions are an external correlate of internal experiences.

Emotions are associated with changes in the physiological state of the body.

They differ in the following characteristics:

Express the relationship of the subject to the object;
They differ in polarity (+/-);
In complex feelings they form a contradictory unity.

Emotions have 3 poles (a variety of three dimensions):

Pleasure/displeasure;
Excitement/calming;
Voltage/discharge (resolution).

Cannon-Bard theory.

The body's reactions are not distinct enough to be associated with a particular emotion. Parallelism of emotions and physiological manifestations.

Emotions and bodily sensations arise simultaneously as a result of the influence of external stimuli on the individual.

Physiologist W. Cannon (1927) conducted experimental studies on the study of emotions while excluding all physiological manifestations.

When the nerve pathways between the internal organs and the cerebral cortex were cut, the subjective experience was still preserved.

Cannon's research revealed two patterns:

1. physiological changes that occur during different emotions are very similar to each other and do not reflect their qualitative originality;

2. these physiological changes unfold slowly, while emotional experiences arise quickly, that is, they precede the physiological reaction.

He also showed that artificially induced physiological changes characteristic of certain strong emotions do not always produce the expected emotional behavior.

According to Cannon, the stages of the emergence of emotions: the action of the stimulus - excitation of the thalamus - development of emotion - the occurrence of physiological changes.

In later studies, P. Bard (1934) supplemented Cannon’s ideas and showed that emotional experiences and the physiological changes that accompany them arise almost simultaneously.

Psychoanalytic theory of emotions.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory of emotions included unique views on the development of affect and a theory of drives.

S. Freud, in fact, identified both affect and attraction with motivation. The mechanism of the emergence of emotions: a perceptual image perceived from the outside causes an unconscious process, during which an unconscious mobilization of instinctive energy (libidinal energy) occurs; if it cannot find application in the external activity of a person (in the case when the taboo of the existing

in a given society by culture), she seeks other channels of discharge in the form of involuntary activity.

Different types of such activity are “emotional expression”

and "emotional experience".

They can appear simultaneously, alternately, or even independently of each other. Freud and his followers considered only negative emotions arising from conflicting drives.

L. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance.

Emotions arise as a result of confirmation of expectations and the embodiment of cognitive representations, i.e. when actual performance results are consistent with plans. Subjectively, a person usually experiences a state of cognitive dissonance as discomfort, and he strives to get rid of it as soon as possible. The way out of the state of cognitive dissonance can be twofold: either change cognitive expectations and plans so that they correspond to the actual result obtained, or try to get a new result that would be consistent with previous expectations.

Festinger says that dissonance can arise in situations when a person becomes an eyewitness to some unpredictable events or when he learns new information.

According to Festinger, positive emotions arise only when there is no cognitive dissonance between the outcome of a situation and how that outcome was represented in the individual's mind, and negative or negative emotions arise when there is cognitive dissonance.

K. Izard's theory of differential emotions.

This name is due to the focus on individual emotions, which are understood as different experiential and motivational processes

(10 fundamental emotions: anger - rage, fear - horror, pleasure - joy, etc.). You can experience dyads and triads of emotions (interest - pleasure - surprise). But at any given time, you can only experience one predominant emotion.

Stanley Schechter's two-factor theory (circa 1960).

Emotion is a combination of two components, physiological arousal and the cognitive interpretation of this arousal.

According to the theory, “the products of the cognitive process are used to interpret the meaning of physiological reactions to external events.”

Experiment: “4 groups of students took an exam. Previously, an experiment was conducted with these students, in which 2 groups were examined under conditions of hostility, and the other two - under conditions of a friendly attitude. During the exam, one of each pair of groups received an injection of adrenaline, and the other received a control injection of saline.

The students reported their experiences. As expected, the first group experienced predominantly negative emotions, while the second group experienced predominantly positive emotions. Adrenaline increased both positive and negative emotions.

Whatever physiological state the injection caused, its sign was determined by the setting—the social environment of the students—and not by the substance injected.”

Emotion, on the one hand, determines the energetic component of consciousness, and on the other hand, its quality is determined by the interaction of the content of consciousness and a possible program of action.

The two-factor theory indirectly separates the problem of the strength and sign of an emotion from its qualitative content.

Cognitive theory of emotions M. Arnold - R. Lazarus.

M. Arnold uses an intuitive assessment of an object as a cognitive determinant of emotions.

Emotion, like action, follows this assessment. “First I see something, then I imagine that this “something” is dangerous - and as soon as I imagine it, I get scared and run”: we are afraid because we have decided that we are being threatened.

In the concept of R. Lazarus, the central idea is about the cognitive determination of emotions.

Cognitive mediation is a necessary condition for the emergence of emotions.

The central concept of Lazarus's concept is "threat" - the assessment of a situation based on the anticipation of an encounter with harm is assessed using cognitive processes.

Each individual emotion is associated with a different evaluation inherent in it.

The same situation evokes different assessments in different people and, as a result, different emotional reactions.

The emergence of emotions is influenced by cognitive, psychological, and behavioral components.

Biological theory of emotions by P.K Anokhin.

In the process of evolution, emotions have improved in the same way as muscles, vision and hearing.

A person’s system of emotions is the most developed, since along with biological needs, he has physiological needs.

Leading emotions with a negative sign signal the body about deviations in its internal environment (hunger, thirst), which activates the corresponding program of action.

Completion of purposeful actions is accompanied by a positive emotional background.

Leading emotions participate in the formation of a functional system, determining the direction of behavior and goal setting.

Situational emotions that arise when assessing individual stages of action allow you to correct behavior and achieve your goal.

Need-information theory of emotions by P. V. Simonov.

Develops the idea of P.K. Anokhin that the quality of emotion must be considered from the standpoint of the effectiveness of behavior. The entire sensory diversity of emotions comes down to the ability to quickly assess the possibility or impossibility of actively acting, that is, it is indirectly tied to the activating system of the brain. Emotion is a mechanism that compensates for the lack of information. The measure of experiencing emotions depends on: the significance of the need and the difference between the information necessary to satisfy it (IN) and the available information (ID). This difference reflects the subjective probability of achieving the goal. The discrepancy between the actual and desired situation. IN is less than ID - negative emotions.

Motivational theories of emotions.

Emotion is a mental process, a specific product of brain activity that reflects reality.

Theory of activity of A. N. Leontiev.

The theory of emotions is based on activity. Behavior, general activity is stimulated and directed by motive. An activity consists of a series of actions that correspond to a goal. The goal is always conscious, such a unit of activity as an action arises only in a person, the goal is what represents the result of the action. Motive is an object of need. Emotion arises as an assessment of the discrepancy between goal and motive. Emotion allows you to evaluate the approach to the object of need using a certain action.

Disorganization theories.

These theories are based on the observation that a person who is influenced by emotions works in a disorganized manner. Emotional behavior is defeat behavior. An emotional reaction occurs when a person cannot accept a course of action.

Conclusion.

Each person is unique and has his own personal opinion about life, but his point of view is not determined by reasoning or education, but by his emotional state. Usually a person knows his emotional state well and transfers it to other people and throughout his life. The higher a person’s emotional state, the easier it is for him to achieve his goals in life. Such a person is rational, reasonable, therefore he is happier, more alive, more confident. The lower his emotional state, the more a person's behavior is controlled by his immediate reactions, despite his education or intelligence.

Bibliography

Anokhin P.K. Emotions // Psychology of emotions: Texts - M., 2004.
Gurevich P.S. Psychology and Pedagogy, Publisher: Unity-Dana, 2012.
Nemov R.S. Psychology, M.: VLADOS, 2014.
Internet sources

Suppression of emotions

The belittling of an emotion occurs either through the suppression of the emotion, or through the devaluation of the desire that it causes. At the heart of any such belittling is the fear that we will not be able to realize our desire that emotions cause. As a result, we become unemotional. Sadness turns into insensitivity (the thought - “I don’t have this, and it doesn’t mean anything to me”), fear into ostentatious fearlessness (“I’m not sorry to lose this”), envy in the absence of any ambition (“I don’t need this”) , we lose the ability to show anger, and love becomes indifference.

Exaggeration of emotions can be seen in examples: sadness turns into grief, fear into panic, envy into jealousy, anger into uncontrollable anger, and love into possessiveness.

Classification of emotions

In order to better understand the role of emotions in human life, it is necessary to consider their types. The simplest existing classification is characterized by the division of emotions into two types - negative and positive.

The German philosopher I. Kant divided emotions into sthenic (they activate people and increase their readiness to act) and asthenic (they relax, tire a person, cause inhibition).

In accordance with the classification proposed by W. Wundt, emotions were divided into 3 areas:

Pleasure/displeasure;
Voltage/discharge;
Excitation/inhibition.

The American psychologist K. Izard identified several fundamental emotions:

interest (excitement),
joy,
anger,
astonishment,
suffering (grief),
disgust (contempt),
guilt (shame).

Note 1

He considered other emotional reactions to be derivative (complex) from the above fundamental ones.

How to learn to control your emotions

To avoid an outburst of emotions, it is worth taking a few simple steps to calm your agitated spirit and restless mind. When the situation passes, believe me, you will thank yourself for being able to keep your emotions in check and become your own boss.

Fully managing yourself emotionally requires mental discipline and sacrifice. For those who are primarily familiar with their sentimental experience, managing emotions can be one of the most difficult aspects of life.

Having a reliable method in your arsenal is a game changer. We are going to share a technique that many famous people use to constantly monitor their condition and free their mind from constant indulgence in the vast emotional palette offered to us all.

Everyone experiences negative and unproductive thoughts, and most of us can remember ones that have left us confused, wondering what alternate universe or reality they came from.

You can't always control the crazy things that come into your head, but you can control how long that thought stays constant, whether you allow it to take root, influence your feelings, and ultimately dictate your actions. Although you cannot have absolute control over your feelings, you can control some of them through closed action.

The path of closed action is a phenomenon in which a person suppresses feelings within himself for a certain period of time. For example, it is better to contain your anger if you are sitting in your boss’s office.

Depending on what emotions a person experiences. Internal energy in the body is concentrated in the form shown in the figure. Understanding this, you can direct the flow of this energetic charge in the right direction and learn to control yourself in any situation

How are feelings different from emotions?

Sensations are our experiences that we experience through our senses, and we have five of them. Sensations are visual, auditory, tactile, taste and smell (our sense of smell). With sensations everything is simple: stimulus - receptor - sensation.

Our consciousness interferes with emotions and feelings - our thoughts, attitudes, our thinking. Emotions are influenced by our thoughts. And vice versa - emotions influence our thoughts. We’ll definitely talk about these relationships in more detail a little later. But now let’s remember once again one of the criteria for psychological health, namely point 10: we are responsible for our feelings, it depends on us what they will be

It is important

List of emotions: main types, functions and meaning for humans

Emotion is an external manifestation of a person’s experiences. The term itself is of Latin origin and is translated as “excitement.” This is a reaction that is expressed in facial expressions, body movements, voice, eyes, breathing. The baby has minimal emotional reserve. He has only the most necessary experiences. By watching adults, the baby learns to show them. Moreover, in all peoples of the world and even in some animals, innate emotions manifest themselves in the same way. For example, anger is always easy to identify in any person: the eyes narrow, the person blushes, clenches his fists, stands in a certain position, raises his voice.

A person’s worldview, his sense and perception of the world are of great importance. If he is an optimist and thinks positively, then the reaction to most situations will be positive or neutral. And if he treats his environment with distrust and disdain, he often reacts negatively. Emotional experience is acquired throughout life and depends on the society in which a person lives and on the culture. In some places, open and violent expression of one’s inner state is considered the norm, while in others it is a sign of bad manners and disrespect.

The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for emotionality. Having received information from the environment, the brain first analyzes and recognizes it. Then it gives a return signal, which is expressed in a change in behavior. For example, a person has achieved the desired goal - passed the exam. The brain evaluates the mark received in the record book as a positive phenomenon. And the reverse reaction will be joy. This will be reflected on the face in the form of a smile, in the form of relaxation, an exhalation of relief. Some may even jump for joy and hug their friend. And someone will react with restraint, making do with only a smile and a satisfied expression on their face.

The influence of emotions on a person

Each person expresses their feelings and emotions in their own way. Emotional assessment is important, because it happens instantly, a person does not even have time to turn on his mind and logic. Some people, for some reason, do not pay attention to their emotions or do not notice them.

And one conclusion can be drawn: if people do not listen and pay attention to their emotional state, they will not be able to adequately make decisions or look at the current situation. It is emotions that make a person alive

Thanks to emotions, a person expresses himself.

A mature adult is a person who is able to manage his emotions. Without them, a person would not be able to rejoice in victories, nor motivate himself after defeats; he would not be able to empathize, cry and laugh. If there were no emotions, a person would never fall in love and would not worry about his loved ones. Emotions can destroy and lead to degradation, but they can also motivate one to live, to new achievements and success. They change human behavior, are a conductor of negative qualities and help them manifest themselves. Emotions block the activity of reason, and a person loses the ability to think and analyze. Emotions are a special type of processes or states; they are divided into three types:

Feelings are the simplest form of emotions. They can be positive and negative.
Affects are a special type of emotional phenomena, which are distinguished by great strength, but short duration, that is, they are brief and dangerous. In this state, a person does not control himself at all, commits unconscious actions and loses self-control, performs automatic, unconscious and meaningless actions, acts under the influence of the subconscious.
Human feelings are the highest stage of emotions, the result of their generalization, an extended state. A person can develop feelings. Reflects the attitude towards other people, towards oneself or towards the world. Emotions trigger any feelings, and then they are born and consolidated thanks to consciousness, thinking, and stereotypes. The difference between emotions and feelings is that emotions are situation-dependent and short-lived, while feelings have a longer period of existence and are not necessarily tied to any situation. Feelings speak more about the person himself.

Patterns

When arising and fading, emotions and feelings have similarities and differences.
They are subject to a non-random sequence. Sensory experiences are characterized by: Transference and generalization. Sensations tend to move to objects with similar characteristics, to expand the range of objects to which they apply. Affection for a pet can smoothly flow into love for dogs or cats.

Attenuation and dullness. Over time, the intensity of passions weakens and the sharpness disappears. Moreover, transformation occurs with both positive and negative experiences; both rage and ardent love become calmer. Habits develop for everything.

Contrast. Situations experienced sequentially or jointly influence each other. When a light streak comes after a dark streak in life, in contrast it appears impeccably white.

Generalizability. A property associated with the accumulation of life experience. With age, respect for parents grows and attachment to loved ones strengthens. Negative experiences also add up and, at the slightest irritation, lead to a strong reaction.

Emotional states are characterized by:

Replacement. The mood changes depending on the situation. Probably, when they say, from love to hate there is one step, this is what they mean.

Shifting attention. They use it in different ways, for example, switching to a pleasant activity.

What types of emotions are there?

There are a large number of emotions, thanks to which we have the opportunity to better perceive our world. Until recently, scientists believed that there were only 7 basic feelings. However, recent studies have proven that there are many times more emotions, about 27.

Globally they are divided into three parts: positive, neutral and negative. According to the degree of manifestation, they can be sthenic (manifest very actively) and non-sthenic (almost not manifest).

Despite the fact that in the global sense there are only 3, there are many more subtypes:

Basic. These emotions are inherent to every person. They do not depend on gender, age, nationality. Everyone knows how to be sad and happy;
Variable. Due to territorial characteristics;
Congenital. Emotions we are born with. For example, fear of heights;
Purchased. Emotions that we acquire throughout life. For example, after a car accident, people may become afraid to drive private vehicles;
Elementary. Neutral. Mainly emotions of calm;
Composite. They are a combination of elementary;
Natural. Inherent in man by nature
Cultural. Emotions received in the process of learning from their parents or mentors;
Cognitively simple. We experience such emotions as a result of instant reactions to any stimulus;
Cognitively challenging. Unlike cognitively simple ones, such emotions are born after a deep understanding of what happened.

Thanks to the expanded classification system of our functions, we have many possibilities for expressing emotionality.

Positive emotions

As mentioned above, emotions can be negative and positive. Most people like to feel good, and positive emotions help us feel uplifted and more comfortable. Positive emotions usually do not need a reason; we feel them involuntarily.

Experiencing emotions such as happiness, excitement, joy, hope and inspiration are vital for anyone who wants to lead a happy and healthy life. Luckily, you don't have to experience them all the time to reap the benefits of positive emotions

These moments, often fleeting, can be what makes your life better and brighter.

Beyond just feeling good, positive emotions are also an important part of happiness. Moreover, happy people live longer and work better

Negative emotions

Negative emotion or affect is the experience of negative emotions such as anger, frustration, guilt, nervousness and fear. Causing negative emotions in your friends when they are enraged by your behavior is one of the ways to make them angry.

Therefore, it is important to learn how to prevent negative influences from affecting you and instead create positive emotions. To do this, it is enough not to be an irritant to other people and behave correctly in certain situations

It is important to understand how much your behavior will be accepted by society at the right time.

A person can mask his emotions depending on the situation in which he finds himself. In our society, many emotions are considered to be a sign of weakness, therefore, people often hide their emotional experiences and try to smile in those moments when there is no joy in their souls

Summarizing

So, emotions are an important chemical process inside the human brain that regulates the psychological part of his life.

Feelings help us respond to any stimuli from the outside world. As a rule, they are accompanied by some changes in the body. They are divided into several types and have many functions. They brighten up our lives and, without any doubt, are our internal guidelines that help us choose the right step in any situation.

People need to be sure to respect their emotions and not keep them inside, as this can be dangerous due to the possibility of falling into depression and other mental illnesses.

The role of emotions in human life

► Nervous organization and physiology of emotions are closely interrelated. Chemical metabolism takes part in the process, and the brain controls everything. With strong excitement, the autonomic nervous system is excited and the organs necessary for survival at a certain moment are actively involved in work.

► The heart rate changes, the volume of the bronchi increases, the adrenal glands secrete adrenaline, all muscles are involved at the same time, etc. Hearing, vision, and touch become more acute, the body receives a huge discharge of energy. But this cannot last long.

► With positive emotions, the opposite processes occur - relaxation, a feeling of pleasure, and a mode of saving physical resources. These states must replace each other, then the body receives the necessary supply of energy and maintains “good shape”. If this does not happen, then it either degrades or wears out ahead of time.

► Lack of emotions may be due to brain damage. This condition is commonly called psychopathy. At the same time, a person can masterfully imitate a facial expression, and no one around him will suspect that he is in fact incapable of emotional experiences. This happens due to congenital pathology or as a result of injury. Damage to the cerebral cortex can provoke depression of a person’s emotional sphere.

► A person without emotions is not necessarily a psychopath. Sometimes this is the result of careful and long-term work on oneself or the result of professional deformation. Another reason is psychological trauma received in childhood or as a result of upbringing. Control of emotions is possible, and people in dangerous professions prove this to us every day. Whether ordinary people need it is another question.

Sometimes, of course, such a skill can be useful, but constant suppression of emotions has a very bad effect on the human psyche. Although our feelings and their expressions have undergone significant changes, it is still body language.

It differs from the nonverbal communication of Brazilian aborigines as much as War and Peace differs from a children's book about a turnip. You cannot simply turn off a mechanism that has been developed in all living beings over thousands of years of evolution.

What should you do to avoid giving in to negative emotions?

It is important not to give in to negative emotions
. Everyone knows that stress and irritation negatively affect the entire body. A person’s blood pressure rises, the heartbeat becomes faster, and digestive problems and sleep disorders may occur. It turns out that negative emotions can disrupt an adequate perception of reality. That is why we need to fight them. And the best way is to prevent them from occurring. Here's what you need to do to avoid giving in to negative emotions:

Inhale – exhale:

When irritated, a person switches to shallow breathing.
This is why lack of oxygen makes it difficult to concentrate.
You should start breathing slowly and deeply.
Then the feeling of harmony and calm will return.
Many people find meditation and yoga helpful.

Exercise stress:

Anger increases the level of adrenaline in the blood.
The body prepares its owner for a possible threat.
However, instead of proving your case with your fists, it is more appropriate to chop wood, do 30 push-ups , etc.

Humor:

Copes best with anger.
That is why unpleasant conversations can be translated into jokes, or you can remember something funny so as not to become angry towards someone.

Abstract:

Many people are familiar with situations when they were scolded by a teacher at school as a child, and now by their boss at work.
In order not to rush at the boss with your fists and not lose your position, you can nod, but turn your thoughts into a different, positive direction.
Accordingly, wait until the audience is over, while thinking about burgers or dragons from a recently watched movie, and maybe about the dance moves of the singer Shakira.
The main thing is to get out of your “meditative” state in time and return to your working rhythm.

Chill out:

This is very important for those who keep their emotions inside.
Sooner or later, the consequences of the stress sometimes endured will still break out.
Therefore, it is worth finding a means that will help you express emotions - this could be contact sports, creativity, computer games, blogging on the Internet, and so on.
You can get rid of negative emotions in a humane form with the help of almost any peaceful type of human activity.
Let’s say both boxing and writing poetry relieve a person emotionally. In the first case, emotions come out through physical activity, and in the second, through mental activity.

Dreams and walks:

With the onset of adolescence, many are forced to say goodbye to this quality.
But in fact, the ability to dream is very useful.
It allows you to fight negative emotions.
In the world of illusions, a person calms down and does not harm society.
In addition, plants that a person encounters while walking release oxygen and clarify thoughts.

Food:

“Stress eating” can add a lot of extra pounds.
But only for those who do not understand that in order to get rid of anger, you should not empty the entire refrigerator.
Cortisone levels will decrease even if you drink a cup of aromatic tea with 1 cookie , or sink your teeth into a juicy red apple. There is hardly any way to get better from this.

Dream:

The old saying “the morning is wiser than the evening” really applies.
The body, tired during the day, does not cope well with both stress and its responsibilities.
But after a night's rest, you can not only get rid of fatigue and irritability, but also find a solution to the problem in the shortest possible time.
But it is worth remembering that there should be no late-night snacks or smoke breaks, or unexpected jumping up for water or a glass of cognac.
You only need 7-8 hours of healthy sleep without interruption.

“Paper will endure anything”:

To “unload”, you can simply write on paper about everything that worries or irritates you.
It is for this purpose that some organizations have a special board for psychological relief, where you can write and draw anything.

Cold shower:

Helps eliminate the intensity of passions and cool the receptors.
A glass of cool water works the same way.

As you can see, there are many options. Choose any one and calm down so as not to waste your health on negative emotions.