Lecture 6. Emotional-volitional sphere of personality

6.1. Emotional sphere of personality.

6.2. Will

6.1. Emotional sphere of personality

General characteristics of the human emotional sphere

Interacting with the world around us, a person relates to it in a certain way, experiences some feelings about what he remembers, imagines, and thinks about.

A person’s experience of his relationship to what he does or learns, to other people, to himself is called feelings and emotions.

Feelings and emotions are interrelated but distinct phenomena in the emotional sphere of the individual.

Emotions are considered simpler, more immediate experiences at the moment associated with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of needs.

Manifesting as reactions to objects in the environment, emotions are associated with initial impressions. The first impression of something is purely emotional in nature and is a direct reaction (fear, anger, joy) to some of its external features.

Feeling —

This is more complex than emotions,
a constant, established attitude of the individual to what he knows and does, to the object of his needs.
Feelings are characterized by stability and duration, measured in months and years of life of their subject.
The complexity of a feeling is manifested in the fact that it includes a whole range of emotions
and is often difficult to describe verbally.
Feeling determines the dynamics and content of emotions that are situational in nature.
Often, only a specific form of the flow of an experienced feeling is called an emotion. So, for example, the feeling of love is manifested in emotions of joy when a loved one succeeds, sadness when there is failure, and pride in him.

Feelings are unique to humans, they are socially conditioned and represent the highest product of human cultural and emotional development.

A sense of duty, self-esteem, shame, pride are exclusively human feelings. Animals also have emotions associated with the satisfaction of physiological needs, but in humans even these emotions bear the stamp of social development. All human emotional manifestations are regulated by social norms. A person often subordinates physiological needs to higher, specifically human spiritual needs.

The sources of emotions and feelings are, on the one hand, the surrounding reality reflected in our consciousness, and on the other, our needs. Those objects and phenomena that are not related to our needs and interests do not evoke noticeable feelings in us.

The physiological basis of emotions and feelings, first of all, are the processes occurring in the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex regulates the strength and stability of feelings. Experiences cause 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 and secretory. That is why 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 and cardiac activity, the functioning of the secretory glands is disrupted (tears from grief, sweat from excitement).

Thus, when experiencing feelings, during emotional states, either an increase or decrease in the intensity of various aspects of human life is observed. In some emotional states we experience a surge of energy, we feel cheerful and efficient, while in others we experience a loss of strength and stiffness in muscle movements.

It must be borne in mind that the inextricable connection between the cerebral cortex and the subcortical region allows a person to control the physiological processes occurring in the body and consciously manage their feelings.

Based on the strength and duration of emotional experiences, several types of emotions are distinguished, which together form the emotional sphere of the individual. The subject of diagnostics of the emotional sphere of a person can be:

actual emotions, affects;
feelings, passions;
mood;
stress.

Emotions proper , or emotions in the narrow sense of the word, are situational in nature, as opposed to feelings, which are more stable emotional states. In this sense, emotions are states of experiencing a feeling.

Extremely strong and relatively short-term emotions, accompanied by pronounced motor and visceral manifestations,

are called
affects. Any emotion can reach the level of affect if it is caused by a strong or particularly significant stimulus for a person. Affect is characterized by:

rapid occurrence;
very high intensity of experience;
short duration;
violent expression (expression);
lack of accountability, i.e. decreased conscious control over one’s actions;
diffuseness, in which the ability to switch attention decreases, the field of perception narrows, since the control of attention is focused mainly on the object that caused the affect: “anger clouds the eyes.”

Affective manifestations of positive emotions

- this is delight, inspiration, enthusiasm, bouts of unbridled fun and laughter;
affective manifestations of negative emotions
are rage, anger, horror, despair.
Sometimes the affect is accompanied by stupor
(freezing in a motionless position). More often, affect has vivid external manifestations, which in some cases acquire a destructive and even criminal character. After the affect, there often comes a loss of strength, indifference to everything around you, or repentance for what you have done, i.e. so-called affective shock.

Feelings are understood as the most stable emotional states. They reflect a person’s attitude towards the object of his stable needs.

Therefore, they are characterized by stability and duration.

Feelings are characterized by subjectivity

, since the same phenomena can have different meanings for different people.
A number of feelings are characterized by intimacy
, i.e.
deeply personal meaning of experiences, their intimacy. Feelings are expressed through certain emotions depending on the situation in which the object for which the person feels is found
. For example, a mother can be happy, proud, worried, sad for her child - depending on the situation and actual behavior. However, the feeling of love remains unchanged.

The most common classification of feelings is their division depending on the sphere of manifestation into three groups:

Moral are the feelings that a person experiences in connection with the awareness of the compliance or non-compliance of his behavior with the requirements of public morality.
Intellectual are feelings associated with human cognitive activity.
Aesthetic are feelings associated with the experience of pleasure or displeasure caused by the beauty or ugliness of perceived objects, be they natural phenomena, works of art or people, as well as their actions and actions.

Passions form a special type of stable feelings. Passion is a stable, deep and strong feeling that determines the direction of a person’s thoughts and actions, capturing his entire being.

A general emotional state that colors feelings over a long period of time,

-
mood. Mood differs from other types of emotions in two ways: it is not objective
, but personal;
it does not refer to any particular event,
but is a general condition. Unlike emotions, mood is characterized by:

low intensity;
significant duration;
weak awareness of its cause;

influence on human activity upward or downward.

The mood can be good (sthenic)

and bad
(asthenic)
.
In the first case, with its persistent manifestation, they speak of hyperthymia, i.e., elevated mood.
It is characterized by elation, cheerfulness, cheerfulness with bursts of vigor, optimism, and happiness.
The constant manifestation of hyperthymia is embodied in such a characterological feature as hyperthymia .
The opposite of hyperthymia is hypothymia: low mood

, a kind of emotional “minor”, which, similar to the hyperthymic characterological makeup, can become the basis for the formation of
a hypothymic character.
A special form of experiencing feelings, in its psychological characteristics close to affect, and in duration approaching mood, is represented by stressful conditions .

or
emotional stress.
Currently, there is no doubt that any stress is both physiological and mental (emotional). With the help of stress, the body, as it were, mobilizes itself for self-defense, to adapt to a new situation.

When exposed to stress, certain hormones begin to be released into the blood. Under their influence, the mode of operation of many organs and systems of the body changes - the body prepares to fight, to overcome danger. The positive impact of moderate stress is manifested in a number of physiological and psychological properties - a shift in somatic indicators towards intensification, improved attention (its volume and stability), increased interest of a person in achieving a goal, a positive emotional coloring of work.

Another aspect of stress - distress - is an emotional state of collapse, loss, non-return to the previous status or role. Hopes are dashed and suffering appears. Such an emotional state undermines health, a person becomes passive, inactive, and persistent depression occurs. Therefore, distress is harmful to a person’s life and health (for example, the death of a loved one, awareness of an incurable disease causes shock).

When studying the emotional manifestations of a person, the meaning of emotions should be taken into account:

emotions perform a signaling function
, showing what is happening is significant, what is not, what is valuable, and what is better to refuse;
emotions also perform a regulatory function.
Emotions not only orient us in relation to various events and objects, but also motivate us to certain actions - approaching or avoiding, searching or rejecting;
emotions play a big role in the energy mobilization of the body
. When a person is emotionally excited, his condition is accompanied by certain physiological reactions: blood pressure, blood sugar content, pulse and breathing rates, muscle tension change;
emotions perform a stabilizing function
. They keep life processes within optimal limits and prevent the destructive nature of a lack or excess of vital factors; emotions provide a person with the opportunity to adapt to existence in an informationally uncertain environment;
emotions also perform a communicative function
, revealing the role of emotions in establishing contacts between people.

Approaches to classification of emotions

The study of the emotional sphere of personality is carried out in line with different theoretical concepts. Currently, there is no single generally accepted classification of emotions.

Using different criteria, different classification schemes can be obtained.

Thus, using the evaluation criterion , you can obtain a division of emotions into positive and negative.

Using the criterion of mobilization of the body's resources , sthenic and asthenic emotions are distinguished. Stenic emotions contribute to the mobilization of strength, a surge of activity, energy, and uplift. Asthenic - relaxes a person, characterized by passivity and contemplation.

by K. Izard , which identifies fundamental emotions and determines their psychological characteristics and external manifestations, has become widely known K. Izard considered the following fundamental emotions: interest, joy, surprise, suffering, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, guilt.

The general emotional orientation of the individual, manifested in which emotions are closest to the person, the most desirable and stable, determines the selectivity of the subject’s attitude towards natural and artistic phenomena, life situations and surrounding people.

What is consciousness

Definition 1
Consciousness is a property of the human psyche that is responsible for the subjective experiences of those events that occur in the external environment or in the body of the person himself.

The issue of consciousness can be approached both in the narrow and broad sense of this concept. In a broad sense, consciousness is understood as the reflection of reality in the human psyche, regardless of whether it is carried out at the biological, social, rational or sensory level. In a narrow sense, consciousness is understood as a function of the brain that is engaged in reflecting events and phenomena of reality in our psyche. Consciousness is associated with human speech, and is also responsible for goal setting and planning.

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The issue of human consciousness is dealt with in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and sciences that study artificial intelligence. Scientists today face a number of pressing questions to which there is no clear answer yet:

Do patients in a coma have consciousness?
when does a person become conscious
can a computer achieve consciousness