EMOTIONS

 What Are Emotions?

Emotions, often called feelings, include experiences such as love, hate, anger, trust, joy, panic, fear, and
grief. Emotions are related to, but different from, mood. Emotions are specific reactions to a particular
event that are usually of fairly short duration. Mood is a more general feeling such as happiness,
sadness, frustration, contentment, or anxiety that lasts for a longer time. Although everyone
experiences emotions, scientists do not all agree on what emotions are or how they should be measured
or studied. Emotions are complex and have both physical and mental components. Generally
researchers agree that emotions have the following parts: subjective feelings, physiological (body)
responses, and expressive behavior. The component of emotions that scientists call subjective feelings
refers to the way each individual person experiences feelings, and this component is the most difficult to
describe or measure. Subjective feelings cannot be observed; instead, the person experiencing the
emotion must describe it to others, and each person's description and interpretation of a feeling may be
slightly different. For example, two people falling in love will not experience or describe their feeling in
exactly the same ways.

Physiological responses are the easiest part of emotion to measure because scientists have developed
special tools to measure them. A pounding heart, sweating, blood rushing to the face, or the release of
adrenaline * in response to a situation that creates intense emotion can all be measured with scientific
accuracy. People have very similar internal responses to the same emotion. For example, regardless of
age, race, or gender, when people are under stress, their bodies release adrenaline; this hormone helps
prepare the body to either run away or fight, which is called the "fight or flight" reaction. Although the
psychological part of emotions may be different for each feeling, several different emotions can produce
the same physical reaction. Expressive behavior is the outward sign that an emotion is being
experienced. Outward signs of emotions can include fainting, a flushed face, muscle tensing, facial
expressions, tone of voice, rapid breathing, restlessness, or other body language. The outward
expression of an emotion gives other people clues to what someone is experiencing and helps to
regulate social interactions.

Adrenaline (a-DREN-a-lin), also called epinephrine, (ep-e-NEF-rin), is a hormone, or chemical messenger,

that is released in response to fear, anger, panic, and other emotions. It readies the body to respond to
threat by increasing heart rate, breathing rate, and blood flow to the arms and legs. These and other
effects prepare the body to run away or fight.

 Basic Emotions

Basic emotions regulate us in response to environmental challenges and opportunities. While there is no
definitive list of basic emotions, one popular one (from emotion expert Paul Ekman) contains six: fear,
anger, sadness, disgust, surprise, and joy. These six have been found in every culture worldwide, and
have also been shown to be identifiable by people cross culturally. This suggests that they are evolved
responses rather than cultural expressions. Looking at each emotion in turn, it’s easy to gain an
understanding of their evolutionary function:

 Fear—The function of fear is to get us out of dangerous situations, or to keep us from getting
into them. It causes the heart to race, breathing to speed up, and so on, preparing our bodies to
take appropriate action, such as running as fast as we can.
 Anger—The function of anger is to motivate us to defend or protect ourselves, our loved ones,
or anything that we consider valuable. Anger gears up the body into a combat-ready mode,
inducing such expressions as narrowed eyes and lips (making them harder to damage in a fight),
balling the fists, hunching the shoulders, and so on.
 Sadness—The function of sadness is to indicate that we have done or witnessed something that
is damaging or degrading to wellbeing, and to encourage us not to do that in the future. Sadness
causes the eyebrows to move upward at the inside corners, the lower lip to push outward, and
the body posture to slump. Tears running from our eyes indicate an even stronger experience of
sadness.
 Disgust—The function of disgust is to keep us from contacting or ingesting dangerous, toxic, or
infectious substances. Disgust causes the upper lip to curl and the nose to wrinkle, constricting
the facial orifices away from the thing causing disgust. A feeling of disgust may even cause
retching or full-on vomiting.
 Joy—The function of joy is to indicate that we have done or witnessed something that is
enhancing to wellbeing, and to encourage us to do that in the future. When we are joyful, we
smile, the corners of our eyes crinkle, and our posture becomes upright and open.
 Surprise—The purpose of surprise is to indicate that something unexpected has occurred, to
prepare us (and those around us) to deal with it. Surprise causes our eyes to fly wide open, the
eyebrows raise, and the jaw drops open.

Why are there so many more negative emotions than positive ones? Because while life-enhancing
actions are helpful, life-negating actions are often lethal. Since the downside of life-negating actions is
much larger than the upside of life-enhancing ones, it is important that the negative emotions be very
specific. The best example is disgust, which is mainly to force you to spit out toxic foods that might make
you sick or even kill you, or to keep you from eating them in the first place. Surprise can be either
negative or positive, depending on what has caused it. Interestingly, anger could be considered a
positive emotion, in that many people report that anger makes them feel good, energized, and
motivated. While emotions evolved to motivate and direct our behavior, we evolved under conditions
that were very different from the ones we currently live in. This means that oftentimes our emotions are
out of sync with our current environment. For example, in our ancestral environments we probably
encountered very few strangers and very few loud sounds. Yet in a modern urban environment we are
surrounded by strangers and loud noises, leading some psychologists to suggest that this mismatch may
be a cause of anxiety and depression.
  Importance of Emotions
Here are a few of the reasons our emotions are important in our lives:

1. Survival
Nature developed our emotions over millions of years of evolution. As a result, our emotions
have the potential to serve us today as a delicate and sophisticated internal guidance system.
Our emotions alert us when natural human need is not being met. For example, when we feel
lonely, our need for connection with other people is unmet. When we feel afraid, our need for
safety is unmet. When we feel rejected, it is our need for acceptance which is unmet.
2. Decision Making
Our emotions are a valuable source of information. Our emotions help us make decisions.
Studies show that when a person's emotional connections are severed in the brain, he can not
make even simple decisions. Why? Because he doesn't know how he will feel about his choices.
3. Predicting Behavior
Our feelings are also useful in helping us predict our own, and others' behavior. Here is an
article on the idea that feelings predict behavior.
4. Boundary Setting
When we feel uncomfortable with a person's behavior, our emotions alert us. If we learn to
trust our emotions and feel confident expressing ourselves we can let the person know we feel
uncomfortable as soon as we are aware of our feeling. This will help us set our boundaries which
are necessary to protect our physical and mental health.
5. Communication
Our emotions help us communicate with others. Our facial expressions, for example, can convey
a wide range of emotions. If we look sad or hurt, we are signaling to others that we need their
help. If we are verbally skilled we will be able to express more of our emotional needs and
thereby have a better chance of filling them. If we are effective at listening to the emotional
troubles of others, we are better able to help them feel understood, important and cared about.
6. Happiness
The only real way to know that we are happy is when we feel happy. When we feel happy, we
feel content and fulfilled. This feeling comes from having our needs met, particularly our
emotional needs. We can be warm, dry, and full of food, but still unhappy. Our emotions and
our feelings let us know when we are unhappy and when something is missing or needed. The
better we can identify our emotions, the easier it will be to determine what is needed to be
happy.
7. Unity
Our emotions are perhaps the greatest potential source of uniting all members of the human
species. Clearly, our various religious, cultural and political beliefs have not united us. Far too
often, in fact, they have tragically and even fatally divided us. Emotions, on the other hand, are
universal. Charles Darwin wrote about this, years ago in one of his lesser-known books called
"The Expression of Emotion In Man and Animal". The emotions of empathy, compassion,
cooperation, and forgiveness, for instance, all have the potential to unite us as a species. It
seems fair to say that, generally speaking: Beliefs divide us. Emotions unite us.

References;

Book; Introduction to Psychology.

Morgan T. Clifford
King A. Richard.
Weisz R. John.
Schopler John.
Published by; McGraw Hill Education (India Pvt. Ltd) Edition 1993.

Strack ,F., and Deutsch, R. (2004). Reflective and impulsive determinants of social
behavior. Personal. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 8, 220–247.