The influence of emotions on the functioning of the body. The influence of emotions on the functional characteristics of the human body from the point of view of Ayurveda and oriental medicine
Psychophysiology of emotional states. Psychological characteristics of emotions. Emotion as a reflection of an actual need and the likelihood of its satisfaction. Brain localization of emotions: limbic structures, frontal lobes, mediobasal cortex. Interhemispheric asymmetry. Localization of positive and negative emotions. Brain localization of emotional expression. The influence of emotions on activity and objective methods of controlling a person’s emotional states.
Emotions are reactions of a colored experience that reflect the significance of a stimulus or the result of an action (successful - unsuccessful). The entire conscious life of a person is accompanied by emotions that determine the sensory attitude to ongoing events. Emotions are what distinguishes a person from the most advanced artificial mechanisms.
Emotions arose in the process of evolution of the animal world as adaptive reactions, as a mechanism for immediate response to the sudden action of an external stimulus. The latter is due to the fact that the emotional state quickly causes pronounced experiences of a certain color and instantly brings all the functions of the body into readiness for a response. This preparation, as a rule, is expedient and beneficial for the body. Physiological changes that accompany emotional states can serve as functional preparation for upcoming struggles and possible damage. An increase in sugar content, increased secretion of adrenaline, acceleration of blood circulation and blood clotting, which occurs during emotions, contribute to the body's resistance to external influences and increase its vitality. Any emotional reaction is usually accompanied by physical activity. Emotions make it possible to assess the nature of incoming information from various external and internal stimuli. Ultimately, any factors of the external and internal environment of the body serve as a source of emotional shifts, which give a general qualitative characteristic to the received signal even before the influencing factor is fully detailed. However, the biological essence of emotion lies not only in protecting the body from the adverse effects of the environment, but also in the participation and launch of physiological mechanisms of adaptation of the body to changing conditions, i.e. mechanisms aimed at maintaining homeostasis. Emotions unite a fairly diverse range of experiences. According to their biological significance, two types of emotions are distinguished: negative, forming behavior that would eliminate the unfavorable state of the body, characterized by active behavior aimed at maintaining or strengthening this state, and positive.
The emergence of positive emotions is associated with the satisfaction of emotions, characterizes the success of the search to achieve the goal and leads to the cessation of the search goal. Unlike positive ones, negative emotions appear after birth.
Depending on the biological characteristics, lower and higher emotions are distinguished. The lower emotions are more elementary, connected with the organic needs of a person and are divided into homeostatic (have a negative character) and instinctive (can be positive and negative). Higher emotions arise in connection with the satisfaction of social needs and develop on the basis of consciousness. They have a controlling and inhibiting effect on lower emotions. The most important reason for the emergence of emotions are situations caused by the receipt and processing of sensory information.
The psychophysiological substantiation of emotional states includes both the determination of the intimate mechanisms of nervous relationships between different brain structures and the assessment of the physiological reactions that accompany these states, external manifestations.
According to physiological knowledge, nerve signals from the sense organs are sent along the nerve pathways of the trunk to the cerebral cortex. At the same time, they pass through one or more structures of the limbic system: the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the reticular formation. The limbic system also includes the olfactory bulb, tract and tubercle.
2. EMOTION AS A REFLECTION OF AN CURRENT NEED AND THE PROBABILITY OF ITS SATISFACTION
William James, the author of one of the first physiological theories of emotion, gave his article, published more than 100 years ago, a very expressive title: “What is an emotion?” . Nevertheless, 100 years after this question was formulated, we can read the following admission in the manual “Human Physiology”: “Despite the fact that each of us knows what emotion is, it is impossible to give this state an exact scientific definition. .. Currently, there is no single generally accepted scientific theory of emotions, as well as accurate data about in which centers and how these emotions arise and what their nervous substrate is.” According to B. Rhyme, the current state of the study of emotions represents “scattered knowledge that is unsuitable for solving specific problems.” I.A. is also inclined to conclude that the study of emotions is in crisis. Vasiliev.
In 1964, the results of psychophysiological experiments and an analysis of the literature data available at that time led to the conclusion that the emotions of higher animals and humans are determined by some actual need and an assessment of the likelihood (possibility) of its satisfaction based on philoid and ontogenetic experience. The subject makes this assessment involuntarily and often unconsciously compares information about the means and time supposedly necessary to satisfy the need with the information that he has at the moment. A low probability of achieving a goal leads to negative emotions (fear, anxiety, anger, grief, etc.), which are actively minimized by the subject. An increase in the likelihood that a need will be satisfied (compared to a previously held forecast) generates positive emotions pleasures, joys and triumphs that the subject seeks to maximize, i.e. strengthen, extend, repeat. Attaching crucial importance to assessing the likelihood of satisfying a need in the genesis of emotions, P. V. Simonov called his concept “need-information theory of emotions.”
In its most general form, the rule for the emergence of emotions can be presented as the following structural formula: E = f[-P(In – Is)], where E is emotion, its strength, quality and sign; P – the strength and quality of an actual need in the broadest sense of the word (for a person these are not only vital needs such as hunger and thirst, but equally diverse social and ideal (spiritual) needs, up to the most complex and sublime); ( In – Is) – assessment of the likelihood (possibility) of satisfying a need based on phylogenetic and previously acquired individual experience, where In– information about the means and time predicted to be necessary to meet the need; Is– information about the means and time that the subject has at his disposal at the moment. The term “information” is used here in the sense of its pragmatic meaning, which is determined by a change in the probability of achieving a goal.
In 1984, D. Price and J. Burrell reproduced the experiments of P.V. Simonov and his colleagues in a purely psychological version, asking subjects to mentally imagine some emotionally charged event and then mark on special scales the strength of their desire, the estimated probability of achieving the goal and the degree of emotional experience. Quantitative processing of the data obtained confirmed the existence of a relationship called the “general law of human emotions.” The correspondence of the information theory of emotions to actually observed and experimentally obtained facts has been repeatedly demonstrated using examples from the aerospace industry [Lebedev, 1980; Beregovoy, Ponomarenko, 1983], managerial [Kotik, Emelyanov, 1985] and pedagogical [Konev et al., 1987] practice. The “Formula of Emotions” was included in textbooks and manuals.
7. The influence of emotions on activity and objective methods of controlling a person’s emotional state
The very fact of generating emotions in a situation of pragmatic uncertainty predetermines and explains their adaptive compensatory value. The fact is that when emotional stress occurs, the volume of vegetative changes (increased heart rate, rise in blood pressure, release of hormones into the bloodstream, etc.), as a rule, exceeds the real needs of the body. Apparently, the process of natural selection consolidated the expediency of this excessive mobilization of energy resources. When it is unknown how much and what will be needed in the next few minutes, it is better to go to unnecessary expenses than to be left without sufficient metabolic support in the midst of intense activity - fight or flight.
But the compensatory function of emotions is by no means limited to hypermobilization of the vegetative system. The emergence of emotional tension is accompanied by a transition to forms of behavior different from those in a calm state, principles of assessing external signals and responding to them. Physiologically, the essence of this transition can be defined as a return from finely specialized conditioned reactions to responding according to the principle of dominance A.A. Ukhtomsky. Thus, in a situation of a potential but unclear threat, a person (hunter, detective, scout) begins to react to any event in the environment - a rustle, the cracking of a branch, a flickering shadow - as a signal of danger. He freezes, hides, points his weapon, in other words, demonstrates many “false alarms” in order to avoid that “missing the signal”, the price of which could be his own life.
Regular changes in the number and nature of errors as emotional stress increases were systematically studied in the laboratory of M.V. Frolov [Frolov, 1987]. The perceptual activity of operators - novice skydivers - was recorded at several stages of approaching the moment of a parachute jump: immediately after boarding the plane, during takeoff, during the climb, during the jumps of other skydivers who jumped in turn before the person under study, and also immediately before the jump . Tachistoscopically presented visual images were Arabic numerals with a noise level from 10 to 30%; half of the frames exposed “pure” noise. In Fig. Figure 7.7 shows examples of a noisy number “9” (B) and “clean” noise (B). An objective indicator of the degree of emotional stress was the normalized sum of electrocardiographic parameters - the average duration of the interval R–R and tooth amplitude T.
Analysis of changes in the probability of errors made by the operator as emotional stress increases at successive stages of the flight showed that an increase in emotional stress and a transition to responding according to the dominant principle is accompanied by a decrease in the number of errors of the “missing signal” type, when the subject mistakes a number for noise, and an increase in the number “false alarms”, when the subject mistakes noise for an objectively non-existent number. As for erroneous identifications of a symbol (the subject mistakes the number shown to him for another), their number first decreases and then begins to increase.
A study of the dynamics of spatio-temporal parameters of the electroencephalogram in the process of recognizing noisy visual stimuli showed that errors of various types are characterized by specific features of the coherent characteristics of pre-stimulus EEGs. In Fig. Figure 7.8 schematically shows coherent intrahemispheric connections for errors such as “false alarm” (A) and “missing signal” (B). Thick lines correspond to the most significant coherent relationships. With “false alarms,” coherence in the beta frequency range increases maximally in the anterior parts of the right hemisphere, and with “missed signals,” the synchrony of alpha activity increases in the anteroposterior parts of the same right hemisphere. The leading role of this hemisphere in the genesis of errors in perceptual activity against the background of emotional stress is in good agreement with numerous data on the predominant attitude of the right hemisphere to negative human emotions.
Rice. 7.7. Samples of visual signals presented for identification:
A – number “9”; B – noisy signal (open circles are elements removed from the digit outline); B – noise
The operator’s resistance to the disorganizing influence of excessive emotional stress depends, of course, on his individual typological characteristics. In experiments with the influence of examination stress on visual image recognition, an increased vulnerability of individuals diagnosed using psychological questionnaires as introverts with a high level of anxiety was revealed, compared with representatives of other studied groups, who did not find significant differences in the quality of the activities performed. In Fig. 7.9, the ordinate axis shows the percentage of all errors made immediately before the exam determining the professional suitability of operators (I), and 1 hour after it (II). As follows from the figure, in a situation of stress, the number of errors in introverts with a high level of anxiety (1) significantly exceeds the number of errors recorded in representatives of all other groups (2), although outside of stress, “anxious” introverts cope with the task even slightly better than others participants of the experiment.
Rice. 7.8. Coherent intrahemispheric EEG connections during errors such as “false alarm” (A) and “missing signal” (B). EEG leads – according to the “10–20” system (see Chapter 2)
Until now, we have talked about the impact on the effectiveness of activities of relatively high degrees of emotional stress, diagnosed using an integral indicator of ECG characteristics, recording the speed of speech articulation (number of syllables per second) and analyzing the emotionally significant parameters of stressed vowel sounds, invariant to the lexical and grammatical composition of speech and the individual characteristics of speakers. In Fig. Figure 7.10 presents an example of the results of such a speech analysis of three pilots during training in a flight simulator, when failures of navigation equipment and engines were deliberately introduced. The material for analysis was recordings of radio conversations with the leader of the training sessions. Signs of emotional stress, diagnosed according to the decisive rule (solid dividing line in the figure), are outlined by a dotted curve. In this series of experiments, when recognizing the states “norm” and “emotion,” only two errors were made by one of the three pilots, indicated by a black square.
Rice. 7.9. The percentage of errors (K) made above the norm (100%) before the exam (I) and an hour after it (II) among introverts with a high level of anxiety (1) and representatives of all other groups (2). The norm determined seven days before the exams is not shown on the graphs
Rice. 7.10.– relative values of the frequency of zeros, the centroid of the spectrum and the frequency of the main type of speech, respectively
But activity also deteriorates with a decrease in activation and the disappearance of its emotional coloring, which is often observed in conditions of monotony (Fig. 7.11). When the activation level falls below a certain optimum, when the operator’s state loses its emotional coloring and his activity becomes tiresomely monotonous, a picture is observed that is exactly the opposite of what we saw under conditions of emotional stress. There are no “false alarms”, but the number of missed significant signals is steadily increasing. It is not difficult to imagine what dramatic consequences this can lead to if we are not dealing with a participant in the experiment, but with an operator managing a complex transport or energy system.
Rice. 7.11. A set of methods for assessing the operator’s functional state: PS – spatial synchronization; EEG – electroencephalogram; ECG – electrocardiogram
ACTIVATION DEGREE
The experimental facts obtained show that even in the case when emotional stress is associated with motivation that is external to the work performed by a person, this stress does not have a uniquely disorganizing effect. A moderate degree of emotional stress can increase the efficiency of activity and reduce the number of mistakes made by the subject. The beneficial effect of emotions is especially clearly manifested in the case when these emotions arise on the basis of a need that motivates this activity of the subject, and are organically connected with it. It is here that we meet with the adaptive-compensatory function of positive emotions, which is realized through the influence on the need that initiates behavior. In a difficult situation with a low probability of achieving the goal, even a small success (increase in probability) generates a positive emotion of inspiration, which reinforces the need to achieve the goal according to the rule arising from the “emotion formula”.
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An example of the compensatory function of emotions at the population level is imitative behavior characteristic of an emotionally excited brain. When a subject does not have the data or time to make an independent and well-founded decision, he can only rely on the example of other group members. Since the likelihood of reinforcement of signals emanating from them remains problematic, imitative behavior is far from always optimal, and in the event of mass panic often leads to catastrophic consequences.
This is the briefest overview of the adaptive functions of emotions at the individual and population levels. In contrast to concepts that operate with categories such as “attitude”, “significance”, “meaning”, etc., the proposed approach clearly defines the objective reality that is subjectively reflected in the emotions of humans and higher animals: the need and likelihood of it satisfaction. It is these two factors that make events significant for the subject, give them personal meaning and encourage the subject not only to experience, but also to effectively realize his attitude towards the world around him and towards himself.
Introduction
Substrate of emotions
Theories of emotions
Methods for studying and diagnosing emotions
Conclusion
Literature
Introduction
For many years, the problem of emotions was practically not considered by domestic legal literature, and only one of their components - the state of passion - was studied in order to establish the subjective side of the crime. At the same time, this issue deserves wider consideration abroad.
Emotions are one of the essential functions of human neuropsychic activity; they create a personal coloration for any behavioral act and are an energetic component of any type of productive activity.
The largest Russian physiologists I.P. Pavlov and I.M. Sechenov, in their works on higher nervous activity, emphasized the close relationship between mental and physiological processes in the body. Psychologist B.D. Porshnev noted that any thoughts of psychology without physiology are unscientific and conflict with modern knowledge.
A crime, like any other act of behavior, cannot be considered in isolation from the human psyche, from the characteristics of the intellectual, emotional, and volitional sphere of a given person. Operational officers, investigators and judges are well aware that memories of a crime committed are retained in the memory of the guilty person for a long time. Therefore, you can try to reproduce the emotional state that he experienced in his mind by pronouncing irritating words, presenting objects associated with the crime, or showing their images. In a person not involved in a crime, these stimuli, as irrelevant, will not cause emotional manifestations and accompanying psychophysiological reactions.
Developing this topic, A.R. Luria wrote that emotions are associated not only with the crime itself, but also with its individual details, which turn out to be sharply emotionally charged for the criminal and practically do not concern the wrongly suspected. A set of images directly or accidentally associated with a crime that gave rise to a strong emotional experience forms a strong complex in memory. Artificial activation of one of the elements of this complex, even against the will of the subject, automatically recreates all its elements in the consciousness.
Thus, the emotional and psychophysiological spheres of a person are closely interconnected with all aspects of his activity, not excluding the criminal actions of offenders. The lie detector successfully solves the assigned tasks
A person’s behavior throughout the day, like a rainbow, changes from bursts of joy to unreasonable sadness. All his actions and actions are controlled by many factors. This could be a change in weather, the specifics of the situation, or simply pleasant or unpleasant news. These factors evoke in a person certain emotions and a specific attitude towards a particular event. They are the main lever in shaping behavior.
Depending on what emotions prevail over a person at the moment, behavior can be adequate and correct, or it can be illogical for the situation.
The famous psychologist K. Izard proposed identifying 10 emotions as fundamental. According to his theory, interest, fear, joy, surprise, anger, suffering, disgust, contempt, shame and embarrassment are of decisive importance in a person’s life, his activities and behavior.
Behavior, in turn, is of great importance for a person in terms of survival. By changing behavioral reactions, a person avoids dangerous situations and adapts to a changing external environment. For example, a person under the influence of the emotion of fear is not confident and is very tense. All his actions boil down to attempts to escape from a frightening situation. A person can do rash things. In most cases, actions are performed automatically, unconsciously. Visually, the person appears tense and cowered. The pupils dilate and the skin becomes pale. Sweating increases. A distinctive feature of a person in a state of fear is a change in voice associated with difficulty breathing.
Satisfaction of interest is an important need in human life. Thanks to the feeling of the emotion of interest, a person understands the world around him more deeply, gets acquainted with new facts and objects, and derives personal benefit from this. The thoughts and attention of the interested person are directed to the subject of knowledge. He looks and hears carefully. All internal forces are aimed at the process of touching and understanding the object of interest.
Joyful man Gestures intensely, makes quick and energetic movements. He feels light and cheerful. Blood flow to the brain activates mental activity. A person who feels the emotion of joy speaks animatedly and thinks quickly. Work productivity increases significantly. During joyful experiences, body temperature rises, eyes sparkle, and face glows. The activity of the external secretion organs increases - tears appear, salivation increases.
Emotion of surprise easiest to recognize. It occurs in response to any unexpected event or action. The surprised person is tense, opens his eyes wide, wrinkles his forehead and raises his eyebrows. The surprise is short-lived.
It is difficult to confuse a person with someone in anger. All his actions and even his facial expression show aggression. The person becomes tense and impulsive. His movements become more active and self-confidence appears. Thinking, memory, imagination do not function as they should. The face takes on a reddish tint and a stony appearance.
During the experience suffering, a person experiences physical and mental discomfort, pain or even agony. This state is extremely unpleasant for him, as evidenced by external manifestations in behavior. Motor activity decreases and may develop into a complete lack of movement. Thinking and attention are significantly reduced. The person is apathetic and unable to adequately assess the situation.
Emotions of disgust arise when a person observes a phenomenon or process that is unacceptable and unpleasant for him. There are no generally accepted criteria for defining disgusting and unpleasant. One person feels disgust when looking at an insect or a rat, while another feels disgusted by a certain food product. All human actions, facial expressions and gestures are aimed at avoiding contact with the object of disgust. Facial expressions are dominated by wrinkling of the nose and eyebrows and lowering of the corners of the mouth.
Contempt in its manifestation it is similar to disgust. They differ only in the object of hostility. Thus, disgust can be felt exclusively for objects or phenomena, and contempt concerns exclusively people. In addition to the main manifestations, contempt is characterized by the presence of sarcasm and irony in words, as well as a demonstration of superiority over an opponent.
The emotion of shame arises as a result of one’s own actions that do not meet generally accepted standards and stereotypes. A person experiencing shame is tense and silent. His movements are constrained. The face turns red, the gaze becomes lost and falls down. The mental activity of the brain is activated.
Embarrassment, the emotion is similar in its manifestations to the feeling of shame, but does not have an obvious negative connotation.
Depending on the effect emotions produce on the body, they can be sthenic or asthenic. Stenic emotions are strong feelings that bring all the body's resources into a state of mobilization. They stimulate human activity. Asthenic emotions, on the contrary, suppress the vital processes of the body.
It should be remembered that no matter what emotion a person experiences, serious physiological changes occur in the body. The significance of such processes for the body cannot be underestimated or ignored. Long-term exposure to emotion shapes a person’s specific mood. And if it has a negative connotation, such an impact can lead to mental and physical disorders.
Emotions have a generalized effect, with each having a different impact. Human behavior depends on emotions, which activate and organize perception, thinking, and imagination. Emotions can cloud the perception of the world or paint it with bright colors.
Health
What we think and feel directly affects how we live. Our health is related to our lifestyle, genetics and susceptibility to disease. But beyond that, there is a strong relationship between your emotional state and your health.
Learning to cope with emotions, especially negative ones, is an important part of our vitality. The emotions we keep inside can explode one day and become a real disaster. for ourselves. That's why it's important to release them.
Good emotional health is quite rare these days. Negative emotions such as anxiety, stress, fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, doubt and irritability can significantly affect our health.
Getting laid off, a turbulent marriage, financial difficulties and the death of loved ones can be detrimental to our mental state and affect our health.
This is how emotions can destroy our health.
The influence of emotions on health
1. Anger: heart and liver
Anger is a strong emotion that arises in response to despair, pain, disappointment and threat. If you take action right away and express it properly, anger can be good for your health. But in most cases, anger destroys our health.
In particular, anger affects our logical abilities and increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Anger leads to constriction of blood vessels, increased heart rate, blood pressure, and rapid breathing. If this happens frequently, it leads to wear and tear of the walls of the arteries.
A 2015 study found that Risk of heart attack increases 8.5 times two hours after an outburst of intense anger.
Anger also raises levels of cytokines (molecules that cause inflammation), which increases the risk of developing arthritis, diabetes and cancer.
To better manage your anger, get regular physical activity, learn relaxation techniques, or see a therapist.
2. Concern: stomach and spleen
Chronic anxiety can lead to a variety of health problems. It affects spleen and weakens the stomach. When we worry a lot, our body is attacked by chemicals that make us react with a sick or weak stomach.
Anxiety or fixation on something can lead to problems such as nausea, diarrhea, stomach problems and other chronic disorders.
Excessive anxiety is associated with chest pain, high blood pressure, weakened immune system, and premature aging.
Severe anxiety also harms our personal relationships, disrupts sleep, and can make us distracted and inattentive to our health.
3. Sadness or grief: mild
Of the many emotions we experience in life, sadness is the longest lasting emotion.
Sadness or melancholy weakens the lungs, causing fatigue and difficulty breathing.
It disrupts the natural flow of breathing, narrowing the lungs and bronchi. When you are overwhelmed with grief or sadness, air cannot move easily in and out of your lungs, which can lead to asthma attacks and bronchial diseases.
Depression and melancholy also damage the skin, causing constipation and low oxygen levels in the blood. People suffering from depression tend to gain or lose weight, and are easily susceptible to addiction to drugs and other harmful substances.
If you're feeling sad, there's no need to hold back your tears because this way you can release those emotions.
4. Stress: Heart and Brain
Each person experiences and reacts to stress differently. A little stress is good for your health and can help you perform daily tasks.
However, if stress becomes too much, it can lead to high blood pressure, asthma, stomach ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome.
As you know, stress is one of the main causes of heart disease. It increases blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and also promotes bad habits such as smoking, physical inactivity and overeating. All these factors can damage the walls of blood vessels and lead to heart disease.
Stress can also lead to a number of diseases such as:
Asthmatic disorders
· Hair loss
Mouth ulcers and excessive dryness
Mental problems: insomnia, headaches, irritability
· Cardiovascular diseases and hypertension
Neck and shoulder pain, musculoskeletal pain, lower back pain, nervous tics
Skin rashes, psoriasis and eczema
· Reproductive system disorders: menstrual irregularities, relapses of sexually transmitted infections in women and impotence and premature ejaculation in men.
Diseases of the digestive system: gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers, ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel
The connection between emotions and organs
5. Loneliness: the heart
Loneliness is a condition that makes a person cry and fall into deep melancholy.
Loneliness is a serious health risk. When we're lonely, our brains release more stress hormones like cortisol, which cause depression. This in turn affects blood pressure and sleep quality.
Studies have shown that loneliness increases the chances of developing mental illness, and is also a risk factor for coronary heart disease and stroke.
In addition, loneliness has a negative impact on the immune system. Lonely people are more likely to develop inflammation in response to stress, which can weaken the immune system.
6. Fear: adrenal glands and kidneys
Fear leads to anxiety, which debilitates our kidneys, adrenal glands and reproductive system.
The situation when fear arises leads to a decrease in the flow of energy in the body and makes it defend itself. This leads to a slowing of the respiratory rate and circulation of blood, which causes a state of stagnation, due to which our limbs practically freeze with fear.
Fear affects the kidneys the most, and this leads to frequent urination and other kidney problems.
Fear also causes the adrenal glands to produce more stress hormones, which have a devastating effect on the body.
Severe fear can cause pain and diseases of the adrenal glands, kidneys and lower back, as well as urinary tract diseases. In children, this emotion can be expressed through urinary incontinence, which is closely related to anxiety and self-doubt.
7. Shock: kidneys and heart
Shock is a manifestation of trauma caused by an unexpected situation that knocks you down.
A sudden shock can upset the balance in the body, causing overexcitation and fear.
Severe shock can undermine our health, especially the kidneys and heart. A traumatic reaction leads to the production of a large amount of adrenaline, which is deposited in the kidneys. This leads to increased heart rate, insomnia, stress and anxiety. Shock can even change the structure of the brain, affecting areas of emotion and survival.
The physical consequences of emotional trauma or shock often include low energy, pale skin, difficulty breathing, rapid heart rate, sleep and digestive disorders, sexual dysfunction, and chronic pain.
8. Irritability and hatred: liver and heart
Hateful emotions and irritability can affect gut and heart health, leading to chest pain, hypertension and palpitations.
Both of these emotions increase your risk of high blood pressure. Irritable people are also more susceptible to cellular aging than good-natured people.
Irritability is also bad for the liver. When verbally expressing hatred, a person exhales condensed molecules containing toxins that damage the liver and gallbladder.
9. Jealousy and Envy: Brain, Gallbladder and Liver
Jealousy, despair and envy directly affect our brain, gallbladder and liver.
Jealousy is known to slow your thinking and impair your ability to see clearly.
In addition, jealousy causes symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression, which leads to excessive production of adrenaline and norepinephrine in the blood.
Jealousy has a negative effect on the gallbladder and leads to stagnation of blood in the liver. This causes a weakened immune system, insomnia, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, high cholesterol and poor digestion.
10. Anxiety: stomach, spleen, pancreas
Anxiety is a normal part of life. Anxiety can increase breathing and heart rate, increase concentration and blood flow to the brain, which can be beneficial to health.
However, when anxiety becomes a part of life, it has a devastating effects on physical and mental health.
Gastrointestinal diseases are often closely related to anxiety. It affects the stomach, spleen, and pancreas, which can lead to problems such as indigestion, constipation, ulcerative colitis.
Anxiety disorders are often a risk factor for a range of chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease.
Emotions are an integral part of the reaction of man and other higher animals to environmental factors. They appear constantly and affect the behavior and actions of any thinking being all his life, so it is obvious that not only the spiritual state of a person, but also his physical health depends on the emotional background to a certain extent.
The word “emotion” itself comes from the Latin “emoveo”, which means excitement, shock, experience. That is, it is logical to perceive the emotions that arise in us as vibrations passing throughout the body, affecting all organs and systems that connect them together.
Since ancient times, scientists interested in medicine have observed a correlation between the prevailing emotional state and human health. This is written about in the treatises of oriental medicine, the works of Hippocrates and other ancient Greek scientists. We can also trace the understanding of the connection between emotional and physical health among the people thanks to the well-known sayings: “joy makes you young, but grief makes you old”, “like rust eats iron, sadness eats away the heart”, “you can’t buy health - it’s given by the mind”, “all diseases come from nerves." These statements call for attention to the destructive influence of heavy emotional stress on the nervous system, which negatively affects the health of other organs and systems.
In modern science, the connection between physical health and emotions has been confirmed by neurophysiologist Charles Sherington, Nobel Prize laureate. He deduced a pattern: the emotional experiences that arise flow into somatic and vegetative changes.
- Physiology of the influence of emotions on the body.
The reaction to the world around us, first of all, occurs in the central nervous system. Receptors from the senses send signals to the brain, and it responds to emerging stimuli, forming a set of commands to help overcome an obstacle or reinforce the correct action.
- Scheme of the impact of negative emotions.
With negative emotions, for example, in response to insult, aggression occurs, supported by the adrenal hormone norepinephrine; when there is a feeling of danger, fear arises, supported by adrenaline; the appearance of a rival or competitor for resources becomes a cause of jealousy and envy. Regular irritation accordingly transforms ordinary, controlled emotions into something more: in the first case, aggression develops into hatred, in the second - fear into anxiety (the state of the victim), in the third - into irritability and dissatisfaction.
- Scheme of the action of positive emotions.
Positive emotions are accompanied by the release of happiness hormones (endorphin, dopamine), they give a euphoric effect that makes a person try harder to get joy and calm again. Serotonin works in a similar way, the level of which in the blood determines sensitivity to pain and physical factors (it is thanks to it that children so easily forget about injuries and are able to not notice obvious damage for a long time, such as cuts, tears, etc.).
- Physiological manifestations of emotions.
Hormones prepare the body to respond to irritation: the heart rate accelerates, blood vessels dilate, characteristic facial expressions appear, abdominal muscles contract, breathing quickens, the evacuation function of the gastrointestinal tract is stimulated, “goose bumps” appear (adaptation to air temperature), fever, and nervous excitement.
When the border of regular influence is overcome, this means that the person has not independently coped with the problem that constantly evoked the corresponding emotions. When a certain limit, individual for each person, is reached, the body itself takes control of the body. Thus, when a stimulus reappears, the conscious part of the personality loses control. In this case, a person begins to behave like an animal and is capable of harming himself or others, that is, emotions can not only harm the physical body, but also seriously undermine spiritual health.
In the case of constant emotional influence, be it positive or negative, the body self-destructs, as a person stops paying attention to its primary needs. A constant strong reaction (excitement, concern, fear, euphoria) exhausts the body, which becomes the cause of the disease.
Each of us knows that the emotions that arise as a result of any events help to form a mood. And the ability to cope with certain problems, in turn, depends on mood. Cheerfulness is always accompanied by success and joy, while depression and fatigue are always accompanied by illness and misfortune.
Eastern medicine has an extensive knowledge base on searching for the relationship between individual internal organs and the external manifestations of their condition. For example, it was Eastern doctors who created maps of bioactive points, a urine analysis system, diagrams of the type and color of plaque on the tongue, and determined by what changes in facial features a particular disease can be detected.
How negative emotions affect health:
Anxiety, anxiety, depression - these emotions extinguish the manifestations of energy in a person, make them fear the world around them. The consequence of constant restraint is problems with the tonsils (tonsillitis) and throat (bronchitis, laryngitis), up to loss of voice;
Jealousy - unrest caused by the desire to limit the freedom of a nearby person and greed, provoke insomnia and frequent migraines;
Hatred - sudden surges of energy that overwhelm the body, splash out to no avail, shaking the human psyche. He often and greatly suffers from the slightest setbacks, and improper impulsive behavior leads to problems with the gallbladder, stomach and liver.
Irritation - when every little thing irritates a person, we can talk about sensitization of the body caused by a weakening of protective functions. It is not surprising that such people suffer from frequent bouts of nausea (a physiological reaction to poisoning), which no medication can cope with;
Arrogance and snobbery - arrogance provokes constant dissatisfaction with the things and people around a person, which causes problems with the joints, intestines and pancreas;
Fear appears in people for whom the main goal is survival. Fear absorbs energy, makes a person cynical, withdrawn, dry and cold. Suspicion and confidence in the hostility of the world provoke arthritis, deafness and senile dementia in such a person;
Lack of self-confidence - the feeling of guilt for every misstep and mistake overloads thoughts and causes chronic headaches;
Dejection, boredom, sadness - such emotions stop the flow of energy in the body, provoke stagnation, loss of motivation. In an effort to protect himself from risks and new attachments, a person retreats into his own sadness and loses the opportunity to receive bright positive emotions. As a result, he suffers from constipation, asthma, immunodeficiency, impotence, and frigidity.
Negative manifestations of emotions also include excessive joy, since because of it, a person’s energy dissipates without a trace, getting lost and wasted in vain. Due to constant losses, a person is forced to look for new pleasures, which he is again unable to retain. The cycle closes, and life turns into a constant search for entertainment, which leads to anxiety (fear of losing access to what you want), despair and insomnia.
Of course, it should be taken into account that one-time, rare manifestations of negative emotions are a completely normal reaction to the problems that every person has. To a certain extent, they even turn out to be useful, since, firstly, they are able to push a person to an important decision and stimulate the desire to correct a problematic situation in the right direction, and secondly, they are a contrast against which positive emotions become more desirable and better felt .
Problems bring long-term emotional impacts that become pathological over time. They are the ones who undermine the body from the inside and can make a person defenseless against harmful environmental factors, creating the ground for the development of all kinds of diseases.
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Introduction
Every adult in his life has repeatedly experienced certain emotions and feelings from early childhood. Emotions and feelings constitute a special, very important aspect of a person’s inner life. A person’s emotional manifestations are very diverse: joy, grief, fear, anger, surprise, sadness, anxiety, admiration, contempt, etc. The world of emotional experiences permeates all aspects of life: relationships with other people, activity, communication and cognition. Emotions and feelings motivate a person to action, influence decision-making and setting life goals, determine behavior, and simply turn out to be necessary in overcoming the difficulties of everyday life. Thanks to feelings and emotions, a person perceives the world around him not as an extraneous phenomenon, but takes an active part in it and experiences certain experiences.
But psychologists do not have a common point of view regarding the role that feelings and emotions play in a person’s life. Thus, some of them, believing reason to be a characteristic of the truly human in man, argue that the meaning of human existence should be precisely cognitive-intellectual activity. Other scientists classify humans as emotional beings. In their opinion, the very meaning of human existence is of an affective, emotional nature, i.e. a person surrounds himself with people and objects to which he is emotionally attached.
Thus, scientists have still not been able to come to a consensus regarding the nature and meaning of emotions and feelings in human life, so this topic is relevant today.
The purpose of the essay is to determine the role of emotions and feelings in human life.
Objectives: 1) describe the characteristics of the essence of emotions;
2) study the distinctive features of emotions and feelings;
4) identify the influence of feelings and emotions on the personality.
Chapter 1. Emotions and feelings as psychological processes
1.1. Emotions and their characteristics
In the first half of the 20th century, psychologists began to talk about affects as emotional reactions aimed at defusing emerging emotional arousal. Thus, S. L. Rubinstein used the terms “emotional” and “affective” as equivalent: “... the three-fold division of mental phenomena into intellectual, emotional and volitional cannot be maintained. The primary, main thing is the two-part division of mental processes into intellectual and affective...” 1 . Today, emotion is understood as an experience, emotional excitement. Emotions mobilize energy, and this energy is in some cases felt by the subject as a tendency to perform an action. They guide the individual’s mental and physical activity and direct it in a certain direction. For example, if a person is overwhelmed with anger, then he will not run away, and if a person is frightened, then he is unlikely to decide to commit aggression.
Emotions or emotional responses are characterized by positive or negative experiences, influence on behavior and activity (stimulating or inhibitory), intensity (depth of experiences and the magnitude of physiological changes), duration of occurrence (short-term or long-term), objectivity (degree of awareness and connection with a specific object).
In addition to the main characteristics, psychologist E. D. Chomskaya identifies such characteristics as the reactivity of emotions (speed of occurrence or change), quality (connection with need), and the degree of their voluntary control.
1) A sign of emotional response. Depending on what experiences a person has (positive - pleasure or negative - disgust), the emotional response is marked with a “+” or “-” sign. It should be noted, however, that this division is largely arbitrary and at least does not correspond to the positive or negative role of emotions for a given person in a specific situation. For example, an emotion such as fear is unconditionally classified as negative, but it certainly has a positive meaning for animals and humans, and in addition, it can bring pleasure to humans. K. Izard notes the positive role of such negative emotions as shame. In addition, he notes that joy, manifested in the form of schadenfreude, can bring the same harm to the person experiencing it as anger.
Therefore, K. Izard believes that “instead of talking about negative and positive emotions, it would be more correct to consider that there are emotions that contribute to an increase in psychological entropy 2 , and emotions, which, on the contrary, facilitate constructive behavior. This approach allows one to classify a particular emotion as positive or negative, depending on the impact it has on intrapersonal processes and the processes of interaction of the individual with the immediate social environment, taking into account more general ethological and environmental factors.” 3
2) Intensity of emotional response. A high degree of positive emotional response is called bliss. For example, a person experiences bliss when warming himself by the fire after a long stay in the cold or, conversely, drinking a cold drink in hot weather. Bliss is characterized by a pleasant sensation spreading throughout the body. The highest degree of positive emotional response is called ecstasy, or an ecstatic state. This may be a religious ecstasy, experienced by medieval mystics, and currently observed among members of some religious sects; this state is also characteristic of shamans. Usually people experience ecstasy when they experience the height of happiness. This state is characterized by the fact that it captures the entire consciousness of a person, becomes dominant, due to which the external world disappears in subjective perception, and the person is outside of time and space.
3) Duration of emotional response. Emotional reactions can vary in duration: from fleeting experiences to states that last hours and days.
4) Objectivity as a characteristic of emotional response. As V.K. Vilyunas writes 4 , a person is delighted or indignant, he can be sad or proud of someone or something. So-called pointless emotions usually also have a subject, only less specific (for example, anxiety can be caused by the situation as a whole: night, forest, unfriendly environment) orunconscious (when the mood is spoiled by failure, which a person cannot admit).
Since the time when philosophers and natural scientists began to seriously think about the nature and essence of emotions, two main positions have emerged. Scientists occupying one of them, the intellectualist one, most clearly designated by I.-F. Herbart, argued that organic manifestations of emotions are a consequence of mental phenomena. According to Herbart, emotion is a connection that is established between ideas. Emotion is a mental disorder caused by a mismatch (conflict) between ideas. This affective state involuntarily causes vegetative changes.
Representatives of another position - sensualists - on the contrary, stated that organic reactions influence mental phenomena. These two positions were later developed in cognitive theories of emotions and in the peripheral theory of emotions by W. James - G. Lange. -
“Peripheral” theory W. Jam - G. Lange.American psychologist W. James put forward a “peripheral” theory of emotions, based on the fact that emotions are associated with certain physiological reactions. Joy, from his point of view, is a combination of two phenomena: increased motor innervation and dilation of blood vessels. This is where the expressive expression of this emotion comes from: fast, strong movements, loud speech, laughter. Sadness, on the contrary, is a consequence of weakening motor innervation and narrowing of blood vessels. Hence the sluggish, slow movements, weakness and soundlessness of the voice, relaxation and silence.
From the perspective of the James-Lange theory, the act of occurrence of emotion is as follows:
stimulus - the occurrence of physiological changes - signals about these changes to the brain - emotion (emotional experience).
The meaning of this paradoxical statement is that an arbitrary change in facial expressions and pantomimes leads to the involuntary appearance of the corresponding emotion.
Mimic means of expression.The human face has the greatest ability to express various emotional shades. Leonardo da Vinci also said that eyebrows and mouth change differently for different reasons for crying, and L.N. Tolstoy described 85 shades of eye expression and 97 shades of a smile, revealing a person’s emotional state (restrained, tense, artificial, sad, contemptuous, sardonic, joyful, sincere, etc.).
Reykovsky 5 notes that the formation of facial expressions of emotions is influenced by three factors:
- innate species-typical facial patterns corresponding to certain emotional states;
- acquired, learned, socialized ways of expressing emotions, voluntarily controlled;
- individual expressive characteristics that give specific and social forms of facial expression specific features characteristic only of a given individual.
As G. Oster and P. Ekman note, a person is born with a ready-made mechanism for expressing emotions through facial expressions. All facial muscles necessary for expressing various emotions are formed during the 15-18th week of uterine development, and changes in “facial expression” take place starting from the 20th week. Most frequently exhibited facial patterns 6 are a smile (with pleasure) and a “sour face” (with disgust). Differences in smiles appear as early as 10 months of age. The child reacts to the mother with a smile, which activates the zygomaticus major muscle and the orbicularis oculi muscle. When a stranger approaches, the child also smiles, but activation occurs only in the zygomaticus major muscle; the orbicularis oculi muscle does not respond. With age, the range of smiles expands.
P. Ekman and K. Izard described the facial signs of primary, or basic, emotions (joy, grief, disgust-contempt, surprise, anger, fear) and identified three autonomous areas of the face: the forehead and eyebrows, the eye area (eyes, eyelids, base of the nose) and lower part of the face (nose, cheeks, mouth, jaw, chin). The conducted research made it possible to develop unique “formulas” of facial expressions that record characteristic changes in each of the three zones of the face, as well as to construct photo standards of facial expressions of a number of emotions. So, for example, in fear, the eyebrows are raised and shifted, the upper eyelids are raised, the mouth is open, the lips are stretched and tense, but in surprise, the eyebrows are raised high and rounded, the upper eyelids are raised and the lower ones are lowered, the mouth is open, lips and teeth are separated.
Types of emotions. The nature of the emotional attitude towards different objects is manifested in a person’s experience of positive or negative emotions. According to Lazarus 7 , we can distinguish 16 different emotions, of which 4 are positive, 9 are negative and 3 emotions - hope, compassion and gratitude - are mixed.
Positive emotions are:
happiness - experiencing the successful implementation of the goal;
pride - strengthening of identity due to obtaining a valuable result;
relief - relieving the tension that arose when achieving the goal;
Love - desire or experience of attachment.
Negative emotions are:
anger - emotional reaction to insult, resentment directed against the individual;
fright - response to significant physical danger;
guilt - an experience that arose as a result of violation of the boundaries of moral norms;
shame - the experience of the impossibility of living in accordance with the ideal Self;
sadness - experience of irretrievable loss;
envy - desire for something that another has;
jealousy - the threat of losing the love and affection of another;
disgust - action and reaction to an unpleasant object or idea;
fear - reaction to an uncertain situation and a situation of real threat.
Emotions are usually difficult to explain conceptually. A common technique remains the expression of an emotional state through a description of the accompanying bodily sensations.
1.2. The relationship between feelings and emotions in a person’s personality
Today, the concept of “feeling” has been mixed with the designation of sensations (“feeling of pain”), the return of consciousness after fainting (“coming to one’s senses”), self-esteem (self-esteem, sense of inferiority), intellectual processes and human states. For example, K. D. Ushinsky in his work “Man as a Subject of Education” examines in detail such “mental feelings” as a feeling of similarity and difference, a feeling of mental tension, a feeling of expectation, a feeling of surprise, a feeling of deception, a feeling of doubt (indecisiveness), a sense of confidence, a sense of irreconcilable contrast, a sense of success. Unfortunately, this is the case not only in the past, but also now.
The fact that feelings and emotions are closely interrelated does not require discussion. The question is not this, but what is included in these concepts and what is the relationship between them. Attempts to separate the concepts of “feeling” and “emotion” have been made for a long time. Even W. McDougall wrote that “the terms “emotion” and “feeling”... are used with great uncertainty and confusion, which corresponds to the uncertainty and diversity of opinions about the foundations, conditions of occurrence and functions of the processes to which these terms relate” . He writes that there are two primary and fundamental forms of feeling - pleasure and pain, or satisfaction and dissatisfaction, which color and determine to some, at least insignificant, extent all the aspirations of the organism. As the organism develops, it becomes capable of experiencing a whole range of feelings, which are a combination, a mixture of pleasure and pain; as a result, feelings such as hope, anxiety, despair, hopelessness, remorse, and sadness appear. Such complex feelings in everyday speech are called emotions. McDougall believes that it is appropriate to call these complex “derived emotions” feelings. They arise after a person’s aspirations have been successfully or unsuccessfully fulfilled. True emotions precede success or failure and do not depend on them. They do not have a direct effect on changing the strength of aspirations. They only reveal to the self-conscious organism the nature of the acting impulses, that is, the existing needs.
Complex feelings, according to McDougall, depend on the development of cognitive functions and are secondary in relation to this process. They are unique to humans, although their simplest forms are probably also available to higher animals. True emotions appear at much earlier stages of evolutionary development.
W. McDougall's attempt to separate emotions and feelings cannot be considered successful. The criteria he gives for such a distinction are too vague, and the attribution of one or another emotional phenomenon to feelings or emotions is poorly justified and understandable. For example, there is no precise distinction between the “mixed emotion” of shame, disgrace and phenomena classified by him as feelings such as remorse and despair. Both of them can appear after the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of aspirations.
In the "Philosophical Dictionary" 8 the author of an article on feelings and emotions sees the difference between emotions and feelings in the duration of the experience: for emotions themselves they are short-term, but for feelings they are long-term, stable.
The Psychology dictionary says that “feelings are one of the main forms of a person’s experience of his relationship to objects and phenomena of reality, characterized by relative stability.” 9 But experiencing your attitude towards something is an emotion. Consequently, here too the feeling is understood as a stable emotion. But emotions are often called feelings, and vice versa, feelings are called emotions even by those scientists who, in principle, differentiate between them.
A. G. Maklakov, 10 Considering feelings as one of the types of emotional states, he declares the following as signs differentiating emotions and feelings.
1. Emotions, as a rule, are of the nature of an indicative reaction, that is, they carry primary information about the lack or excess of something, so they are often vague and not sufficiently conscious (for example, a vague feeling of something). Feelings, on the contrary, in most cases are objective and concrete. Such a phenomenon as a “vague feeling” (for example, “vague torment”) speaks of the uncertainty of feelings and is considered by the author as a process of transition from emotional sensations to feelings.
2. Emotions are more associated with biological processes, and feelings - with the social sphere.
3. Emotions are more associated with the area of the unconscious, and feelings are maximally represented in our consciousness.
4. Emotions most often do not have a specific external manifestation, but feelings do.
5. Emotions are short-term, but feelings are long-lasting, reflecting a stable attitude towards any specific objects.
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, loving her child, will experience different emotions during his exam session, depending on what the result of the exams will be. When a child goes to an exam, the mother will be anxious; when he reports a successful exam, she will be happy, and if she fails, she will be disappointed, annoyed, and angry. This and similar examples show that emotions and feelings are not the same thing.
Thus, there is no direct correspondence between feelings and emotions: the same emotion can express different feelings, and the same feeling can be expressed in different emotions.Without outwardly showing emotions, a person hides his feelings from others.
Characteristics of emotional relationships.Feelings as emotional relationships are characterized from various aspects.
1) Relationship sign. It is believed that the attitude can be positive, negative, indifferent. A person relates positively to what attracts him, negatively to what repels him, causes disgust, displeasure. A true indifferent attitude can only be towards objects that are insignificant for a person (that is, those that do not arouse his interest, are not important to him).
2) Intensity of emotional relationships. Differences in the intensity of feelings are visible at least on the example of the following row: a positive attitude towards a friend - friendship - love. In the course of the development of subjective relations, their intensity changes, and often quite sharply. Sometimes a small push is enough for the positive attitude not only to decrease in intensity, but even to change in modality, that is, to become negative.
3) Stability of emotional relationships. Emotional relationships are not always characterized by stability. Children's relationships are especially unstable. So, within one hour of playing together, children can quarrel and make peace several times. In adults, some emotional relationships can be quite stable, taking the form of rigid attitudes, conservative views, or expressing the principled position of the individual.
4) Breadth of emotional relationships. Each personality in the process of its development forms a complex multidimensional, multilevel and dynamic system of subjective relations. The more objects a person expresses his attitude to, the wider this system, the richer the personality itself, the greater, in the words of E. Erickson, "radii of meaningful relationships."
5) Generalization and differentiation of relations. The diversity or narrowness of relations is closely related to another characteristic - the differentiation of relations. For example, elementary school students in most cases are satisfied with both the lesson itself in any subject and its various aspects: relations with the teacher, the results achieved, the conditions in which the lessons are conducted, etc. Their subjective attitudes often arise under the influence random events (I liked the first lesson, it means that it is interesting to study this subject). This generalized positive attitude most likely indicates the immaturity of younger students as individuals, their inability to separate one factor from another in their assessments. The generalization of emotional relations occurs when a person generalizes emotional impressions and knowledge and is guided by them in the manifestation of his attitude to something. For example, a person's positive attitude to physical education will be generalized and stable, and the need to engage in physical education will become his conviction if he understands the role of any physical education for his development and regularly enjoys it.
6) Subjectivity of emotional relationships. Feelings are characterized by subjectivity, since the same phenomena can have different meanings for different people. Moreover, a number of feelings are characterized by their intimacy, that is, the deeply personal meaning of experiences, their intimacy.
Classification of feelings.The traditional division of feelings into lower and higher does not reflect the actual reality and is due only to the fact that emotions that reflect the biological essence of a person are also accepted as feelings. Feelings reflect the social essence of a person and can reach a high degree of generalization.(love for the Motherland, hatred for the enemy, etc.).
Based on what sphere of social phenomena becomes the object of higher feelings, they are divided into three groups: moral, intellectual and aesthetic. 11
Moral called the feelings that a person experiences in connection with the realization of the conformity or inconsistency of his behavior with the requirements of public morality. They reflect a different degree of attachment to certain people, the need to communicate with them, the attitude towards them. Positive moral feelings include feelings of benevolence, pity, tenderness, sympathy, friendship, comradeship, collectivism, patriotism, duty, etc. Negative moral feelings include feelings of individualism, selfishness, enmity, envy, malevolence, hatred, malevolence, etc.
Intelligentare feelings associated with human cognitive activity. These include curiosity, curiosity, surprise, joy in solving a problem, a feeling of clarity or fuzzy thoughts, bewilderment, a feeling of conjecture, a feeling of confidence, doubt. 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. This is an understanding of beauty, harmony, the sublime, the tragic and the comic. These feelings are realized through emotions, which in their intensity range from mild excitement to deep excitement, from emotions of pleasure to aesthetic delight.
Thus, the question of the specific composition of feelings remains open. Most of the so-called feelings are emotions, and many are not emotional attitudes at all, that is, they do not express a biased attitude towards someone or something. These are many of the moral sentiments highlighted in ethics.
Chapter 2. The influence of feelings and emotions on a person’s personality
Emotional education of a person is not only one of the significant goals of education, but also an equally important component of its content. P. K. Anokhin 12 wrote: “Producing almost instantaneous integration (unification into a single whole) of all functions of the body, emotions themselves and first of all can be an absolute signal of a beneficial or harmful effect on the body, often even before the localization of the effects and the specific mechanism of the body’s response are determined ". Thanks to the timely occurrence of emotion, the body has the opportunity to adapt extremely advantageously to environmental conditions. He is able to quickly react with great speed to an external influence, without yet determining its type, shape, and other particular specific parameters. Positive emotions and feelings (joy, bliss, sympathy) create an optimistic mood in a person and contribute to the development of his volitional sphere. Positive emotional arousal improves the performance of easier tasks and makes it more difficult to perform more complex ones. But at the same time, positive emotions associated with achieving success contribute to an increase, and negative emotions associated with failure - a decrease in the level of performance of activities and learning. Positive emotions have a significant impact on the course of any activity, including educational activities. The regulatory role of emotions and feelings increases if they not only accompany this or that activity, but also precede it, anticipate it, which prepares a person for inclusion in this activity. Thus, emotions themselves depend on activity and exert their influence on it.
Physiologically, positive emotions and feelings, influencing the human nervous system, contribute to the health of the body, while negative ones destroy it and lead to various diseases. Positive emotions and feelings have a powerful effect on behavior and thinking.
1) Positive thinking. When a person is in a good mood, he thinks differently than when he is in a bad mood. Studies have shown that a good mood is manifested in positive free associations, in the composition of funny stories when surveyed on the TAT (thematic apperception test). TAT includes a set of cards with pictures of vague content that allow for arbitrary interpretation by subjects who receive instructions to write a story for each picture. Interpretation of responses allows one to judge personality traits, as well as the temporary, current state of the subject, his mood), favorable descriptions of social situations, perception of oneself as a socially competent person, a sense of self-confidence and self-esteem.
2) Memory. In a good mood, it is easier to remember joyful events in life or words filled with positive meaning. The generally accepted explanation for this phenomenon is that memory is based on a network of associative connections between events and ideas. They interact with emotions, and at the moment when an individual is in a certain emotional state, his memory is tuned to events associated with this particular state.
3) Problem solving. People in a good mood approach problems differently than those in a neutral or sad mood. The former are distinguished by increased reaction, the ability to develop the simplest solution strategy and accept the first solution found. Experiments have shown that stimulating good mood (positive emotions) leads to original and varied word associations, suggesting a potentially wider creative range. All this helps to increase creative output and has a beneficial effect on the problem-solving process.
4) Help, altruism and sympathy. Many studies have shown that happy people are characterized by qualities such as generosity and willingness to help others. These same qualities are also characteristic of people whose good mood was caused by artificial stimulation of positive experiences (receiving small gifts, remembering pleasant events, etc.). People in a good mood believe that helping others is a compensatory and useful action that helps maintain a positive emotional state. Observations show that people who are in a good mood and notice a discrepancy between their own condition and the condition of others try to somehow balance this inequality. It has been established that the environment also has a significant influence on relationships between people.
A negative emotion disorganizes the activities that lead to its occurrence, but organizes actions aimed at reducing or eliminating harmful effects. Emotional tension arises. It is characterized by a temporary decrease in the stability of mental and psychomotor processes, which, in turn, is accompanied by various fairly pronounced vegetative reactions and external manifestations of emotions.
An emotional factor can have a very strong influence on a person and even lead to much more profound pathological changes in organs and tissues than any strong physical impact. There are known cases of death not only from great grief, but also from too much joy. Thus, the famous philosopher Sophocles died at the moment when the crowd gave him a thunderous ovation on the occasion of the presentation of his brilliant tragedy.
Mental stress, especially the so-called negative emotions - fear, envy, hatred, melancholy, grief, sadness, despondency, anger - weaken the normal activity of the central nervous system and the entire body. They can not only cause serious illnesses, but also cause the onset of premature old age. Research shows that a person who is constantly anxious will experience weakened vision over time. Practice also speaks to this: people who have cried a lot and experienced great anxiety have weak eyes. An aggressive feeling also has a negative impact on a person. In the structure of aggressive behavior, feelings are the force (expression) that activates and to one degree or another accompanies aggression, ensuring the unity and interpenetration of its sides: internal (aggression) and external (aggressive action). Aggressive feeling is, first of all, a person’s ability to experience such emotional states as anger, anger, hostility, revenge, resentment, pleasure and others. People can be plunged into such states by both unconscious (for example, heat, noise, crowded conditions) and conscious (jealousy, competition and other) reasons. The formation and development of aggression is carried out on the interweaving of feelings and thoughts. And the more thoughts dominate, the stronger and more sophisticated aggressive actions will be, because only thought can conflict, direct and plan aggression.
Many are accustomed to thinking that negative emotions and feelings (grief, contempt, envy, fear, anxiety, hatred, shame) form lack of will and weakness. However, such an alternative division is not always justified: negative emotions also contain a “rational” grain. Anyone who is deprived of the feeling of sadness is as pitiful as a person who does not know what joy is or has lost the sense of humor. If there are not too many negative emotions, they stimulate and force you to look for new solutions, approaches, and methods.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, the role of emotions in human life is extremely important. Emotions are a specific group of mental states of a subjective nature, which are expressed in the form of experiences and sensations of a positive or negative nature, a person’s perception of the world around him and people, his own actions and the results of actions. The group of emotions includes feelings and passions, moods and affects, as well as stress. All mental processes occur accompanied by these states. In other words, any manifestation of human activity is colored by some kind of emotion. It is thanks to emotions and feelings that people better find language with others and are able, without using verbal signals, to draw conclusions about the state of their neighbor.
Various emotional moments are included in the content of all mental processes - perception, memory, thinking, etc. Feelings determine the brightness and completeness of our perceptions, they influence the speed and strength of memorization. Emotionally charged facts are remembered faster and more firmly. Feelings involuntarily activate or, conversely, inhibit thinking processes. They stimulate the activity of our imagination, give our speech persuasiveness, brightness and liveliness. Feelings trigger and stimulate our actions. The strength and persistence of volitional actions is largely determined by feelings. They enrich the content of human life. People with poor and weak emotional experiences become dry, petty pedants. Positive emotions and feelings, along with negative ones, increase our energy and productivity.
Also, do not forget about the physical condition of the human body. Emotions and feelings affect many internal organs, such as the heart and vision. There are several suggestions that a positive attitude may protect a person from health problems throughout life. For example, happier people are more likely to take a proactive approach to anti-aging, usually by exercising regularly and spending more time doing healthy activities. At the same time, these people may avoid unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and risky sex.Scientists have proven that people who have experienced more positive emotions and feelings in their lives than negative ones live much longer. On the one hand, negative feelings and emotions can not only cause serious illnesses, but also lead to the onset of premature old age. On the other hand, they motivate a person to solve pressing problems and change what does not suit him. Fear is necessary for survival and staying safe. Guilt encourages cooperation. Anger motivates the search for justice.
Often negative emotions convey important information to a person, and therefore sometimes they even surpass positive emotions in usefulness. Sadness signals a loss, fear a threat, and anger warns of an unworthy act.
Thus, the role of emotions, both positive and negative, is extremely important for a person. Feelings and emotions are an integral part of personality. They promote personal growth and enrich it.
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7 Arnold Lazarus (b. 1932) Doctor of Psychology, Professor Emeritus in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University.
8 http://gufo.me/content_fil/chuvstva-8274.html
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12 Anokhin Pyotr Konstantinovich - Soviet physiologist, creator of the theory of functional systems, academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (1945) and the USSR Academy of Sciences (1966), laureate of the Lenin Prize (1972).
