How positive emotions affect a person. The influence of emotions on a person’s work and educational activities

Nobody will dispute. But can everyone turn these emotions to their advantage? Does everyone know how emotions affect a person? To find answers to these questions, it is enough to know the four basic principles by which emotions affect a person.

Principle 1

The more emotionally a person approaches doing work, the higher the effectiveness of his work. But emotions are not a static quantity. As arousal increases, so does efficiency, up to a certain optimal point. If the point is reached, and emotions continue to grow, efficiency decreases. A person begins to be interested only in the result, his desire disappears. That is, the influence of emotions is twofold. Too strong can negatively affect the result, but too strong can improve it.

Principle 2

The influence of emotions on human activity Pavlov's law is well illustrated, which states: when the stimuli are too strong, excitation causes extreme inhibition. The influence of emotions can be clearly seen when a person is nervous. With strong anxiety, a person may lose attention or completely forget all the necessary information.

It is worth mentioning that the influence of emotions on a person In this case, what happens is ambiguous. So, for performing simple actions, extreme excitement is very useful. For average complexity it does not yet have a destructive effect. But if you need to perform complex tasks, then the influence of emotions can play a cruel joke. Therefore, when performing complex tasks, it is recommended to first perform simple actions in order to moderate anxiety and reduce the influence of emotions.

Principle 3

The more intense our emotions, the worse our choices in a critical situation. In this case, the influence of emotions on human activity is the suppression of memory functions. Therefore, a person does not use all the facts and arguments when making a choice, draws the wrong conclusions, makes the wrong decisions and is completely confident that he is right.

Principle 4

To understand the influence of emotions on human activity According to this principle, you need to know about two groups of emotions. The first includes sthenic, that is, active positive ones that have a positive effect on the body. The second is asthenic, that is, passive negative, destructively affecting the body.

Accordingly, emotional emotions stimulate the functioning of the brain and the body as a whole, filling it with energy. Asthenic, on the contrary, inhibit the work of all functions and systems, which is why a person loses all desire to do something and move in general. In this case, the influence of emotions on a person can even manifest itself in the appearance various diseases.

However, there are emotions that can affect a person both positively and negatively. For example, anger in some cases can depress activity, and in others it can mobilize a person.

Positive emotions

Among the uniquely positive emotions that increase the effectiveness of human activity are:

1. Acceptance of a situation, person, circumstances, etc.
2. Trust, which is a consequence of acceptance. Without trust, the effectiveness of actions decreases sharply.
3. Expectation causes anticipation of the future outcome, therefore it is an excellent motivator.
4. Joy is akin to affect. It escalates quickly and is a huge incentive to continue working.
5. Surprise, according to many experts, is a cleansing emotion. It relieves tension from nerve channels, prepares them to perceive new information, and stimulates brain function.
6. Admiration is directed towards a specific object or person. It allows you to identify positive aspects in an object and strive for them.

Having found out the influence of emotions on human activity, you can begin to develop your emotional intelligence.

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 predominate in this moment over a person, 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. A 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 exposure 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.

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….………….3

1. Biological and psychological meaning of emotions…….4

2. Development of emotions and personality development…………………………8

3. The influence of emotions on human behavior…….………………10

4. Emotional life of the individual……………………………………12

Conclusion…………………………………………………….…….……………..15

Literature…………………………………………………….………………………16

Introduction

Emotions- a special class of subjective psychological states that reflect, in the form of direct experiences, sensations of pleasant or unpleasant, a person’s relationship to the world and people, the process and results of his practical activity. The class of emotions includes moods, feelings, affects, passions, and stress. These are the so-called “pure” emotions. They are included in all mental processes and human states. Any manifestations of his activity are accompanied by emotional experiences. In humans, the main function of emotions is that thanks to emotions we understand each other better, we can, without using speech, judge each other’s states and better prepare for joint activities and communication. Remarkable, for example, is the fact that people belonging to different cultures are able to accurately perceive and evaluate the expressions of a human face, and determine from it such emotional states as joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise. This, in particular, applies to those peoples who have never been in contact with each other.

This fact not only convincingly proves the innate nature of basic emotions and their expression on the face, but also the presence of a genotypically determined ability to understand them in living beings. This, as we have already seen, refers to the communication of living beings not only of the same species with each other, but also of different species with each other. It is well known that higher animals and humans are capable of perceiving and assessing each other’s emotional states by facial expressions.

1. Biological and psychological meaning of emotions

We call emotions a person’s experiences, accompanied by feelings of pleasant and unpleasant, pleasure and displeasure, as well as their various shades and combinations. Pleasure and displeasure are the simplest emotions. More complex versions of them are represented by such feelings as joy, sadness, sadness, fear, anger.

Suddenly finding ourselves close to an abyss, we experience the emotion of fear. Under the influence of this fear, we retreat to a safe zone. In itself, this situation has not yet caused us harm, but through our feeling it is reflected as a threat to our self-preservation. By signaling the immediate positive or negative meaning of various phenomena, emotions reflexively regulate our behavior, encourage or inhibit our actions.

Emotion is a general, generalized reaction of the body to vitally significant influences (from the Latin “emoveo” - I worry).

Emotions regulate mental activity not specifically, but through corresponding general mental states, influencing the course of all mental processes.

A feature of emotions is their integration - arising under appropriate emotiogenic influences, emotions capture the entire organism, unite all its functions into a corresponding generalized stereotypical behavioral act.

Emotions are an adaptive product of evolution - they are evolutionarily generalized modes of behavior in typical situations.

It is thanks to emotions that the body turns out to be extremely advantageously adapted to environmental conditions, since it, even without determining the form, type, mechanism and other parameters of the influence, can react with saving speed to it with a certain emotional state, reducing it, so to speak, to a common biological denominator, those. determine whether a particular exposure is beneficial or harmful to him.

Emotions arise in response to features of objects that are key to satisfying a specific need. Certain biologically significant properties of objects and situations cause the emotional tone of sensations. They signal the organism’s encounter with the desired or dangerous property of objects. Emotions and feelings are a subjective attitude towards objects and phenomena that arise as a result of reflecting their direct connection with actualized needs.

All emotions are objectively correlated and bivalent - they are either positive or negative (because objects either satisfy or do not satisfy the corresponding needs). Emotions encourage stereotypical forms of behavior. However, the characteristics of human emotions are determined by the general law of human mental development - higher education, higher mental functions, being formed on the basis of lower functions, rebuild them. A person’s emotional-evaluative activity is inextricably linked with his conceptual-evaluative sphere. And this sphere itself affects the emotional state of a person.

Conscious, rational regulation of behavior, on the one hand, is motivated by emotions, but, on the other hand, it resists current emotions. All volitional actions are performed in spite of strong competing emotions. A person acts, overcoming pain, thirst, hunger and all kinds of desires.

However, the lower the level of conscious regulation, the more freedom emotional and impulsive actions receive. These actions do not have conscious motivation; the goals of these actions are also not formed by consciousness, but are clearly predetermined by the nature of the impact itself (for example, impulsive removal from an object falling on us).

Emotions dominate where conscious regulation of behavior is insufficient: when there is a shortage of information for the conscious construction of actions, when there is an insufficient fund of conscious modes of behavior. But this does not mean that the more conscious the action, the less significant emotions are. Even mental actions are organized on an emotional basis.

In conscious actions, emotions provide their energy potential and strengthen the direction of action whose effectiveness is most likely. Allowing greater freedom of conscious choice of goals, emotions determine the main directions of human life.

Positive emotions, constantly combined with the satisfaction of needs, themselves become an urgent need. A person strives for positive emotions. Deprivation of emotional influences disorganizes the human psyche, and prolonged deprivation of positive emotional influences in childhood can lead to negative personality deformations.

Replacing needs, emotions themselves are in many cases an incentive to action, a motivation factor.

There are lower emotions associated with unconditional reflex activity, based on instincts and being their expression (emotions of hunger, thirst, fear, selfishness, etc.), and higher, truly human emotions - feelings.

Feelings are associated with the satisfaction of socially developed needs. Feelings of duty, love, camaraderie, shame, curiosity, etc. are formed in a person as he is included in social connections, i.e. as the individual develops as a personality. When experiencing certain feelings, a person operates with historically developed moral and aesthetic concepts (“good”, “evil”, “justice”, “beautiful”, “ugly”, etc.),

Thus, feelings, more than emotions, are associated with the second signaling system. Emotions are situationally determined; feelings can be long-lasting and stable. The most stable feelings are personality traits (honesty, humanity, etc.).

The fact of the close connection of emotions with life processes indicates the natural origin of at least the simplest emotions. In all those cases when the life of a living being freezes, is partially or completely lost, we first of all discover that its external, emotional manifestations have disappeared. An area of ​​skin temporarily deprived of blood supply ceases to be sensitive; a physically ill person becomes apathetic, indifferent to what is happening around him, that is, insensitive. He loses the ability to respond emotionally to external influences in the same way as during the normal course of life.

All higher animals and humans have structures in the brain that are closely related to emotional life. This is the so-called limbic system, which includes clusters of nerve cells located under the cerebral cortex, in close proximity to its center, which controls the main organic processes: blood circulation, digestion, endocrine glands. Hence the close connection of emotions both with the consciousness of a person and with the states of his body.

Bearing in mind the important vital significance of emotions, Charles Darwin proposed a theory explaining the origin and purpose of those organic changes and movements that usually accompany pronounced emotions. In it, the natural scientist drew attention to the fact that pleasure and displeasure, joy, fear, anger, sadness manifest themselves in approximately the same way in both humans and apes. Charles Darwin was interested in the vital meaning of those changes in the body that accompany corresponding emotions. Having compared the facts, Darwin came to the following conclusions about the nature and role of emotions in life.

1. Internal (organic) and external (motor) manifestations of emotions play an important adaptive role in a person’s life. They set him up for certain actions and, in addition, this is a signal for him about how another living creature is configured and what he intends to do.

2. Once upon a time, in the process of evolution of living beings, those organic and motor reactions that they currently have were components of full-fledged, developed practical adaptive actions. Subsequently, their external components decreased, but their vital function remained the same. For example, a person or animal in anger bares their teeth, tenses their muscles, as if preparing for an attack, their breathing and pulse quicken. This is a signal: a living creature is ready to commit an act of aggression.

2. Development of emotions and personality development

Emotions follow a common path of development for higher mental functions - from external socially determined forms to internal mental processes. On the basis of innate reactions, the child develops a perception of the emotional state of close people around him, which over time, under the influence of increasingly complex social contacts, turns into higher emotional processes - intellectual and aesthetic, constituting the emotional wealth of the individual. A newborn baby is capable of experiencing fear, which is revealed by a strong blow or a sudden loss of balance, displeasure, which manifests itself when movements are limited, and pleasure, which occurs in response to rocking and stroking. The following needs have the innate ability to evoke emotions:

Self-preservation (fear)

Freedom of movement (anger)

Receiving a special kind of stimulation that causes a state of obvious pleasure.

It is these needs that determine the foundation of a person’s emotional life. If in an infant fear is caused only by loud sounds or loss of support, then already at the age of 3-5 years shame is formed, which builds on the innate fear, being the social form of this emotion - the fear of condemnation. It is no longer determined by the physical characteristics of the situation, but by their social meaning. Joy subsequently develops as an expectation of pleasure in connection with the growing likelihood of satisfying some need. Joy and happiness arise only through social contacts.

Positive emotions develop in a child through play and exploratory behavior. Bühler showed that the moment of experiencing pleasure in children's games shifts as the child grows and develops: the baby experiences pleasure at the moment of obtaining the desired result. In this case, the emotion of pleasure plays a final role, encouraging completion of the activity. The next stage is functional pleasure: a playing child enjoys not only the result, but also the process of the activity itself. Pleasure is now associated not with the end of the process, but with its content. At the third stage, older children begin to anticipate pleasure. The emotion in this case arises at the beginning of the play activity, and neither the result of the action nor the execution itself are central to the child’s experience.

The development of negative emotions is closely related to frustration - an emotional reaction to an obstacle to achieving a conscious goal. Frustration proceeds differently depending on whether the obstacle is overcome or a replacement goal is found. Habitual ways of resolving such a situation determine the emotions that are formed in this case. When raising a child, it is undesirable to try to achieve your demands too often through direct pressure. To achieve the desired behavior in a child, you can use his age-related characteristic - instability of attention, distract him and change the wording of the instructions. In this case, a new situation is created for the child, he will fulfill the requirement with pleasure and the negative consequences of frustration will not accumulate.

A person judges the emotional state of another by special expressive movements, facial expressions, changes in voice, etc. Evidence has been obtained that some manifestations of emotions are innate. In every society there are norms for the expression of emotions that correspond to ideas about decency, modesty, and good manners. An excess of facial, gestural or verbal expressiveness may be evidence of a lack of upbringing and, as it were, put a person outside his circle. Education teaches you how to show emotions and when to suppress them. It develops in a person such behavior that is understood by others as courage, restraint, modesty, coldness, equanimity.

Vibrancy and variety of emotional relationships make a person more interesting. He responds to a wide variety of phenomena of reality: he is excited by music and poetry, the launch of a satellite and the latest technological achievements. The richness of a person’s own experiences helps her to more deeply understand what is happening, to penetrate more subtly into the experiences of people and their relationships with each other.

Feelings and emotions contribute to a person’s deeper knowledge of himself. Thanks to experiences, a person learns his capabilities, abilities, advantages and disadvantages. A person’s experiences in a new environment often reveal something new in himself, in people, in the world of surrounding objects and phenomena.

Emotions and feelings give words, actions, and all behavior a certain flavor. Positive experiences inspire a person in his creative searches and bold aspirations.

3. The influence of emotions on human behavior

A person's behavior is largely influenced by his emotions, and different emotions have different effects on behavior. There are so-called sthenic emotions, which increase the activity of all processes in the body, and asthenic emotions, which inhibit them. As a rule, positive emotions are sthenic: satisfaction (pleasure), joy, happiness, and asthenic are negative: displeasure, grief, sadness. Let's look at each type of emotion in more detail, including mood, affect, feeling, passion and stress, in their impact on human behavior.

Mood creates a certain tone of the body, i.e. its general mood (hence the name “mood”) for activity. The productivity and quality of work of a person in a good, optimistic mood is always higher than that of a person in a pessimistic mood. A person who is optimistic is always and outwardly more attractive to others than one who is constantly in a bad mood. People around you are more willing to communicate with a person who smiles kindly than with a person who has an unkind face.

Affects play a different role in people's lives. They are able to instantly mobilize the body’s energy and resources to solve a sudden problem or overcome an unexpected obstacle. This is the main vital role of affects. In an appropriate emotional state, a person sometimes does something that he is usually not capable of. A mother, saving a child, does not feel pain, does not think about the danger to her own life. She is in a state of passion. At such a moment, a lot of energy is spent, and very uneconomically, and therefore, in order to continue normal activities, the body definitely needs rest. Affects often play a negative role, making a person’s behavior uncontrollable and even dangerous to others.

Even more significant than that of moods and affects is the vital role of feelings. They characterize a person as an individual, are quite stable and have independent motivating power. Feelings determine a person’s attitude to the world around him, and they also become moral regulators of people’s actions and relationships. The upbringing of a person from a psychological point of view is, to a large extent, the process of forming his noble feelings, which include sympathy, kindness and others. A person’s feelings, unfortunately, can also be base, for example, feelings of envy, anger, hatred. A special class includes aesthetic feelings that determine a person’s attitude to the world of beauty. The richness and variety of human feelings is a good indicator of the level of his psychological development.

Passions and stress, unlike moods, affects and feelings, play a mainly negative role in life. Strong passion suppresses other feelings, needs and interests of a person, makes him one-sidedly limited in his aspirations, and stress generally has a destructive effect on psychology, behavior, and health. Over the past few decades, much convincing evidence of this has been obtained. The famous American practical psychologist D. Carnegie in his very popular book “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” writes that according to modern medical statistics, more than half of all hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from emotional disorders, that three quarters of patients with cardiovascular, gastric and endocrine diseases could well cure themselves if they learned to manage their emotions.

4.Emotional life of the individual

The totality of a person’s moods, affects, feelings and passions forms his emotional life and such an individual quality as emotionality. This quality can be defined as a person’s tendency to react emotionally to various life circumstances affecting him, as his ability to experience emotions of varying strength and quality, from moods to passions. Emotionality also refers to the power of influence of emotions on thinking and behavior.

When discussing human feelings, we have already noted that they can be primitive and high. What are high feelings? These are emotions that are fundamentally based on the highest morality accepted by a person, on moral norms and values ​​of behavior. The nobility of feelings is determined not by the very nature of these feelings, but by the goals and final results of those actions that a person commits under the influence of these feelings. If a person, having accidentally done something good for another, feels joy because of this, then such a feeling can be called noble. If, on the contrary, he feels regret that someone felt better because of his actions, or, for example, the feeling depends on the fact that someone feels good, then such emotions cannot be called noble. The highest emotions of a person are the motives of behavior, i.e. they are able to motivate and guide a person, stimulate him to perform certain actions and deeds. This was once vividly described by the famous Dutch philosopher and psychologist B. Spinoza. The nature of people, he argued, is such that for the most part they feel compassion for those who feel bad, and envy those who feel good. Compassion and envy are difficult emotions to combine. However, unfortunately, they occur in life almost equally often, sometimes making people emotional two-faced Januses. At the same time, over the centuries, the great and noble minds of mankind have constantly fought and called for the elimination of ignoble feelings from people's lives.

Emotions are the impetus for achieving goals. Positive emotions contribute to better assimilation of cognitive processes. With them, a person is open to communication with others. Negative emotions interfere with normal communication. They contribute to the development of diseases by affecting the brain, which in turn affects the nervous system. Emotions are associated with cognitive processes. For example, emotions have a direct connection with perception, because Emotions are an expression of the sensual. Depending on what mood or emotional state a person is in, this is how he perceives the world around him and the situation. Emotions are also associated with sensations, only in this case sensations influence emotions. For example, touching a velvet surface makes a person feel good and gives him a feeling of comfort, but touching a rough surface makes a person feel uncomfortable.

If everything that happens, insofar as it has one or another relation on his part, can evoke certain emotions in him, then the effective connection between a person’s emotions and his own activities is especially close. An emotion with internal necessity arises from the ratio - positive or negative - of the results of an action to the need, which is its motive, the initial impulse.

This is a mutual connection: on the one hand, the course and outcome of human activity usually evoke certain feelings in a person, on the other hand, a person’s feelings, his emotional states influence his activity. Emotions not only determine activity, but are themselves determined by it. The nature of emotions, their basic properties and the structure of emotional processes depend on it.

The influence of emotions on activity in its main features obeys the well-known Jerkes-Dodson rule, which postulates an optimal level of tension for each specific type of work. A decrease in emotional tone as a result of the subject’s low need or complete awareness leads to drowsiness, loss of vigilance, missing significant signals, and delayed reactions. On the other hand, an excessively high level of emotional stress disorganizes activity and complicates it with a tendency to premature reactions, reactions to extraneous, insignificant signals (false alarms), and to primitive actions such as blind search through trial and error.

Human emotions are manifested in all types of human activity and especially in artistic creativity. The artist’s own emotional sphere is reflected in the choice of subjects, in the manner of writing, in the way of developing selected themes and plots. All this taken together constitutes the individual identity of the artist.

Conclusion

The main biological significance of emotional experience is that essentially only emotional experience allows a person to quickly assess his internal state, his emerging need and quickly build an adequate form of response: be it a primitive drive or conscious social activity. Along with this, emotions are the main means of assessing need satisfaction. As a rule, the emotions that accompany any motivational arousal are classified as negative emotions. They are subjectively unpleasant. The negative emotion that accompanies motivation has important biological significance. It mobilizes a person’s efforts to satisfy the emerging need. These unpleasant emotional experiences intensify in all those cases when a person’s behavior in the external environment does not lead to the satisfaction of the emerging need, i.e. to finding appropriate reinforcement.

Life without emotions is just as impossible as life without sensations. Emotions, argued the famous naturalist Charles Darwin, arose in the process of evolution as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to satisfy their actual needs. Emotionally expressive movements of a person - facial expressions, gestures, pantomime - perform the function of communication, i.e. informing a person of information about the state of the speaker and his attitude to what is currently happening, as well as the function of influence - exerting a certain influence on the one who is the subject of the perception of emotional and expressive movements. The interpretation of such movements by the perceiving person occurs on the basis of correlating the movement with the context in which communication takes place.

Literature

1. Nartova-Bochaver S.K. Differential psychology Textbook (Series “Psychologist’s Library”). -M.: Flinta, MPSI, 2003
2. Nemov R.S. Psychology. Book 1: Fundamentals of general psychology. – M., Education, 1994.
3. Communication and optimization of joint activities. Ed. Andreeva G.M. and Yanoushek Ya. M., Moscow State University, 1987.
4. Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of general psychology. 2000 RGUI Library http://www.vusnet.ru/biblio/
5. Reikowski Jan Emotions and cognitive processes - the selective influence of emotions. 1979 RGUI Library http://www.vusnet.ru/biblio/
6. http://psy.rin.ru/cgi-bin/razdel.pl?r=59 Emotions – Psychology

Emotions (from the Latin emovere - to excite, excite) are a special class of processes and states associated with assessing the significance for an individual of the factors acting on him and expressed primarily in the form of direct experiences of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of his current needs. They serve as one of the main mechanisms for regulating activity and accompany almost any manifestation of human activity. The basic form of emotions is the emotional tone of sensations, which are genetically determined experiences of a hedonic sign that accompany vital impressions, for example, taste, temperature, pain. Another form of emotions are affects, which represent very strong emotional experiences associated with active behavior to resolve an extreme situation. Unlike affects, emotions themselves have a pronounced connection to fairly local situations, which was formed during life. Their emergence can occur without the action of the actual situation of their formation; in this aspect, they act as guidelines for activity. The main feature of human emotions is that in socio-historical practice a special emotional language (the language of images) has been developed, which can be transmitted as some generally accepted description.

The most significant characteristics of emotions are their modality (positive and negative) and intensity.

One of the most noticeable functions of emotions is the assessment of what is happening in the external or internal world of a person - whether it is good for a person or bad, harmful or useful, whether he likes it or not. Depending on the modality of a person’s assessment of a situation, he will either avoid it or try to be in it and act. This assessment may be based on subjective expectations and goals.

It is human nature to strive for certainty in the interpretation of what is happening. In a situation of uncertainty, anxiety increases, and a person can sometimes choose anything in exchange for ongoing uncertainty.

Emotions also signal the significance of what is happening for a person: what is more significant evokes stronger emotions. Usually a person reacts vividly to everything that happens to people close to him, and, as a rule, is quite indifferent to what happens to random passers-by.

These functions of emotions are well reflected and explained by the proposed P.V. Simonov information theory of emotions. According to it, “emotion is a reflection by the human or animal brain of any current need (its quality and magnitude) and the probability (possibility) of its satisfaction, which the brain evaluates on the basis of genetic and previously acquired individual experience.”

Information is understood as a reflection of the entire set of means to achieve a goal: the knowledge that the subject has, the perfection of his skills, the body’s energy resources, time sufficient or insufficient to organize appropriate actions, etc. The stronger the need, the stronger the emotion it evokes. The greater the difference between necessary and sufficient means, the stronger the emotion. When all the necessary means are available, the subject calmly satisfies the current need, without experiencing any special emotions about it. If the difference is less than zero, that is, we learn that we do not have enough opportunities to satisfy our “wants,” we become upset (E< 0, то есть эмоции отрицательные), и чем больше эта разница, тем эмоции сильнее.

An increase in the likelihood of need satisfaction encourages a person to rejoice in anticipation of achieving a goal. This is how the predictive function of emotions manifests itself, allowing one to anticipate the development of events.

The most important point in the process of performing professional functions is the need to maintain the ultimate goal of the employee’s actions. The function of holding a relatively distant goal is performed through emotional-volitional action.

Will is a specific need to overcome obstacles, which is always incremented to some other need that initiated behavior and gave rise to the need to overcome. Volitional action contributes to the transformation of a need that is steadily dominant in the system of needs of a given individual into external behavior, into action, into action. When there is a need, an obstacle to its satisfaction activates two independent brain mechanisms: the nervous apparatus of emotions and the structures of the coping reaction. The positive significance of emotions lies in the hypercompensatory mobilization of energy resources, as well as in the transition to those forms of response that are oriented towards a wide range of supposedly significant signals.

Different needs that coexist simultaneously excite different emotions, and usually the strongest emotion determines the direction of a person's actions. Moreover, due to the fact that emotion depends not only on the magnitude of the need, but also on the likelihood of its satisfaction, a person’s behavior is sometimes reoriented to a less important, but more easily achievable goal - a person chooses “bird in hand” instead of “pie in the sky.”

P.V. Simonov also notes that the realization of biological needs is mainly associated with the emergence of emotional states such as affects. Social and ideal needs stimulate the emergence of feelings and emotions.

Another function of emotions is mobilization, switching all body systems to an “emergency” mode, bringing it into a state of heightened readiness for action. Thus, the emotions of rage and fear help in a fight, a chase, when fleeing from danger, in situations where extreme tension and dedication of all forces are required.

Emotions regulate both the transition of the body from a state of rest to a state of activity, and vice versa - in favorable conditions, setting the body up for demobilization - restoration and accumulation of strength. Emotions produce instant integration of all body functions.

An important role, according to S.L. Rubinstein, emotions play in the processes of cognition. Emotions are involved in the processes of learning and accumulation of experience (including professional). Emotionally charged events are better remembered. Strongly expressed emotions can distort perception processes. Emotions also influence imagination and fantasy.

Another function of emotions is communication. Emotional connections are the basis of interpersonal relationships in the professional sphere. An important role in communication belongs to the expressive function of emotions, which has not lost its significance even after the appearance of speech. Emotional expression remains one of the important factors providing so-called non-verbal communication. Emotions can be expressed through facial expressions, pantomimes, exclamations, and vocal expressions.

And another function of emotions is related to the fact that, according to A.N. Leontyev, they “put the task on meaning.” Signaling something significant, emotions can cause the complex work of consciousness to explain, approve, reconcile with reality, or condemn it and even suppress it.