When talking about a person’s experiences, two terms are used: emotions and feelings. These are very close and most often inseparable concepts, but still they are not identical.
Emotions are direct experiences in a specific period of time. Feeling is a personality trait, a relatively stable attitude towards the world around us. The inseparability of emotions and feelings is expressed in the fact that feelings are manifested in specific emotions.
Let's take a closer look at what emotions are.
Emotions- a special class of subjective psychological states that reflect a person’s relationship to the world in the form of direct experiences. The word emotion comes (like “motivation”) from the French verb “motive,” meaning “to set in motion.”
The importance of emotions in human life is great. They help to navigate what is happening, assessing it from the standpoint of desirability or undesirability; under their influence, a person can do the impossible, since there is an instant mobilization of all the forces of the body.
Intense emotions contain some common components:
1) subjective experience – an affective state of feelings associated with a given emotion;
2) the body’s reaction (when we are upset, our voice may tremble against our will);
3) a set of thoughts and beliefs that accompany the emotion (for example, the experience of joy is accompanied by thoughts and its reasons: “Hurray! We are going to the sea!”);
4) facial expression (for example, if we are angry, we frown);
5) a tendency to actions that are associated with a given emotion (for example, anger can lead to aggressive behavior).
The flow of emotions is characterized by certain dynamics. They distinguish the dynamics of a short-term experience (emergence - increase - culmination - extinction), and the dynamics of a long-term feeling, against the background of whose dominance various experiences unfold.
The class of emotions includes moods, feelings, affects, passions, and stress. These are the so-called “pure” emotions. They are included in everything mental processes and the human condition. Any manifestations of his activity are accompanied by emotional experiences.
Feelings– the highest product of human cultural and emotional development. They are associated with certain cultural objects, activities and people surrounding a person.
Feelings play a motivating role in a person’s life and activity, in his communication with people around him. Feelings are always connected with the work of consciousness and can be voluntarily regulated. Having a strong and lasting positive feeling for something or someone is called passion.
Passion- another type of complex, qualitatively unique and found only in humans emotional states. Passion is a fusion of emotions, motives and feelings.
Affect- a special emotional state that is accompanied by visible changes in human behavior. The affect quickly arises and proceeds violently. In a state of passion, a person's conscious control of his actions is impaired; the person is not able to adequately assess what is happening. At the end of the affective outburst, weakness and emptiness, loss of strength set in, and sometimes the person falls asleep.
Affects can leave strong and lasting traces in long-term memory. While the work of emotions and feelings is associated primarily with short-term and operational memory.
Stress- this concept was introduced by G. Selye, who defined it as a state of strong and prolonged psychological stress resulting from overload nervous system.
Stress can both mobilize the resources of the human body and have a destructive effect. If the tension is strong and does not go away for a long time, then the likelihood of somatic diseases, fatigue, and depression increases.
Thus, emotions are essential for human survival and well-being. Without having emotions, i.e. Without the ability to experience joy, sadness, anger, guilt, we would not be fully human. No less important is a person’s ability to empathize with other people’s emotions, the ability to empathize.
| Parameter name | Meaning |
| Article topic: | Concept of emotions. |
| Rubric (thematic category) | Psychology |
Emotions are one of the most important aspects of mental processes, characterizing a person’s experience of reality, his attitude to the environment and to himself. Οʜᴎ are of great importance in regulating mental and somatic processes.
Our emotions and feelings are an indicator, a motivator of behavior, indicating the degree of usefulness of the stimulus for life (emotions) or for the relationship between the individual and society (feelings). At the same time, various forms of a person’s relationship to what is perceived are located between the pleasant and the unpleasant. Without emotions, higher nervous activity is impossible.
Animals also have emotions, but feelings, especially higher ones, are inherent in humans. These include only those emotions that have been intellectualized and are determined by the inclusion of a second signaling system in the structure of their work. The qualitative level of emotional activity (feelings) reveals the characteristics of the personality as a whole and its highest needs.
Emotions - mental reflection in the form of direct biased experience life meaning phenomena and situations determined by the relationship of their subjective properties to the needs of the subject. Emotions are a mental process that reflects a person’s subjective attitude towards reality and himself.
Emotions have a number of properties: quality, content, focus, duration, severity, source of origin, etc.
Externally, emotions are manifested by facial expressions, pantomimes, speech patterns and somato-vegetative phenomena.
Facial expressions– coordinated movements of facial muscles, reflecting human emotions.
Pantomime(gestures) - coordinated movements of the body and hands that accompany and express various emotional experiences and mental states.
The parameters of speech that express emotional experiences are its tempo, the strength and intensity of the voice, its intonation, timbre, and sonority.
Highest value has a division of emotions in connection with the satisfaction of social needs. There are intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical feelings. Practical related to processes labor activity, with the solution of various practical problems.
Higher emotions develop on an appropriate intellectual basis and occupy a dominant position in relation to the lower ones.
Lower emotions based on instincts (hunger, thirst, sense of self-preservation, etc.), they are also called vital.
Taking into account the dependence on a person’s attitude towards objects and phenomena, positive emotions (friendship, parental feelings) and negative ones (disgust, antipathy, offended pride, etc.) are distinguished. Emotions are closely related to age-related crises. For example, the emotional life of adolescents is very unstable, which is explained by temporary disharmony between the cortex and subcortex, the first and second signaling systems, characteristic of the period of puberty.
During the life of an adult, changes in the type of emotionality take place. A healthy person is able to regulate his movements, actions, and actions. It is much more difficult to manage your own emotions. IN mature age a person achieves this.
Emotional activity changes sharply in presenile and old age. At this age, emotions become more labile. The mood often becomes depressed, with elements of anxiety. In old age, weakness appears, a rapid transition from a depressed-whiny mood to an even or slightly elevated one.
The physiological mechanisms of emotions consist both of phylogenetically more ancient processes occurring in the subcortical centers and the autonomic nervous system, and of the processes of higher nervous activity in the cerebral cortex, with the dominance of the latter.
At strong feeling any feeling in a person, changes in many vital physiological functions are observed: the frequency and depth of breathing changes, the activity of the heart quickens or slows down, blood vessels dilate or contract, the function of the external and internal secretion glands increases or decreases, muscle tone and metabolism changes in organism; the facial expression, voice, gestures, posture, and movements of a person become different. In severe emotional states, a person turns pale or red, tachycardia or bradycardia occurs, muscle hypotension or hypertension occurs, and the activity of the sweat, lacrimal, sebaceous and other glands changes. In a frightened person, the eye slits and pupils widen, and the arterial pressure. Sometimes “goose bumps” appear, hair “stands on end”, etc., i.e., during experiences, certain vascular-vegetative and endocrine changes occur. Many of these body reactions are involuntary. You cannot force yourself not to blush when angry or not to turn pale when afraid.
Physiologically, emotional experience is a holistic reaction of the body, in the regulation of which almost all parts of the nervous system take part.
All emotional experiences are to a very large extent determined by physiological processes occurring in the subcortex and in the autonomic nervous system, which are the nervous mechanisms of complex unconditioned reflexes called instincts. ʼʼWho would separate the physiological somatic from the mental in the unconditioned complex reflexes (instincts), i.e. from the experiences of powerful emotions of hunger, sexual desire, anger, etc.?!ʼʼ (I. P. Pavlov).
Research has proven that emotions are closely related to the activity of the internal secretion organs excited through the autonomic nervous system. A special role is played by the adrenal glands, which secrete adrenaline. Getting into the blood even in very small quantities, adrenaline has strong impact on organs innervated by the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. As a result, cardiovascular and vasomotor reactions characteristic of emotion, strengthening and weakening of cardiac activity, narrowing and dilating of blood vessels, dilation of pupils, characteristic skin reactions, and accelerated blood clotting in wounds occur. The activity of the digestive organs is also disrupted, there is an outflow of blood from the abdominal organs, and, on the contrary, an increased flow of blood to the heart, lungs, central nervous system and limbs, the breakdown of carbohydrates in the liver increases and, in connection with this, the release of sugar by the liver increases, etc. d.
It has been proven that during emotions of excitement, pain, etc., the autonomic nervous system stimulates the function of the adrenal glands, resulting in an increased release of adrenaline and a significant increase in the percentage of sugar in the blood.
In general, arousal emotions are dynamogenic, accompanied by a huge increase in neuromuscular strength and energy. This explains the fact that in a state of strong emotional arousal a person is able to demonstrate muscular energy far exceeding that which is usual for him in life. calm state. This is explained by the fact that in a state of emotional arousal due to decreased activity internal organs as a result of the outflow of blood from them to the muscles, lungs and central nervous system, significant reserves of sugar are mobilized, necessary for enhanced muscle activity. This also helps rapid decline under the influence of adrenaline, muscle fatigue (in fear and anger a person does not feel tired), increased heart rate and activation of a much larger number of effector neurons than is possible with volitional effort in a calm state.
The nervous processes associated with emotions in the subcortex and in the autonomic nervous system cannot be considered as independent. Home physiological basis emotions in humans are processes of higher nervous activity occurring in the cerebral cortex. Great importance at the same time, there are processes of formation, alteration and destruction of dynamic stereotypes of nervous activity formed in the cortex. Emotional experiences are subjective reflections of these complex neural processes in the cortex.
Emotions are by their nature subjective reflections of the ease or difficulty of the flow of nervous processes during the transition from one dynamic stereotype to another, the opposite one.
A major role in the emergence and course of emotions is played by temporary connections of the second signaling system, thanks to which certain emotional states are caused not by the influence of direct stimuli, but by words.
In humans, the mechanisms of the second signaling system acquire primary importance in emotional processes, thanks to them the nature and complexity of emotional experiences change dramatically. The second signaling system has the following influence on the development of emotions in humans: 1) through the second signaling system, emotions enter the sphere of human consciousness and cease to be only biological processes characteristic of animals; 2) the area of emotional experiences is expanding, which includes not only elementary, physical feelings, like those of animals, but also higher human emotions - intellectual, aesthetic, moral; 3) a person’s feelings acquire a social character, since through the second signaling system a person assimilates the content, character and ways of expressing emotions formed in a person in the process of his socio-historical development, the social relations of people are reflected in emotions; 4) the role of ideas and concepts in emotional processes increases, in connection with which emotional memory improves and acquires a special, human character, emotions begin to play a large role in the activity of the imagination; 5) it turns out to be possible to purposefully transmit emotional experience, and in connection with this, the education and development of emotions.
Under the influence of external or internal stimuli associated with the satisfaction of a certain vital need of the body, nervous stimulation from the body’s receptors comes to the cerebral cortex. It immediately spreads throughout the cortex and underlying nerve centers, due to which there is an immediate restructuring of the physiological functions of the respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, secretory, muscular and other systems of the body. An unconditional reflex restructuring of the vital functions of the body, as it were, prepares it in advance to meet current needs. From the internal organs and muscles of the body, return signals immediately go to the cerebral hemispheres. As a result of this, a complex interaction of nervous processes arises in the cortex, which is experienced as a certain emotional state of anger, anxiety, joy, fear, shame, etc.
Emotional experience serves as a source of voluntary and involuntary reactions aimed at satisfying the need that has arisen.
Each completed or delayed action again signals the cortex, which leads to new changes in the interaction of the processes of excitation and inhibition in the nervous system; this is experienced as a new shade of feeling, and so on until the need is completely satisfied or temporarily abandoned. However, emotions and feelings physiologically mean a complex interaction between conditioned and unconditioned reflexes of various types.
Reflex regulation of involuntary reactions of the body is carried out by the intermediate, middle, medulla oblongata and cerebellum, including the centers of the autonomic nervous system. The subcortex constantly influences the cerebral cortex, which is especially clearly detected during strong emotional experiences. Excitation of the subcortex during emotions tones the cortex, creating conditions for the rapid and lasting closure of conditioned reflex connections. The activating influence of the subcortex on the cortex is carried out with the help of the reticular formation, i.e., a reticular nerve formation located in the brain stem and closely connected with the nerve centers that regulate the activity of internal organs.
Patients with organic lesions of the cerebral cortex and a weakened inhibition process very often experience strong outbursts of anger, rage, fear and other emotions for insignificant reasons. Similar behavior is observed in hemispheric dogs. However, in the mechanism of the flow of emotions and feelings, processes of excitation and inhibition in the cortex and subcortex take part, interacting with each other according to the laws of mutual induction.
Concept of emotions. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Concept of emotions." 2017, 2018.
Emotions is a broader concept; feelings are one of the types of emotional experiences.Emotions are mental processes that occur in the form of experiences and reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations for a person’s life.
Emotions are closely related to needs and are one of the main mechanisms for regulating the functional state of the body and human activity.
Physiological basis: the leading role in the flow of emotions is played by the cerebral cortex, subcortical sections, reticular formation and the second signaling system.
The most significant emotions usually include the following types of experiences: affects, emotions themselves, feelings, moods, emotional stress.
Affects are called strong, violent and relatively short-term emotional outbursts, characterized by significant changes in a person’s consciousness and behavior. Examples of affect include rage, horror, intense joy, and deep grief. In a state of passion, the functioning of all mental processes changes. In particular, the switchability of attention sharply decreases: it concentrates only on objects that are directly related to the experience. Memory changes - up to partial or complete amnesia. The nature of the thinking processes changes, so it is difficult for a person to foresee the results of his actions.
Unlike affects, emotions are longer in nature and represent a reaction not only to current events, but also to probable or recalled events. Emotions manifest themselves in states of pleasure/displeasure, tension/relief, excitement/calmness. From the point of view of influence on human activity, emotions are divided into sthenic (activating) and asthenic (leading to passivity). It is customary to distinguish the following fundamental emotions: joy, suffering, anger, surprise, disgust, contempt, fear, shame.
Mood is a general emotional state that colors all human behavior. Mood can color a person's behavior for days or even weeks. Moreover, it can become a stable personality trait (optimism - pessimism). Mood differs from emotions in that it is less intense, objective and aware. It significantly depends on the general state of health, especially on the tone of the nervous system and the functioning of the endocrine glands.
The highest form of emotional experiences, characteristic only of man, are feelings- long-term mental states that have a clearly defined objective character. Feelings reflect a stable attitude towards specific objects (real or imaginary). A special form of experience is represented by higher feelings, which can be divided into moral, aesthetic and intellectual. Moral (moral) are the feelings experienced when perceiving the phenomena of reality and comparing these phenomena with the norms developed by society (sense of duty, humanity, patriotism). Intellectual feelings are those that arise in the process cognitive activity person (surprise, curiosity, inquisitiveness). Aesthetic feelings are an emotional attitude towards beauty in nature, human life, and art. To the highest manifestations of feelings, many
the authors consider passion to be a fusion of emotions, motives, feelings concentrated around a specific type of activity or subject.
A special emotional state is stress - excessively strong or prolonged psychological stress associated with emotional overload of the nervous system.
Emotions were studied by: K. G. Lange and W. James, W. Cannon and F. Bard, G. Lindsay and D. Hebb, L. Festinger and S. Schechter, P. V. Simonov and others.
|
|
Introduction
People live in a world where emotions accompany them everywhere; without them, human life is not possible. How to learn to control them, in what ways they help, and in what ways they sometimes hinder. Within the framework of this work, the most important factor will be those human emotions that, like no other, influence his professional and personal life.
For convenience, it is customary to combine emotions with similar characteristics into groups, that is, to distinguish types of emotions. But as you know, typology, like most humanities, is a very complex and multifaceted science, since in nature there are no objects that have a certain set of properties in their pure form.
Relevance This work is that every person experiences emotions and feels their influence on his life. For many, controlling emotions is not difficult, while others suffer all their lives due to their uncontrollability and face the problem of nervous breakdowns and groundless worries. Any human emotion is interconnected with the people around him, the prevailing pleasant or unpleasant situations, and so on. In this work we will talk about emotions and their meaning for a person in his aspects of life. The ability to control emotions, to be happy, and not to feel sadness or disappointment, is most likely what everyone dreams of.
Purpose This work is to analyze the meaning of emotions in a person’s professional and personal life.
To achieve this goal, it is necessary to implement the following tasks:
1. Define the concept of emotion;
2. Study the classification of emotions;
3. Explore theories of emotions;
4. Consider the concept of personal and professional life;
5. Analyze the meaning of emotions in a person’s professional and personal life.
Object The research in this work focuses on emotions.
Subject The research is psychological, the components of emotions in a person’s professional and personal life.
Theoretical significance: the sources used in writing this course work are the works of famous experts in the field of psychology and pedagogy, such as Kant, James, Lang, Cannon, Bard, J. Holland, etc.
Practical significance: given course work will be useful for those people who want to learn more about their emotions. For those who want to understand them and recognize what affects them. The work will help analyze the influence of various emotions on professional and personal life. In the course of the work, based on the works of well-known experts, diagrams and tables were compiled that make it possible to present this information in a more visual form, which greatly facilitates the process of studying this topic.
Emotions
Definition of emotions
Emotions (lat. - shock, excite) - mental reflection in the form of direct experience of the vital meaning of phenomena and situations, conditioned by the relationship of their objective properties to the needs of the subject.
In addition, emotions are a mental process of behavior based on the sensory reflection of the needs of the significance of external influences, their beneficialness or harmfulness for the life of an individual. Emotions arose, as Charles Darwin argued, in the process of evolution as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to satisfy their actual needs.
Emotional sensations have become biologically entrenched in the process of evolution as a unique way of maintaining the life process within its optimal boundaries and warn of the destructive nature of the lack or excess of any factors.
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. Separate biologically significant properties objects and situations evoke the emotional tone of sensations. They signal the organism’s meeting with the desired or dangerous property items. 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 and are divided according to Fig. 1.
Rice. 1 Types of emotions
Negative emotions express an attempt or intention to “exclude.” Strengthening own position at the expense of others. Stay away from bad things, destroy what is perceived as a threat. Negative emotions are fueled by a deep-seated fear of the unknown, fear of the actions of others, and the need to control and contain others so as not to be harmed by them. Negative emotions are, for example: indifference, grief, fear, hatred, shame, guilt, regret, indignation, anger, hostility.
Positive emotions express an attempt or intention to “turn on.” Consider something in its entirety. Work on learning new points of view, interact more with others, enjoy getting better at something. Positive emotions are fueled by a deep desire for pleasure and unity. Positive emotions are, for example: interest, enthusiasm, laughter, sympathy, action, curiosity.
Based on bodily experiences, Kant divided emotions as follows (Fig. 2):
Fig.2 Division of emotions according to Kant
Stenic emotions increase the vital activity of the body; asthenic emotions, on the contrary, depress and suppress all vital processes in the body.
Example sthenic emotions can be a feeling of joy. In a person experiencing joy, a significant expansion of small blood vessels occurs, and therefore the nutrition of all vital organs, especially the brain, improves and increases. Such a person does not feel tired; on the contrary, he experiences a strong need for action and movement. In a state of joy, a person usually gestures a lot, jumps, dances, claps his hands, makes joyful cries, laughs loudly, and makes other fast and energetic movements. Increased physical activity associated with a feeling of strength, he feels light and cheerful. The flow of blood to the brain facilitates his mental and physical activity: he speaks a lot and animatedly, thinks quickly, works productively, original thoughts and vivid images arise in his mind. The blood flow to the peripheral organs also increases - the skin turns red, becomes smooth and shiny, the body temperature rises, the eyes shine, the face becomes animated and radiant: at the same time, the activity of the external secretion organs increases - tears appear in the eyes, saliva production in the mouth increases. The functioning of the nutritional organs is significantly improved: a person who systematically experiences a feeling of joy gains weight, becomes well-fed, and takes on an energetic, youthful, blooming appearance.
An example of an asthenic emotion could be the opposite of joy, the feeling of sadness. In a state of sadness, due to the activity of the vasomotor apparatus, the blood vessels contract and a certain anemia of the skin, internal organs and, most importantly, the brain occurs. The face becomes pale, lengthens, stretches, loses its fullness, acquires sharply defined, pointed features, the skin temperature decreases, and a feeling of cold and even chills appears. Due to the slowing of blood circulation, difficulty breathing and shortness of breath occur. Decreased brain nutrition causes a decrease in voluntary activity musculoskeletal system: movements become slow, sluggish, performed with difficulty and reluctantly, as a result of which work productivity decreases; the gait becomes slow, the person does not walk, but seems to be “tragging.” Muscle tone sharply decreases: a person feels sluggish, relaxed, his back is bent, his head and arms are lowered, the lower jaw sometimes droops; the voice becomes weak, soundless; there is a feeling of extreme fatigue, inability to stand on your feet, and a desire to lean on something. Anemia of the brain leads to a decrease in mental performance, thinking becomes sluggish, inhibited (“immobile”), and a person experiences a strong aversion to mental activity. A long-term, systematic feeling of sadness leads to a decrease in all vital processes in the body, to disruption of the nutrition of internal organs and skin: a person loses weight, his skin wrinkles, his hair quickly turns grey, he looks prematurely old for his age.
Lasting emotions are called moods. There are people who are always cheerful and in high spirits, while others are prone to depression, melancholy, or are always irritated. Mood is a complex complex that is partly associated with external experiences, partly based on the general disposition of the body to certain emotional states, and partly depends on sensations emanating from the organs of the body.
The mental side of feelings takes place not only in the experience of the emotion itself. Anger, falling in love, etc. have an impact on intellectual processes: ideas, ideas, direction of interest, as well as on the will, actions, and all behavior.
With strong affects (fright, great joy, anger, fear), the usual course of associations is disrupted, consciousness is captured by one idea with which the emotion is associated, all others disappear, and the emergence of new ideas not related to the emotion is inhibited. The further course of the processes is not the same. With joy, after the initial “fading,” there comes an influx of many ideas that are in connection with the circumstance that caused the affect. In case of fear, grief, anger, the ideas that arose initially remain in the mind for a long time. Affect can be resolved in violent actions and in such strong changes in blood circulation and breathing that this sometimes leads to fainting; There have even been cases of instant death. A person with sufficiently developed inhibition processes, despite the disruption of the flow of ideas during emotions, is able to correctly assess the environment and control his actions. Such affective reactions characteristic healthy person, are called physiological affects.
Explosive affective reactions associated with loss of self-control are called primitive reactions.
Emotions- a special class of subjective psychological states, reflected in the form of direct experiences, feelings of pleasant or unpleasant, a person’s attitude 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 tune in to joint activities and communication. A remarkable fact, for example, is that people belonging to different cultures, are able to accurately perceive and evaluate expressions human face, 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.
Emotions act as an internal language, as a system of signals through which the subject learns about the need-based significance of what is happening. The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly reflect the relationship between motives and the implementation of activities that correspond to these motives. Emotions in human activity perform the function of assessing its progress and results. They organize activities by stimulating and directing them.
Functions of emotions.
However, Charles Darwin already spoke about the biological purposefulness of emotions. According to some sources, man is the most emotional among the representatives of the animal world. and human development. Let us consider the most frequently discussed functions of emotions in the psychological literature.
Evaluation function. Emotion makes it possible to instantly assess the meaning of an isolated stimulus or situation for a person. Emotional assessment precedes extensive conscious processing of information and therefore, as it were, “directs” it in a certain direction. Everyone knows how important the first impression we make on a new acquaintance is. If the first impression of a person is favorable, then in the future it is quite difficult to destroy the positive perception that has arisen (“Everything this pleasant person does is good!”). And, on the contrary, it is difficult to “rehabilitate” in our own eyes a person who for some reason seemed unpleasant to us.
Mobilization function. The mobilizing function of emotions manifests itself, first of all, at the physiological level: the release of adrenaline into the blood during the emotion of fear increases the ability to escape (however, an excessive dose of adrenaline can lead to the opposite effect - stupor), and a decrease in the threshold of sensation, as a component of the emotion of anxiety, helps to recognize threatening stimuli. In addition, the phenomenon of “narrowing of consciousness,” which is observed during intense emotional states, forces the body to concentrate all efforts on overcoming the negative situation.
Trace function. An emotion often arises after an event has ended, i.e. when it is already too late to act. On this occasion A.N. Leontyev noted: “As a result of affect, characterized by a situation from which, in essence, it is already too late to look for a way out, a kind of alertness is created in relation to the situation that arouses affect, i.e. affects seem to mark this situation... We receive a warning.”
According to the formulation of S.L. Rubinstein, “emotions are a subjective form of the existence of needs.” Modern man He is very sophisticated in terms of the motivations for his behavior, but it is his emotions that reveal to him (and those around him) his true motives. During an activity, the dynamics of emotions signal its success or obstacles. For example, during intellectual activity, the emotional “aha reaction” anticipates the finding of a solution to a problem, which has not yet been realized by the subject.
Compensation function information deficit. The evaluative function of emotions described above is especially useful when we lack information for rational decision making. Emotions have a completely extraordinary significance in the functioning of living organisms and do not at all deserve to be contrasted with “intelligence.” Emotions themselves most likely represent the highest order of intelligence. In other words, emotion is a kind of “spare” resource for solving problems. The emergence of emotions as a mechanism that compensates for the lack of information is explained by the hypothesis of P.V. Simonova.
The emergence of positive emotions enhances needs, and negative emotions reduce their intensity.
When a person finds himself in a situation of information deficiency and is unable to make any forecast, he can “rely” on emotion - receive an “emotional advance.”
Communication function. The expressive component of emotions makes them “transparent” to the social environment. The expression of certain emotions, such as pain, causes the awakening of altruistic motivation in other people. For example, mothers easily distinguish children's crying caused by pain from crying for other reasons and quickly rush to help. It is known that emotions are “contagious.” “Contagion” with an emotional state occurs precisely because people can understand and try on the experiences of another person.
In order for the content of an emotion to be correctly interpreted by others, emotions must be expressed in a conventional (i.e., understandable to all members of society) form. This is partly achieved by innate mechanisms for the realization of basic emotions.
Function of disorganization. Intense emotions can disrupt the effective flow of activities. Even affect is useful when a person needs to fully mobilize his physical strength. However, prolonged exposure to intense emotion causes the development of a state of distress, which, in turn, actually leads to behavioral and health disorders.
Types of emotions.
The basic emotional states that a person experiences are divided into actual emotions, feelings and affects. Emotions and feelings anticipate the process aimed at satisfying a need, have an ideational character and are, as it were, at the beginning of it.
Emotions These are very complex mental phenomena. The most significant emotions usually include the following types of emotional experiences: affects, emotions themselves, feelings, moods, emotional stress.
Feelings- a product of human cultural and historical development. They are associated with certain objects, activities and people surrounding a person.
Feelings play a motivating role in a person’s life and activity, in his communication with people around him. In relation to the world around him, a person strives to act in such a way as to reinforce and strengthen his positive feelings. For him, they are always connected with the work of consciousness and can be voluntarily regulated.
Affect- the most powerful type of emotional reaction. Affects are intense, violent and short-term emotional outbursts. Examples of affect include intense anger, rage, horror, intense joy, deep grief, and despair. This emotional reaction completely captures the human psyche, connecting the main influencing stimulus with all adjacent ones, forming a single affective complex that predetermines a single reaction to the situation as a whole.
One of the main features of affect is that this emotional reaction irresistibly imposes on a person the need to perform some action, but at the same time the person loses his sense of reality. He loses control of himself and may not even be aware of what he is doing. This is explained by the fact that in a state of passion, extremely strong emotional arousal occurs, which, affecting the motor centers of the cerebral cortex, turns into motor excitation. Under the influence of this excitement, a person makes abundant and often erratic movements and actions. It also happens that in a state of passion a person becomes numb, his movements and actions stop completely, he seems to be speechless.
Passion- another type of complex, qualitatively unique and occurring only in humans emotional states. Passion is a fusion of emotions, motives and feelings concentrated around a specific activity or subject. A person can become the object of passion. S.L. Rubinstein wrote that “passion is always expressed in concentration, concentration of thoughts and forces, their focus on a single goal... Passion means impulse, passion, orientation of all aspirations and forces of the individual in a single direction, concentrating them on a single goal.”