Emotion - Nature of emotions

Well.. we all know what emotions are, but how easy does one find it do discuss or define what an emotion is, perhaps they are more complex than we first believe. Clearly we know the emotions of anger, sadness and joy, all of us feeling these emotions at some point in our lives, or maybe even a combination of these! It would be wise to understand that emotions are multi-dimensional. We cannot deny beyond any real doubt that they are a combination of subjective, biological and purposeful phenomenon. We react with joy to seeing a loved one, with anger toward an injustice and fear if we are threatened. There are those would like to believe that emotions are a purely spiritual occurrence… but this is simply not the case. It is not my intention to imply that emotion is a chemical reaction in our bodies (even I would react with anger to that suggestion!) what I AM implying is that chemical reactions DO occur in our bodies when we experience emotion, although that is not the be all and end all of experiencing emotion.

As defined in our lecture by James, (Neill, 2010), there are four key processes to the experience of emotion, these are:

·         Feelings, our subjective experiences, our state of awareness and our cognitions (+/-)

·         Bodily arousal, physiological reaction, a preparedness for action, be it fight/flight or other forms of excitement. Activation of our motor responses, our body and its skeletal muscles.

·         Social expression, how we interact socially, our mannerisms and facial expressions and of cause our vocal expressions (important element of communication).

·         Sense of purpose, emotional incentive, goal directed behaviour.

So… what causes an emotion then?? Basically  when we encounter a significant life event our cognitive processes will engage and our biological processes will activate which then engages the four key components above (Reeve, 2009, p. 303).

So once again, the most basic primary emotions are: Fear, anger, disgust, sadness, joy and interest. The first four clearly fall into the category of negative emotions, while the last two are positive emotions.

What is the point of emotions? How do they benefit us? Essentially, life is full of stressors, challenges and problems to be solved and hence… emotions exists as solutions to dealing with these (Reeve, 2009, p. 320). Some people may suggest that becoming ‘emotional’ during problem solving is a hindrance and that emotions should be kept out of the equation. However, after studying this topic I have found this to be a half truth. We need emotions in order to respond, learn and adapt to the various situations in our lives. The only time that emotions might become a problem is if they hinder this development rather than help to facilitate it.

At this point I found myself thinking, what is the difference between emotion and mood… To clarify this… There are different antecedents. In the case of emotion, these arise from life events and situations. Whereas moods arise for processes which are not able to be well defines and often are unknown. There is action-specificity between emotion and moods. Emotions generally influence behaviour and specific actions and reactions, whereas mood influences ones cognition and what one thinks about. Finally, the time course between the two is very different. Emotion arise from short lived events and generally only last for seconds or minutes, whereas mood arises from mental events which can last for hours to days and are a more permeating and enduring sense of being (Reeve, 2009, p. 322). I have included a lecture slide (Neill, 2010) from our lecture on this topic to add a visual representation to this concept.

The three most central aspects of emotion are: biological, cognitive & socio-cultural. The first two I believe we have covered well enough and it would do well to consider that one’s culture is going to play a central role in determining ones emotions. For example, I was reading a travel guide on Thailand quite recently and on reading the section about local customs, do’s and don’ts I found out the following. It is considered very rude to touch someone on the head or to show the soles of ones feet. Now for myself, growing up in Australia and having the cultural influences of Poland and Holland, being touched on the head would not elicit an emotional response of anger… perhaps… confusion (why are you doing that?). However, were one to touch someone’s head in Thailand

I have a pretty solid feeling that the emotional response would be one of anger. Someone correct me if im wrong about this fact!

Before finishing up on this section of my reflection I feel it would be beneficial to define negative and positive affect in regards to emotion. Affect reflects ones engagement. If one is displaying positive affect they are generally enthusiastic, energetic, alert and quite optimistic! Those who display negative affect will usually always be dissatisfied, nervous and irritable. Positive and negative affect are broadly tied to motivation, biology and behaviour. Positive affect will support one to stay motivated and push on despite adversity, whereas one with negative affect will support withdrawal and giving up on such challenges.

References

Neill, J. (2010). [Nature of Emotion Lecture]. Lecture presented at the University of Canberra, ACT. [Lecture notes]. Retrieved from http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/

Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion. USA: Wiley