In simple language, if we speak about emotions, we say that they’re our feelings for certain people or things or in certain situations. In psychology, emotion is defined as a feeling which may impact our physical and psychological self thus impacting our thoughts and behaviour. These emotions may impact our reactions to things, motivation levels, personality, mood, etc. the wide variety of emotions and people’s response to them have been a subject for research paper writing for a while. Several psychologists’ views have been analyzed to draw conclusions. The psychologist, David G. Meyers has said that emotion involves ...physiological arousal, expressive behaviours, and conscious experience. The psychologists, Don Hockenbury and Sandra E. Hockenbury have said that emotion is defined as a complex psychological state involving three distinct stages, namely:
subjective experience,
physiological response,
behavioural response.
In addition to defining the emotions, researchers have also tried to classify emotions and derive their types:
In 1972, Paul Eckman brought out his research paper writing and suggested that there are six universal emotions that exist in everyone:
Happiness
Sadness
Disgust
Fear
Anger
Surprise
In 1999, Eckman expanded his list to include few more emotions like embarrassment, content, shame, pride, excitement, amusement and satisfaction.
In 1980, Robert Plutchik came up with a new way to classify emotions. He combined two emotions making them seem one and called this ‘wheel of emotions. He proposed 8 primary emotional combinations:
happiness vs. sadness,
anger vs. fear,
trust vs. disgust,
surprise vs. anticipation.
Further, these emotions can be combined to create others (such as happiness + anticipation = excitement).
So to understand emotions and their impact on our mental well-being, let us discuss the key elements of emotion:
The Subjective Experience: Although certain research paper writings have indicated the existence of certain universal emotions, the way we react to a particular situation and the kind of feelings we have, differ from person to person. Thus there can be subjective experiences of certain emotions. For example, Your results are about to be declared for the examinations held and you score mediocre marks. While your competitors may feel happy, you may experience sadness. Not only this, but you may also have a combination of emotions while experiencing a particular situation. For example, you have been always wishing to get admitted into a famous college and your wish has been granted. It is going to be your first day at the college, then you may feel a variety of emotions like excitement and happiness and even nervousness at the same time. This is what Plutchik talked about in his research. Although situations may be the same for people, reactions and feelings may differ as per one’s perspective. Positive reactions may result in mental well-being and negative ones may cause vice versa.
The Physiological Response: Have you ever become sweaty or faced an increased rate of heartbeat while encountering certain situations. This is what physiological response means. The Canon-Bard Theory states that a person faces subjective experience and physiological response at the same time. For example: if you are not able to find your homework answers then you may encounter stress and get fidgety as a result of stress. Similarly, if you encounter a bear in a forest, you would immediately experience an emotion of fear and simultaneously, you will start shivering and sweating. All these physiological responses that you face, are due to the activity of the sympathetic nervous system which is a part of our autonomic nervous system (which controls the involuntary actions of the body like blood flow and heartbeat). The sympathetic nervous system releases the fight or flight hormone as soon as you encounter a situation, so in the above case of seeing a bear, you could either have run away or faced the bear head-on. Recent researches have mentioned the role of the brain in our emotions. Amygdala, which is a part of the limbic system, plays an important role in emotion and particularly fear. The amygdala is a tiny, almond-shaped structure. Researchers have used brain imaging to show that the amygdala becomes active when people are shown threatening and any damage to the amygdala may impair the fear response.
The Behavioural Response- It is the final stage in this process when after encountering a situation and experiencing an emotion you reflect the emotion physically. For example, smile when happy, frown when sad and the like.
While the Canon-Bard theory suggested the experiencing of emotions and physiological reactions to it occurring at the same time, there is James-Lange theory that suggests something different. This theory suggests that emotions occur as a result of the physiological response we give when encountered by a situation. For example, according to this theory, if I see a bear then I start to tremble which eventually results in the emotion of fear being caused. The theory states that an external stimulus causes a physiological response and the cause of emotion on this response depend upon how you perceive a particular situation. For example, if I am not able to figure out my homework answers, I might feel irritated resulting in frustration while some other person may try to calm himself down not facing an emotion of distress.
So be it Canon-Bard or James-Lange, all psychologists have worked hard on this theory of emotion and stated how it impacts a person’s mental well-being. If you are happy and satisfied your mind is relaxed and you may be able to do whatever you want to but if not then you may be stressed and affect your mental health.
0 Comments