The role of emotions in human life Introduction

Understanding Emotions

Emotions are a kind of personal attitude of a person to the surrounding reality and to himself. They cannot be imagined without cognition and activity, since they are capable of reflecting the personal significance of external and internal stimuli.

The category of “emotions” is used in a broad sense when they are presented in the form of a holistic emotional reaction of the individual, which includes not only mental elements (experiences), but also specific physiological changes in the body that accompany this experience. Emotions are inherent in animals, but in people they begin to acquire a special depth and have many shades and combinations.

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The significance of emotions is manifested in the fact that they arise as a signal about the biological state of the body after certain influences on it. Today, this is a form of species experience that allows an individual to perform the necessary actions, focusing on them.

The appropriateness of these actions may not always be clear to a person, but they are intended to ensure the satisfaction of vital needs. For example, negative emotions associated with hunger can lead people to search for ways to satisfy this need. In turn, this will help maintain the normal functioning of the body.

In accordance with the personal (tastes, interests, moral principles, experience) and temperamental characteristics of a person, as well as the situations in which he finds himself, the same reason evokes different emotions. They may differ in intensity and duration, in the degree of awareness, etc.

Emotions. The meaning and functions of emotions in human life

Everything we encounter in everyday life evokes a certain attitude in us. Some objects and phenomena evoke our sympathy, others, on the contrary, disgust. Some arouse interest and curiosity, others indifference. Even those individual properties of objects, information about which we receive through sensations, for example color, taste, smell, are not indifferent to us. Feeling them, we experience pleasure or displeasure, sometimes clearly expressed, sometimes barely noticeable. This peculiar coloring of sensations, which characterizes our attitude to the individual qualities of an object, is called the sensory tone of sensations.

A more complex attitude towards oneself is caused by the facts of life, taken in their entirety, in all the diversity of their properties and features. Attitudes towards them are expressed in such complex sensory experiences as joy, grief, sympathy, disdain, anger, pride, shame, fear. All of these experiences are feelings or emotions.

Emotions characterize human needs and the objects to which they are directed. In the process of evolution, emotional sensations and states have become biologically entrenched as a way of maintaining the life process within its optimal boundaries. Their significance for the body is to warn about the destructive nature of any factors. Thus, emotions are one of the main mechanisms for regulating the functional state of the body and human activity.

However, you should pay attention to the fact that we use two concepts: “feelings” and “emotions”. How identical are these concepts? Isn't one of them derived from the other?

The fact is that emotions are a broader concept, while feelings are one of the manifestations of emotional experiences. In practical life, by emotions we usually understand a wide variety of human reactions - from violent explosions of passion to subtle shades of mood. In psychology, emotions are understood as mental processes that occur in the form of experiences and reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations for human life. Therefore, the most essential characteristic of emotions is their subjectivity.

Thanks to emotions, a person becomes aware of his needs and the objects to which they are directed. Another universal feature of emotions that needs to be mentioned is their assistance in realizing needs and achieving certain goals. Since any emotion is positive or negative, a person can judge whether a goal has been achieved. Thus, a positive emotion is always associated with obtaining the desired result, and a negative emotion, on the contrary, with failure to achieve the goal. Thus, we can conclude that emotions are most directly related to the regulation of human activity.

Most emotional states are reflected in the characteristics of human behavior, and therefore they can be studied using not only subjective, but also objective methods. For example, redness or paleness of a person's skin in a certain situation may indicate his emotional state. The emotional state can also be indicated by changes in the level of adrenaline in the blood and much more.

Emotions are very complex mental phenomena.

Emotions play an extremely important role in people's lives. Thus, today no one denies the connection between emotions and the functioning of the body. It is well known that under the influence of emotions the activity of the circulatory, respiratory, digestive organs, endocrine and exocrine glands, etc. changes. Excessive intensity and duration of experiences can cause disturbances in the body. M.I. Astvatsaturov wrote that the heart is more often affected by fear, the liver by anger, and the stomach by apathy and a depressed state. The occurrence of these processes is based on changes occurring in the external world, but affects the activity of the entire organism. For example, during emotional experiences, blood circulation changes: the heartbeat quickens or slows down, the tone of blood vessels changes, blood pressure increases or decreases, etc. As a result, during some emotional experiences a person blushes, during others he turns pale. The heart reacts so sensitively to all changes in emotional life that people have always considered it the seat of the soul, the sense organ, despite the fact that changes occur simultaneously in the respiratory, digestive, and secretory systems.

Under the influence of negative emotional states, a person may develop prerequisites for the development of various diseases. Conversely, there are a significant number of examples where the healing process is accelerated under the influence of an emotional state. It is no coincidence that it is generally accepted that the word also heals. This refers primarily to the verbal influence of the psychotherapist on the emotional state of the patient. This manifests the regulatory function of emotions and feelings.

In addition to the fact that emotions and feelings perform the function of regulating the state of the body, they are also involved in regulating human behavior in general. This became possible because human feelings and emotions have a long history of phylogenetic development, during which they began to perform a number of specific functions that are unique to them. First of all, such functions include the reflective function of feelings, which is expressed in a generalized assessment of events. Due to the fact that feelings cover the entire body, they make it possible to determine the usefulness and harmfulness of the factors affecting them and respond before the harmful effect itself is determined. For example, a person crossing the road may experience varying degrees of fear depending on the current traffic situation.

An emotional assessment of events can be formed not only on the basis of a person’s personal experience, but also as a result of empathy that arises in the process of communicating with other people, including through the perception of works of art, the media, etc. Thanks to the reflective function of emotions and feelings, a person can navigate the surrounding reality, evaluate objects and phenomena from the point of view of their desirability, i.e. feelings also perform a pre-information, or signaling, function. The experiences that arise signal to a person how the process of satisfying his needs is going, what obstacles he encounters on his way, what he needs to pay attention to first, etc.

The evaluative, or reflective, function of emotions and feelings is directly related to the incentive, or stimulating, function. For example, in a traffic situation, a person, experiencing fear of an approaching car, accelerates his movement across the road. S. L. Rubinstein pointed out that “...an emotion itself contains an attraction, desire, aspiration directed towards an object or away from it”*. Thus, emotions and feelings help determine the direction of the search, as a result of which the satisfaction of an emerging need is achieved or the problem facing a person is solved.

The next, specifically human function of feelings is that feelings take a very direct part in learning, that is, they perform a reinforcing function. Significant events that cause a strong emotional reaction are imprinted in memory faster and for a long time. Emotions of success and failure have the ability to instill love or to extinguish it forever in relation to the type of activity that a person is engaged in, i.e. emotions influence the nature of a person’s motivation in relation to the activity he performs.

The switching function of emotions is especially clearly revealed during the competition of motives, as a result of which the dominant need is determined. Thus, a contradiction may arise between the natural human instinct of self-preservation and the social need to follow a certain ethical norm, which, in essence, is realized in the struggle between fear and a sense of duty, fear and shame. The attractiveness of a motive, its closeness to personal attitudes, directs a person’s activity in one direction or another.

Another function of emotions and feelings is adaptive. According to Charles Darwin, emotions arose as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to satisfy their actual needs. Thanks to the feeling that arises in time, the body has the opportunity to effectively adapt to environmental conditions.

There is also a communicative function of feelings. Mimic and pantomimic movements allow a person to convey his experiences to other people, inform them about his attitude to objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality. Facial expressions, gestures, postures, expressive sighs, changes in intonation are the “language of human feelings”, a means of communicating not so much thoughts as emotions (Fig. 16.4). Research has shown that not all manifestations of feelings are equally easy to recognize. Horror is most easily recognized (57% of subjects), followed by disgust (48%) and surprise (34%).

Within the framework of the communicative function, others can be distinguished. Feelings, for example, can have the function of influencing others. Thus, children very quickly notice that their emotional reactions associated with physical illness have a great impact on others. A five-year-old child quite consciously says that he will cry until his parents fulfill his wish.

It should be noted that if, when comparing emotions caused by the same thing in different people

object, you can find a certain similarity, then other emotional manifestations in people are strictly individual. The variety of emotional manifestations is expressed primarily in the prevailing mood of people. Under the influence of life conditions and depending on the attitude towards them, some people have a high, cheerful, cheerful mood; for others - depressed, depressed, sad; for others - capricious, irritable, etc.

Emotional states

It should be noted that attempts have been made repeatedly to identify the main, “fundamental” emotions. In particular, it is customary to highlight the following emotions:

Joy is a positive emotional state associated with the ability to sufficiently fully satisfy an actual need.

Surprise is an emotional reaction to sudden circumstances that does not have a clearly defined positive or negative sign.

Suffering is a negative emotional state associated with received reliable or apparent information about the impossibility of satisfying the most important needs of life.

Anger is an emotional state, negative in sign, usually occurring in the form of affect and caused by the sudden emergence of a serious obstacle to the satisfaction of a need that is extremely important for the subject.

Disgust is a negative emotional state caused by objects (objects, people, circumstances, etc.), contact with which comes into sharp conflict with the ideological, moral or aesthetic principles and attitudes of the subject.

Contempt is a negative emotional state that arises in interpersonal relationships and is generated by a mismatch in the life positions, views and behavior of the subject with the life positions, views and behavior of the object of feeling.

Fear is a negative emotional state that appears when the subject receives information about a real or imagined danger.

Shame is a negative state, expressed in the awareness of the inconsistency of one’s own thoughts, actions and appearance not only with the expectations of others, but also with one’s own ideas about appropriate behavior and appearance.

It should be noted that emotional experiences are ambiguous. The same object can cause inconsistent, contradictory emotional relationships. This phenomenon is called ambivalence (duality) of feelings. Typically, ambivalence is caused by the fact that individual features of a complex object have different effects on a person’s needs and values.

Feelings are another type of emotional states. The main difference between emotions and feelings is that emotions, as a rule, are of the nature of an indicative reaction, that is, they carry primary information about the lack or excess of something, so they are often vague and not sufficiently conscious (for example, a vague feeling of something or). Feelings, on the contrary, in most cases are objective and concrete. A phenomenon such as a “vague feeling” (for example, “vague torment”) speaks of the uncertainty of feelings and can be considered as a process of transition from emotional sensations to feelings. Another difference between emotions and feelings is that emotions are more associated with biological processes, and feelings are more associated with the social sphere. Another significant difference between emotions and feelings that needs to be noted is that emotions are more associated with the unconscious, while feelings are most represented in our consciousness. In addition, a person’s feelings always have a certain external manifestation, but emotions most often do not.

Feelings are even longer lasting than emotions, mental states that have a clearly defined objective character. They reflect a stable attitude towards any specific objects (real or imaginary). A person cannot experience feelings at all if they are not related to someone or something. For example, a person is unable to experience the feeling of love if he does not have an object of affection. In the same way, he cannot experience hatred if he does not have what he hates.

Feelings arose and were formed in the process of cultural and historical development of man. Methods of expressing feelings changed depending on the historical era. In the individual development of a person, feelings act as a significant factor in the formation of the motivational sphere. A person always strives to engage in the type of activity and work that he likes and evokes positive feelings in him.

Feelings play a significant role in building contacts with other people. A person always prefers to be in a comfortable environment rather than

in conditions that evoke negative feelings. In addition, it should be noted that feelings are always individual. What one person likes may cause negative feelings in another. This is explained by the fact that feelings are mediated by the system of value systems of a particular person.

The highest feelings of man

Feelings are another type of emotional states. The main difference between emotions and feelings is that emotions, as a rule, are of the nature of an indicative reaction, i.e., they carry primary information about the lack or excess of something, so they are often vague and not sufficiently conscious (for example, a vague feeling of something or). Feelings, on the contrary, in most cases are objective and concrete. A phenomenon such as a “vague feeling” (for example, “vague torment”) speaks of the uncertainty of feelings and can be considered as a process of transition from emotional sensations to feelings. Another difference between emotions and feelings is that emotions are more associated with biological processes, and feelings are more associated with the social sphere. Another significant difference between emotions and feelings that needs to be noted is that emotions are more associated with the unconscious, while feelings are most represented in our consciousness. In addition, a person’s feelings always have a certain external manifestation, but emotions most often do not.

Feelings play a significant role in building contacts with other people. A person always prefers to be in a comfortable environment rather than in conditions that cause him negative feelings. In addition, it should be noted that feelings are always individual. What one person likes may cause negative feelings in another. This is explained by the fact that feelings are mediated by the system of value systems of a particular person.

A special form of experience is represented by the highest feelings, which contain all the richness of truly human relationships. Depending on the subject area to which they relate, feelings are divided into moral, aesthetic, and intellectual.

Moral, or moral, are the feelings experienced by people when they perceive the phenomena of reality and compare these phenomena with the norms developed by society. The manifestation of these feelings presupposes that a person has acquired moral norms and rules of behavior in the society in which he lives. Moral norms develop and change in the process of historical development of a society, depending on its traditions, customs, religion, dominant ideology, etc. The actions and actions of people that correspond to the views on morality in a given society are considered moral; actions that do not correspond to these views are considered immoral and immoral. Moral feelings include a sense of duty, humanity, benevolence, love, friendship, patriotism, sympathy, etc. Immoral feelings include greed, selfishness, cruelty, etc. It should be noted that in different societies these feelings may have some differences in content.

Separately, we can distinguish the so-called moral and political feelings. This group of feelings is manifested in emotional relations to various public institutions and organizations, as well as to the state as a whole. One of the most important features of moral and political feelings is their effective nature. They can act as motivating forces for heroic deeds. Therefore, one of the tasks of any state system has always been and remains the formation of such moral and political feelings as patriotism, love for the Motherland, etc.

The next group of feelings are intellectual feelings. Intellectual feelings are experiences that arise in the process of human cognitive activity. The most typical situation that gives rise to intellectual feelings is a problem situation. Success or failure, ease or difficulty of mental activity cause a whole range of experiences in a person. Intellectual feelings not only accompany human cognitive activity, but also stimulate, enhance it, influence the speed and productivity of thinking, the content and accuracy of the knowledge gained. The existence of intellectual feelings - surprise, curiosity, inquisitiveness, a feeling of joy about the discovery made, a feeling of doubt about the correctness of the decision, a feeling of confidence in the correctness of the proof - is clear evidence of the relationship between intellectual and emotional processes. In this case, feelings act as a kind of regulator of mental activity.

Aesthetic feelings represent a person’s emotional attitude to beauty in nature, in people’s lives and in art. Observing the objects and phenomena of reality around us, a person can experience a special feeling of admiration for their beauty. A person experiences especially deep emotions when perceiving works of fiction, music, fine art, drama and other types of art. This is due to the fact that both moral and intellectual feelings are specifically intertwined in them. The aesthetic attitude manifests itself through different feelings - delight, joy, contempt, disgust, melancholy, suffering, etc.

It should be noted that the considered division of feelings is rather conditional. Usually the feelings experienced by a person are so complex and multifaceted that it is difficult to classify them into any one category.

Many authors consider passion to be the highest manifestation of feelings - another type of complex, qualitatively unique and unique emotional states found only in humans. Passion is a fusion of emotions, motives, feelings concentrated around a certain type of activity or subject. 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” (Rubinstein S. L., 1998).

Classification of emotions

In order to better understand the role of emotions in human life, it is necessary to consider their types. The simplest existing classification is characterized by the division of emotions into two types - negative and positive.

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The German philosopher I. Kant divided emotions into sthenic (they activate people and increase their readiness to act) and asthenic (they relax, tire a person, cause inhibition).

In accordance with the classification proposed by W. Wundt, emotions were divided into 3 areas:

Pleasure/displeasure;
Voltage/discharge;
Excitation/inhibition.

The American psychologist K. Izard identified several fundamental emotions:

interest (excitement),
joy,
anger,
astonishment,
suffering (grief),
disgust (contempt),
guilt (shame).

Note 1

He considered other emotional reactions to be derivative (complex) from the above fundamental ones.