Emotion

Emotions-psychotalks24

Emotion is defined as a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behaviour.

· It is any conscious experience characterized by intense mental activity.

· It is cognitive process, subjective experience and expressive behaviour.

· Emotion is an conscious experience.

· It is a sudden reaction to a stimuli.

· It is affective state of the individual.

· Emotion derived from the word “ emovere” which refers to the stirred up state.

· It works on reflex action.

· Our Psychological appraisal of a situation is informed by our experiences, background, culture and gender ; and different people may have different emotional experiences of similar situation (individual differences)

· The field of Psychology examines emotions from a scientific perspective by looking at their mental, physiological and behavioral components.

· The experience of emotion follows a complex biological process that include the limbic system, ANS( autonomic nervous system) and RAS (reticular activating system).

· Emotion word comes from Latin word "mote" which means to move, it is a state of being moved.

Basic emotions:- such as gloom, delight, love, fear, anger, jealousy, disgust, shame, pride, worry, anxiety, joy, sorrow, zeal, awe, contempt, patriotism etc.

Anger:- frustration leads to anger and then to aggression. Any kind of interference in the goal directed activity makes one red with anger.

The sympathetic nervous system discharge of the hormones when people afraid and those who were angry at themselves had higher amount of “epinephrine hormones” (adrenaline) those who were angry at the experimenter, secreted “ norepinephrine hormones” (noradrenaline).

In the liver epinephrine helps mobilize glucose (blood sugar) into the blood and thus makes energy available to the brain and muscles. Both of these hormones tend to increase heart rate and blood pressure.

Sometimes anger doesn’t attack or hitting the source of anger, it express it on some other substitute, that is called ‘displaced anger’.

Child express their anger in the form of – temper tantrum, surliness, bad temper, bullying and fighting.

Teenagers express anger in form of sarcasm, abuses, bossiness, verbal threats, gossiping and even plotting.

Adults seldom express anger, because by adulthood superego is activated, which makes them mature. However milder form of anger expressed sometimes in verbal remarks and avoid.

Fear:- fear is a learned emotion. In infancy or childhood, fear is usually caused by sudden loud noise, unexpected strange situation.

When child grows younger fear shift in imaginary creatures, loneliness, darkness and all those objects which are potential to body harm.

In adulthood, fear occurs , social fear- being left alone, of being ridiculed, criticism etc. For adult, such things which pose a threat of failure, loss of money or property, status, feeling of insecure, separation from dear one or family, bad health etc.

Some fears are unlearnt – such as fear of loud noise, sudden loss of support, pain etc.

As we know, fear can be developed through conditioning procedures. This experiment is done by Watson and Rayner (1920) on an infant 11 month baby – named Albert. In beginning, boy didn’t display fear of animals, he plays with rabbit instead of getting away. In experiment, a white furry rat shown to him and almost simultaneously followed by a sudden loud burst of sound. The boy shrink back to get away from it. It was a natural response to natural stimulus. The repeated procedures developed fear of white furry rat in the boy but also to any white furry object.

We also learn through discrimination, learning provides us with information as to what object is dangerous or what is delightful.

Besides socialization, cultural values, social norms etc also makes learn to fear.

Love and affection:- Both are so tied together. In fact the two terms are used interchangeably to cover entire empathetic aspect of affective feelings associated with pleasure. Everyone have their own choice like- someone may love a toy, a pet, a novel , any objects and persons.

Physiological or covert emotion:-

· Heart rate and blood pressure:- emotions like anger, fear, makes change in the rate of heart beat ( increase) this is caused by hyper functioning of the sympathetic nervous system because of this blood pressure also brings changes either hyper or hypo i.e. ( high or low).

· Change in breathing:- in emotion, change in breathing also. Such as rate of breathing may either speed up or slow down.

· Change in skin temperature:- it is assumed that experience of emotional security results in rise of skin temperature while emotional stress results in drop of skin temperature.

· Some other inter physiological changes:- changes occurring in secretory functions of the salivary glands are observed in the state of fear in the form of dryness of mouth, disruption in digestive functions, sweating or dryness of skin, hyper excretion tension of skeletal muscles resulting in tremor etc.

· Changes in glandular responses:- Adrenal glands ( located at the top of each kidney, it produce hormones that helps the body control blood sugar, burn protein and fat, react to stressors and regulate B.P., two most important adrenal hormones are cortisol and aldosterone).

In the state of strong emotion such as anger, adrenal glands get excited and pours excessive amount of ' adrenaline' as well as ' non- adrenaline' hormones into the blood.

Under the influence of adrenaline, the liver releases stored sugar into the blood, this cause chemical changes in blood resulting in quick clotting of blood, rise in B.P., rapidity of pulse rate, enlarging lungs to admit more air, enlargement of eyes pupils to admit more lights, rise in skin temperature and excessive sweating particularly on the palms of hand.

Non- adrenaline hormones brings about constriction of blood vessels at the body surface.

Glandular responses help the emotionally charged individuals to cope physically with the emergency situation during emotion. However, if the emotion provoking situation is not met by direct action, the hyper glandular functioning prove harmful to the individual.

· The galvanic skin responses ( GSR):- (a) tissues generate electro motive force

(b) the electrical resistance of the skin is charged. This changes are measured by a very sensitive electrical apparatus called ‘GSR’. It is also called psycho galvanic responses (PGR).

· Pupillometrics :- during emotion, certain changes in pupils of the eye take place (increase/ decrease). Dr. Eckhward hess discovered a new device in the year 1960, it is known as pupillometrics.

External changes or overt expression in emotion:-

· Facial expressions:- language of face is stronger communicator than verbal words. Face is a borometer of communicating one’s feelings and emotions. Thompson (1941) studied blind childs and found that different emotions can be differentiated , such childrens never seen the pattern of changing in different type of emotions even then different emotions could be found on their faces.

Engen(1957-1958) have shown that three dimensions of emotion:-

(a) Pleasant- unpleasant:- faces are judged in these degree.

(b) Attention- rejection:- in attention, wide open eyes, flored nostrils, openness of mouth etc. In rejection, all reverse. Eyes, nostrils, lips are highly shut as if keeping the object out of stimulation.

(c) Sleep- tension:- relaxation of sleep, i.e. emotions are at the lowest. Tension is the expression of extreme emotional arousal.

· Vocal expression (para language):- emotions judged by listening to the sound also. Cues like – loudness, pitch, tremor or break in voice, screaming sounds, express the emotions like- anger, fear, enjoyment, sorrow etc.

· Postures and gestures:- every posture associated with an emotions. If someone is in fear, he flees in anger, make aggressive gestures. In sorrow, turns head downwards, while in joy- hold the head high and chest out.

Role of CNS and ANS in function of emotion:-

CNS (hypothalamus) :- impulses from receptors travels into the CNS(central nervous system). Some go up to the spinal cord While other enter the brain directly. The nervous system integrates the sensory information of the emotion provoking situation sensation received from emotional response mechanism interpret them and experience the emotion. Hence, CNS play a vital role in emotion.

Impulses from receptors to upper level of brain pass through lower brain centre known as thalamus. Beneath it are situated a group of nerve centres called ' hypothalamus'.

Hypothalamus play three important function in emotion:-

(a) Impulses from receptors to cerebral cortex pass through it. Impulses from viscera and muscles also pass through it.

(b) Impulses also come into hypothalamus from cerebral cortex viz. When we remember or think of an emotion provoking situation, impulses are initiated and pass through it.

Hypothalamus is the seat of emotion because it also exert control over voluntary muscles in emotion. It has been observed that diseases or lesion or tumour in the Hypothalamic region causes emotional apathy, sleepness and even narcolepsy ( an epileptic disease characterized by extreme sleepness).

Role of ANS( autonomic nervous system):- physiological changes in emotions:- such as sweating, rapid heartbeat, rise in blood pressure and so on, are controlled by ANS. It has purely motor functions. It is divided into two parts :- sympathetic and parasympathetic. Function of two divisions are antagonistic to each other.

For example:- hyper functioning of sympathetic nervous system brings acceleration in the activities of internal organs:- heart, digestive organs, glandular activities etc. This results in rise of heart rate, blood pressure, excessive secretion of endocrine glands etc. While parasympathetic nervous system hyper functioning lower down the activities of internal organs.

One division of ANS accelerates the visceral activities, another inhibits it and thus results in effective coping with the emotional situation. Antagonistic functions of the ANS is useful in the sense that through it, very effective control of visceral organ is possible and thus play a significant role in adjustive behaviour during emotions.