Emotions PDF

Emotions Emotions are reactions that human beings experience in response to events or situations. The type of emotion a person experiences is determined by the circumstance that triggers the emotion. For instance, a person experiences joy when they receive good news and fear when they are threatened...

Emotions Emotions are reactions that human beings experience in response to events or situations. The type of emotion a person experiences is determined by the circumstance that triggers the emotion. For instance, a person experiences joy when they receive good news and fear when they are threatened. Emotions have a strong influence on our daily lives. We make decisions based on whether we are happy, angry, sad, bored, or frustrated. We also choose activities and hobbies based on the emotions they incite. Understanding emotions can help us navigate life with greater ease and stability. researchers have also tried to identify and classify the different types of emotions. The descriptions and insights have changed over time. In 1972, psychologist Paul Ekman suggested that there are six basic emotions that are universal throughout human cultures: fear, disgust, anger, surprise, joy, and sadness. In the 1980s, Robert Plutchik introduced another emotion classification system known as the wheel of emotions. This model demonstrated how different emotions can be combined or mixed together, much like the way an artist mixes primary colors to create other colors. In 1999, Ekman expanded his list to include a number of other basic emotions, including embarrassment, excitement, contempt, shame, pride, satisfaction, and amusement. Key Elements of Emotions To better understand what emotions are, let's focus on their three key elements, known as the subjective experience, the physiological response, and the behavioral response. Subjective Experience While experts believe that there are a number of basic universal emotions experienced by people all over the world, regardless of background or culture, researchers also believe that experiencing emotion can be highly subjective. Consider anger. Is all anger the same? Not necessarily. Your own experience might range from mild annoyance to blinding rage. Additionally, you may experience anger differently than someone else. We also don't always experience pure forms of each emotion. Mixed emotions over different events or situations in our lives are common. When faced with starting a new job, for example, you might feel both excited and nervous. Getting married or having a child might be marked by a wide variety of emotions ranging from joy to anxiety. These emotions might occur simultaneously or you might feel them one after another. Physiological Response If you've ever felt your stomach lurch from anxiety or your heart palpate with fear, you've already experienced the strong physiological reactions that can occur with emotions. Many of these physiological responses are regulated by the sympathetic nervous system, a branch of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls involuntary body responses, such as blood flow and digestion. The sympathetic nervous system is charged with controlling the body's fight-or-flight reactions. When facing a threat, fight-or-flight responses automatically prepare your body to flee from danger or face the threat head-on. While early studies of the physiology of emotion tended to focus on autonomic responses, more recent research has targeted the brain's role in emotions. Brain scans have shown that the amygdala, part of the limbic system, plays an important role in emotion and fear in particular. The amygdala is a tiny, almond-shaped structure that has been linked to motivational states such as hunger and thirst as well as behavior and emotion. Brain imaging studies reveal that when people are shown threatening images, the amygdala becomes activated. Damage to the amygdala has also been shown to impair the fear response. Behavioral Response The final component is perhaps one that you are most familiar with—the actual expression of emotion. We spend a significant amount of time interpreting the emotional expressions of the people around us. Our ability to accurately understand these expressions is tied to what psychologists call emotional intelligence and these expressions play a major part in our overall body language. Sociocultural norms also play a role in how we express and interpret emotions. For example, research has found that Western cultures tend to value and promote high-arousal emotions (fear, excitement, distress) whereas Eastern cultures typically value and prefer low-arousal emotions (calmness, serenity, peace). Primary vs. Secondary Emotions Emotions can also be categorized based on whether they are primary or secondary. Primary emotions are the emotions that humans experience universally. There are different theories as to what these specific emotions are, but they often include happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise. Secondary emotions stem from—and are variations of—primary emotions. Sometimes, we have secondary emotions in response to our primary emotions (i.e., "I'm frustrated that I'm so sad"). Secondary emotions may include frustration, pride, envy, and jealousy. Reasoning: It is one of the best forms of controlled thinking consciously towards the solution of a problem. It is realistic in the sense that the solution is sought always in reference to the reality of the situation. We can solve many problems in our day-dreams, dreams and imaginations but they are unrealistic solutions. As Sherman defined, “reasoning is a process of thinking during which the individual is aware of a problem identifies, evaluates, and decides upon a solution”. Definitions of Reasoning: 1. “Reasoning is a stepwise thinking with a purpose or goal in mind” —Garrett. 2. “Reasoning is the term applied to highly purposeful, controlled and selective thinking”—Gates. Types of Reasoning: Reasoning may be classified into two types. 1. Inductive reasoning: It is a specialized thinking aimed at the discovery or construction of a generalized principle by making use of particular cases, special examples and identifying of elements or relations. For example, Mohan is mortal, Radha is mortal, Karim is mortal; therefore, all human beings are mortal. 2. Deductive reasoning: It is the ability to draw some logical conclusions from known statement or evidences. Here one starts with already known or established generalized statement or principle and applies it to specific cases. For example, all human beings are mortal you are a human being, therefore, you are mortal. Henry has categorized three types of deductive reasoning: i. Conditioned reasoning: It is the reasoning tied down by some specific condition such as the following. For example, if there is a solar eclipse, the street will be dork. There is a solar eclipse... The streets are dark. ii. Categorical reasoning: This type of reasoning is based on some categorical statements. For example, all Robins are birds. All birds lay eggs.... All Robins lay eggs. iii. Linear reasoning: This type of reasoning involves straight forward relationships among elements. For example, If Ram is taller than Mohan and Mohan is taller than Sohan, Ram is the tallest. Defining instinct In the past the term instinct has stood for a number of distinct conceptions about animal behaviour. For example, Alexander Jamieson, in the first volume of his A Dictionary of Mechanical Science, Arts, Manufactures, and Miscellaneous Knowledge (1829), defined the term instinct as “an appellation given to the sagacity and natural inclinations of brutes, which supplies the place of reason in mankind.” As a rough rendering of what the term instinct means to most people, this definition still has merit. If it is taken to include the possibility that humans too can be governed by instinct, this definition is broad and vague, encompassing the variety of senses that the term has since been used to convey. However, this inclusiveness is unable to distinguish the subtle differences of meaning encompassed by the terms instinct and instinctive. The words instinct and instinctive have borne a variety of meanings in the many different contexts in which they have been used. Their varied meanings and connotations are encountered in everyday language. For example, instinct can refer to reflexive or stereotyped behaviour, to an intuitive hunch, to a congenital aptitude or disposition, to a deep-seated impulsion (e.g., “maternal instinct”), to ways of acting that do not appear to have involved learning or experience in their development, or to knowledge that is inborn or subconsciously acquired. The concept of instinct is complicated by the fact that it ranges across behavioral, genetic, developmental, motivational, functional, and cognitive senses. There is also a likelihood that one of these senses might be taken to entail one or more of the others. For example, evidence that a pattern of behaviour depends upon a genetic basis frequently has been assumed to imply that the pattern is unlearned. hypnosis hypnosis, special psychological state with certain physiological attributes, resembling sleep only superficially and marked by a functioning of the individual at a level of awareness other than the ordinary conscious state. This state is characterized by a degree of increased receptiveness and responsiveness in which inner experiential perceptions are given as much significance as is generally given only to external reality. The hypnotic state The hypnotized individual appears to heed only the communications of the hypnotist and typically responds in an uncritical, automatic fashion while ignoring all aspects of the environment other than those pointed out by the hypnotist. In a hypnotic state an individual tends to see, feel, smell, and otherwise perceive in accordance with the hypnotist’s suggestions, even though these suggestions may be in apparent contradiction to the actual stimuli present in the environment. The effects of hypnosis are not limited to sensory change; even the subject’s memory and awareness of self may be altered by suggestion, and the effects of the suggestions may be extended (post hypnotically) into the subject’s subsequent waking activity. Applications of hypnosis The techniques used to induce hypnosis share common features. The most important consideration is that the person to be hypnotized (the subject) be willing and cooperative and that he or she trust in the hypnotist. Subjects are invited to relax in comfort and to fix their gaze on some object. The hypnotist continues to suggest, usually in a low, quiet voice, that the subject’s relaxation will increase and that his or her eyes will grow tired. Soon the subject’s eyes do show signs of fatigue, and the hypnotist suggests that they will close. The subject allows his eyes to close and then begins to show signs of profound relaxation, such as limpness and deep breathing. He has entered the state of hypnotic trance. A person will be more responsive to hypnosis when he believes that he can be hypnotized, that the hypnotist is competent and trustworthy, and that the undertaking is safe, appropriate, and congruent with the subject’s wishes. Therefore, induction is generally preceded by the establishment of suitable rapport between subject and hypnotist.