PERSPECTIVES ON EMOTION
Emotions colour and enrich our lives, and help to energize us so that we can deal with whatever comes our way. They are adaptive and basic to human existence. In spite of its fundamental importance to life, emotion is hard to define because it can be viewed from five distinct but nevertheless interrelated perspectives.
1. In the everyday sense, it is the subjective experience of emotion that seems to be most important to us. You feel happy and I feel sad, you feel angry and I feel embarrassed. Subjectively, these experiences give emotion its urgency, an urgency that can range from pleasant to unpleasant, from exciting to debilitating. Of course, feeling extends beyond emotion: as well as feeling happy, disgusted or ashamed, we can also feel pain, sick, ill, an ache. Nevertheless, it is the feeling aspect of emotion that seems to be so significant in everyday life.
2. Emotion has its behavioural aspects. An angry conversation takes a different course from a calm conversation. If you were extremely anxious in an examination, you would perform differently than if you were only mildly anxious. You can see emotional behaviour in the facial expressions of other people. You also know that not only does a smile feel different from a frown, but it also has different social consequences. In other words, emotion prepares us for action; it has an ‘action readiness’ associated with it that frequently translates into behaviour.
3. Physiological changes are involved in emotion. Narrowly escape a road accident and you can feel your heart beating faster and your muscles trembling. You can feel your face blush as you tip too far back and fall off your chair in class.
4. Emotion involves cognition, thought and emotion being intertwined. We perceive things and appraise their value to us – and it is this value that is thought to generate the emotion. This is a significant (perhaps even a necessary) forerunner to our emotional reactions. Whether or not emotion and cognition are necessary to each other, they are certainly strongly linked. Spend a moment or two thinking of a close friend and then thinking of a close competitor and compare the emotional reactions that begin to occur.
5. Emotion occurs in a context that is usually social, although it is possible to experience emotion when alone. Emotion tends to have a social communication function even when its biological significance is paramount, as with certain types of fear.
Emotions colour and enrich our lives, and help to energize us so that we can deal with whatever comes our way. They are adaptive and basic to human existence. In spite of its fundamental importance to life, emotion is hard to define because it can be viewed from five distinct but nevertheless interrelated perspectives.
1. In the everyday sense, it is the subjective experience of emotion that seems to be most important to us. You feel happy and I feel sad, you feel angry and I feel embarrassed. Subjectively, these experiences give emotion its urgency, an urgency that can range from pleasant to unpleasant, from exciting to debilitating. Of course, feeling extends beyond emotion: as well as feeling happy, disgusted or ashamed, we can also feel pain, sick, ill, an ache. Nevertheless, it is the feeling aspect of emotion that seems to be so significant in everyday life.
2. Emotion has its behavioural aspects. An angry conversation takes a different course from a calm conversation. If you were extremely anxious in an examination, you would perform differently than if you were only mildly anxious. You can see emotional behaviour in the facial expressions of other people. You also know that not only does a smile feel different from a frown, but it also has different social consequences. In other words, emotion prepares us for action; it has an ‘action readiness’ associated with it that frequently translates into behaviour.
3. Physiological changes are involved in emotion. Narrowly escape a road accident and you can feel your heart beating faster and your muscles trembling. You can feel your face blush as you tip too far back and fall off your chair in class.
4. Emotion involves cognition, thought and emotion being intertwined. We perceive things and appraise their value to us – and it is this value that is thought to generate the emotion. This is a significant (perhaps even a necessary) forerunner to our emotional reactions. Whether or not emotion and cognition are necessary to each other, they are certainly strongly linked. Spend a moment or two thinking of a close friend and then thinking of a close competitor and compare the emotional reactions that begin to occur.
5. Emotion occurs in a context that is usually social, although it is possible to experience emotion when alone. Emotion tends to have a social communication function even when its biological significance is paramount, as with certain types of fear.
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