Essay on Changing Conceptions About What Emotion is

The ability to identify emotion and carry it out into one’s daily life is what defines an individual as human; if one lacks emotion, then the individual will become a robot of society. Emotion is defined as a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others

Emotions are interesting because everyone feels them, most people do not know how emotions take their curse and arguably no one really knows how emotions function. There are many theories aimed precisely at defining emotions and how they work but there is a lot of work to be done. An article posted in the New York Time’s website about a week ago explains a wonderful aspect about emotions and how people can utilize emotions to benefit their lives.

We are exposed to various emotions everyday, whether it is at work, at school, on the street, or even at home. An emotion could be described as an individual’s reaction to an event, in which that individual is aware of his/her own feeling. There are two types of emotions, positive and negative. Positive emotions could include feelings such as love, joy, and bliss. Negative emotions could include feelings like fear, anger, and anxiety. Social psychologists are under the impression that negative emotions are stronger than positive emotions. Emotions have physiological as well as mental components. This means that there is some form of arousal and thinking involved. Now that we know a little about emotions, one might ask, what are the basic

Charles Darwin was the first scientist to ever study animals in a systematic way (Bekoff “The Emotional Lives” 6). In his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin discussed the

Attempts to define “emotion” have proved to be rather difficult. Instead of searching for a comprehensive definition, Gross (2011) describes the three core features of emotions. First, emotions occur when an individual decides that a situation is relevant to his or her goals. Second, emotions are multi-faceted, and involve both subjective and physiological experiences, as well as behaviors. The third feature involves the authoritative nature of emotions. They have the powerful ability to interrupt ongoing processes, assert their priority over other activities, and force their way into awareness. For example, some traditions describe emotions as “disorganized interruptions of mental activity” (Salovey & Mayer, 1989). Emotions are such an

Christakis and Fowler state that emotions themselves contain several elements. Emotions contain a conscious element, meaning people are aware of what they’re feeling. They have a physical aspect; emotions are tied to an individuals’ health. They also have a neurological affect; altering activity and blood flow levels in the brain. Finally, emotions contain a visual aspect; they can be expressed in facial expressions and body language.

Emotions are often thought to be personal. One may say “I am sad.” or “I am mad.” or I am scared.” and frequently we believe those emotions are inhabiting just the body in which they were created.

Emotions are used in everyday life, whether it be just a simple smile that makes happiness disperse in your brain, or a death of a loved one that causes sadness. The basic emotions are joy, interest, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt. The way we see emotion in ourselves and others can be very complex because we sometimes assume they feel a certain way just based on their actions or even facial expressions. When emotion is discussed in psychological terms, it is not based on one thing, instead it’s a mix of bodily arousal, expressive behaviors, conscious experience. Many theories try to explain how emotion works.

The concept may sound reliable, however, there isn’t any set of ground rules to carry it out. That is to say as much of this sounds ideal in the article, however, doesn’t translate well to the real world. Frankly, emotions are hard to handle or even interpret because of many factors, especially since it one’s personal response on how they feel at a given time. The article proposes great points of views which provide many examples, especially of prominent people like Plato, Elias, and Durkheim. With these authors credited in, it provides the article with reliability. Furthermore, the article is well researched based on the findings and is logically

People are shaped into individuals through many defining attributes – from the way we communicate and the way we express ourselves to a person’s morals and ethics. Coincidentally, these are all linked through one major omniscient trait – emotions. Emotions contain a wide spectrum of subcategories, but these can basically be broken down into the two elementary divisions: happiness and sadness. These ups and downs are crucial for people to be themselves; to have their own stories and experiences to tell.

In chapter 8 of Handbook of Emotions, The Evolutionary Psychology of the Emotions and Their Relationship to Internal Regulatory Variables, Tooby & Cosmides (2008) thoroughly discuss the theories of how emotions came to be. The overall conclusion is that emotions did not inadvertently occur, but instead were specifically designed and evolved to solve distinct issues that would affect the probability of fitness. Emotions evolved to utilize physical responses based on environmental cues in order to promote the individual’s overall success.

3. What is the evolutionary view of emotion as originally proposed by Darwin? What is the adaptive value of emotion? What evidence suggests

The passions such as Descartes understood them correspond roughly to the sentiments now called emotions, but there exist several important distinctions between the two. The principle of these is that passions, as is suggested by the word’s etymology, are by nature suffered and endured, and are therefore the result of an external cause acting upon a subject.[4] In contrast, modern psychology considers emotions to be a sensation which occurs inside a subject and therefore is produced by the subject

The complexity of human emotions has been an unsolvable conundrum that has plagued the minds of philosophers for hundreds of years. In fact, to this day, philosophers still feverishly debate the various components of emotions. Whether it is the origins of emotions or the effect on the human body that emotions have, actual facts and proven theories about emotions are impossible to one hundred percent be verified. One emotion that is particularly complex and powerful is the emotion of fear. For example, there are times when an individual is totally paralyzed and unable to move purely because of the fact that the individual

Chapter 1 explains the work of a Harvard psychologist named William James. William published the article “What is an Emotion?” in a philosophical journal entitled Mind in 1884. His paper is an argument for the primacy and necessity of bodily systems in producing emotional feelings. James-Lange theory states that physiological arousal instigates the experience of emotion. A Harvard physiologist, Walter Cannon, roundly criticized James’ theory, claiming that, according to the Cannon Bard theory, physiological changes follow emotional expression.