Since emotions have a role to play in overall mental health and wellness, and the key to well-being is a healthy balance between emotional awareness, emotional acceptance, and emotional expression so let’s begin our story of emotion by asking: Where does it all start?
Emotions are responses to stimuli or situations that affect a person strongly. Emotional responses occur on three levels. The first- and most basic level involves neurophysiological and biochemical reactions to stimuli, including all the bodily processes regulated by the automatic nervous system: heart rate, blood flow, respiration, hormonal secretions (epinephrine, cortisol) and neural responses.
The second level of emotional response is behavioral, where emotions are expressed in a person’s actions. This level includes facial expressions and such behaviors as crying, sullen gazes, withdrawal from interactions with others, and delayed responses. The third level is cognitive and involves language (whether spoken, written, or thought).
Children differ strikingly in their emotional responses- in the frequency and range of their emotions as well as the ways they express emotion. They also vary widely in the subtlety of their understanding emotions (both their own and others), in the degree of pleasure they show when they share positive emotions, and in their ability to regulate or control their negative responses to frustrating situations.
The regulation of emotion involves the management and organization of
Emotions are things that we feel. We can feel a certain way and our choice on our emotions and the actions we make in order to feel this way and the words we say in order to feel better are on
Emotions have many factors. One of the factors is internal physiological changes, such as increased heart rate, dilated pupils, and increase in adrenaline secretion. Another emotional factor is nonverbal reactions. Nonverbal reactions are external physical changes, such as, blushing, posture, and facial expressions. Cognitive interpretations is used to define our emotions, and Verbal expressions are used to express our emotions through words.
Emotions are used in our everyday lives help us understand and comprehend a situation. The way we feel can affect the way we think through a situation and the situation that we make. Our emotions are expressed when we play sports, when a loved one dies, or when we see our newly born baby for the first time. Emotions are a state of consciousness like joy, sorrow, fear, hate, and love. Whenever we are presented with a situation, our brain responds in feelings, and our feeling determine what will happen next.
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 a necessary part of our whole humanity. They may be more than we have learned to be comfortable with, but they are not too much.
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
Bronfenbrenner and Evans (2000) signify that environment is a dominate factor with child development and as emotions are central to all humans; a child’s environment produces significant influence on emotion development and emotion expression. The base emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, interest and surprise) are considered universal as they appear across all cultures, are present from
Emotions are apart of our everyday lifestyle, so where do they come from? Emotions are in the part of the brain called the Limbic System, where emotions are controlled. There are many types of emotions a human has like happy, sad, angry, or scared, but emotions connect to other parts of your body like your facial expression.
Affect is the outward expression of feelings and emotions which can be seen through facial expressions or body movements. According to Panksepp (1998) he identified four basic command emotion systems: seeking or reward, rage, fear, and panic or separation systems. Affect regulation refers to the ability to maintain these four basic command systems or increase positive homeostasis and to regulate inappropriate emotions (Applegate, 2005).
When we are emotionally triggered our individual “conditioned responses” can vary widely from from person to person and depending on the situation we are dealing with.
All children are different in their unique way. The goal of this assignment was to observe different children in an uninterrupted environment. Although all the children observed were the same age, they all acted differently during their observation. The differences in the way we react to different situations are what make us human. These differences can be explained through the theories that different psychologist have developed over the years. Some children react better to things like praise from a teacher or being able to be creative in the activities that they are participating in.
Temperament can be defined as early individual differences in how each individual person reacts to stimuli (Losonczy-Marshall, 2014). In an article by Losonczy-Marshall (2014) also states that emotional reaction are parts of how each individual reacts to stimuli and, thus, should be considered as part of temperaments. Emotional reactions are to be observed by emotional expression, which is a reaction to a particular stimulus that shows some bodily expression. This can be shown in multiple different variations such as vocally, facially, gestures, and/or posture. This communication of inner emotional states as outward expressions is often called as state emotion. Trait emotion is defined as latency in response, intensity of expression, and duration of expression. Trait emotion can
When talking about emotion it seems a fairly simple topic and immediately "feeling" words come to mind; sad, happy, and confused. These are basic emotions and easy to understand. What isn't so simple about emotions is their process and how they form and work. Emotions are reactions to sensory information like sight, smell, taste, touch and sound (Tracing Emotion’s Pathways 94). However, it is not that simple; an emotional reaction or response is made aware of and understood by a part of the brain called the sensory cortex. These emotional responses or reactions to sensory stimuli are processed by a part of the brain called the amygdala (What’s An Emotion). The amygdala is a huge asset to the cognitive factors of emotions because in processing emotions you become able to understand, recognize, and control them. So then how do emotions evoke a physiological reaction such as tearing up when one feels sad, laughing with joy, and trembling with fear? These physiological reactions that one may experience come from the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is, “a collection of fibers that extend throughout
Hence, it all comes down to how people control their emotions and how they choose to portray what they are feeling. Emotional responses are both physiological and psychological. These responses influence perception, learning, and performance. People commonly experience negative emotions such
Effective regulation of emotions has been viewed as a developmental achievement that serves as an essential requirement for numerous other developmental tasks. Specifically, because powerful emotions have the potential to disorganize or disrupt multiple psychological processes, modulation of their experience and expression has been considered crucial for basic state regulation, behavioural exploration, cognitive processing, and social competence (Sheppes & Gross,