An emotional state characterized by short duration and strength of manifestation. emotional states

In life, the most diverse manifestation of emotional states is observed. The following types of emotional experiences are considered to be the most significant: affects, emotions proper, feelings, moods, emotional stress.

1) Affect- the most powerful type of emotional reaction. An affect is an emotional state of an explosive nature, rapidly flowing, characterized by a change in consciousness, a violation of volitional control. Examples of affect are strong anger, rage, horror, stormy joy, deep grief, despair.

One of the main features of affect is that this emotional reaction irresistibly imposes on a person the need to perform some action, but at the same time, a person loses a sense of reality, and he ceases to control himself. In a state of passion, the functioning of all mental processes changes. In particular, attention changes dramatically. Its switchability decreases, and only those objects that are indirectly connected with the experience fall into the field of perception. All other stimuli that are not related to the experience are not in the field of human attention, they are not sufficiently realized, and this is one of the reasons for the uncontrollability of a person's behavior in a state of passion. In a state of passion, it is difficult for a person to foresee the results of his actions, since the nature of the flow of thought processes changes. The ability to predict the consequences of actions is sharply reduced, as a result of which expedient behavior becomes impossible.

The cause of affect is the state of internal conflict, the contradiction between attraction, desire, aspiration and the inability to satisfy it. The effects are especially pronounced in children. Affects have a negative impact on human activity, sharply reducing its organization. In a state of passion, a person loses power over himself. However, anyone can cope with the affect in the first stages of its development. The main thing is to delay the affective outburst, to restrain yourself.

2) The next group of emotional phenomena is actually emotions. Emotions differ from affects primarily in duration. If affects are mostly of a short-term nature (for example, an outburst of anger), then emotions are more long-term states. Another distinguishing feature of emotions is that they represent a reaction not only to current events, but also to probable or remembered ones.

In many situations, in addition to pleasure and displeasure, there is a feeling of some stress, on the one hand, and permissions or relief, on the other side. Another manifestation of emotional processes is excitation and calm. An excited emotional state is usually active in nature, associated with activity or attempts to do so. Excessive excitement can, however, upset purposeful activity, make it disorderly, chaotic. Calming is associated with a decrease in activity, but also serves as the basis for the appropriate use of it.

Repeated attempts have been made to isolate basic "fundamental" emotions. In particular, it is customary to single out the following emotions.

Joy- a positive emotional state associated with the ability to fully satisfy an urgent need.

Astonishment- an emotional reaction that does not have a clearly expressed positive or negative sign to sudden circumstances.

Suffering- a negative emotional state associated with the received reliable or seemingly such information about the impossibility of satisfying the most important vital needs.

Anger- an emotional state, negative in sign, as a rule, proceeding in the form of affect and caused by the sudden appearance of a serious obstacle to satisfying an extremely important need for the subject.

Disgust- a negative emotional state caused by objects (objects, people, circumstances, etc.), contact with which comes into sharp conflict with ideological, moral or aesthetic principles and the attitude of the subject.

Contempt- a negative emotional state that occurs in interpersonal relationships and is generated by a mismatch of life positions, views and behavior of the subject with life positions, views and behavior of the object of feeling.

Fear- a negative emotional state that appears when the subject receives information about a real or imagined danger.

Shame- a negative state, expressed in the awareness of the conformity of one's thoughts, actions and appearance not only with the expectations of others, but also with one's own ideas about appropriate behavior and appearance.

It should be noted that emotional experiences are ambiguous. The same object can cause inconsistent, conflicting emotional relationships. This phenomenon has been named ambivalence (duality) of feelings. Usually, ambivalence is caused by the fact that individual features of a complex object affect the needs and values of a person in different ways.

There is a certain balance between negative and positive emotions. If we have experienced negative emotions, there is a desire to experience positive ones.

Emotions can be not only positive or negative. P. V. Simonov singles out mixed emotions, when both positive and negative shades are combined in the same experience (for example, getting pleasure from fear in the “horror room”).

3) Another group of emotional states are human moods. Mood- a stable emotional state that affects a person's activities. Through mood, a person, as it were, reflects his attitude to reality. Mood is the longest or "chronic" emotional state that colors all behavior. Mood is distinguished from emotions by less intensity and less objectivity. The reason for the mood is always there, but not always realized by the person. A person's mood reflects an unconscious generalized assessment of how favorable circumstances are for him at the moment. The mood can be joyful or sad, cheerful or depressed, cheerful or depressed, calm or irritated, etc.

The mood significantly depends on the general state of health, on the work of the endocrine glands and, especially, on the tone of the nervous system. The reasons for this or that mood are not always clear to a person, and even more so to the people around him. But the cause of the mood always exists and can be recognized to some extent. It can be the surrounding nature, events, activities performed and, of course, people.

4) Stress- a state of prolonged and severe psychological stress associated with emotional overload. The concept was introduced by the Canadian physiologist G. Selye to denote extraordinary reaction of the body to any strong impact. His research showed that various adverse factors (cold, pain, fear, humiliation) cause the same type of complex reaction in the body, which does not depend on what kind of stimulus is acting on it at the moment. Stress is never zero, in moments of indifference it is simply minimal. Stress is a common reality in our lives.

Types of stress:

1) physiological: the body's reaction to stress - the release of adrenaline, thyroid hormones into the blood, etc. Prolonged exposure to stress shortens life, causes disease.

2) psychological: informational(a high degree of responsibility with a lack of time) and emotional(threat, danger, resentment, a person is left alone with his problems for a long time).

Different people may react differently to stress.

frustration- a mental state characterized by the presence of a stimulated need that has not found its satisfaction. The state of frustration is accompanied by negative experiences: disappointment, despair, anxiety.

Distinctive features of frustration: surprise, uncertainty, change in the usual course of events.

The level of frustration depends on the strength and intensity of the influencing factor, the state of the person and the forms of response he has developed to life's difficulties. Resistance to frustrating factors ( tolerance) depends on the degree of his emotional excitability, type of temperament, experience of interaction with such factors.

Higher feelings. As A. V. Petrovsky notes, feelings are one of the main forms of a person’s experience of his attitude to objects and phenomena of reality, which is distinguished by relative stability. Feelings arise as a generalization of many emotions directed at an object. Feelings in turn affect emotions. The strictly scientific use of the term “feelings” is limited only to cases when a person expresses his positive or negative, i.e. evaluative attitude to any objects. At the same time, unlike emotions that reflect short-term experiences, feelings are long-term and can sometimes remain for life.

In psychology, it is customary to distinguish the following types of feelings: moral, intellectual and aesthetic feelings.

Moral (moral) feelings their content is the relation of man to man and to society. The basis for evaluating these feelings is the moral norms that regulate the behavior of the individual in all spheres of public life. Moral sentiments include: love, compassion, benevolence, humanity and etc.

Intellectual Feelings express and reflect the attitude of the individual to the process of cognition, its success and failure. These include: doubt, joy of discovery, love of truth.

aesthetic feelings reflect and express a person's attitude to various facts of life and their reflection in art as something beautiful or ugly, tragic or comic, sublime or base.

Emotions (from Latin emovere - excite, excite) - a special kind of mental processes or states of a person that manifest themselves in the experience of any significant situations (joy, fear, pleasure), phenomena and events throughout life. Any, including cognitive need, is given to a person through emotional experiences. For a person, the main significance of emotions lies in the fact that, thanks to emotions, we better understand others, we can, without using speech, judge each other's state and better tune in to joint activities and communication. Remarkable, for example, is the fact that people belonging to different cultures are able to accurately perceive and evaluate the expression of a human face, to determine from it such emotional states, such as, for example, joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise. This fact not only convincingly proves the innate nature of the basic emotions, but also "the presence of a genetically determined ability to understand them in living beings." This refers to the communication of living beings not only of the same species with each other, but also of different species among themselves. It is well known that higher animals and humans are capable of perceiving and evaluating each other's emotional states by facial expressions. Not all emotionally expressive expressions are innate. Some of them have been found to be acquired in a lifetime as a result of training and education. Life without emotions is just as impossible as life without sensations. Emotions, according to Charles Darwin, arose in the process of evolution as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to meet their urgent needs. Emotions act as an internal language, as a system of signals through which the subject learns about the needful significance of what is happening. “The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly deny the relationship between motivations and the implementation of activities that correspond to these motives. Emotions in human activity perform the function of evaluating its course and results. They organize activity, stimulating and directing it. In critical conditions, when the subject is unable to find a quick and reasonable way out of a dangerous situation, a special kind of emotional processes arises - affect. Due to the timely arisen emotions, the body has the ability to adapt extremely favorably to environmental conditions. He is able to quickly, with great speed, respond to external influences without having yet determined its type, form, and other private specific parameters. Emotional sensations are biologically, in the process of evolution, fixed as a kind of way to maintain the life process within its optimal boundaries and warn of the destructive nature of a lack or excess of any factors. The more complex a living being is organized, the higher the step on the evolutionary ladder it occupies, the richer the range of emotional states that an individual is able to experience. The quantity and quality of a person's needs corresponds to the number and variety of emotional experiences and feelings characteristic of him, moreover, "the higher the need in terms of its social and moral significance, the higher the feeling associated with it." Almost all elementary organic sensations have their own emotional tone. The close connection that exists between emotions and the activity of the body is evidenced by the fact that any emotional state is accompanied by many physiological changes in the body. The closer to the central nervous system is the source of organic changes associated with emotions, and the fewer sensitive nerve endings it contains, the weaker the resulting subjective emotional experience. In addition, an artificial decrease in organic sensitivity leads to a weakening of the strength of emotional experiences. The main emotional states that a person experiences are divided into emotions proper, feelings and affects. Emotions and feelings anticipate the process aimed at meeting the needs, they are, as it were, at the beginning of it. Emotions and feelings express the meaning of the situation for a person from the point of view of the actual need at the moment, the significance of the upcoming action or activity for its satisfaction. Emotions - can be caused by both real and imaginary situations. They, like feelings, are perceived by a person as his own inner experiences, transmitted to other people, empathized. Emotions are relatively weakly manifested in external behavior, sometimes from the outside they are generally invisible to an outsider if a person knows how to hide his feelings well. They, accompanying this or that behavioral act, are not even always realized, although any behavior is associated with emotions, since it is aimed at satisfying a need. The emotional experience of a person is usually much broader than the experience of his individual experiences. Human feelings, on the contrary, are outwardly very noticeable. “Emotions usually follow the actualization of the motive and up to a rational assessment of the adequacy of the subject's activity to it. They are a direct reflection, an experience of existing relationships, and not their reflection. Emotions are able to anticipate situations and events that have not yet actually occurred, and arise in connection with ideas about previously experienced or imagined situations. Feelings, on the other hand, are of an objective nature, they are associated with a representation or idea about some object. Another feature of feelings is that they are improved and, developing, form a number of levels, starting from direct feelings and ending with your feelings related to spiritual values and ideals. Feelings play a motivating role in the life and activities of a person, in his communication with other people. In relation to the world around him, a person seeks to act in such a way as to strengthen and strengthen his positive feelings. They are always associated with the work of consciousness, they can be arbitrarily regulated.

Emotions are mental processes in which a person experiences his attitude to other phenomena of the surrounding reality; emotions also reflect various states of the human body, its attitude to its own behavior and to its activities.

Emotions are distinguished by the following features.

subjective character. The attitude that is expressed in emotions is always personal in nature and differs from the awareness of objective connections between things that are established in the process of cognition of the surrounding world. Looking out the window, we see that the street is covered with snow, and we establish a connection between the appearance of snow and the time of year "winter has come." This connection is established by us in the process of thinking. Reflecting this objective connection through thinking, one person can experience a feeling of joy that winter has come, and another a feeling of regret that summer is over. These various feelings express the subjective, personal attitude of people to objective reality: some like the given object and cause them a feeling of pleasure, others dislike the same object and cause displeasure. Extreme variety of quality features. The following, rather incomplete list of emotional states, since they are expressed in human speech, allows us to judge an extremely large number and variety of emotions:

Feeling of hunger, - thirst, - pleasant taste, pleasure, - disgust, feeling of pain, - lust, possession, - sexual feeling; - a sense of self-satisfaction, - ambition, - arrogance, - shamelessness.

Plastic. For example, joy or fear can be experienced by a person in many shades and degrees of its cause, objects or activities with which it is associated. A person can experience joy when meeting a friend, in the process of work that interests him, admiring the majestic pictures of nature, etc. - but all these manifestations of joy are very different in quality and degree. Communication with intraorganic processes.

This connection has a double character: 1) intraorganic processes are the strongest stimulators of many emotions; 2) without exception, all emotions in one form or another find their expression in bodily manifestations. The close connection of emotions with the processes of vital activity of the body was noticed a very long time ago.

Connection with the direct experience of one's own "I". Even the weakest emotions capture the whole person as a whole. Since in his relationship with the environment a person experiences badly the changes caused in him by external influences, his emotions acquire the character of emotional states; when emotions are associated with active manifestations of the personality and are expressed in activities. And emotional, relationships and emotional states are always experienced by a person as his direct experiences. Emotions and feelings are peculiar states of the psyche that leave an imprint on a person's life. The emotional state is determined mainly by the external side of behavior and mental activity, then feelings affect the content and inner essence of human experiences. Emotional states include: moods, affects, stresses, frustrations and passions. Affect- a rapidly emerging and rapidly flowing emotional state that negatively affects the psyche and behavior of a person. If we compare affect with mood, then mood is a calm emotional state, and affect is a lot of emotions that suddenly swoop in and destroy the normal state of mind of a person. Affect captures the human psyche. This entails a narrowing, and sometimes even a shutdown of consciousness. For example, with strong anger, many people lose control over themselves. Their anger turns into aggression. The person starts screaming, blushing, waving his arms, can hit the enemy. The affect arises abruptly, in the form of a flash, a rush. It is very difficult to manage and cope with this condition. They have a negative impact on human activity, sharply reducing the level of its organization. In an affect, a person loses his head, he carries nonsense; his actions are unreasonable, performed without regard to the situation. If objects hit a person, he can throw them in a rage, push a chair, slam on the table. It would be wrong to think that affect is completely uncontrollable. Despite the suddenness, the affect has certain stages of development. The most important thing is to delay the onset of the affect, to “extinguish” the affective outburst, to restrain oneself, not to lose power over one’s behavior.

Stress- an emotional state that suddenly arises in a person under the influence of an extreme situation associated with a danger to life or an activity that requires great stress. Stress, like affect, is the same strong temporary emotional experience.

Not a single person manages to live and work without experiencing stress. Severe life losses, failures, trials, conflicts, every person experiences from time to time. Stress affects people's behavior in different ways. Some, under the influence of stress, show complete helplessness and are unable to withstand stressful influences, while others, on the contrary, are stress-resistant individuals and show themselves best in moments of danger and in activities that require the exertion of all forces. An emotional state close to stress is the syndrome of “emotional burnout”. This condition occurs in a person who experiences negative emotions for a long time. Emotional burnout is manifested in indifference, avoidance of responsibility, negativism or cynicism towards other people. As a rule, the causes of emotional burnout are the monotony and monotony of work, lack of career growth.

frustration- a deeply experienced emotional state that arose under the influence of failures. It can manifest itself in the form of negative experiences, such as: anger, annoyance, apathy, etc. Frustration is accompanied by a whole range of negative emotions that can destroy consciousness and activity. In a state of frustration, a person can show anger, depression. For example, when performing any activity, a person fails, which causes him negative emotions - grief, dissatisfaction with himself. If in such a situation the surrounding people support and help correct mistakes, the experienced emotions will remain only an episode in a person’s life. If failures are repeated, and significant people are reproached, shamed, called incapable or lazy, this person usually develops an emotional state of frustration. The level of frustration depends on the strength of the factor, the state of the person and the forms of response he has to life's difficulties. A person's resistance to frustrating factors depends on the degree of his emotional excitability, type of temperament, experience of interaction with such factors. Passion- a deep and very stable emotional state that captures a person completely and completely and determines all his thoughts. The object of passion can be various kinds of things, objects, phenomena, people that a person seeks to possess at all costs. Passion is a strong, persistent, all-encompassing feeling that determines the direction of a person’s thoughts and actions. The reasons for the emergence of passion are varied - they can be determined by conscious beliefs. Passion, as a rule, is selective and subjective. For example, a passion for music, for collecting, for knowledge, etc.

Passion captures all the thoughts of a person, in which all the circumstances associated with the object of passion revolve, which represents and considers ways to achieve the need. What is not connected with the object of passion seems to be secondary, not important. For example, some scientists who are passionately working on a discovery do not attach importance to their appearance, often forgetting about sleep and food. The most important characteristic is its connection with the will. Since passion is one of the significant motivations for activity, because it has great power. In reality, the assessment of the significance of passion is twofold. Public opinion plays an important role in the assessment. For example, a passion for money, for hoarding is condemned by some people as greed, acquisitiveness, while at the same time within the framework of another social group it can be considered as frugality, prudence.

The most general emotional state that colors all human behavior for a long time is called mood. It is very diverse and can be joyful or sad, cheerful or depressed, cheerful or depressed, calm or irritated, etc. Mood is an emotional reaction not to the direct consequences of certain events, but to their significance for a person's life in the context of his general life plans, interests and expectations.

Affect

S. L. Rubinshtein noted the peculiarities of mood in that it is not objective, but personal, and in that the most powerful emotional reaction is affect.

Affect(from Latin affectuctus - “mental excitement”) - a strong and relatively short-term emotional state associated with a sharp change in important life circumstances for the subject and accompanied by pronounced motor manifestations and a change in the functions of internal organs.

Affect completely captures the human psyche. This entails a narrowing, and sometimes even a shutdown of consciousness, changes in thinking and, as a result, inappropriate behavior. For example, with intense anger, many people lose the ability to constructively resolve conflicts. Their anger turns into aggression. A person screams, blushes, swings his arms, can hit the enemy.

The affect arises sharply, suddenly in the form of a flash, a rush. It is very difficult to manage and cope with this condition. Any feeling can be experienced in an affective form.

Affects have a negative impact on human activity, sharply reducing the level of its organization. In an affect, a person, as it were, loses his head, his actions are unreasonable, performed without regard to the situation. If objects that are not related to the cause of the affect fall into the sphere of a person’s actions, he can throw the thing that has come across in a rage, push a chair, slam on the ceiling. Losing power over himself, a person surrenders entirely to experience.

It would be wrong to think that affect is completely uncontrollable. Despite the apparent suddenness, affect has certain stages of development. And if at the final stages, when a person completely loses control over himself, it is almost impossible to stop, then at the beginning any normal person can do it. It certainly takes a lot of willpower. Here the most important thing is to delay the onset of affect, to “extinguish” the affective outburst, to restrain oneself, not to lose power over one’s behavior.

Stress

Main article: Stress

Another vast area of human states is united by the concept of stress.

Under stress(from the English stress - “pressure”, “stress”) understand the emotional state that occurs in response to all sorts of extreme influences.

Not a single person manages to live and work without experiencing stress. Everyone experiences severe life losses, failures, trials, conflicts, stress when performing hard or responsible work from time to time. Some people deal with stress more easily than others; are stress-resistant.

An emotional state close to stress is the syndrome “ emotional burnout". This condition occurs in a person if, in a situation of mental or physical stress, he experiences negative emotions for a long time. At the same time, he can neither change the situation nor cope with negative emotions. Emotional burnout is manifested in a decrease in the general emotional background, indifference, avoidance of responsibility, negativism or cynicism towards other people, loss of interest in professional success, limiting one's capabilities. As a rule, the causes of emotional burnout are the monotony and monotony of work, lack of career growth, professional mismatch, age-related changes and socio-psychological maladjustment. Internal conditions for the occurrence of emotional burnout can be character accentuations of a certain type, high anxiety, aggressiveness, conformity, and an inadequate level of claims. Emotional burnout hinders professional and personal growth and, like stress, leads to psychosomatic disorders.

frustration

Close in its manifestations to stress is the emotional state of frustration.

frustration(from Latin frustration - “deceit”, “disorder”, “destruction of plans”) - a person’s condition caused by objectively insurmountable (or subjectively perceived so) difficulties that arise on the way to achieving the goal.

Frustration is accompanied by a whole range of negative emotions that can destroy consciousness and activity. In a state of frustration, a person can show anger, depression, external and internal aggression.

For example, when performing any activity, a person fails, which causes negative emotions in him - grief, dissatisfaction with himself. If in such a situation the surrounding people support, help correct mistakes, the experienced emotions will remain only an episode in a person’s life. If failures are repeated, and significant people are reproached, shamed, called incapable or lazy, this person usually develops an emotional state of frustration.

The level of frustration depends on the strength and intensity of the influencing factor, the state of the person and the forms of response he has developed to life's difficulties. Especially often a source of frustration is a negative social assessment that affects significant relationships of the individual. The stability (tolerance) of a person to frustrating factors depends on the degree of his emotional excitability, type of temperament, experience of interaction with such factors.

Passion is a special form of emotional experience. In terms of intensity of emotional excitement, passion approaches affect, and in terms of duration and stability, it resembles mood. What is the nature of passion? Passion is a strong, persistent, all-encompassing feeling that determines the direction of a person’s thoughts and actions. The reasons for the emergence of passion are varied - they can be determined by conscious beliefs, they can come from bodily desires or have a pathological origin. In any case, passion is related to our needs and other personality traits. Passion, as a rule, is selective and subjective. For example, a passion for music, for collecting, for knowledge, etc.

The most important characteristic of passion is its connection with the will. Since passion is one of the significant motivations for activity, because it has great power. In reality, the assessment of the significance of passion is twofold. Public opinion plays an important role in the assessment. For example, a passion for money, for hoarding is condemned by some people as greed, acquisitiveness, while at the same time within the framework of another social group it can be considered as frugality, prudence.

Psychological self-regulation: affect, stress, emotional burnout, frustration, passion

The inability to regulate one's emotional states, cope with affects and stresses is an obstacle to effective professional activity, disrupts interpersonal relationships at work and in the family, interferes with the achievement of goals and the implementation of intentions, and disrupts human health.

There are special techniques that help to cope with a strong emotion and prevent it from turning into an affect. To do this, it is recommended to notice and realize an unwanted emotion in time, analyze its origins, relieve muscle tension and relax, breathe deeply and rhythmically, attract a pre-prepared “duty image” of a pleasant event in your life, try to look at yourself from the outside. The affect can be prevented, but this requires endurance, self-control, special training, and a culture of interpersonal relationships.

The means of preventing emotional burnout are the optimization of working conditions and psychological correction in the early stages of emotional disorders.

The stress factor also matters. Prolonged exposure to stress is especially dangerous. It has been noticed, for example, that for 10-15 years of work in extreme conditions, the human body wears out as if it had experienced a severe heart attack. And, on the contrary, short-term strong stress activates a person, as if “shakes” him.

So, you need to remember the following:

You should not strive, at all costs to avoid stress and be afraid of it. It is paradoxical, but true: the more you try to live and work “always measured and calm”, the more stress will destroy you. After all, instead of gradually and patiently gaining experience in self-management in stress, you will “run away” from it.

You can compare the methods of effective stress management with the actions of an experienced climber. If a person, seized with fear, turns his back on an avalanche and runs away from it, it will overtake him and destroy him. It is necessary to meet the danger face to face in order to know how to defend against it.

In order to manage your stress, you need to use its beneficial features and exclude harmful ones.

With constructive stress, the accumulated dissatisfaction of people with each other is discharged, an important problem is solved and mutual understanding between people improves.
With destructive stress, relationships deteriorate sharply to a complete break, the problem remains unresolved, people experience severe feelings of guilt and hopelessness.

The most successful, both in the profession and in personal life, are people who have learned to control themselves, who have a developed psychotechnics of personal self-regulation. They know their strengths and weaknesses, they know how to restrain themselves, show patience, slow down their internal “explosions”.

People with developed personal psychotechnics implement four main actions:

Action one: they do not blame anyone: neither themselves nor others. They do not suffer from “remorse of conscience” and do not “dump” their stressful energy on others.
Action two: they strive to master themselves at the first stage of development of stress, when self-control is still preserved and the “stress element” has not completely captured. They strive to stop themselves in time. One leading specialist of a large commercial bank put it this way: “It is important not to hit point B.”
Action three: they study themselves. People with developed self-regulation are well aware of how a stressful state begins to develop in them. In other words, they realize in time the change in their inner self-perception at the first stage of stress development.
Step four and most important. People with developed self-regulation intuitively find the optimal strategy in stress. Those who successfully master stress are those who understand that “dumping” dark stressful energy on others is uncivilized and in a certain sense unprofitable. There is a loss of necessary business connections, personal relationships are destroyed. They also understand that directing destructive stressful energy at themselves, blaming themselves for their mistakes, is not constructive. Indeed, what changes from this? The matter is still standing, and the problem is not solved.

To relieve emotional stress, you need:

correctly assess the significance of events;
in case of defeat, act according to the principle “it didn’t hurt, and I wanted to”;
increase physical activity (many women start doing laundry or other heavy housework);
form a new dominant, i.e. get distracted;
speak out, cry out;
listen to music;
cause a smile, laughter, humor is necessary for the fact that
to perceive as comic what claims to be serious;
implement relaxation.

Any, including cognitive need, is given to a person through emotional experiences.

Emotions are elementary experiences that arise in a person under the influence of the general state of the body and the course of the process of meeting actual needs. Such a definition of emotions is given in a large psychological dictionary.

In other words, “emotions are subjective psychological states that reflect in the form of direct experiences, sensations of pleasant or unpleasant, a person’s attitude to the world and people, to the process and result of his practical activity” .

A number of authors adhere to the following definition. Emotions are a mental reflection in the form of direct, biased experience, the vital meaning of phenomena and situations, due to the relationship of their objective properties to the needs of the subject.

According to the authors, this definition contains one of the main features of emotions, which distinguishes them, for example, from cognitive processes - the direct representation in them to the subject of the relationship between the need and the possibility of satisfying it.

A.L. Groisman notes that emotions are a form of mental reflection, standing on the verge (to the content of the cognizable) with a physiological reflection and representing a kind of personal attitude of a person both to the surrounding reality and to himself.

Types of emotions

Depending on the duration, intensity, objectivity or uncertainty, as well as the quality of emotions, all emotions can be divided into emotional reactions, emotional states and emotional relationships (V.N. Myasishchev).

Emotional reactions are characterized by a high rate of occurrence and transience. They last minutes, are characterized by their sufficiently pronounced quality (modality) and sign (positive or negative emotion), intensity and objectivity. The objectivity of an emotional reaction is understood as its more or less unambiguous connection with the event or object that caused it. An emotional reaction normally always arises about events produced in a particular situation by something or someone. This may be fright from a sudden noise or scream, joy from hearing words or perceived facial expressions, anger due to an obstacle that has arisen or about someone's act, etc. At the same time, it should be remembered that these events are only a triggering stimulus for the emergence of an emotion, while the cause is either the biological significance or the subjective significance of this event for the subject. The intensity of emotional reactions can be different - from barely noticeable, even for the subject himself, to excessive - affect.

Emotional reactions are often reactions of frustration of some expressed needs. Frustration (from Latin frustatio - deceit, destruction of plans) in psychology is a mental state that occurs in response to the appearance of an objectively or subjectively insurmountable obstacle to satisfying some need, achieving a goal or solving a problem. The type of frustration reaction depends on many circumstances, but very often it is a characteristic of the personality of a given person. It can be anger, frustration, despair, guilt.

Emotional states are characterized by: a longer duration, which can be measured in hours and days; normally, less intensity, since emotions are associated with significant energy expenditure due to the physiological reactions that accompany them; the reason and the reason that caused them are hidden, as well as some uncertainty in the modality of the emotional state. According to their modality, emotional states can appear in the form of irritability, anxiety, complacency, various shades of mood - from depressive states to euphoria. However, most often they are mixed states. Since emotional states are also emotions, they also reflect the relationship between the needs of the subject and the objective or subjective possibilities of their satisfaction, rooted in the situation.

In the absence of organic disorders of the central nervous system, the state of irritation is, in fact, a high readiness for anger reactions in a long-term situation of frustration. A person has outbursts of anger for the smallest and most diverse reasons, but they are based on the dissatisfaction of some personally significant need, which the subject himself may not know about.

The state of anxiety means the presence of some uncertainty about the outcome of future events related to the satisfaction of some need. Often, the state of anxiety is associated with a sense of self-esteem (self-esteem), which may suffer from an unfavorable outcome of events in the expected future. The frequent occurrence of anxiety in everyday affairs may indicate the presence of self-doubt as a quality of personality, i.e. about unstable or low self-esteem inherent in this person in general.

A person's mood often reflects an experience of success or failure already achieved, or a high or low probability of success or failure in the near future. In a bad or good mood, the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of some need in the past, success or failure in achieving a goal or solving a problem is reflected. It is no coincidence that a person in a bad mood is asked if something has happened. A long-term low or elevated mood (over two weeks), which is not characteristic of a given person, is a pathological sign in which an unmet need is either really absent or is deeply hidden from the subject's consciousness, and its detection requires special psychological analysis. A person most often experiences mixed states, such as low mood with a touch of anxiety or joy with a touch of anxiety or anger.

A person can also experience more complex conditions, an example of which is the so-called dysphoria - a pathological condition lasting two or three days, in which irritation, anxiety and bad mood are simultaneously present. A lesser degree of dysphoria can occur in some people and is normal.

Emotional relationships are also called feelings. Feelings are stable emotional experiences associated with a particular object or category of objects that have a special meaning for a person. Feelings in a broad sense can be associated with various objects or actions, for example, you can not like a given cat or cats in general, you can like or dislike doing morning exercises, etc. Some authors propose that only stable emotional relationships with people be called feelings. Feelings differ from emotional reactions and emotional states in duration - they can last for years, and sometimes for a lifetime, for example, feelings of love or hatred. Unlike states, feelings are objective - they are always associated with an object or an action with it.

Emotionality. Emotionality is understood as stable individual characteristics of the emotional sphere of a given person. V.D. Nebylitsyn proposed to take into account three components when describing emotionality: emotional susceptibility, emotional lability and impulsivity.

Emotional impressionability is a person's sensitivity to emotional situations, i.e. situations that can evoke emotion. Since different people are dominated by different needs, each person has their own situations that can trigger emotions. At the same time, there are certain characteristics of the situation that make them emotional for all people. These are: unusualness, novelty and suddenness (P. Fress). Unusualness differs from novelty in that there are types of stimuli that will always be new to the subject, because there are no “good answers” for them, these are loud noise, loss of support, darkness, loneliness, images of the imagination, as well as combinations of the familiar and unfamiliar. There are individual differences in the degree of sensitivity to emotional situations common to all, as well as in the number of individual emotional situations.

Emotional lability is characterized by the speed of transition from one emotional state to another. People differ from each other in how often and how quickly their state changes - in some people, for example, the mood is usually stable and does not depend much on small current events, in others, with high emotional lability, it changes several times for the slightest reasons. in a day.

Impulsivity is determined by the speed with which emotion becomes the motivating force of actions and actions without their preliminary consideration. This quality of personality is also called self-control. There are two different mechanisms of self-control - external control and internal. With external control, not emotions themselves are controlled, but only their external expression, emotions are present, but they are restrained, a person “pretends” that he does not experience emotions. Internal control is associated with such a hierarchical distribution of needs, in which the lower needs are subordinate to the higher ones, therefore, being in such a subordinate position, they simply cannot cause uncontrollable emotions in appropriate situations. An example of internal control can be a person’s dedication to business, when he does not notice hunger for a long time (“forgets” to eat) and therefore remains indifferent to the type of food.

In psychological literature, it is also common to divide the emotional states experienced by a person into emotions, feelings and affects proper.

Emotions and feelings are personal formations that characterize a person socio-psychologically; associated with short-term and short-term memory.

An affect is a short-term, rapidly flowing state of strong emotional arousal that occurs as a result of frustration or some other reason that strongly affects the psyche, usually associated with the dissatisfaction of very important human needs. Affect does not precede behavior, but forms it at one of its final stages. In contrast to emotions and feelings, affects proceed violently, quickly, and are accompanied by pronounced organic changes and motor reactions. Affects are able to leave strong and lasting traces in long-term memory. The emotional tension accumulated as a result of the occurrence of aphetogenic situations can be summed up and sooner or later, if it is not given time to release, lead to a strong and violent emotional discharge, which, relieving tension, often entails a feeling of fatigue, depression, depression.

One of the most common types of affects today is stress - a state of mental (emotional) and behavioral disorder associated with a person's inability to act expediently and reasonably in the current situation. Stress is a state of excessively strong and prolonged psychological stress that occurs in a person when his nervous system receives an emotional overload. Stress is the main "risk factor" in the manifestation and exacerbation of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases.

Thus, each of the described types of emotions within itself has subspecies, which, in turn, can be evaluated according to different parameters - intensity, duration, depth, awareness, origin, conditions for the emergence and disappearance, effects on the body, development dynamics, focus (on oneself , on others, on the world, on the past, present or future), by the way they are expressed in external behavior (expression) and by the neurophysiological basis.

The role of emotions in human life

For a person, the main significance of emotions lies in the fact that, thanks to emotions, we better understand others, we can, without using speech, judge each other's state and better tune in to joint activities and communication.

Life without emotions is just as impossible as life without sensations. Emotions, according to Charles Darwin, arose in the process of evolution as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to meet their actual needs. Emotionally expressive human movements - facial expressions, gestures, pantomime - perform the function of communication, i.e. giving a person information about the state of the speaker and his attitude to what is happening at the moment, as well as the function of influence - exerting a certain influence on the one who is the subject of perception of emotional and expressive movements.

Remarkable, for example, is the fact that people belonging to different cultures are able to accurately perceive and evaluate the expression of a human face, to determine from it such emotional states, such as, for example, joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise. This fact not only convincingly proves the innate nature of the basic emotions, but also "the presence of a genetically determined ability to understand them in living beings." This refers to the communication of living beings not only of the same species with each other, but also of different species among themselves. It is well known that higher animals and humans are capable of perceiving and evaluating each other's emotional states by facial expressions.

Not all emotionally expressive expressions are innate. Some of them have been found to be acquired in vivo as a result of training and education.

In higher animals, and especially in humans, expressive movements have become a finely differentiated language with which living beings exchange information about their states and about what is happening around. These are expressive and communicative functions of emotions. They are also the most important factor in the regulation of cognitive processes.

Emotions act as an internal language, as a system of signals through which the subject learns about the needful significance of what is happening. “The peculiarity of emotions lies in the fact that they directly deny the relationship between motivations and the realization of activity corresponding to these motives. Emotions in human activity perform the function of evaluating its course and results. They organize activity, stimulating and directing it.”

In critical conditions, when the subject is unable to find a quick and reasonable way out of a dangerous situation, a special kind of emotional processes arises - affect. One of the essential manifestations of affect is that, as V.K. Vilyunas, "by imposing stereotyped actions on the subject, is a certain way of "emergency" resolution of situations that has been entrenched in evolution: flight, stupor, aggression, etc." .

The important Russian psychologist P.K. Anokhin. He wrote: "Producing almost instantaneous integration (combining into a single whole) of all functions of the body, emotions in themselves and in the first place can be an absolute signal of a beneficial or harmful effect on the body, often even before the localization of effects and the specific mechanism of the response are determined. organism".

Due to the timely arisen emotions, the body has the ability to adapt extremely favorably to environmental conditions. He is able to quickly, with great speed, respond to external influences without having yet determined its type, form, and other private specific parameters.

Emotional sensations are biologically, in the process of evolution, fixed as a kind of way to maintain the life process within its optimal boundaries and warn of the destructive nature of a lack or excess of any factors.

The more complex a living being is organized, the higher the step on the evolutionary ladder it occupies, the richer the range of emotional states that an individual is able to experience. The quantity and quality of human needs corresponds to the number and variety of emotional experiences and feelings characteristic of him, moreover, “the higher the need in terms of its social and moral significance, the higher the feeling associated with it” .

The most ancient in origin, the simplest and most common form of emotional experiences among living beings is the pleasure received from the satisfaction of organic needs, and the displeasure associated with the impossibility of doing this when the corresponding need is exacerbated.

Almost all elementary organic sensations have their own emotional tone. The close connection that exists between emotions and the activity of the body is evidenced by the fact that any emotional state is accompanied by many physiological changes in the body. (In this paper, we partially try to trace this dependence.)

The closer to the central nervous system is the source of organic changes associated with emotions, and the fewer sensitive nerve endings it contains, the weaker the resulting subjective emotional experience. In addition, an artificial decrease in organic sensitivity leads to a weakening of the strength of emotional experiences.

The main emotional states that a person experiences are divided into emotions proper, feelings and affects. Emotions and feelings anticipate the process aimed at meeting the needs, they are, as it were, at the beginning of it. Emotions and feelings express the meaning of the situation for a person from the point of view of the actual need at the moment, the significance of the upcoming action or activity for its satisfaction. “Emotions,” A.O. Prokhorov, - can be caused by both real and imaginary situations. They, like feelings, are perceived by a person as his own inner experiences, are transmitted to other people, empathize.

Emotions are relatively weakly manifested in external behavior, sometimes from the outside they are generally invisible to an outsider if a person knows how to hide his feelings well. They, accompanying this or that behavioral act, are not even always realized, although any behavior is associated with emotions, since it is aimed at satisfying a need. The emotional experience of a person is usually much broader than the experience of his individual experiences. Human feelings, on the contrary, are outwardly very noticeable.

Feelings are objective in nature, associated with the representation or idea of some object. Another feature of feelings is that they are improved and, developing, form a number of levels, starting from direct feelings and ending with your feelings related to spiritual values and ideals. Feelings play a motivating role in the life and activities of a person, in his communication with other people. In relation to the world around him, a person seeks to act in such a way as to strengthen and strengthen his positive feelings. They are always associated with the work of consciousness, they can be arbitrarily regulated.

Emotional condition is the direct experience of a feeling.

Depending on the satisfaction of needs, the states experienced by a person can be positive, negative or ambivalent(duality of experiences). Given the nature of the impact on human activity, emotions are sthenic(encourage active activity, mobilize forces, for example, inspiration) and asthenic(relax a person, paralyze his strength, for example, sadness). Some emotions can be both sthenic and asthenic at the same time. The different impact of the same feeling on the activities of different people is due to the individual characteristics of the personality and its volitional qualities. For example, fear can disorganize a cowardly person but mobilize a brave one.

According to the dynamics of the flow, emotional states are long and short-term, in intensity - intense and mild, in terms of stability - stable and changeable. Depending on the form of flow, emotional states are divided into mood, affect, stress, passion, frustration, higher feelings.

The simplest form of emotional experience is emotional tone, i.e. emotional coloring, a kind of qualitative shade of the mental process, prompting a person to preserve or eliminate them. The emotional tone accumulates in itself a reflection of the most common and frequently occurring signs of useful and harmful factors in the surrounding reality and allows you to make a quick decision about the meaning of a new stimulus (beautiful landscape, unpleasant interlocutor). The emotional tone is determined by the personality characteristics of a person, the process of the course of his activity, etc. The purposeful use of the emotional tone allows you to influence the mood of the team, the productivity of its activities.

Mood- these are relatively long, stable mental states of moderate or low intensity, manifested as a positive or negative emotional background of mental life. The mood depends on social activities, worldview, orientation of a person, his state of health, season, environment.

Depression- This is a depressed mood associated with a weakening of arousal.

Apathy characterized by a breakdown and is a psychological state caused by fatigue.

Affect- this is a short-term turbulent emotion, which has the character of an emotional explosion. The experience of affect is stadial in nature. At the first stage, a person, seized by a flash of rage or wild delight, thinks only about the object of his feeling. His movements become uncontrollable, the rhythm of breathing changes, small movements are upset. At the same time, at this stage, every mentally normal person can slow down the development of affect, for example, by switching to another type of activity. In the second stage, a person loses the ability to control his actions. As a result, he can do things that he would not normally do. At the third stage, relaxation occurs, a person experiences states of fatigue and emptiness, sometimes he is not able to remember episodes of events.

When analyzing an affective act, it must be remembered that the structure of this act lacks a goal, and the experienced emotions act as a motive. To prevent the formation of an affective personality, it is necessary to teach schoolchildren the methods of self-regulation, to take into account their type of temperament in the process of education. Pupils of choleric and melancholic temperaments are prone to affect (the latter are in a state of fatigue).

The concept of "stress" was introduced into science by G. Selye. The scientist determined stress as a non-specific reaction of the human (animal) body to any demand. Depending on the stress factor, physiological and mental stress are distinguished. The latter, in turn, is subdivided into informational(an employee of the Ministry of Emergency Situations does not have time to make the right decision at the required pace in a situation of high responsibility) and emotional(occurs in situations of threat, danger, for example, in an exam). The body's response to stress is called general adaptation syndrome. This reaction includes three stages: the alarm reaction, the resistance phase and the exhaustion phase.

From the point of view of G. Selye, stress is not just nervous tension, it is not always the result of damage. The scientist identified two types of stress: distress and eustress. Distress arises in difficult situations, with great physical and mental overload, when it is necessary to make quick and responsible decisions, and is experienced with great internal tension. The reaction that occurs with distress is reminiscent of affect. Distress negatively affects the result of a person's activity, adversely affects his health. Eustress On the contrary, it is a positive stress that accompanies creativity, love, which has a positive effect on a person and contributes to the mobilization of his spiritual and physical forces.

Ways to adapt to stressful situations are rejection of it on a personal level (psychological protection of the individual), complete or partial disconnection from the situation, “displacement of activity”, the use of new ways of solving a problematic task, the ability to carry out a complex type of activity in spite of stress. To overcome distress, a person needs physical movements that contribute to the activation of the parasympathetic department of higher nervous activity; music therapy, bibliotherapy (listening to excerpts from works of art), occupational therapy, play therapy, and mastering self-regulation techniques can be useful.

Passion- a strong, stable, all-encompassing feeling, which is the dominant motive of activity, leads to the concentration of all forces on the subject of passion. Passion can be determined by the worldview, beliefs or needs of the individual. In its direction, this emotional manifestation can be positive and negative (passion for science, passion for hoarding). When it comes to children, they mean hobbies. Truly positive hobbies unite the child with others, expand his sphere of knowledge. If a positive hobby isolates a child from peers, then perhaps it compensates for the feeling of inferiority experienced by him in other areas of activity (in studies, sports) that are not related to his interests, which indicates a person’s troubles.

frustration is a mental state caused by the appearance of insurmountable obstacles (real or imaginary) in an attempt to satisfy a need that is significant for the individual. Frustration is accompanied by disappointment, annoyance, irritation, anxiety, depression, depreciation of the goal or task. For some people, this condition manifests itself in aggressive behavior or is accompanied by withdrawal into the world of dreams and fantasies. Frustration can be caused by the lack of abilities and skills necessary to achieve the goal, as well as the experience of one of the three types of internal conflicts (K. Levin). These are: a) conflict of equal positive possibilities, which arises when it is necessary to choose one of two equally attractive prospects; b) conflict of equivalent negative possibilities, arising from a forced choice in favor of one of two equally undesirable prospects; in) conflict of positive-negative possibilities arising from the need to accept not only positive but also negative aspects of the same perspective.

The dynamics and forms of manifestation of states of frustration are different for different people. Studies show that intellect plays a special role in shaping the direction of emotional reactions. The higher a person's intelligence, the more likely it is to expect an outwardly accusatory form of emotional reaction from him. People with lower intelligence are more likely to take the blame in situations of frustration.

higher feelings of a person arise in connection with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of his spiritual needs, with the fulfillment or violation of the norms of life and social behavior he has learned, the course and results of his activity. Depending on the subject area to which they relate, higher feelings can be intellectual, moral and aesthetic.

To intellectual feelings include experiences that arise in the process of human cognitive activity (surprise, interest, doubt, confidence, a sense of the new, etc.). Intellectual feelings can be determined by the content, the problematic nature of the activity, the degree of complexity of the tasks being solved. Intellectual feelings, in turn, stimulate activity, accompany it, influence the course and results of a person's mental activity, acting as its regulator.

moral feelings include a moral assessment of an object, phenomenon, other people. The group of moral feelings includes patriotism, love for the profession, duty, collectivism, etc. The formation of these feelings involves the assimilation of moral rules and norms by a person, which are of a historical nature and depend on the level of development of society, customs, religion, etc. The basis for the emergence of moral feelings are public interpersonal relations that determine their content. Being formed, moral feelings encourage a person to commit moral deeds. Violation of moral standards is fraught with the experience of shame and guilt.

aesthetic feelings represent the emotional attitude of a person to beauty. Aesthetic feelings include a sense of the tragic, comic, ironic, sarcastic, are manifested in assessments, tastes, external reactions. They activate activity, help to comprehend art (music, literature, painting, theater) more deeply.

Many psychologists believe that there are only three basic emotions: anger, fear, and joy.

Anger is a negative emotion caused by frustration. The most common way to express anger is aggression- an intentional act to cause harm or pain. Ways of expressing anger include: direct expression of feelings, indirect expression of feelings (transfer of anger from the person who caused frustration to another person or object) and containment of anger. Best options for dealing with anger: thinking about the situation, finding something comic in it, listening to your opponent, identifying yourself with the person who caused anger, forgetting old grievances and strife, striving to feel love and respect for the enemy, awareness of your condition.

Joy- this is an active positive emotion, which is expressed in a good mood and a sense of pleasure. A lasting feeling of joy is called happiness. According to J. Friedman, a person is happy if he simultaneously feels satisfaction with life and peace of mind. Studies show that people who are married, have active religious beliefs, and have good relationships with others are happier.

Fear is a negative emotion that occurs in situations of real or perceived danger. Reasonable fears play an important adaptive role and contribute to survival. Anxiety- this is a specific experience caused by a premonition of danger and threat, and is characterized by tension and concern. The state of anxiety depends on the problem situation (exam, performance) and on personal anxiety. If a situational anxiety is a state associated with a particular external situation, then personal anxiety- stable personality trait, permanent the tendency of an individual to experience a state of anxiety. People with low personal anxiety are always more calm, regardless of the situation. It takes a relatively high level of stress to trigger a stress response in them.

Glossary

Emotions, feelings, emotional state, positive emotional state, negative emotional state, ambivalent emotional state, sthenic emotional state, asthenic emotional state, emotional tone, mood, depression, apathy, affect, stress, information stress, emotional stress, general adaptation syndrome, distress, eustress, passion, frustration, higher feelings, intellectual feelings, aesthetic feelings, moral feelings, anger, aggression, joy, fear, anxiety, situational anxiety, personal anxiety.

Questions for self-control

1. Compare emotions and feelings. What are their similarities? What are the differences?

2. How does Charles Darwin explain the emergence of emotions?

3. What is the essence of the theory of cognitive dissonance?

4. Name the emotional states depending on the form of flow.

5. What is the specificity of affect?

6. What are the similarities between stress and affect? And what are the differences?

7. Is passion a feeling or an emotion?

8. What caused the experience of frustration?