The structure of emotions. Psychology mental states

Emotions are distinguished by a complex structure, no matter how elementary they may seem to us at first glance.

An outstanding German psychologist of the 19th century. W. Wundt developed three-dimensional theory of the senses. He put forward the idea that emotions are characterized by three qualities - "pleasure or displeasure", "excitation or calming" and "tension or resolution (release from tension)". Emotional states are characterized by either one, or two, or three of these polar states.

Pleasure and displeasure. Pleasure and displeasure are experienced by a person in connection with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of his needs. They are experienced as a person's positive or negative emotional attitude to the phenomena of the surrounding reality, as well as to his own actions, to himself and the actions of others. These subjective experiences constitute the psychological basis of emotions.

Through the experience of pleasure or displeasure, emotions act as the strongest motives for action. For example, enjoyment of a game may encourage a person to continue it, and displeasure to stop it.

Excitement and calm. Many emotions are characterized by a greater or lesser degree of nervous excitement. In some cases, for example, in a state of anger, this excitement is intense and vivid; in others - for example, during rest - to a weak degree, sometimes decreasing to a state of calm.

tension and resolution. The state of tension is characteristic of emotions experienced in cases related to the expectation of important events or circumstances for a person, in which he will have to act quickly, energetically, overcoming significant difficulties, sometimes realizing the danger of upcoming actions. Opposite features are characterized by the emotion of resolution, when tension subsides and is replaced by either action or relaxation. For example, a person is preparing to cross the road at a green traffic light - his body is tense, he is all in anticipation. And then the green light turns on - the person begins to move and the tension is replaced by an emotional state of liberation from the tension that has just been.

Classification of emotions. In view of the complexity and diversity of emotional experiences, it is difficult to give in to a general analysis. In this regard, psychology has not yet created a single generally recognized classification of emotions. Nevertheless, the following classification can be considered the most acceptable:

1. Excitement is a positive emotion that motivates learning, development of skills and abilities, creative aspirations, increases attention, curiosity and dedication to the object of interest.

2. Joy - characterized by a sense of confidence, self-worth and a feeling of love.

3. Surprise - occurs most often due to some new or sudden event, stimulates cognitive processes.

4. Grief - an emotion, experiencing which, a person loses heart, feels loneliness, feels sorry for himself, seeks to retire.

5. Anger - an emotion that causes a feeling of strength, a sense of courage and self-confidence, is the beginning of the expression of displeasure and aggression.

6. Disgust is manifested in the desire to get rid of someone or something, combined with anger can stimulate destructive behavior.

7. Contempt develops as a means of preparing for a meeting with a dangerous, unpleasant, insignificant object, the basis for the emergence is a sense of superiority and a dismissive attitude towards people.

8. Fear arises in situations of real or imagined danger, is accompanied by strong insecurity and bad forebodings, motivates avoidance reactions.

9. Shame motivates withdrawal reactions, the desire to hide, to disappear.

10. Guilt arises from violations of moral and ethical standards in situations where a person feels personally responsible.

Emotions reflect the significance for a person of various situations, their assessment, the same stimuli can cause very different, dissimilar responses in people. It is by expressions of emotions that we can judge the features of the emotional sphere of a person.

NEEDS

In psychology, it is generally accepted that needs are the basis of any human behavior. Based on the principles of self-preservation, self-development and self-realization of the individual, a need should be considered as a state of a known lack of something that a person tries to fill, an internal tension of the body that motivates activity and determines the nature and direction of all actions and deeds. And the stronger the need, the greater this tension, the more eagerly a person strives to achieve those conditions of existence and development that he needs. According to the apt remark of the professor of psychology, academician B.F. Lomov, the needs of people dictate their behavior with the same imperiousness as the force of gravity dictates the movement of physical bodies.

Needs are called internal (mental) states experienced by a person when he is in urgent need of something.

The process of education and development of needs is very complex and multifaceted. Firstly, it can be associated with a change in the position of a person in life, in the system of his relationships with other people. In each age period, in accordance with the requirements of the social environment, a person occupies various positions and performs various social roles. A person only then experiences pleasure, feels comfortable and is satisfied with himself when he is able to meet the requirements placed on him.

Secondly, new needs may arise in the process of assimilation by a person of new forms of behavior, mastering ready-made cultural values, acquiring certain skills and abilities.

Thirdly, the needs themselves can develop from elementary to more complex, qualitatively new forms.

Fourthly, the structure of the motivational-need sphere itself changes or develops: as a rule, the leading, dominant needs and their subordination change with age.

Fifth, in contrast to the needs of animals, which are more or less stable in nature and limited in their number by biological needs, human needs multiply and change all the time during his life: human society creates for its members more and more new needs that were absent in previous generations. Social production creates new commodities, thus increasing people's needs.

Classification of needs. The concept of need is used in three meanings: as a designation of a) an object of the external environment necessary for normal life (need-object); b) the state of the psyche, reflecting the lack of something (need-state); c) the fundamental properties of a person that determine his attitude to the world (need-property).

These types of needs are divided into conservation needs and development needs. Conservation needs are met within social norms, and development needs tend to exceed these norms.

The ideologist and author of another classification of needs is A. Maslow, who relied on the principle of relative priority of actualization of motives, which states that before the needs of higher levels are activated and begin to determine the behavior, the needs of the lower level must be satisfied.

The classification of motives according to A. Maslow is as follows:

Physiological Needs: hunger, thirst, sexuality, etc., to the extent that they have a homeostatic and organismic nature;

Security Needs: security and protection from pain, fear, anger, disorder;

Social connection needs: needs for love, tenderness, social connection, identification;

Self Esteem Needs: need for recognition, approval;

Needs of self-actualization: realization of one's own capabilities and abilities; need for understanding and understanding.

Need Mechanism. It should be pointed out that in dynamics the process of satisfying needs goes through three stages:

1. voltage stage(when there is a feeling of objective insufficiency in something). Motivation is based on the physiological mechanism of activating the traces of those external objects stored in the memory that are able to satisfy the body's need, and the traces of those actions that can lead to its satisfaction. There is no motivation without a need state.

2. Evaluation stage(when there is a real possibility of owning, for example, a certain object and a person can satisfy his need). This is the stage of correlating objective and subjective possibilities of satisfying needs. On the basis of innate and, mainly, previously acquired individual experience, not only the object of satisfying the need is predicted, but also the probability (possibility) of obtaining or avoiding a vital factor if the latter is harmful to a person.

3. saturation stage(when tension and activity are reduced to a minimum). This stage is distinguished by the discharge of accumulated tension and, as a rule, is accompanied by the receipt of pleasure or pleasure.

Different needs are characterized by different deadlines for their satisfaction. Satisfaction of biological needs cannot be delayed for a long time. The satisfaction of social needs is limited by the duration of human life. Achieving ideal goals can be attributed to the distant future. The target distance scale is reflected in everyday consciousness as the "size of the soul", which can be both large and small.

MOTIVATION

If human behavior is based on needs that directly induce an individual to activity, then the direction of behavior is determined by a system of dominant motives. The motive is always the experience of something personally significant for the individual.

The motives of behavior can be both unconscious (instincts and drives) and conscious (aspirations, desires, desires). In addition, the implementation of a particular motive is closely related to volitional effort (arbitrariness - involuntary) and control over behavior.

Instinct- this is a set of innate human actions, which are complex unconditioned reflexes necessary for adaptation and performance of vital functions (food, sexual and protective instincts, self-preservation instinct, etc.).

attraction Most common in very young children. Attraction is most closely connected with the elementary feelings of pleasure and displeasure. Every feeling of pleasure is associated with a natural desire to maintain and continue this state.

Pursuit. As the child's consciousness develops, his drives begin to be accompanied at first by a still vague, and then by an increasingly clear consciousness of the need he is experiencing. This occurs in those cases when the unconscious desire to satisfy the need that has arisen encounters an obstacle and cannot be realized. In such cases, the unsatisfied need begins to be realized in the form of a still vague desire for a more or less definite object or object with which this need can be satisfied.

Wish. Its characteristic feature is a clear and definite idea of ​​the goal to which a person aspires. Desire always refers to the future, to what is not yet in the present, what has not yet arrived, but what we would like to have or what we would like to do. At the same time, there are still no or very vague ideas about the means by which a clearly set goal can be achieved.

desires are a higher stage in the development of motives for action, when the representation of the goal is joined by the idea of ​​the means by which this goal can be achieved. This allows you to make a more or less solid plan to achieve your goal. Compared with a simple desire, desire has a more active, businesslike character: it expresses the intention to carry out an action, the desire to achieve the goal with the help of certain means.

motivational process. Some motives, inducing activity, at the same time give it a personal meaning; these motives are called sense-forming. Others coexisting with them and performing the role of motivating factors (positive or negative) - sometimes acutely emotional, affective - are deprived of a sense-forming function; conditionally they are called motives-stimuli.

Motivational attraction can be provided by:

Mechanisms of formation of motivation. The formation of a conscious-volitional level of motivation consists, firstly, in the formation of hierarchical regulation; secondly, in contrasting the highest level of this regulation with spontaneously formed, impulsive drives, needs, interests, which begin to act no longer as internal in relation to the person's personality, but rather as external, although belonging to it.

The formation of motivation has two mechanisms, within which the impact can be carried out in the following ways:

First way – impact on the emotional and cognitive sphere. The main goal is to bring a person to rethink his needs, change the intrapersonal atmosphere, value system and attitudes to reality by communicating certain knowledge, forming beliefs, arousing interest and positive emotions.

Second way consists in influencing the active sphere. Its essence boils down to ensuring that, through specially organized conditions of activity, at least selectively satisfy certain needs. And then, through an expediently justified change in the nature of activity, try, by strengthening the old ones, to form new, necessary needs.

Emotions are positive and negative. This is known to those who have experienced emotions at least once, i.e. all. But the concepts of positivity and negativity of emotions require some clarification in terms of their gradation. For example, the emotions of anger, fear, shame cannot be unconditionally categorized as negative, negative, but may arise in a state of so-called mixed feelings.

simple emotions allow you to establish the significance of the conditions for meeting actual needs, caused by both real and imaginary situations.

Joy- a positive state associated with the ability to fully satisfy the current need.

Astonishment - a state caused by a strong impression, striking surprise, unusualness, strangeness.

Fear arises as a result of a real or imaginary danger that threatens the life of the organism, the person, the values ​​\u200b\u200bprotected by it (ideals, goals, principles, etc.).

Anger - dissatisfaction, indignation, irritation that occurs when needs or expectations are not satisfied.

Pleasure - satisfaction from pleasant sensations, from satisfying experiences.

Shame arises in a person when he commits acts that are contrary to the requirements of morality, degrading the dignity of the individual.

Disgust - sharp hostility, combined with disgust.

Contempt - the attitude caused by the recognition of someone or something unworthy, not deserving of respect, vile, morally low, insignificant.

Suffering - negative emotional state, the cause of which is the possession of true or apparent information that the ability to meet the most important needs of life is absent or difficult.

Feelings - complex, well-established attitudes of the individual to what she learns and does are associated with the work of consciousness, can be arbitrarily regulated, and play a motivating role in human life and activity.

No less popular is the classification by content.

Moral - one of the ways of normative regulation of human actions in society. These include: approval and condemnation.

Moral - duty, humanity, benevolence, love, friendship, patriotism, sympathy, etc.

Immoral - greed, selfishness, cruelty, etc.

intellectual are manifested in the process of cognitive activity, in solving new, difficult problems. These include: curiosity, curiosity, surprise, bewilderment, satisfaction with the solution found, doubt.

aesthetic human experiences arise when perceiving works of art, beautiful objects, natural phenomena, etc., stimulate the social activity of a person, have a regulatory influence on his behavior and influence the formation of personality ideals.

These include: beautiful, sublime, delight, pleasure, etc.

Passion - having a strong and sustained positive feeling for something or someone.

Mood - stable states of medium or very low strength, which act for a long time.

affects- rapidly flowing, short-term emotional states, accompanied by pronounced organic and motor reactions.

Frustration - a state that occurs when faced with unexpected obstacles and obstacles on the way to achieving a goal, which interferes with the satisfaction of needs.

Stress- a state of psychological overstrain that occurs when the nervous system is emotionally overloaded.

Inspiration occurs when the purpose of the activity is clear, and the results are accurately presented, moreover, as necessary and valuable.

From duration and intensity flowing emotional states are divided into weak and strong (rapidly flowing).

Weak - mood - a long emotional state that does not reach significant intensity, captivating a person for some time and affecting the activity and behavior of a person.

Strong - affect. An important specific feature of affects is their occurrence in response to an accomplished event.

S.L. Rubinstein identified two main features that distinguish the mood.

• 1. They are not subject, but personal.
• 2. This is not a specific and concrete experience, but a general state that is related to one particular situation or fact.

Classifications according to the effect on the body are also known:

sthenic - raising the activity, vigor and activity of a person;

asthenic- Decreasing activity, weakening energy.

By duration:

short-term; long.

Flow form:

sentiments;

affects;

passions;

Classification according to V.I. Slobodchikov, E.I. Isaev:

• ? affects;
• ? passions;
• ? stress;
• ? feelings;
• ? specific emotions;
• ? moods.

Important to remember!

The processes of emotional perception, awareness and the development of behavioral reactions are performed by many parts of the brain.

limbic system. J.-W. Parets proposed that the singular cortex, entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus form a circle that is involved in the mechanisms of motivation and emotions. And the psychologist P.-D. McLean (MacLean, 1949), including the amygdala in this system, called it limbic.

Hypothalamus. Scientists Aldous and Fobes (Olds, Fobs, 1981) discovered the pleasure center. When stimulated, a person experiences pleasure. In the lateral hypothalamus, two types of neurons have been identified that respond differently to emotional situations. The first type is motivational (maximum activity in motivational behavior was found). The second type is reinforcing, since these cells are activated upon reaching the desired (on reaching the goal).

Tonsil (amygdala) plays a role in several types of emotional behavior: aggression, fear, disgust, maternal behavior. This structure is responsible for the behavioral, autonomic and hormonal components of the conditioned emotional response by activating the neural circuits located in the hypothalamus and brain stem.

Sensory association cortex analyzes complex complex stimuli and transmits information to the amygdala.

Orbitofrontal cortex included in the assessment of action sequences. It is not directly involved in the decision-making process, but translates these decisions into practice, in relation to a specific situation. Her central connections to diencephanol and the temporal region provide her with information about the emotional significance of the signal. Dorsal connections with the singular cortex allow it to influence both behavior and autonomic changes.

Singular bark provides a link between the decision-making structures in the frontal cortex, the emotional structures of the limbic system, and the brain mechanisms that control movement. It is the focus of sensory and efficient systems.

• Stolyarenko LD. Fundamentals of psychology. 3rd ed., revised. and additional Rostov-na/D.: Phoenix, 2000.
• Slobodchikov V.I., Isaev E.I. Fundamentals of psychological anthropology. Human Psychology: An Introduction to the Psychology of Subjectivity. M.: School-Press, 1995.

Psychology of the emotional state

• Plan
• Introduction
• 1.1. Types and role of emotions in human life
• 1.2. Psychological theories of emotion
• 1.3 Emotional states
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Introduction

Any human activity is connected with the fulfillment of needs. Emotional experiences are one of the ways of expressing cognitive needs.

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.

Emotional states are one of a variety of emotions, characterized by a longer duration, which can be measured in hours and days.

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.

Knowledge of the psychological foundations and nature of emotional states is one of the necessary factors for self-regulation of personality behavior.

The above provisions indicate the relevance of the topic of the course work.

The purpose of the course work is to study the psychological foundations of emotional states.

Work tasks:

1. Expand the concept of emotions, their types and role in human life.

2. Conduct a review of psychological theories on the problem of emotions.

3. Describe the characteristics of emotional states.

4. Give ways to eliminate negative emotional states.

1. Psychology of human emotional states

1.1 Types and role of emotions in human life

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. Groysman 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 accompanying physiological reactions, in some cases, pointlessness, which is expressed in the fact that the subject can be hidden the reason and the reason that caused them, as well as some uncertainty of 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.

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.

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, fixed 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, 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.

1.2. Psychological theories of emotion

Numerous physiological changes in the body are accompanied by any emotional state. Throughout the history of the development of this area of ​​psychological knowledge, attempts have been made more than once to link physiological changes in the body with certain emotions and to show that the complexes of organic signs accompanying various emotional processes are indeed different.

The desire to find the root cause of emotional states led to the emergence of different points of view, which are reflected in the relevant theories.

In 1872, C. Darwin published the book Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, which was a turning point in understanding the relationship between biological and psychological phenomena, in particular, the organism and emotions. It proved that the evolutionary principle is applicable not only to the biophysical, but also to the psychological and behavioral development of the living, that there is no impassable abyss between the behavior of an animal and a person. Darwin showed that in the external expression of different emotional states, in expressive bodily movements, there is much in common between anthropoids and blind children. These observations formed the basis of the theory of emotions, which was called evolutionary. Emotions, according to this theory, appeared in the process of evolution of living beings as vital adaptive mechanisms that contribute to the adaptation of the organism to the conditions and situations of its life. According to Darwin, bodily changes accompanying various emotional states, in particular those associated with the corresponding emotions of movement, are nothing but the rudiments of the body's real adaptive reactions.

The modern history of emotions begins with the James-Lange theory, according to which the root causes of emotions are organic (physical, bodily) changes.

The obligatory inclusion of bodily reactions in emotional experiences served as the basis for W. James, an outstanding American psychologist, to formulate the theory of emotions, according to which subjectively experienced emotions are nothing more than the experience of bodily changes occurring in the body in response to the perception of some fact .

Reflecting in the human psyche through a feedback system, they give rise to an emotional experience of the corresponding modality. According to this point of view, first, under the influence of external stimuli, changes in the body characteristic of emotions occur, and only then, as a result of them, does the emotion itself arise. Thus, peripheral organic changes, which before the advent of the James-Lange theory were considered as consequences of emotions, became their root cause.

As proof, James suggests that we imagine some kind of emotion and mentally subtract from the whole complex of experiences all the sensations of the bodily organs. As a result, we will see that there is nothing left of the emotion. Figuratively, this dependence, according to James, can be expressed by the formula: "We cry not because we are sad, but we are sad because we cry."

An alternative point of view on the correlation of organic and emotional processes was proposed by W. Kennon. He was one of the first to note the fact that the bodily changes observed during the occurrence of different emotional states are very similar to each other and are not sufficient in diversity to completely satisfactorily explain the qualitative differences in the highest emotional experiences of a person. The internal organs, with changes in the states of which James and Lange associated the emergence of emotional states, in addition, are rather insensitive structures that very slowly come into a state of excitation. Emotions usually arise and develop quite quickly.

Cannon's strongest counterargument to the James-Lange theory turned out to be the following: an artificially induced cessation of the flow of organic signals to the brain does not prevent the emergence of emotions. Cannon's provisions were developed by P. Bard, who showed that in fact both bodily changes and the emotional experiences associated with them occur almost simultaneously.

In later studies, it was found that of all the structures of the brain, the most functionally connected with emotions is not even the thalamus itself, but the hypothalamus and the central parts of the limbic system. In experiments on animals, it was found that electrical effects on these structures can control emotional states, such as anger, fear (J. Delgado).

The psycho-organic theory of emotions (this is how the concepts of James-Lange and Cannon-Bard can be conditionally called) was further developed under the influence of electrophysiological studies of the brain. On its basis, the activation theory of Lindsay-Hebb arose. According to this theory, emotional states are determined by the influence of the reticular formation of the lower part of the brain stem. Emotions arise as a result of disturbance and restoration of balance in the corresponding structures of the central nervous system. The activation theory is based on the following main provisions:

The electroencephalographic picture of the brain that occurs with emotions is an expression of the so-called "activation complex" associated with the activity of the reticular formation.

The work of the reticular formation determines many dynamic parameters of emotional states: their strength, duration, variability, and a number of others.

Following the theories explaining the relationship between emotional and organic processes, there appeared theories describing the influence of emotions on the psyche and human behavior. Emotions, as it turned out, regulate activity, revealing a quite definite influence on it, depending on the nature and intensity of the emotional experience. BEFORE. Hebb was able to experimentally obtain a curve expressing the relationship between the level of emotional arousal of a person and the success of his practical activities.

To achieve the highest result in activity, both too weak and very strong emotional arousal are undesirable. For each person (and in general for all people) there is an optimum of emotional excitability, which ensures maximum efficiency in work. The optimal level of emotional arousal, in turn, depends on many factors: on the characteristics of my activity, on the conditions in which it takes place, on the individuality of the person included in it, and on many other things. Too weak emotional arousal does not provide proper motivation for activity, and too strong one destroys it, disorganizes and makes it practically uncontrollable.

In a person, in the dynamics of emotional processes and states, cognitive-psychological factors (cognitive means related to knowledge) play no less a role than organic and physical influences. In this regard, new concepts have been proposed that explain human emotions by the dynamic features of cognitive processes.

One of the first such theories was L. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. According to it, a person has a positive emotional experience when his expectations are confirmed, and cognitive ideas are realized, i.e. when the actual results of the activity correspond to the intended ones, are consistent with them, or, what is the same, are in consonance. Negative emotions arise and intensify in cases where there is a discrepancy, inconsistency or dissonance between the expected and actual results of the activity.

Subjectively, the state of cognitive dissonance is usually experienced by a person as discomfort, and he seeks to get rid of it as soon as possible. The way out of the state of cognitive dissonance can be twofold: either change cognitive expectations and plans in such a way that they correspond to the actual result obtained, or try to get a new result that would be consistent with previous expectations. In modern psychology, the theory of cognitive dissonance is often used to explain the actions of a person, his actions in various social situations. Emotions are considered as the main motive for the corresponding actions and deeds. The underlying cognitive factors are given a much greater role in determining human behavior than organic changes.

The dominant cognitivist orientation of modern psychological research has led to the fact that conscious assessments that a person gives to situations are also considered as psychogenic factors. It is believed that such assessments directly affect the nature of emotional experience.

In addition to what was said about the conditions and factors for the emergence of emotions and their dynamics by W. James, K Lange, W. Cannon, P. Bard, D. Hebb and L. Festinger, S. Schechter made his contribution. He showed that a person's memory and motivation make a significant contribution to emotional processes. The concept of emotions proposed by S. Schechter is called cognitive-physiological.

According to this theory, the emerging emotional state, in addition to the perceived stimuli and the bodily changes generated by them, is influenced by a person's past experience and his assessment of the current situation from the point of view of his interests and needs. An indirect confirmation of the validity of the cognitive theory of emotions is the influence of verbal instructions on human experiences, as well as that additional emotional information that is intended to change a person’s assessment of the situation that has arisen.

In one of the experiments aimed at proving the stated provisions of the cognitive theory of emotions, people were given a physiologically neutral solution as a “medicine”, accompanied by various instructions. In one case, they were told that this "medicine" should cause them a state of euphoria, in the other - a state of anger. After taking the appropriate "medicine", the subjects after some time, when it was supposed to begin to act according to the instructions, were asked what they felt. It turned out that the emotional experiences they were talking about corresponded to what was expected from the instructions given to them.

It was also shown that the nature and intensity of a person's emotional experiences in a given situation depend on how they are experienced by other people nearby. This means that emotional states can be transmitted from person to person, and in a person, unlike animals, the quality of communicated emotional experiences depends on his personal relationship to the one with whom he empathizes.

Domestic physiologist P.V. Simonov tried in a brief symbolic form to present his totality of factors influencing the emergence and nature of emotion. He proposed the following formula for this:

E \u003d F (P, (In-Is, ...)),

where E is an emotion, its strength and quality; / 7 - the magnitude and specificity of the actual need; (In - Is) - an assessment of the probability (possibility) of satisfying this need on the basis of innate and lifelong experience; In-- information about the means prognostically necessary to meet the existing need; Is - information about the means that a person has at a given time. According to the formula proposed by P.V. Simonov (his concept can also be classified as cognitivist and has a special name - informational), the strength and quality of the emotion that arose in a person is ultimately determined by the strength of the need and the assessment of the ability to satisfy it in the current situation.

The cerebral cortex plays a leading role in the regulation of emotional states. I.P. Pavlov showed that it is the cortex that regulates the flow and expression of emotions, keeps under its control all the phenomena occurring in the body, has an inhibitory effect on the subcortical centers, controls them. The second signal system plays a significant role in the emotional experiences of a person, since experiences arise not only under the direct influence of the external environment, but can also be caused by words and thoughts.

The author of the course work shares the concept of the dual nature of emotions. Physiological changes are one of the two components of emotions, and a very non-specific component. A number of physiological reactions are manifested both with positive and negative emotions, for example, the heart can beat not only from fear, but also from joy, the same is true for the frequency of breathing and many other reactions. The specificity of emotions is given by the subjective coloring of experiences, thanks to which we will never confuse fear with joy, despite the similarity of some of the physiological reactions that accompany them. Subjective experience of emotion, i.e. its qualitative feature is called the modality of emotion. The modality of emotions is the subjectively experienced fear, joy, surprise, annoyance, anger, despair, delight, love, hatred, etc.

Thus, according to the authors of the textbook, each emotion consists of two components - an impressive one, characterized by the experience of the subjective uniqueness of this emotion, and an expressive one - involuntary reactions of the body, including the reactions of internal organs and systems, undifferentiated muscle reactions (trembling, increased tone), as well as the so-called expressive movements, which, among other things, have a communicative, signal character (cry, facial expressions, posture, voice intonations).

1.3 Emotional states

As mentioned above, 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, have an ideational character and are, as it were, at the beginning of it. 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 the idea of ​​previously experienced or imaginary 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 the senses is that they are improved and, developing, form a number of levels, ranging from direct feelings to the highest feelings related to spiritual values ​​and ideals. Feelings are historical. In the individual development of a person, feelings play an important role. They act as a significant factor in the formation of personality, especially its motivational sphere. On the basis of positive emotional experiences such as feelings, the needs and interests of a person appear and are fixed. Feelings play a motivating role in the life and activities of a person, in his communication with other people.

Affects are especially pronounced emotional states, accompanied by visible changes in the behavior of the person who experiences them. Affect does not precede behavior, but is, as it were, shifted to its end. This is a reaction that arises as a result of an already completed action or deed and expresses a subjective emotional coloring in terms of the extent to which, as a result of the commission of this act, it was possible to achieve the goal, to satisfy the need that stimulated it. Affects contribute to the formation in the perception of the so-called affective complexes, which express the integrity of the perception of certain situations. The development of affect is subject to the following law: the stronger the initial motivational stimulus of behavior, and the more efforts had to be expended to realize it, the smaller the result obtained as a result of all this, the stronger the affect that arises. 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 affective situations can be summed up and sooner or later, if it is not given an outlet in time, lead to a strong and violent emotional discharge, which, relieving tension, often entails a feeling of fatigue, depression, depression.

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 disorganizes human activity, disrupts the normal course of his behavior. Stress, especially if it is frequent and prolonged, has a negative impact not only on the psychological state, but also on the physical health of a person. They are the main "risk factors" in the appearance and exacerbation of diseases such as the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal tract.

Passion is another type of complex, qualitatively peculiar and found only in humans emotional states. Passion is a fusion of emotions, motives and feelings centered around a particular activity or subject. Passion is a great force, which is why it is so important what it is directed to. The infatuation of passion can come from unconscious bodily impulses, and it can be imbued with the greatest consciousness and ideology. Passion means, in essence, impulse, passion, orientation of all aspirations and forces of the individual in a single direction, concentrating them on a single goal. Precisely because passion gathers, absorbs, and throws all its strength into one thing, it can be pernicious and even fatal, but that is precisely why it can also be great. Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without great passion.

Speaking about different types of emotional formations and states, it is necessary to highlight the mood. Under the mood understand the general emotional state of the individual, expressed in the "system" of all its manifestations. Two main features characterize the mood in contrast to other emotional formations. Emotions, feelings are connected with some object and directed at it: we are happy about something, upset about something, worried about something; but when a person is in a joyful mood, he is not just happy about something, but he is happy - sometimes, especially in his youth, so that everything in the world seems joyful and beautiful. The mood is not objective, but personal - this is, firstly, and, secondly, it is not a special experience dedicated to some particular event, but a diffuse general state.

The mood is closely connected with how the vital relations with others and with the course of one's own activity develop for the individual. Manifesting itself in the "system" of this activity, woven into effective relationships with others, the mood in it is also formed. At the same time, of course, the objective course of events in itself is not essential for the mood, regardless of the attitude of the individual towards it, but also how a person regards what is happening and relates to it. Therefore, a person’s mood significantly depends on his individual characterological characteristics, in particular, on how he relates to difficulties - whether he is inclined to overestimate them and lose heart, easily demobilizing, or in the face of difficulties, he, without indulging in carelessness, knows how to maintain confidence that that will deal with them.

Emotions affect the body and mind of a person, they affect almost all aspects of his existence. In a person experiencing an emotion, it is possible to fix a change in the electrical activity of the muscles of the face. Some changes are also observed in the electrical activity of the brain, in the functioning of the circulatory respiratory systems. An angry or frightened person's pulse may be 40 to 60 beats per minute higher than normal. Such drastic changes in somatic indicators when a person experiences a strong emotion indicate that almost all neurophysiological and somatic systems of the body are involved in this process. These changes inevitably affect the perception, thinking and behavior of the individual, and in extreme cases can lead to somatic mental disorders. Emotion activates the autonomic nervous system, which in turn affects the endocrine and neurohumoral systems. Mind and body require action. If, for one reason or another, behavior adequate to emotion is impossible for an individual, he is threatened with psychosomatic disorders. But it is not at all necessary to experience a psychosomatic crisis in order to feel how powerful the influence of emotions is on almost all somatic and physiological functions of the body. Whatever the emotion experienced by a person - powerful or barely expressed - it always causes physiological changes in his body, and these changes are sometimes so serious that they cannot be ignored. Of course, with smoothed, indistinct emotions, somatic changes are not so pronounced - before reaching the threshold of awareness, they often go unnoticed. But one should not underestimate the importance of such unconscious, subthreshold processes for the body. Somatic responses to a mild emotion are not as intense as a violent response to a strong emotional experience, but the duration of exposure to a subliminal emotion can be very long. What we call "mood" is usually formed under the influence of just such emotions. Prolonged negative emotion, even of moderate intensity, can be extremely dangerous and, in the end, even fraught with physical or mental disorders. Research in the field of neurophysiology suggests that emotions and mood affect the immune system, reduce resistance to disease. If you experience anger, anxiety or depression for a long time - even if these emotions are mild - then you are more likely to get a cold, flu or an intestinal infection. The influence of emotions on a person is generalized, but each emotion affects him in his own way. The experience of emotion changes the level of electrical activity of the brain, dictates which muscles of the face and body should be tense or relaxed, controls the endocrine, circulatory and respiratory systems of the body.

Elimination of unwanted emotional states

K. Izard notes three ways to eliminate an undesirable emotional state:

1) through another emotion;

2) cognitive regulation;

3) motor regulation.

The first way of regulation involves conscious efforts aimed at activating another emotion, opposite to the one that a person is experiencing and wants to eliminate. The second way involves using attention and thinking to suppress or control an unwanted emotion. This is the switching of consciousness to events and activities that arouse interest in a person, positive emotional experiences. The third method involves the use of physical activity as a channel for releasing the emotional tension that has arisen.

Private ways of regulating the emotional state (for example, the use of breathing exercises, mental regulation, the use of "defense mechanisms", a change in the direction of consciousness) basically fit into the three global ways noted by Izard.

Currently, many different methods of self-regulation have been developed: relaxation training, autogenic training, desensitization, reactive relaxation, meditation, etc.

Mental regulation is associated either with external influence (another person, music, color, natural landscape), or with self-regulation.

In both cases, the most common is the method developed in 1932 by the German psychiatrist I. Schultz (1966) and called "autogenic training." At present, many of its modifications have appeared (Alekseev, 1978; Vyatkin, 1981; Gorbunov, 1976; Marishchuk, Khvoynov, 1969; Chernikova, Dashkevich, 1968, 1971, etc.).

Along with autogenic training, another system of self-regulation is known - "progressive relaxation" (muscle relaxation). When developing this method, E. Jacobson proceeded from the fact that with many emotions, skeletal muscle tension is observed. From here, in accordance with the James-Lange theory, to relieve emotional tension (anxiety, fear), he proposes to relax the muscles. Recommendations to depict a smile on the face in case of negative experiences and to activate a sense of humor also correspond to this method. Reassessment of the significance of the event, muscle relaxation after a person has laughed, and normalization of the heart - these are the components of the positive impact of laughter on a person's emotional state.

A.V. Alekseev (1978) created a new technique called "psycho-regulatory training", which differs from autogenic in that it does not use the suggestion of "feelings of heaviness" in various parts of the body, and also in that it contains not only calming, but also exciting part. It includes some elements from the methods of E. Jacobson and L. Percival. The psychological basis of this method is a dispassionate focus on the images and sensations associated with the relaxation of the skeletal muscles.

Changing the direction of consciousness. Variants of this method of self-regulation are diverse.

Disconnection (distraction) consists in the ability to think about anything, except for emotional circumstances. Switching off requires volitional efforts, with the help of which a person tries to focus on the presentation of extraneous objects and situations. Distraction was also used in Russian healing charms as a way to eliminate negative emotions (Sventsitskaya, 1999).

Switching is connected with the orientation of consciousness to some interesting business (reading an exciting book, watching a movie, etc.) or to the business side of the upcoming activity. As A. Ts. Puni and F. A. Grebaus write, switching attention from painful thoughts to the business side of even upcoming activities, comprehending difficulties through their analysis, clarifying instructions and tasks, mentally repeating upcoming actions, focusing on the technical details of the task, tactical techniques, and not on the significance of the result, gives a better effect than a distraction from the upcoming activity.

The decrease in the significance of the upcoming activity or the result obtained is carried out by giving the event a lower value or generally reassessing the significance of the situation, such as “I didn’t really want to”, “the main thing in life is not this, you should not treat what happened as a disaster”, “failures already were, and now I treat them differently,” etc. This is how L.N. Tolstoy describes in Anna Karenina the use of the latter technique by Levin: “Even at the beginning, after returning from Moscow, when Levin shuddered and blushed each time, remembering the shame of the refusal, he said to himself: “I blushed and shuddered just the same, considering everything dead, when I got an A in physics and remained in my second year, I also considered myself dead after spoiling my sister's work entrusted to me. and with this grief. Time will pass, and I will be indifferent to this ".

Here are some ways to help relieve stress.

Obtaining additional information that removes the uncertainty of the situation.

Development of a fallback strategy for achieving the goal in case of failure (for example, if I don’t enter this institute, I will go to another).

Postponing for a while the achievement of the goal in case of realizing the impossibility of doing this with the available knowledge, means, etc.

Physical relaxation (as I.P. Pavlov said, you need to “drive passion into the muscles”); since with a strong emotional experience the body gives a mobilization reaction for intensive muscular work, it is necessary to give it this work. To do this, you can take a long walk, do some useful physical work, etc. Sometimes such a discharge occurs in a person as if by itself: with extreme excitement, he rushes around the room, sorts out things, tears something, etc. Tick ​​(involuntary contraction of the muscles of the face), which occurs in many at the time of excitement, is also a reflex form of motor discharge of emotional stress.

Listening to music.

Writing a letter, writing in a diary outlining the situation and the reasons that caused emotional stress. It is recommended to divide a sheet of paper into two columns.

The use of defense mechanisms. Unwanted emotions can be overcome or reduced through strategies called defense mechanisms. 3. Freud identified several such defenses.

Withdrawal is a physical or mental escape from a situation that is too difficult. In young children, this is the most common defense mechanism.

Identification is the process of appropriating the attitudes and views of other people. A person adopts the attitudes of people who are powerful in his eyes and, becoming like them, feels less helpless, which leads to a decrease in anxiety.

Projection is the attribution of one's own antisocial thoughts and actions to someone else: "He did it, not me." In essence, this is shifting responsibility to another.

Displacement is the replacement of the real source of anger or fear by someone or something. A typical example of such protection is indirect physical aggression (displacing evil, annoyance on an object that has nothing to do with the situation that caused these emotions).

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Classification of emotions. Forms of emotional response.

Emotions(from lat. emovere- excite, excite) this is a special group of mental processes and states in which a person's subjective attitude to external and internal events of his life is expressed.

A person not only cognizes the surrounding reality, but also actively reacts to it and has an appropriate impact. Knowing reality, a person, one way or another, relates to it. Some events, phenomena, objects please him, others upset, annoy, others outrage, cause indignation, and even fits of rage.

Emotions (from the Latin emoveo - shock, excite) - the reaction of the human psyche to the impact of internal and external stimuli, which has a pronounced subjective coloring.

Emotions, as a rule, are a relatively simple direct form of mental reflection, proceeding in the form of experiences of personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations of a person's life. This reflection has a pronounced subjective character, each of us cries and laughs in his own way. Emotions can be a reaction not only to immediate events, but also to probable and remembered ones, they reflect events in the form of a generalized subjective assessment and can anticipate the result and action.

At present, the following components are called the main ones in the structure of emotions: 1) impressive (internal experience); 2) expressive (behavior, facial expressions, motor and speech activity); 3) physiological (vegetative changes). This view of the structure of emotions is held by E.P. Ilyin, K. Izard, G.M. Breslav, A.N. Luke, R. Lazarus et al.

Functions of emotions

Signal function emotions is expressed in the transfer to the interlocutor of information about his mental state, his attitude to the current situation, readiness to act in a certain way.

Regulating function emotions is to stimulate the activity of the individual. Emotions associated with negative experiences, as a rule, reduce performance. It is known that one minute of interpersonal conflict in a team generates 20 minutes of post-conflict experiences and a decrease in the performance of employees by 25%. Conversely, high spirits increase productivity.

Protective - mobilization function emotions associated with a sense of impending danger to the individual. She helps him prepare in time for a difficult situation. At the same time, preparation takes place not only at the level of analytical reflections on the search for protection options, but also at the level of psychophysiological changes in the body (release of an additional amount of adrenaline into the blood, bringing the corresponding muscle groups into a tense state, etc.).

Evaluation function emotions allows a person to form a subjective generalized assessment of current events, to recognize for them one or another level of usefulness or unacceptability, to assess their compliance with his current needs.

indicator of an artist's talent.

Types of emotions

Characteristics of emotions	Types of emotions
1 Sign	positive, negative, ambivalent
2 Modality	Joy, fear, anger, etc.
3 Impact on behavior and performance	Stenic (increasing activity), asthenic (decreasing activity)
4 Degree of awareness	Conscious, unconscious
5 Objectivity	Objective, non-objective
6 Degree of randomness	Arbitrary, involuntary
7 Origin	Congenital acquired Primary, secondary
8 Development level	lower, higher
9 Duration	short term, long term
10 Intensity	Weak, strong

Forms of emotional response:

affects, emotions, feelings and moods.

affects- these are strong and relatively short-term emotional states, accompanied by pronounced behavioral and physiological manifestations. Actions in the heat of passion, as a rule, implement "emergency behavior". Self-control is drastically reduced.

Emotions- a relatively longer and weaker experience manifested in external behavior. Expresses the evaluative attitude of the individual to the perceived information.

Fundamental emotions (according to K. Izard)

Interest - intellectual emotion, a sense of involvement that increases a person's ability to perceive and process information coming from the outside world, stimulating and ordering his activity.

Joy - an emotion characterized by an experience of psychological comfort and well-being, a positive attitude towards the world and oneself.

Astonishment - an emotion evoked by abrupt changes in stimulation that prepares a person to deal effectively with new or sudden events.

Sadness - experiencing the loss (temporary/permanent, real/imaginary, physical/psychological) of the object of satisfaction of the need, causing a slowdown in mental and physical activity, the general pace of human life.

Anger - an emotion evoked by a state of discomfort, restriction, or frustration, characterized by energy mobilization, high levels of muscle tension, self-confidence, and a willingness to attack or other forms of activity.

Disgust - emotional reaction of rejection, removal from physically or psychologically harmful objects.

Contempt- a sense of superiority, value and significance of one's own personality in comparison with the personality of another person (depreciation and depersonalization of the object of contempt), which increases the likelihood of committing "cold-blooded" aggression.

Fear - an emotion characterized by a feeling of insecurity, lack of confidence in one's own safety in a situation of threat to the physical and (or) mental "I" with a pronounced tendency to escape.

Shame - experience of one’s own inadequacy, incompetence and uncertainty in a situation of social interaction, one’s inconsistency with the requirements of the situation or the expectations of others, both contributing to the observance of group norms and having a devastating effect on the very possibility of communication, giving rise to alienation, the desire to be alone, to avoid others.

Guilt- an experience that arises in a situation of violation of the internal moral and ethical standard of behavior, accompanied by self-condemnation and repentance.

Feelings- long-term, stable components of the human mental structure, are of a pronounced objective nature, arise as a result of the generalization of emotions.

1. aesthetic feelings arise during the perception of the beautiful world, whether it be a natural phenomenon, a work of art or human actions (a sense of beauty, grandeur, baseness, comic and tragic).

2. Intellectual feelings accompany the process of cognition, imagination and creativity (amazement, doubt, bewilderment, neglect, curiosity).

3. Moral feelings characterize the activity of the subject in relation to another person, to people and to society as a whole (sense of duty, conscience, envy, patriotism, superiority).

4. Praxic Feelings arise in practical activity and reflect an emotional attitude both to the results and to the labor process itself.

Moods- relatively weakly expressed, diffuse experiences that are not related to a specific subject, can be held for a sufficiently long time, determine the general emotional tone.

Throughout the centuries-old history, the study of emotional states has received the closest attention, they have been assigned one of the central roles among the forces that determine the inner life and actions of a person.

The development of approaches to the study of emotional states was carried out by such psychologists as W. Wundt, V. K. Vilyunas, W. James, W. McDougall, F. Kruger.

W. Wundt

V.K.Vilyunas

W. McDougall

Teachings about feelings or emotions is the most undeveloped chapter in psychology. This is the side of human behavior that is more difficult to describe and classify, and also to explain by some kind of laws.

In modern psychological science, the following types and forms of experiencing feelings are distinguished:

• Moral.
• Intelligent.
• Aesthetic.
• subject.

moral feelings- these are feelings in which a person's attitude to the behavior of people and to his own is manifested. Moral feelings are alienation and affection, love and hatred, gratitude and ingratitude, respect and contempt, sympathy and antipathy, a sense of respect and contempt, a sense of camaraderie and friendship, patriotism and collectivism, a sense of duty and conscience. These feelings are generated by the system of human relations and the aesthetic norms that govern these relations.

Intellectual Feelings arise in the process of mental activity and are associated with cognitive processes. It is the joy of searching when solving a problem or a heavy feeling of dissatisfaction when it is not possible to solve it. Intellectual feelings also include the following: curiosity, curiosity, surprise, confidence in the correctness of the solution of the problem and doubt in case of failure, a sense of the new.

aesthetic feelings- this is a feeling of beauty or, on the contrary, ugly, rude; a feeling of greatness or, conversely, meanness, vulgarity.

Object feelings- feelings of irony, humor, a sense of the sublime, tragic.

Attempts to give more universal classifications of emotion were made by many scientists, but each of them put forward his own basis for this. So, T. Brown put the sign of time as the basis for classification, dividing emotions into immediate ones, that is, manifested "here and now", retrospective and prospective. Reed built a classification based on the relationship to the source of the action. I. Dodonov in 1978 notes that it is impossible to create a universal classification in general, therefore a classification suitable for solving one range of problems turns out to be ineffective for solving another range of problems

Emotions - (French emotion, from Latin emoveo - shake, excite) - a class of mental states and processes that express in the form of direct biased experience the meaning of reflected objects and situations for meeting the needs of a living being.

Emotion is a general, generalized reaction of the body to vital influences.

The class of emotions includes moods, feelings, affects, passions, stresses. These are the so-called "pure" emotions. They are included in all mental processes and human states. Any manifestations of his activity are accompanied by emotional experiences.

Of greatest importance is the division of emotions into higher and lower.

Higher (complex) emotions arise in connection with the satisfaction of social needs. They appeared as a result of social relations, labor activity. Lower emotions are associated with unconditioned reflex activity, based on instincts and being their expression (emotions of hunger, thirst, fear, selfishness).

Of course, since a person is an inseparable whole, the state of the emotional body directly affects all other bodies, including the physical one.

In addition, emotional states (more precisely, the states of the emotional body) can be caused not only by emotions. Emotions are pretty fleeting. There is an impulse - there is a reaction. There is no impulse - and the reaction disappears.

Emotional states are much more permanent. The reason for the current state may disappear long ago, but the emotional state remains and sometimes lingers for a long time. Of course, emotions and emotional states are inextricably linked: emotions change emotional states. But emotional states also affect emotional reactions, and in addition they affect thinking (i.e. mind). In addition, feelings contribute: they also change the emotional state. And since people often confuse where feelings are and where emotions are, then a simple process in general turns into something difficult to understand. Rather, this is not difficult to understand - it is difficult to put it into practice without preparation, and therefore (including therefore) people sometimes have difficulties with managing their emotions and emotional states.

It is possible to suppress an emotional state by an effort of will - this is the very suppression that is harmful, according to psychologists, all the more harmful both for a person and as a parent. You can switch yourself: artificially evoke in yourself (or attract from outside) some other impulse - react to it in some previously known way - a new emotion will add its stream and lead to a different emotional state. You can do nothing at all, but focus on living the current emotional state (this approach is mentioned in Buddhism and Tantra). This is nothing new, and we learn to suppress emotional states from childhood, considering this process the control of emotions ... but this is not true. Still, this is the control of emotional states, and with its help it is impossible to control emotions themselves.

And this is where the confusion appears: a person thinks that he is trying to control emotions - but he does not work with emotions. In reality, a person is trying to work with the consequences of emotions; but since he does not touch on the causes of his emotional state, his attempts will certainly be ineffective (of course, if he does not work with himself and in terms of choosing emotions) - in terms of emotional states, the difficulty is that our current state is the result of several different reasons at once , diverse reasons. Therefore, it is difficult to choose an intelligent method of self-regulation (especially if only emotions are taken into account and other areas of the psyche are not taken into account). However, it seems that with a sufficiently developed will, it is easier to work with one's own emotional states. Well, you should not lose sight of the fact that the causes from the sphere of feelings are weakly amenable to control and observation, at least at first.

Thus, there are a great many approaches to the classification and definition of emotions, emotions accompany all manifestations of the body's vital activity and perform important functions in the regulation of human behavior and activities:

· signaling function(signal about a possible development of events, a positive or negative outcome)

· estimated(assesses the degree of usefulness or harmfulness to the body)

· regulating(based on the received signals and emotional assessments, he chooses and implements ways of behavior and actions)

· mobilizing and disorganizing

adaptive the function of emotions is their participation in the process of learning and gaining experience.

The main emotional states distinguished in psychology:

1) Joy (satisfaction, fun)

2) Sadness (apathy, sadness, depression)

3) Fear (anxiety, fear)

4) Anger (aggression, anger)

5) Surprise (curiosity)

6) Disgust (contempt, disgust).

Positive emotions arising as a result of the interaction of the organism with the environment contribute to the consolidation of useful skills and actions, while negative ones force one to evade harmful factors.

What emotions and emotional state are you experiencing lately?