Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes,variously associated with thoughts,feelings,behavioral responses,and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood,temperament,personality,disposition,or creativity.
Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. It involves activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in the brain,which mediates wakefulness,the autonomic nervous system,and the endocrine system,leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness,desire,mobility,and reactivity.
An emotional expression is a behavior that communicates an emotional state or attitude. It can be verbal or nonverbal,and can occur with or without self-awareness. Emotional expressions include facial movements like smiling or scowling,simple behaviors like crying,laughing,or saying "thank you," and more complex behaviors like writing a letter or giving a gift. Individuals have some conscious control of their emotional expressions;however,they need not have conscious awareness of their emotional or affective state in order to express emotion.
Richard S. Lazarus was an American psychologist who began rising to prominence in the 1960s. A Review of General Psychology survey,published in 2002,ranked Lazarus as the 80th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. He was well renowned for his theory of cognitive-mediational theory within emotion.
Emotionality is the observable behavioral and physiological component of emotion. It is a measure of a person's emotional reactivity to a stimulus. Most of these responses can be observed by other people,while some emotional responses can only be observed by the person experiencing them. Observable responses to emotion do not have a single meaning. A smile can be used to express happiness or anxiety,while a frown can communicate sadness or anger. Emotionality is often used by experimental psychology researchers to operationalize emotion in research studies.
Appraisal theory is the theory in psychology that emotions are extracted from our evaluations of events that cause specific reactions in different people. Essentially,our appraisal of a situation causes an emotional,or affective,response that is going to be based on that appraisal. An example of this is going on a first date. If the date is perceived as positive,one might feel happiness,joy,giddiness,excitement,and/or anticipation,because they have appraised this event as one that could have positive long-term effects,i.e. starting a new relationship,engagement,or even marriage. On the other hand,if the date is perceived negatively,then our emotions,as a result,might include dejection,sadness,emptiness,or fear. Reasoning and understanding of one's emotional reaction becomes important for future appraisals as well. The important aspect of the appraisal theory is that it accounts for individual variability in emotional reactions to the same event.
Emotions are biocultural phenomena,meaning they are shaped by both evolution and culture. They are "internal phenomena that can,but do not always,make themselves observable through expression and behavior". While emotions themselves are universal,they are always influenced by culture. How they are experienced,expressed,perceived,and regulated varies according to cultural norms and values. Culture is a necessary framework to understand global variation in emotion.
Determination is a positive emotional feeling that promotes persevering towards a difficult goal in spite of obstacles. Determination occurs prior to goal attainment and serves to motivate behavior that will help achieve one's goal.
The self-regulation of emotion or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed. It can also be defined as extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring,evaluating,and modifying emotional reactions. The self-regulation of emotion belongs to the broader set of emotion regulation processes,which includes both the regulation of one's own feelings and the regulation of other people's feelings.
Cognitive appraisal is the subjective interpretation made by an individual to stimuli in the environment. It is a component in a variety of theories relating to stress,mental health,coping,and emotion. It is most notably used in the transactional model of stress and coping,introduced in a 1984 publication by Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman. In this theory,cognitive appraisal is defined as the way in which an individual responds to and interprets stressors in life. A variety of mental disorders have been observed as having abnormal patterns of cognitive appraisal in those affected by the disorder. Other work has detailed how personality can influence the way in which individuals cognitively appraise a situation.
The James–Lange theory (1964) is a hypothesis on the origin and nature of emotions and is one of the earliest theories of emotion within modern psychology. It was developed by philosopher John Dewey and named for two 19th-century scholars,William James and Carl Lange. The basic premise of the theory is that physiological arousal instigates the experience of emotion. Previously people considered emotions as reactions to some significant events or their features,i.e. events come first,and then there is an emotional response. James-Lange theory proposed that the state of the body can induce emotions or emotional dispositions. In other words,this theory suggests that when we feel teary,it generates a disposition for sad emotions;when our heartbeat is out of normality,it makes us feel anxiety. Instead of feeling an emotion and subsequent physiological (bodily) response,the theory proposes that the physiological change is primary,and emotion is then experienced when the brain reacts to the information received via the body's nervous system. It proposes that each specific category of emotion is attached to a unique and different pattern of physiological arousal and emotional behaviour in reaction due to an exciting stimulus.
Affect regulation and "affect regulation theory" are important concepts in psychiatry and psychology and in close relation with emotion regulation. However,the latter is a reflection of an individual's mood status rather than their affect. Affect regulation is the actual performance one can demonstrate in a difficult situation regardless of what their mood or emotions are. It is tightly related to the quality of executive and cognitive functions and that is what distinguishes this concept from emotion regulation. One can have a low emotional control but a high level of control on his or her affect,and therefore,demonstrate a normal interpersonal functioning as a result of intact cognition.
In psychology of art,the relationship between art and emotion has newly been the subject of extensive study thanks to the intervention of esteemed art historian Alexander Nemerov. Emotional or aesthetic responses to art have previously been viewed as basic stimulus response,but new theories and research have suggested that these experiences are more complex and able to be studied experimentally. Emotional responses are often regarded as the keystone to experiencing art,and the creation of an emotional experience has been argued as the purpose of artistic expression. Research has shown that the neurological underpinnings of perceiving art differ from those used in standard object recognition. Instead,brain regions involved in the experience of emotion and goal setting show activation when viewing art.
Emotion perception refers to the capacities and abilities of recognizing and identifying emotions in others,in addition to biological and physiological processes involved. Emotions are typically viewed as having three components:subjective experience,physical changes,and cognitive appraisal;emotion perception is the ability to make accurate decisions about another's subjective experience by interpreting their physical changes through sensory systems responsible for converting these observed changes into mental representations. The ability to perceive emotion is believed to be both innate and subject to environmental influence and is also a critical component in social interactions. How emotion is experienced and interpreted depends on how it is perceived. Likewise,how emotion is perceived is dependent on past experiences and interpretations. Emotion can be accurately perceived in humans. Emotions can be perceived visually,audibly,through smell and also through bodily sensations and this process is believed to be different from the perception of non-emotional material.
Interpersonal emotion regulation is the process of changing the emotional experience of one's self or another person through social interaction. It encompasses both intrinsic emotion regulation,in which one attempts to alter their own feelings by recruiting social resources,as well as extrinsic emotion regulation,in which one deliberately attempts to alter the trajectory of other people's feelings.
Expressive suppression is defined as the intentional reduction of the facial expression of an emotion. It is a component of emotion regulation.
The study of the relationship between gender and emotional expression is the study of the differences between men and women in behavior that expresses emotions. These differences in emotional expression may be primarily due to cultural expectations of femininity and masculinity.
Emotional approach coping is a psychological construct that involves the use of emotional processing and emotional expression in response to a stressful situation. As opposed to emotional avoidance,in which emotions are experienced as a negative,undesired reaction to a stressful situation,emotional approach coping involves the conscious use of emotional expression and processing to better deal with a stressful situation. The construct was developed to explain an inconsistency in the stress and coping literature:emotion-focused coping was associated with largely maladaptive outcomes while emotional processing and expression was demonstrated to be beneficial.
Affect labeling is an implicit emotional regulation strategy that can be simply described as "putting feelings into words". Specifically,it refers to the idea that explicitly labeling one's,typically negative,emotional state results in a reduction of the conscious experience,physiological response,and/or behavior resulting from that emotional state. For example,writing about a negative experience in one's journal may improve one's mood. Some other examples of affect labeling include discussing one's feelings with a therapist,complaining to friends about a negative experience,posting one's feelings on social media or acknowledging the scary aspects of a situation.
June Gruber is an American psychologist. She is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Director of the Positive Emotion and Psychopathology Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is known for her research on positive affectivity and mental health. She is a licensed clinical psychologist.
