Defining emotions is more complex than I originally thought. Emotions are multidimensional. They exist as subjective, biological, purposive and social phenomena. According to Reeve (2009) emotions are short-lived, feeling-arousal-purposive-expressive phenomena that helps a person adapt to opportunities and challenges that people face during important life events.
Currently there is debate within the academic World as what causes emotions. The cognitive arguments states, that individuals cannot respond emotionally unless they first cognitively appraise the meaning and personal significance of an event. While the Biological argument is that bodily mechanisms trigger emotions, such as spontaneous facial expressions. Another theory of what causes emotions is the Two-system view. According to this view people have two synchronous systems that activate and regulate emotions – one is an innate, spontaneous, physiological system that reacts involuntarily to emotional stimuli, while the other is an experience-based cognitive system that reacts interpretively and socially. I personally feel that the Two-system view is more accurate when trying to determine what causes emotions, as I feel that some emotions need both a biological and cognitive arousal, while other emotions only need either biological or cognitive arousal. For example, for a person to feel guilty they need to be cognitively aware that what they did was wrong, however, if a person is experiencing fear they would be experiencing biological arousal.
Once again the debate on how many emotions that people have comes down to biological vs. cognitive. The Cognitive theorists argue that several different emotions can arise from the same event as they can be interpreted differently and therefore, they believe that there are a limitless number of emotions. While the biological theorists believe that there are only a small number of basic emotions, they believe that basic emotions are universal to all animals and that basic emotion are products of biology and evolution. However, one aspects that they do not agree on the a exact number of emotions that a person has, for example, the opponent-process theory believes that people have two emotions, such as fear vs. euphoria, while the differential emotions theory believes that people have ten emotions, such as, anger, fear, distress, joy, disgust, surprise, shame, guilt, interest, contempt.
Basic emotions are innate and universal, they occur in all people irrespective of age, gender and culture, they are expressed uniquely and distinctively and they are distinctive physiological patterned response. Two emotions that I feel are the most powerful are fear, sadness and joy. Life is driven by these three basic emotions, while throughout a persons life they will experience numerous emotions, I personally believe that when a person thinks back on the most powerful memories in their lives the memories mainly consist of experiences that consisted of fear, sadness or joy. People are afraid of committing to relationships, going into a new job, moving, life is driven by fear, it is how a person handles that fear that is important. One of the most powerful memories that I have is when I was twelve I was boogie boarding at the beach when a hug wave pulled me under, the rope from the board went around my neck and I struggled to reach the surface. This memory will always stay with me because I was terrified and for years I was afraid of going into the ocean, however, I overcame that fear and now I love the water again. Everyone experiences sadness in their lives, it can range from not getting a job, a relationship ending or a loved one dieing. For me personally, a memory that will always stick with me and still makes me cry is losing my eleven month old niece this year to an unknown death. Joy is another emotion that is extremely powerful in a person’s life, joy in finding love or having a baby. A joyful memory of mine is when my boyfriend, asked me out for the first time, I was so giddy and happy. These emotions are extremely powerful and motivational in a person’s life and they help to shape who the person is. While I do feel that negative emotions or memories may stick with us longer, I think that it is important that we remember the joyful times in our lives, just as much or if not more.
Fear
Fear is an emotion that is related to danger and a threat to a person's well-being. It can be Physical or psychological and it primes the fight or flight response.
Sadness
Sadness is an negative emotion, that arises from seperation or failure. Sadness motivates behaviour, while allevating the distress provoking circumstances or withdrawal and helpelessness.
Joy
Joy comes from desirable outcomes, it makes people feel enthusiastic and outgoing. The emotion motivates people to engage in social interactions, counterbalances negative emotions and facilitates psycholigical well-being.
I think that it is really important to state the difference between mood and emotion, as they can sometimes be confused. According to Reeve (2009) moods are relatively stable positive or negative affect where emotions emerge from situational events are they are usually short lived. Emotions and moods are different because they have different antecedents; emotions arise from life events and how a person appraises these situations, while moods arise from ill-defined and often unknown processes, they have different action-specificity; emotions mostly influence behaviour and what actions people take, while moods mostly influence cognition and people thoughts, they have different time courses; emotions are short lives, while moods are enduring. After reading this week’s chapter the difference between the two became clearer, however, I feel that the two can also interact, I think that a person’s mood can make a person more susceptible to feel a certain emotion.
One question that stuck out for me in this weeks lecture was how can emotions be measured? I think that it is extremely difficult to measure a person’s emotions. Manly because people would either have to measure their own emotions or someone else and this is extremely subjectable, is different people may measure an emotion in different ways, or they may not understand what emotions they are feeling or why they are feeling a certain way.
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