What are Emotions?
According to both Carl Jung and Social Anthropologist Abner Cohen, objects draw and invoke emotions. This is a natural phenomenon, and is essential for human survival
The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means "to stir up".
Emotions are a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence our behaviour.
Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something.
Emotions - It is often associated with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. feelings are often short-lived. Emotions are considered to long-lived and are believed to be often the driving force behind motiviation. Examples of emotions include affection, lust, hurt, jealousy, etc.
these emotions are connected to your biological systems, and are designed to alert you of danger, or to draw you to something pleasurable. If you did not possess emotions, you would carelessly walk right up to a lion in the Savanna wilderness.
If starving, you would not have the motivation needed to climb a tree, and pick it’s fruit to eat. Emotions seem to rule our daily lives. We make decisions based on whether we are happy, angry, sad, bored, or frustrated. We choose activities and hobbies based on the emotions they incite.
What exactly is an emotion?
"An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioralor expressive response."
(Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2007)
psychologist Paul Eckman suggested that there are six basic emotions that are universal throughout human cultures: fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness, and sadness. In 1999, he expanded this list to include a number of other basic emotions including embarrassment, excitement, contempt, shame, pride, satisfaction, and amusement.
Types
As defined, emotion is a subjective experience. There are over 7 billion humans on Earth, and each one of us experiences different kinds of emotions. For this reason, there is no clear answer as to the exact number of emotions and its types.
Robert Plutchik (1980) states that there are eight basic emotions, which include:
anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust and joy.
Many theorists also believe that the mixture of two or more emotions yields another kind of emotion, also know as a secondary emotion. For instance, anger and disgust might lead to contempt. There is probably no "correct" answer to how many emotions there are: It dependes on how you think about emotions.
The word ‘feeling’ is derived from the verb ‘to feel’ and means anything that can be experienced via touch, smell, see or any other sensory organ.
Feelings are believed to be a state of consciousness that arises from emotions, sentiments or desires. Feelings can be short-term or long-term depending on the type of feeling. For example, feelings of love are long-term, while happiness or sadness can be short-term. Examples of feelings include excitement, shock, pain (physical), etc.
What are Feelings?
As the objects in your world induce emotions within you, they are collected in the subconscious and begin to accumulate. This is especially so when similar events are repeatedly experienced. Ultimately they form a final emotional conclusion about life, how to live it, and more importantly, how to survive physically and mentally in a world of chaos. When this happens a feeling is born. In this way, emotions serve as a sort of, “Feelings Factory”.
Once feelings are established, they often feed back into your emotions to produce the appropriate result to insure survivability.
Imagine you observe your child approaching an electrical outlet with a paperclip in hand. Your sustained feeling of love for your child, will generate the temporary emotion of fear, and you quickly act by yelling “No!” and swatting your child’s hand away from the outlet. Perhaps your child responds with surprise and anger, and defiantly attempts to insert the paperclip into the outlet again. Your sustained feeling of love for your child, may generate thetemporary emotion of anger because your child is expressing stubbornness, and disrespect to your attempts at preserving his or her life.
Here is another example. Imagine that a professional snake handler offers you an opportunity to hold a snake. You may project the “Joy”, of touching the snake, because you really want the experience and the sensations that go along with it. However, you have difficulty moving past the”Fear”, of potentially getting bit. Your solution? To approach the situation with great caution. Caution is a sustainable feeling that is the balance point between two temporary, emotional potentialities. Namely, that of “Fear”, and “Joy”.
Feelings are products of emotions. But unlike short term, intense emotions, feelings are: low-key, stable and sustained over time.
Emotions Vs. Moods
In everyday language, people often use the terms 'emotions' and 'moods' interchangeably, but psychologists actually make distinctions between the two. How do they differ? An emotion is normally quite short-lived, but intense. Emotions are also likely to have a definite and identifiable cause. For example, after disagreeing with a friend over politics, you might feel angry for a short period of time. A mood on the other hand is usually much milder than an emotion, but longer-lasting. In many cases, it can be difficult to identify the specific cause of a mood. For example, you might find yourself feeling gloomy for several days without any clearly identifiable reason.
Emotions Vs. Feelings
Feelings and emotions are two related concepts that are often confused due to them being similar in nature. Many people use these words interchangeable and they may not be wrong as in many cases these words can be used interchangeably.
For example: A person could have happy feelings but this could also be their emotions. Confused how? Let’s look at the definitions below.
Emotions and feelings are often spoken of as being one and the same, and it’s easy to get them mixed up and confused. Although related, there is a difference between emotions and feelings, and they both serve us in their own unique way.
Many people use the words “emotions” and “feelings” to mean the same thing. However, I suggest that you think of emotions and feelings as distinct, but highly related things -- two sides of the same coin. One side of the coin is an emotion: a physical response to change that is hard-wired and universal. The other side of the coin is your feeling: mental associations and reactions to an emotion that are personal, acquired through experience. Despite seeming interchangeable, emotions actually proceed feelings. Like with coins, what you notice will depend upon where you are looking.
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Because emotions are physical, they can be measured objectively by blood flow, brain activity, facial expressions and body stance.
feelings are mental, they cannot be measured precisely.
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Emotions are generally predictable and easily understood.
Feelings are often idiosyncratic and confusing. Feelings reflect your personal associations to emotions - the other side of the coin.
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Emotions are usually fleeting.
The feelings they provoke may persist or grow over a lifetime.
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Because emotions initiate feelings, and feelings in turn initiate emotions, your individual feelings can prompt a never-ending cycle of painful (and confusing) emotions.
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Emotions are inborn and common to us all, the meanings they acquire and the feelings they prompt are very personal.
Feelings are shaped by individual temperament and experience; they vary enormously from person to person and from situation to situation. There are so many ways to feel a particular emotion.
By understanding the difference between emotions and feelings, you can get to the bottom of the real emotions that underlie your feelings. This will help you break out of the ongoing cycle of emotions and feelings that confuses and torments you, helping you straighten out your inner world to feel better.
Feelings: Emotions:
Feelings tell us “how to live.”
Emotions tell us what we “like” and “dislike.”
Feelings state:”There is a right and wrong way to be.“
Emotions state:”There are good and bad actions.”
Feelings state:“your emotions matter.”
Emotions state:”The external world matters.”
Feelings establish our long term attitude toward reality.
Emotions establish our initial attitude toward reality.
Feelings alert us to anticipated dangers and prepares us for action.
Emotion alert us to immediate dangers and prepares us for action
Feelings ensure long-term survival of self. (body and mind.)
Emotions ensure immediate survival of self. (body and mind.)
Feelings are Low-key but Sustainable.
Emotions are Intense but Temporary.
Happiness: is a feeling.
Joy: is an emotion.
Worry: is a feeling.
Fear: is an emotion.
Contentment: is a feeling.
Enthusiasm: is an emotion.
Bitterness: is a feeling.
Anger: is an emotion.
Love: is a feeling.
Lust: is an emotion.
Depression: is a feeling.
Sadness: is an emotion.
Effects of Emotions on Body
"Our emotional system in the brain sends signals to the body so we can deal with our situation," says Lauri Nummenmaa, a psychologist at Aalto University who led the study.
"Say you see a snake and you feel fear," Nummenmaa says. "Your nervous system increases oxygen to your muscles and raises your heart rate so you can deal with the threat. It's an automated system. We don't have to think about it."
The difference between emotions and feelings is crucial to your personal growth. If you are dissatisfied in your life, know that there is really nothing wrong with you, and there is nothing to fix. Rather, there is only something to discover about yourself.
Key Difference: Feelings mean anything that can be experienced via touch, smell, sight or any other sensory organ.
Emotion is used to describe psycho physiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states
Each organ has an associated emotion and they are as follows;
-Spleen & Stomach (worry, pensiveness)
-Liver & Gall Bladder (anger, frustration)
-Lungs & Large Intestine (sadness, suppressed grief)
-Kidneys & Bladder (fear, shock)
-Heart & Small intestine (excess excitement “joy”)
An excess of any of the above emotions will weaken the associated organ and affect the entire body as a result.
Below is a list of what each organ looks after.
Liver looks after your eyes, muscles and tendons, finger nails and aspects of the throat. It also controls the menstrual cycle and plays a major role in the reproductive process. For women keeping the liver calm means the difference between pain and painless menstrual cycles, miscarriages, fertility and mood swings. For guys especially the sporty type, a calm liver will prevent torn muscles, injured back, tinnitus and headaches.
Spleen: production of blood, body flesh, lips, holds all organs in place, holds blood in vessels, distributes fluids throughout the body and aids in nutrient intake.
Lungs: nose, breathing, skin, body hair, opening and closing of pores.
Kidneys: brain, bones, cartilage, spinal cord, ears, teeth, head hair, reproduction (sex drive) and water metabolism.
Heart: tongue, circulation of blood, complexion and controls sweat.
People reported that happiness and love sparked activity across nearly the entire body, while depression had the opposite effect: It dampened feelings in the arms, legs and head. Danger and fear triggered strong sensations in the chest area, the volunteers said. And anger was one of the few emotions that activated the arms.
The scientists hope these body emoticons may one day help psychologists diagnose or treat mood disorders.
