Physiologically, emotions aid in survival. For example, sudden fear often causes a person to freeze like a deer caught by a car’s headlights.
Emotions appear to serve several physical and psychological purposes. Some scientists believe that emotions are one of the fundamental traits associated with being human. Emotions colour people’s lives and give them depth and differentiation. For many people, strong emotions are linked to creativity and expression.
Great art, music, and literature, on a fundamental level, deal with arousing emotions and creating an emotional connection between the artist and the public. Some scientists also believe that emotions serve as motivation to behave in specific ways.
Physiologically, emotions aid in survival. For example, sudden fear often causes a person to freeze like a deer caught by a car’s headlights.
Because animals usually attack in response to motion, at its simplest level, fear reduces the chances of attack. When someone froze in response to a car racing by her or him, this was an example of a physical response to an emotion that improved her or his chances of survival.
Emotions also help people monitor their social behaviour and regulate their interactions with others. Every person unconsciously learns to “read” the outward expressions of other people and apply past experiences to determine what these outward signs indicate about what the other person is feeling.
If a person sees a man approaching who is walking very aggressively, holding his body stiffly and frowning, the person might correctly assume that the man is angry. Using this information, the person can decide whether to leave or to stay or what tone of voice and body language to use when approaching the man
Characteristics of Emotion
- Emotion is a complex affective experience.
- Emotion is a “moved” or “stirred up” state of an organism. It involves diffused physiological changes. Emotion is an acute or strong disturbance of the body.
- The core or important aspect of an emotion is feeling. When feelings become intense or strong, they develop into emotions.
- Emotion is very brief. It starts very abruptly and ends soon after the incident is over. Since emotion involves physiological changes, it disappears after emotional outburst is over.
- The disturbed state produced by an emotional experience creates bodily changes within the organism which are physiological in nature, which takes place in the entire body system.
- Each emotion has a different physiological pattern.
- The disturbance due to emotion has a psychological origin, that is, a stimulus either external or internal, always produces the emotional reaction.
- Emotions are the product of perception.
- Emotion is a conscious experience—thoughts and perceptions of which a person is aware. The person facing the emotion-provoking situation must perceive it as significant. Then only the emotion can be produced.
- Emotions are different from bodily appetites, such as hunger, thirst, etc. Emotional experiences are associated with some instincts or biological drives or forces within an organism.
- Emotions are distinct or different from mood.
- Emotions have cognitive and conative aspects.
