Emotions that promote activity are called and those that violate it. Functions and properties of emotions
Emotions are very important psychological tools for ensuring the social existence of a person. That is why they arise and exist in man as a necessary side of his spiritual life.
Emotions do the following features: evaluative, regulatory (signaling), stimulating (incentive) and communicative, as well as the function of influencing physiological and cognitive processes and etc.
- Regulating (signal). Human emotions are closely related to needs, they signal the presence of any unmet need and accompany activities aimed at satisfying the need. Emotions restructure a person's behavior in the direction of meeting needs, regulate it, directing activities to satisfy needs. The relationship between emotions and needs is most fully explained in Simonov's information theory. According to this theory, emotions are considered as a derivative of the quality and intensity of the actual need and the probabilistic characteristics of the environment. This dependence is expressed by the formula:
E \u003d P (I¹ - Iº), where E is an emotion, its strength and sign; P - the value of the actual need,
I¹ - information necessary to meet the existing need;
Iº - information that exists at a given time.
- Evaluation function. Emotions are a form initial evaluation subjective significance for a person of the objects surrounding him, phenomena, people, various events, his own thoughts, intentions, plans, decisions, actions, actions, etc. Emotions act for a person as a kind of internal compass which allows you to quickly and reliably navigate in a variety of life events and situations, in people and yourself, in objects and phenomena. Moreover, emotional assessments seem to a person much more reliable and personally significant than intellectual ones. Emotional evaluation is often carried out in conditions of lack of time or information about an object or situation. An emotionally colored attitude compensates for the impossibility of complete logical analysis. Often in situations of lack of information, the emerging emotional background helps a person to orient himself and make a decision about whether a suddenly arisen object is useful or harmful, whether it should be avoided, and so on.
- Stimulating (incentive) that encourages action. Emotions stimulate the flow of all other mental processes, mobilize all the forces of the body in difficult, responsible situations. At the same time, excessive emotional stress negatively affects performance. The influence of emotional-motivational (energetic) characteristics on the productivity of activity reflects the Yerkes-Dodson law, according to which, as the strength of emotional reinforcement increases, the productivity of activity, its success, and quality first increase, but then, after reaching maximum indicators, a further increase in the emotional-motivational factor leads to deteriorating performance.
- Communicative function . Emotional manifestations accompany any interaction between people.
Emotions are always accompanied by greater or lesser changes in body functions. Moreover, the possibilities of emotional regulation of physiological functions are very large and diverse. They can change tens and hundreds of times in very different directions: intensify, weaken until complete attenuation (death), improve, worsen to pathology, accelerate, slow down, etc. Most diseases and premature aging (or rejuvenation) arise on an emotional basis. ).
Emotions have a similar effect on consciousness and all human cognitive processes: sensation, perception, memory, thinking, imagination and attention. Under the influence of emotions, their capabilities and functional characteristics can change (improve or worsen) by tens and hundreds of times.
The main properties of emotional experiences:
1. Qualitative coloring of experiences;
2. Sign of emotions;
3. Intensity of experiences;
4. Duration of experiences.
Qualitative coloring of experiences- this is a qualitative characteristic that gives originality and originality to each emotional experience.
Each need is accompanied only by its inherent emotional coloring. For example: positive emotions when satisfying food, cognitive, aesthetic needs will be different in color. Emotional coloring it is impossible to convey in words, it is purely individual, depends on a number of psychological features personality.
Emotion sign- reflects the degree of pleasantness and not pleasantness, contentment and dissatisfaction of the experience. The sign of emotions at the same time is a subjective indicator of the harmfulness or usefulness of a particular object or phenomenon.
Depending on the sign of the emotional state, there are:
1. Positive emotions;
2. Negative emotions;
3. Ambivalent (dual) emotions.
Positive emotions testify to the usefulness, pleasantness for a person of a certain object, that this object satisfied the need. They have a beneficial effect on the physical and mental state of a person. When experiencing positive emotions, the blood supply to all organs improves, because. the optimal tone of blood vessels for the body is maintained. The neuroendocrine system produces the hormone of joy, pleasure, etc. The heart muscle contracts in a normal rhythm, the gastrointestinal tract works normally without spasms. All functions are normal and the person's condition is improving.
Emotion intensity- a qualitative characteristic of emotional experiences. It is determined by two factors:
1. The degree of dissatisfaction with the relevant needs;
2. The degree of unexpectedness of the circumstances affecting its satisfaction. A psychological pattern operates here: the stronger the need and the more unforeseen conditions for the subject that contribute to or hinder its satisfaction, the stronger the emotional experience.
The duration of emotional experiences- a temporal characteristic of emotions, it reflects the duration of a person's contact with an emotional situation, as well as the time during which the corresponding need is in a state of dissatisfaction.
Biology, grade 8
Control work to paragraph 61
Will and emotions. Attention
Student: _____________________________________ Date: "_____" _____________ 200 __ |
Affect refers to _______________________________, and laughter refers to |
Emotions that promote activity are called ______________________, and those that violate it are ___________________________ |
With suggestibility, the purpose of the activity: Imposed from the side Meaningfully chosen The reverse of what they are trying to impose from the outside |
Unlike emotional states emotional relationship Aimed at a specific object Can be positive, negative and neutral Accompanied by hormonal changes in the body |
Voluntary attention as opposed to involuntary Caused by a bright, unexpected stimulus Associated with willpower May be directed to uninteresting business Lasts while the object is new |
Emotions- a special class of subjective psychological states, reflected in the form of direct experiences, sensations of pleasant or unpleasant, a person's attitude to the world and people, the process and results of his practical activity.
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.
In humans, the main function of emotions is that, thanks to emotions, we understand each other better, we can, without using speech, judge each other’s states and better tune in to joint activities and communication. Remarkable, for example, is the fact that people belonging to different cultures are able to accurately perceive and evaluate the expressions of a human face, to determine from it such emotional states as joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise. This, in particular, applies to those peoples who have never been in contact with each other at all.
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 is that they directly reflect the relationship between motives and the implementation of activities that correspond to these motives. Emotions in human activity perform the function of evaluating its course and results. They organize activity by stimulating and directing it.
Functions of emotions.
However, Charles Darwin already spoke about the biological expediency of emotions. According to some reports, man is the most emotional among the representatives of the animal world. and development of mankind. Let us consider the most frequently discussed functions of emotions in the psychological literature.
Evaluation function. Emotion makes it possible to instantly assess the meaning of an isolated stimulus or situation for a person. Emotional assessment precedes the extensive conscious processing of information and therefore, as it were, "directs" it in a certain direction. Everyone knows how important the first impression we make on a new acquaintance is. If the first impression of a person is favorable, then in the future it is quite difficult to destroy the positive perception setting that has arisen (“Everything that this pleasant person does is good!”). And, on the contrary, it is difficult to “rehabilitate” in our own eyes a person who for some reason seemed unpleasant to us.
mobilization function. The mobilizing function of emotions manifests itself, first of all, at the physiological level: the release of adrenaline into the blood during the emotion of fear increases the ability to escape (although an excessive dose of adrenaline can lead to the opposite effect - stupor), and lowering the threshold of sensation, as a component of the emotion of anxiety, helps to recognize threatening stimuli. In addition, the phenomenon of “narrowing of consciousness”, which is observed during intense emotional states, forces the body to focus all its efforts on overcoming the negative situation.
trace function. Emotion often arises after an event has ended, i.e. when it's too late to act. On this occasion, A.N. Leontiev noted: “As a result of an affect characterized by a situation from which, in essence, it is already too late to look for a way out, a kind of alertness is created in relation to the situation that excites the affect, i.e. affects, as it were, mark this situation ... We receive a warning.
According to the wording of S.L. Rubinstein, "emotions are a subjective form of the existence of needs." Modern man he is very sophisticated in terms of motivating his behavior, but it is emotions that reveal to him (and others) the true motives. During the implementation of the activity, the dynamics of emotions signals its success or obstacles. For example, during intellectual activity, the emotional “aha-reaction” anticipates the finding of a solution to the problem, not yet realized by the subject.
Compensation function information deficit. The evaluation function of emotions described above is especially useful when we do not have enough information to make a rational decision. Emotions have a completely extraordinary significance in the functioning of living organisms and do not at all deserve to be contrasted with "intelligence". Emotions are likely to represent higher order intellect. In other words, emotion is a kind of "reserve" resource for solving problems. The emergence of emotions as a mechanism that compensates for the lack of information is explained by the hypothesis of P.V. Simonov.
The emergence of positive emotions increases the needs, and negative - reduces their intensity.
When a person finds himself in a situation of information deficit and is not able to make any forecast, he can “lean” on emotion - get an “emotional advance”.
Communication function. The expressive (expressive) component of emotions makes them "transparent" to the social environment. The expression of certain emotions, such as pain, causes the awakening of altruistic motivation in other people. For example, mothers can easily distinguish the crying of children caused by pain from crying for other reasons and rush to help faster. Emotions are known to be contagious. The "infection" of the emotional state occurs precisely because people can understand and try on the experiences of another person.
In order for the content of an emotion to be correctly interpreted by others, emotions must be expressed in a conventional (that is, understandable to all members of society) form. This is partly achieved by innate mechanisms for the realization of basic emotions.
disorganization function. Intense emotions can disrupt the effective flow of activity. Even affect is useful when a person needs to fully mobilize his physical forces. However, the prolonged action of intense emotion causes the development of a state of distress, which, in turn, actually leads to a disorder of behavior and health.
Types of emotions.
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- it's very complex mental phenomena. The most significant emotions include the following types of emotional experiences: affects, emotions proper, feelings, moods, emotional stress.
The senses- a product of the cultural and historical development of man. They are associated with certain objects, activities and people surrounding a person.
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 reinforce and strengthen his positive feelings. They are always associated with the work of consciousness, they can be arbitrarily regulated.
Affect- the most powerful type of emotional reaction. Affects are called intense, violently flowing and short-term emotional outbursts. Examples of affect are strong anger, rage, horror, stormy joy, deep grief, despair. This emotional reaction completely captures the human psyche, connecting the main influencing stimulus with all adjacent ones, forming a single affective complex that predetermines a single reaction to the situation as a whole.
One of the main features of affect is that this emotional reaction irresistibly imposes on a person the need to perform some action, but at the same time, a person loses a sense of reality. He ceases to control himself and may not even be aware of what he is doing. This is explained by the fact that in a state of passion there is an extremely strong emotional excitation, which, affecting the motor centers of the cerebral cortex, turns into motor excitation. Under the influence of this excitation, a person makes abundant and often erratic movements and actions. It also happens that in a state of passion a person becomes numb, his movements and actions completely stop, he seems to lose the power of speech.
Passion- another type of complex, qualitatively unique and found only in humans emotional states. Passion is a fusion of emotions, motives and feelings centered around a particular activity or subject. A person can become an object of passion. S.L. Rubinstein wrote that “passion is always expressed in concentration, concentration of thoughts and forces, their focus on a single goal ... Passion means impulse, passion, orientation of all aspirations and forces of the individual in a single direction, focusing them on a single goal.”
// The highest school. - 2009. - No. 2. - S. 27-30.
It is known that the intellect functions best in conjunction with intuition and feeling. Only an insignificant part of the decision-making processes is conscious, and even this is under the pronounced influence of an affect external to the conscious "I". A prime example this is served by the effect of emotional framing of decision-making processes (English framing effect). Depending on the mood in which a person addresses a particular issue, he can come to different conclusions and assessments. Emotions are considered as the most important factor in the regulation of cognition processes: they form a certain space within which thought processes take place, including decision-making processes.
Traditionally in psychology, it was believed that realistic thinking, resulting in a correct reflection of reality, should be free from emotional processes that tend to "obscure" and distort knowledge. Similar facts are true for intense emotions, regardless of their sign, but the decision on the role of the issue of emotions in cognition cannot be reduced to a particular case. Under certain conditions emotional experiences can serve not only as inhibitors, but also as facilitators mental activity. Emotions affect the cognitive processing of information in a combined dependence on the sign of the emotion and on the requirements for activity. If the task appeals to mindfulness or thoroughness, performance benefits from negative sentiment. If a task is formulated in terms of pleasure, it is more likely that positive-affective states will help to complete it.
Negative emotions, in contrast to positive ones, strengthen the attitude towards the perception of details and contribute to their scrupulous analysis, while positive emotions lead to ignoring the details, but increase the focus on globality. Affect can influence the choice of information processing strategy. It has been found that vigilance, constant attention to the details of an external stimulus, caused by bad mood, tend to reduce or even eliminate such judgmental errors as the fundamental attribution error (the tendency to give more weight to personality factors and ignore situational influences when interpreting people's behavior). When a person needs a way to quickly make a judgment (for example, in a state of anger), he is forced to use stereotyped reactions.
Good mood and positive emotions contribute to the flexibility of thinking and the development of original ideas.
The key function of positive emotions is to strengthen and form the cognitive resources of the individual, in particular, the ability to develop creativity. At the same time, positive emotions often lead to a schematic, inconsistent, heuristic style of information processing. Perhaps the schematic perception of "unity" between actor and action, leading to a fundamental attribution error, is provoked by a positive affect and reduced by a negative one. In a situation of spontaneous interaction using an open, constructive strategy, positive affect leads to more positive information retrieval and more confident, optimistic behavior, while negative affect evokes negative memories and promotes defensive or hostile behavior.
The approach to solving a problem is largely determined by the mood prevailing in a person. Thus, optimists (unlike pessimists) are more inclined to use problem-centered strategies, more often demonstrate the ability to reformulate it positively and to accept the situation if it cannot be changed. They rarely resort to defensive mechanisms of denial and avoidance, seeking to find something positive in unpleasant situations. Pessimists, on the contrary, are more inclined to deny and avoid thoughts about the problem, including with the help of nicotine and alcohol.
The influence of emotional experience on the process of mental activity may not be so unambiguous. The positive effect of the emotional process with an increase in its intensity can turn into its opposite and lead to disorganization of activity with an excessive increase in emotional arousal (for example, an average level of anxiety stimulates mental activity, while a high level disorganizes it). Sometimes an emotion, increasing activity in one direction, can reduce it, disorganizing mental activity, in another direction.
Let us dwell on the facilitating role of emotions in the process of mental activity. One of the first in Western psychology to point out the motivating role of emotions was R.W. Leeper, who suggested that emotions are the primary motivating factors because emotional processes allow to induce activity, support it and manage it.
A direct indication of the motivating value of emotions is contained in the definition proposed by K. Izard: “Emotion is something that is experienced as a feeling (feeling) that motivates, organizes and directs perception, thinking and actions.”
There is a point of view that does not so much deny the motivating power of emotions as clarifies its origin. It is noted that it is not emotions that have a motivating function, but the needs behind them; that emotions depend on needs, become, as it were, their “internal mirror”. Extremely laconically, such ideas are reflected in the formulation of S.L. Rubinstein, who defines emotions as a subjective form of the existence of needs (motivation).
Describing the mechanism of emotional self-motivation, V.D. Shadrikov dwells on the relationship between emotions and motivation. According to the author, in general, there is such a “systemic picture”: motivation encourages activity; stressors associated with achieving the goal of activity give rise to certain emotions; emotions affect reticular formation, which provides activation of brain structures, including those that implement cognitive processes. Based on this, one should not deny the role of emotions as a motivating factor - if not primary, then at least secondary.
AT domestic psychology considerable attention is paid to the emotional regulation of mental activity. In the studies of O.K. Tikhomirov and his colleagues showed that the intellectual process is impossible without emotional activation. Representatives of this school pointed to the existence of two phenomena associated with the interaction of affective and cognitive processes, such as "emotional discovery of the solution" and "emotional discovery of the problem." It was revealed that emotions can perform regulatory and heuristic functions in the structure of creative activity. Emotions serve to find an approximate area in which the solution of the problem may be: they are a kind of “bearing finding that either stops the search or organizes them again and again” .
Currently, as one of the most important abilities emotional intelligence the assimilation of emotions in thinking stands out - the use of emotions to increase the efficiency of thinking and activity, or the facilitation of thinking. It contains the ability to use emotions to direct attention to important events, evoke emotions that contribute to problem solving, use mood swings as a means of analyzing different points of view on a problem.
Emotions can stimulate. Genuine insight is by no means an intellectual process. It is emotion that “is at the origin of the great works of art, literature, science and civilization in general. Emotion prompts the mind to new beginnings, and the will to perseverance. As A. Bergson notes, “there are emotions that generate thought; and invention, although it belongs to the phenomena of the intellectual order, may have as its component the sphere of feelings ... ". Emotion, which acts in relation to subsequent states not as a consequence, but as a cause, “can give rise to new ideas. She is super intelligent." The incentive to start mental activity is a kind of self-adjustment of the intensity of emotions, which can be both involuntary and arbitrary. It is no coincidence that many quirks, magical actions are known, with the help of which creative personalities set themselves up for creativity, creating a certain emotional state.
The initial stage of creativity, as a rule, is associated with an increase in internal mental stress. L.A. Kitaev-Smyk identifies three types of emotional states that "start" the process of creativity. The first manifests itself as mental anguish or bouts of despair due to the supposedly fruitless effort in search of creative achievements. Such a stage, as a rule, is necessary for the emergence of mental insight, an insightful solution to a problem that seemed unsolvable. The second type of pre-creativity (“emptiness” in thoughts and feelings) can be regarded as a manifestation of stressful mental relaxation, which, removing emotional stress, prepares thinking for productive creativity. The third type of pre-creativity manifests itself as eustress, which raises the emotional tension of the author to the level necessary to start creative process.
Mental states accompanying creative activity(inspiration, insight, etc.) can be transferred from one member of the group to another by triggering the mechanism of "broadcasting a creative emotional background." Such mutual "emotional stimulation" has a positive effect on the activation of the creative potential of the group members, as well as on their desire to think and act outside the box.
The strength of the influence of emotions on thinking largely depends on individual characteristics. So, people with a high level of self-esteem manage their emotional states more effectively; people with a high level of Machiavellianism, people with a pronounced need for approval, are less subject to the influence of mood. Individuals with low scores on the indicator "openness to feeling" in the process of responding to social information are less affected by affect than those who have low scores on this indicator.
Individuals with low levels of anxiety respond to the out-group in accordance with their own bad mood - in a negative manner, while individuals with high levels of anxiety show a tendency to a motivated information processing strategy in order to eliminate negativism. Anxious subjects, regardless of the source of their anxiety, are emotional, while emotional subjects have a high energy mobilization. The problem is how to direct the powerful flow of emotional energy of an anxious subject into a constructive channel - emotional thinking, but not emotional stupidity.
The ability to manage your emotions and the emotions of others is an important factor in effectiveness. On the one hand, adolescence is an important stage in the development of emotional self-regulation. On the other hand, this is a period of active assimilation of knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for the upcoming professional activity. In order for intellectual activity to be effective, it is necessary to be ready for thinking, a certain level of which is supported by emerging in the process cognitive activity emotions. When experiencing positive emotions during training sessions the efficiency of students increases by 30-40%, and emotionality underlies about 30% of the factors that form the attitude of students to lectures.
The purpose of our study- to establish how aware they are of emotions that contribute to the facilitation of mental activity, whether they are able to voluntarily evoke such emotions. In accordance with this, we conducted a survey in which third-year students of the Faculty of Finance and Economics of Polotsk participated state university(total 96 people, 83 girls, 13 boys). In the answers to the first question: “What emotions, in your opinion, contribute to intellectual activity?”, 68% of total number responses are positive emotional experiences (among them 59% are the so-called intellectual feelings), 23% are negative emotions and 9% are undifferentiated emotional states (“excitement”, “experience”).
Among the positive emotional states, the most common are interest (21% of the total number of answers), curiosity (9%), joy (9%) and calmness (6%), among the negative ones - fear (11%). Answering the second question: “What emotions, from your point of view, contribute to inspiration?”, students give positive emotions (85% of the total number of answers), negative (13%) and ambivalent experiences (2%). Positive emotional states are dominated by joy (27%), love / falling in love (21%) and happiness (8%); among the negative - sadness (4%). To the question “Can you arbitrarily evoke certain emotions that increase the effectiveness of your learning activities? received 56% affirmative answers, 32% negative and 12% uncertain (“not always”). To the question “What are these emotions: positive or negative? Which ones specifically? 80% of the total number of answers were positive emotions (most often it is " good mood"(41%), interest (17%), joy (11%). According to the student, “knowledge and negativity are not a good combination.” However, 20% of the total number of responses are negative emotions. The respondent explains this as follows: “If the subject is interesting, then positive emotions stimulate us to study it. However, often we do not study those subjects that are interesting. And then, in order to prepare for the exam, you have to evoke negative emotions, for example, the fear of a bad pass.”
Answering the question: “How do you evoke the emotions you need? What steps are you taking to achieve this?" students indicate that they most often resort to memories of something positive or similar situations (14% of the total number of answers), communicate with friends or with a loved one (12%), use self-hypnosis (for example, “Everything will be fine” , “I can do it”) (11%), try to find something interesting or useful for themselves in the subject (“trying to find something that I can tell someone else”, “thinking why I need it” ) (11%), think about the result and its pleasant or unpleasant consequences (10%), listen to music (10%), think about the future (for example, “about a brilliant career and a successful business”) (5%), use volitional regulation (“I set myself up for work”, “I force”) (11%).
Thus, the productive intellectual activity of students is promoted, first of all, by positive emotions: interest, curiosity, joy and calmness. Joy and sadness, as well as feelings of love / falling in love, happiness contribute to inspiration in adolescents. At the same time, the teacher should keep in mind that if his subject is not interesting for young people, then students stimulate themselves to study it, causing negative emotions, in particular, fear.
More than half of the subjects, according to the results of our study, can evoke emotions that contribute to the facilitation of their cognitive activity. For the purpose of emotional self-regulation, they use memories, communication with loved ones, self-hypnosis, searching for something interesting or useful for themselves in the content of the discipline, ideas about the result of the activity and its consequences, listening to music, thinking about the future, volitional actions. A significant part of the students needs targeted training in the ways of emotional self-regulation, which would increase the efficiency of their cognitive activity.
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