Understanding emotion is not an easy task, but let's try.
How do we know we are thrilled? Invariably due to the sensations and movements that our body produces: stomachache, a "stomach flu", crying, laughing non-stop, rapid heartbeat, trembling, fainting, losing your voice, becoming “white as wax” or “red of anger...".
In the etymological study of the word we find that emotion originates from two other Latin words – ex movere – which mean in motion. It makes sense? If our body moves when we get emotional, then it makes sense!
But why psychology is concerned with emotions? Studying human behavior is the main objective of Psychology and understanding why we get emotional and how emotion influences our behavior is part of that goal.
Many scholars, prior to the twentieth century were already concerned with emotion and its effects on human behavior. From ancient Greece until the mid-19th century, philosophers and psychologists believed that emotions were basic instincts that should be controlled otherwise man has his ability to think seriously affected. In the 20th century, the investigations produced about emotion led us to another look and understanding. Scientists have awakened to the fact that they get emotional, but understand and be aware of their emotions it was a quality that allowed human beings to develop the ability to better relate in and with the world.
Furthermore, with the help of technological developments, researchers are discovering that emotion directly influences our system immune, in our health - the evil of the 21st century, stress is fundamentally emotional in origin - is the result of the inability to deal with the emotions; in fact, this ability was defined as one of the multiple intelligences of the human being (emotional intelligence), by the American psychologist Howard Gardner (1999).
Charles Darwin (1872) initiated an investigation, with which he intended to identify the basic “universal” emotions of biological origin. This work was sequenced by Psychologist Carrol Izard, who managed to identify ten different emotions, among which sadness, interest, disgust and joy.
* Roberto and Erasmo Carlos
Well, so much research ended up giving rise to three currents for the theory of emotion:
The JAMES-LANGE theory (1880) – developed by psychologists William James (USA) and Carl Lange (Denmark) this theory believes that emotion is a physiological change caused by environmental stimuli, transmitted by perception sensory.
The CANNON-BARD theory (1920) – developed by William Cannon and Phillip Bard states that the physiological changes that lead to emotion occur simultaneously with the perception of environmental stimuli.
The COGNITIVIST theory (1960s) emerged from research on intelligence and knowledge (cognition) and postulates that emotion will depend on perception that man has about a certain situation, that is, it will depend on how we understand, we understand a certain situation.
Freud (1910) - one of the great thinkers of the 20th century - expands the concept of emotion to that of affection and demonstrates through the Psychoanalysis that what we register in our psyche are the affective representations linked to the experiences emotional.
One of the most studied theorists today, the French psychologist and physician Henri Wallon, (1879-1962) began his research with neurologically injured children and elaborated a theory of emotion. For him, emotion has a double origin – it is both biological and social and what it guarantees is the survival of the human species. In other words, the emotion has a very peculiar characteristic – it is contagious! What adult can be immune to a baby's cry? This contagious character of emotion leads human beings to take care of their offspring and thus ensure the survival of the species; It is in living with the Other and with the Social Group that we learn to identify, name and deal with our emotions.
Work and school are two areas of human action, which trigger emotions par excellence, however until the mid-twentieth century, emotion was totally discarded from its domains under the influence of thought. Cartesian.
Today, the concept of emotional intelligence introduced by Daniel Goleman, based on studies by Howard Gardner has been extensively approached and developed in companies by resource professionals humans; as well as Henri Wallon's theory of emotion, it has been deeply studied by educators and school psychologists in order to better understand the teaching-learning process.
Did you find it difficult to understand all this? But, between us, the subject is contagious isn't it?!
Attached is a brief text* by the English philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872/1970) that may help or complicate... Let yourself be moved!
* text written in Portuguese from Portugal.
A (Bad) Emotion Controlled by Reason
There is the idea that when reason is given all freedom it destroys all deep emotions. This opinion seems to me to be due to an entirely wrong conception of the function of reason in human life. It is not the purpose of reason to generate emotions, although it may be part of its function to find ways to prevent such emotions from being an obstacle to well-being. Finding ways to lessen hatred and envy is undoubtedly part of the function of rational psychology. But it is a mistake to suppose that by lessening these passions we will at the same time lessen the intensity of those passions which reason does not condemn.
In passionate love, in parental affection, in friendship, in benevolence, in devotion to the sciences or the arts, there is nothing that reason wishes to diminish. The rational man, when he feels these emotions, will be glad to feel them and should do nothing to diminish his intensity, because they are all part of true life, that is, life whose goal is happiness, its own and of others.
There is nothing irrational about passions like passions, and many irrational people feel only the most trivial passions. No one should fear that choosing reason will make life sad. On the contrary, for reason generally consists of inner harmony; the man who performs it feels freer in contemplating the world and using his energy to achieve his outward purposes, than the man who is continually embarrassed by conflicts intimate. Nothing is as depressing as being closed in on yourself, nothing is as comforting as having your attention and energy directed to the outside world.
Bertrand Russell, in 'The Conquest of Happiness'.
Regina Célia de Souza
psychology - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/psicologia/emocoes-vivi.htm
