Preview

About emotions

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4475 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
About emotions
The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means "to stir up". However, the earliest precursors of the word likely dated back to the very origins of language.
In psychology and philosophy, emotion is a subjective, conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states. Emotion is often associated and considered reciprocally influential with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation, as well as influenced by hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline, serotonin, oxytocin, cortisol and GABA. Emotion is often the driving force behind motivation, positive or negative. An alternative definition of emotion is a "positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity.
The physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous system with various states and strengths of arousal relating, apparently, to particular emotions. Although those acting primarily on emotion may seem as if they are not thinking, cognition is an important aspect of emotion, particularly the interpretation of events. For example, the experience of fear usually occurs in response to a threat. The cognition of danger and subsequent arousal of the nervous system (e.g. rapid heartbeat and breathing, sweating, muscle tension) is an integral component to the subsequent interpretation and labeling of that arousal as an emotional state.
Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency. Research on emotion has increased significantly over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, neuroscience, medicine, history, sociology, and even computer science. The numerous theories that attempt to explain the origin, neurobiology, experience, and function of emotions have only fostered more intense research on this topic. The current research that is being conducted about

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Phi 105 Comparison Paper

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Cannon and Bard suggested emotion to be the response of two independent excitatory effects (Pinel, 2009). Under their theory emotional stimuli trigger feelings of emotion in both the brain and the expression of such emotion in the autonomic and somatic nervous systems (Pinel, 2009). The Cannon-Bard theory differs from the James-Lange theory in that Cannon and Bard believed emotional experiences and expressions to be parallel processes rather than the James and Lange belief that emotion has a direct causal relation (Pinel, 2009).…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this paper on the biopsychology theories of emotion I will briefly describe each of the theories behind Darwin, James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and Limbic System emotions. I will also include the brain mechanisms that are involved with each. Writing this paper will give myself and my reader a better understanding of emotions and how they are classified.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Appendix G Psy 240

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This activity will increase your understanding of the different biopsychological theories of emotion. All of these methods can be found in the readings from this week.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Vocab List

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Emotion - A four part process that involves physiological arousal, subjective feelings, cognitive interpretation, and behavioral expressions-all of which interact, rather than occurring in a linear sequence. Emotions help organisms deal with important events.…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    According to the James-Lange theory, each specific emotion is accompanied by a unique pattern of physiological responses. James reasoned that emotion occurs when we become aware of our body’s physiological arousal and emotional behavior in reaction to an exciting stimulus. According to him, “The bodily changes follow directly the Perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion” (James, 1884/1948, p. 291; italics in original).…

    • 326 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Chapter 4

    • 3420 Words
    • 20 Pages

    Emotions generate a core evaluation called core affect that something is good or bad, helpful or harmful, to be approached or to be avolided…

    • 3420 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Emotions seem to rule our every day life. We make all of our decisions based on whether we feel happy, sad, scared, angry or disgusted. An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a psychological response, and a behavioural or expressive response (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2007). Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is the father of emotion; he published the first ever book about the study of biopsychology of emotion - “The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals” (Darwin, 1872). In his book he made two major contributions, one, that animal emotions are similar to human emotions, and the other, that there are fundamental and basic emotions present across all species. For him, emotion…

    • 1393 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    References: Ruud, M. (nd), article, The Four Theories of Emotion – What, Why, and How? Retrieved October 21, 2013 from…

    • 958 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    What causes these emotions? The definition in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for emotions “a strong feeling(such as love, anger, joy, hate, or fear)”. Under almost any explanation of emotions is the premise that they are naturally-occurring responses to situations.…

    • 1398 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ekmannn’s study suggests that cognitive factors affect our emotions after the biological factors do. The study’s aim was to find a relationship between the physical state and emotions. The participants were given different emotions, which they had to represent with their facial expressions and hold them for about 10 seconds. The participants physiological systems were measured after that and the results were that participants that picked different emotions had different responses in their physiological system. The participants that picked emotions such as anger had for example a higher increase of temperature in their bodies than the participants that did not have anger and picked an emotion such as sadness. Therefore what was found from this experiment was that emotions can be measured by the changes in their physiological system.…

    • 869 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emotion. It is what, as the soulful creatures we are, holds us together, tears us apart, sets our very heart on fire with rage, or love. Our emotions seep through our bodies like lava, slowly cascading and melting into every part of us until it covers us whole with all of its feeling. Day by day we seem to live and make decisions that are based immensely on our emotions of the moment.…

    • 864 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Emotions are states of feeling. Emotions set actions “into motion”. They change and transform. Feelings are facts, not right or wrong, they just exist. Individuals experience emotions in conflict. Self protective emotions are associated with the right hemispheres of the brain while pro-social are left brain ruled; conflict resolution depends on overcoming raw emotion and developing left-brain functions. Relationships are defined by the kinds of emotions expressed. One emotion regulates other emotions. People develop emotion-behavior patterns early in life and build on them.…

    • 4935 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Motivation and Emotion.

    • 332 Words
    • 1 Page

    Emotions are feeling, both physiological and cognitive, that influence one’s behavior. The main two positive emotions are love and joy. The three main negative emotions are fear, anger, and sadness. One positive emotion for a student is pride. I take pride in my work because I know I have done the best I can and the payoff will be a good grade. A negative emotion of being a student could be worry or guilt. If I did not put much effort into an assignment I would worry about the grade I would get and feel guilty for not putting my best foot forward.…

    • 332 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Emotions Paper

    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages

    There are several functioned emotions that will be analyzed in this paper. Psychological emotional arousal and cognitive activity can be very important. At least two historical theories of emotion and arousal as they relate to human motivation such as; American psychologist Stanley Schatcher as well Jerome Singer’s theory will be examined. There will be at least two research methods used for uncovering basic emotions analyze such as; Johnson-Laird and Oatley. Facial feedback hypothesis, particularly the event-appraisal-emotion sequence will be discussed as well. Other information and knowledge will be shared and discussed too. There are different expressions in an individual that can sometimes or most of the time determines their emotion; looking in a spouse eyes for example and seeing there smile when telling a spouse how much love they have for their loved one. Emotions keep us motivated and move towards goals however some emotions can sometimes be sever or harmful to ones mentality. Emotions too has rewards it also stimulates and appraises also known as the event-appraisal-emotion sequence discussed further in this informational paper.…

    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sociology of Emotion

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The sociology of emotions is the article of Katherine Walker from the EBSOHost. The sociology of emotions’ article is based on the study of the sociology of emotions in which defines emotions as socially constructed and culturally variable labels attached to physiological responses to stimuli. Studies have questioned the universality of emotions, their variation across cultures, rules about feelings and emotional displays, and the necessity of emotions to maintaining the social bond. The article was a previously researched article, because the author makes references to Sociology scholars that have established themselves in the field of Sociology, like Emile Durkhem and Erving Goffman (by Katherine Walker, 2010)…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics