Emotions

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Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition.Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.

Sixteen faces expressing the human passions-coloured engraving by J. Pass, 1821, after Charles Le Brun
Research on emotion has increased over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, medicine, history, sociology of emotions, and computer science. The numerous theories that attempt to explain the origin, function and other aspects of emotions have fostered more intense research on this topic. Current areas of research in the concept of emotion include the development of materials that stimulate and elicit emotion. In addition, PET scans and fMRI scans help study the affective picture processes in the brain.

From a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as “a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity.” Emotions produce different physiological, behavioral and cognitive changes. The original role of emotions was to motivate adaptive behaviors that in the past would have contributed to the passing on of genes through survival, reproduction, and kin selection.

In some theories, cognition is an important aspect of emotion. Other theories, however, claim that emotion is separate from and can precede cognition. Consciously experiencing an emotion is exhibiting a mental representation of that emotion from a past or hypothetical experience, which is linked back to a content state of pleasure or displeasure.The content states are established by verbal explanations of experiences, describing an internal state.

Emotions are complex. There are various theories on the question of whether or not emotions cause changes in our behaviour.On the one hand, the physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous system. Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency. Extroverted people are more likely to be social and express their emotions, while introverted people are more likely to be more socially withdrawn and conceal their emotions. Emotion is often the driving force behind motivation.On the other hand, emotions are not causal forces but simply syndromes of components, which might include motivation, feeling, behaviour, and physiological changes, but none of these components is the emotion. Nor is the emotion an entity that causes these components.

Emotions involve different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior. At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on. More recently, emotion is said to consist of all the components. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline. In psychology and philosophy, emotion typically includes a subjective, conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states. A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology. For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and the appraisal of situations and contexts.

This Post Has 61 Comments

  1. Stephen Amaechi

    Emotion should not in any way be supeessed. We should learn to express our feelings be it love , hatred, anger anxiety etc. Suppression of emotion may lead to mental disorder.

    1. Emmanuel Nathaniel

      Our body physiology controls our emotions

  2. Ugochukwu Chimaroke Goodnews

    We should not allow our emotions to control our actions….we should always try and control it

  3. Mgbakor Uchenna Samson

    There are two kinds of emotions even three – emotional pain and emotional lost etc. But in all we should control our emotions always.

  4. Abraham Obot

    We should always learn to put our emotions under control

  5. Amarachi Gracious

    Surprisingly extrovert are more emotional,but mask how they really feel…tnkx Author

  6. Chinyere Ugochukwu

    We should try and control our emotions

  7. Ofofon Okon

    We should learn how to control our emotions?
    Nice article ?

  8. OKOYE ESTHER

    Very interesting and educative

    1. Nkwegu Ifeyinwa

      Controlling our emotions will help us alot

  9. Fortune Sunday

    An informative article.
    Thanks for sharing

  10. Amarachi Gracious

    Emotions is the driving force behind motivation and actions

  11. ABRAHAM Abraham

    It’s not good to procrastinate. It the steal of time

  12. Abdulazeez Imran

    Am so flexible in term of emotion thanks I learn about it today

  13. Michael Solomon

    Yes let learn how to control our emotional

  14. Emmanuel Osung

    we should learn to express our feelings be it love , hatred, anxiety, etc.

    1. Adebayo Ganiyy Eniola Ganiyy

      We should try to control our emotional.. we shouldn’t to control us…

  15. Taiwo Oyalude

    Thanks a lot for ur educative article

  16. Taiwo Oyalude

    Thanks a lot for ur emotive article

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