Emotions and feelings in psychology: essence, types, functions. How do emotions differ from feelings?

Emotions are understood as either a person’s internal feelings or manifestations of these feelings. Often the strongest but short-term emotions are called affect, and the deepest and most persistent emotions are called feelings. Emotion is a mental process of impulsive regulation of behavior, based on a sensory reflection of the need-based significance of external influences, their beneficialness or harmfulness for the life of an individual.

Emotions arose as a result of evolution for better adaptation of the body. Emotions are always bivalent(have two poles). They are positive or negative. Certain vital properties of objects and situations, causing emotions, tune the body to appropriate behavior. This is a mechanism for directly assessing the level of well-being of the organism’s interaction with the environment.

Emotions, like sensations, are basic phenomena of the psyche. If sensations reflect the materiality of existence, then emotions reflect a subjective attitude towards various aspects of this existence.

Emotions are associated with the activity of the cerebral cortex, primarily with the function of the right hemisphere. Impulses from external influences enter the brain in two streams. One of them is sent to the corresponding areas of the cerebral cortex, where the meaning and significance of these impulses are realized and they are deciphered in the form of sensations and perceptions. Another flow comes to the subcortical formations (hypothalamus, etc.), where a direct relationship of these influences to the basic needs of the body, subjectively experienced in the form of emotions, is established. It has been discovered that in the subcortical area (in the hypothalamus) there are special nervous structures that are centers of suffering, pleasure, aggression, and calm.

Being directly connected to the endocrine nervous system, emotions can turn on the energetic mechanisms of behavior. Thus, the emotion of fear, arising in a dangerous situation for the body, provides a reaction aimed at overcoming the danger - the orienting reflex is activated, the activity of all currently secondary systems is inhibited: the muscles necessary for the fight are tensed, breathing quickens, the heartbeat increases, the composition of the blood changes etc.

Emotions are directly related to instincts. Thus, in a state of anger, a person appears to grin his teeth, narrow his eyelids, clench his fists, have a rush of blood to his face, take on threatening poses, etc. All basic emotions are innate. Proof of this is the fact that all peoples, regardless of their cultural development, have the same facial expressions when expressing certain emotions. Even in higher animals - primates, dogs, cats and others, we can observe the same facial expressions as in humans. However, not all outward manifestations of emotion are innate; some are acquired as a result of training and upbringing (for example, special gestures as a sign of a particular emotion.

Any manifestations of human activity are accompanied by emotional experiences. Thanks to them, a person can feel the state of another person and empathize with him. Even other higher animals can assess each other's emotional states.

The more complex a living being is organized, the richer the range of experienced emotional states. But some smoothing of the manifestations of emotions in a socialized person is observed as a result of the increasing role of volitional regulation.

All living organisms initially strive for what meets their needs and for what these needs can be satisfied. A person acts only when his actions make sense. Emotions are innate, spontaneous signalers of these meanings. Cognitive processes form a mental image, ideas, and emotional processes ensure selectivity of behavior.

Basic emotions

The basic emotions common to humans and higher mammals include:

• Satisfaction
• Neglect

According to K. Izard, there are 10 main (basic) emotions:

The basic emotional states that a person experiences are divided into actual emotions and feelings. In addition, there are such states as affect, stress, passion (passion is considered the highest manifestation of feelings), mood (which is also called a “chronic” emotional state). In socio-historical development, specific human higher emotions - feelings - were formed. They are associated with the social essence of a person, with social norms and attitudes.

List of emotions and feelings

A more complete list of emotions and feelings includes: excitement, security, anxiety, gratitude, well-being, fear, disgust, anger, guilt, greatness, power, admiration, arrogance, hunger, pride, sadness, trust, duty, dignity, thirst. pity, care, envy, gloating, anger, interest, beauty, laziness, love, revenge, hope, arrogance, indignation, tenderness, hatred, dislike, uncertainty, dissatisfaction, resentment, adoration, loneliness, caution, responsibility, disgust, disgust, patriotism, sadness, anticipation, contempt, disdain, devotion, lust, joy, disappointment, irritation, remorse, confusion, jealousy, boredom, sexuality, ridiculousness, compassion, property, doubt, calm, justice, fear, shame, anxiety, despondency, humiliation, conviction, respect, surprise, satisfaction, fatigue, sense of loss, ambition, humor, rage, despair

There are 75 titles in total. Some of the names are more borderline states than emotions, while others contain several synonyms. Therefore, this list is quite arbitrary. When compiling a list of emotions, you should try not to include mental phenomena that are obviously not emotions. For example, in the previous list, hunger and thirst are subjective sensations that accompany a lack of food and water in the body. These sensations arise as a result of signals from receptors in the stomach, larynx, etc. They are not associated with a cognitive assessment of the situation and are not emotions. In this regard, it may make sense to make a list of not only emotions, but also non-emotions. Let's write down words from the previous list that are not related to the cognitive assessment of the situation, and therefore are not emotions: hunger, thirst, lust, sexuality, fatigue.

When compiling a list of emotions, it makes sense to immediately divide them into pairs of opposite signs. For example, in the book by A. Ortony, G.L. Clore, and A. Collins, The Cognitive Structure of Emotions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1988, 11 pairs of words are written out that claim to be opposite emotions. gratification - remorse, gratitude - anger, pride - shame, admiration - reproach, joy - distress, happy-for - resentment, gloating - pity, hope - fear, satisfaction - disappointment, relief - fears-confirmed, love-hate.

Formal models of emotions

Formal models of emotions in artificial intelligence research aim to define emotions in a form applicable to the design of robots. The main approaches currently are KARO, EMA, CogAff, Affective Computing and the Fominykh-Leontiev model.

Emotions and feelings

Emotions and feelings are personal formations. There may be, for example, emotion of joy And feeling of joy. If emotions themselves are actualized in the presence of a need and end after it is satisfied, then feelings are more objective in nature. The emotion of joy is associated with the general satisfaction of a need (quenching hunger, thirst, etc.), and the feeling of joy is associated with a specific, irreplaceable object (you don’t just want to eat, but you only want fried potatoes, semolina does not make you happy). Thus, feelings are associated with the idea of ​​​​a specific object. For example, a person cannot experience the feeling of love if he does not have an object of affection.

Feelings, unlike emotions, develop, educate, and improve. They form a number of levels, starting with immediate practical feelings (a sense of ownership, a feeling of satisfaction from a specific activity, etc.) up to higher feelings related to spiritual values ​​and ideals.

Feelings are historical in nature, their external expression in relation to the same phenomenon may differ among different peoples and in different historical eras. For the same phenomenon, different peoples can develop different culturally determined, sometimes opposite feelings. For example, some peoples have a custom not to use cutlery. For representatives of these peoples, if a guest takes pilaf from a common plate with his hands, this causes a feeling of satisfaction in the owner, while for a representative of another culture such behavior would cause a feeling of indignation.

In practical activity, a person’s practical feelings were formed (feelings associated with direct activity), theoretical activity formed intellectual feelings (feelings associated with cognitive activity - a feeling of interest, a sense of curiosity, etc.) As a result of figurative-selective activity, aesthetic feelings appeared ( a sense of beauty when perceiving art, natural phenomena, etc.).

There are moral (moral) feelings (sense of duty, conscience, sense of solidarity, sense of justice, etc.). If something happens that violates these feelings, it can cause feelings of indignation, indignation, hatred, etc.). Moral feelings reflect a person's experience of his relationship to other people.

As a result of spiritual searches, spiritual feelings appeared (a sense of the sacredness of what is happening, reverence, a feeling of enlightenment, a sense of mystery, mysticism, etc.)

The mosaic of feelings of a particular individual reflects the structure of his needs, the structure of his personality, and his system of values.

In relation to the world around us, a person strives to act in such a way as to reinforce and strengthen his positive feelings. Feelings, unlike emotions themselves, are always associated with the work of consciousness and can be voluntarily regulated.

The manifestation of a strong and stable positive feeling for some type of activity, for something or for someone, which appears on the basis of an insufficiently satisfied one or another organic need, is called passion. Passion is an emotional state found only in humans. It is difficult to control by will. Not everyone can handle their passion when necessary.

All emotional states (actually emotions and feelings) vary depending on their quality (positive and negative), depth, intensity and duration of influence on activity.

Depending on how significant the reality reflected in emotions and feelings is, deep and shallow emotions and feelings are distinguished.

Aesthetic and intellectual emotions

Thenic and asthenic emotions

Depending on the impact on activity, emotions and feelings are divided into sthenic and asthenic. Stenic feelings encourage active activity, mobilize a person’s strength (feelings of joy, inspiration, interest, etc.). Asthenic feelings relax and paralyze forces (feeling of depression, feeling of humiliation, etc.).

The emotional tone of a sensation is our attitude to the quality of the sensation (we like the smell of flowers, the sound of the sea, the color of the sky during sunset, but the pungent smell of acetic acid, the grinding of brakes, etc. is unpleasant). A painful aversion arises to certain stimuli - idiosyncrasy (for example, to the sounds obtained as a result of the movement of a metal object on glass, for some - to the smell of gasoline, etc.)

Emotional response - a prompt emotional reaction to current changes in the subject environment (they saw a beautiful landscape - they admired it). An emotional response is determined by a person’s emotional excitability. One type of emotional response is syntony. Syntony is the ability to harmoniously respond to the states of other people and, in general, phenomena of the surrounding world (to be in harmony with nature, with oneself, to “feel” another person). This is emotional consonance.

Mood

Mood is the longest lasting emotional state that colors human behavior. Mood determines the overall tone of a person’s life. The mood depends on those influences that affect the personal aspects of the subject, his basic values. The reason for a particular mood is not always realized, but it is always there. Mood, like all other emotional states, can be positive and negative, have a certain intensity, severity, tension, stability. The highest level of mental activity is called inspiration, the lowest - apathy. Minor disorganization of mental activity caused by negative influences leads to a state of upset.

If a person knows self-regulation techniques, then he can block a bad mood and consciously make it better. Low mood can be caused by even the simplest biochemical processes in our body, unfavorable atmospheric phenomena, etc.

A person’s emotional stability in various situations is manifested in the stability of his behavior. Resistance to difficulties and tolerance of other people's behavior is called tolerance. Depending on the predominance of positive or negative emotions in a person’s experience, the corresponding mood becomes stable and characteristic of him. A good mood can be cultivated.

Emotion and motivation

Emotions and affects

Emotions are one of the main regulators of activity. The basic form of emotions is the emotional tone of sensations, which are genetically determined experiences of a hedonic sign that accompany vital impressions, for example, taste, temperature, pain.

Another form of emotions are affects, which represent very strong emotional experiences associated with active behavior to resolve an extreme situation. Unlike affects, emotions themselves have a pronounced connection to fairly local situations, which was formed during life. Their emergence can occur without the action of the actual situation of their formation; in this aspect, they act as guidelines for activity.

Conflict emotional states (affect, stress, frustration)

Affect is excessive mental overexcitation that suddenly arises in an acute conflict situation, manifested in temporary disorganization of consciousness (narrowing of consciousness) and extreme activation of impulse reactions.

Affects, as a rule, interfere with the normal organization of behavior. In the case of affect, it is regulated not by a premeditated goal, but by that feeling that completely captures the personality and causes impulsive actions. Sometimes a person is so unconscious at the moment of passion that later he cannot recall his actions in memory.

Affects arise in critical conditions, when the subject is unable to find a quick and reasonable way out of a dangerous situation. This is a way to “emergency” resolve the situation. A state of affect can manifest itself in the form of a panicked flight from the situation, in the form of numbness (stupor), in the form of uncontrolled aggression.

Emotional tension accumulated as a result of affectogenic situations (situations that contribute to the emergence of affect) can add up, and if it is not given an outlet, it can lead to a violent emotional release. The general direction of chaotic actions during affect is the desire to eliminate the traumatic stimulus.

The development of affect is subject to the following law: the stronger the initial motivational stimulus of behavior, the more effort had to be spent to implement it, the smaller the result obtained as a result of all this, the stronger the resulting affect.

Experienced states of affect leave strong, lasting traces in long-term memory. Unlike affects, the work of emotions and feelings is associated primarily with short-term and operational memory.

The experience of affect is associated with a rapid, uncontrolled loss of a large amount of energy (violent emotions, active uncontrolled movements, etc.). As a result of this, the final stage of affect, as a rule, occurs against the background of a sharp loss of strength and apathy. There may even be a semi-fainting state.

In all the diverse manifestations of affect (horror, anger, despair, a flash of jealousy, a rush of passion, etc.), three stages can be distinguished:

1. All mental activity is sharply disorganized, orientation in reality is disrupted.
2. Overexcitation is accompanied by sudden, poorly controlled actions.
3. Nervous tension subsides, motor activity decreases, and a state of depression and weakness occurs.

At the initial stage, the will is not yet completely suppressed and it is possible to consciously prevent the development of affect. At the same time, it is important to focus on the extremely negative consequences of affective behavior. Techniques for overcoming affect also include: voluntary delay of motor reactions, changing the environment, switching to another activity. Personal qualities and upbringing play a very important role in the ability to overcome affects. The tendency to affective behavior can be overcome through self-education.

Affective states can manifest themselves in different forms. Let's look at some of them.

Fear is an unconditional reflexive emotional reaction. Fear arose as a biological defense mechanism. Many of the innate fears remain in people, although in the conditions of civilization they are greatly changed. Many people associate fear with asthenic emotion and causes a decrease in muscle tone. In this case, the face takes the form of a frozen mask. In many cases, fear produces a strong sympathetic discharge: screaming. Flight, grimaces. A characteristic symptom of fear is trembling of body muscles, dry mouth, rapid increase in heart rate, etc.

Socially determined causes of fear - the threat of public censure, loss of the results of long-term labor, humiliation, etc. - cause the same physiological symptoms as the biological sources of fear.

The highest degree of fear, turning into affect, is horror. In a state of horror, a person may exaggerate the danger of an attack and his defense may be excessive, incommensurate with the real danger.

Unbalanced individuals with a weak type of nervous system may experience obsessive, exaggerated ideas about a certain type of danger - phobias (fear of heights, fear of the dark, sharp objects, etc.)

Fear is a passive defensive reaction to danger, often emanating from a stronger person. If the threat of danger comes from a weaker person, then the reaction may acquire an aggressive, offensive character - anger.

Anger is accompanied by threatening facial expressions, an attacking posture, and often screaming.

Fear and anger can reach the level of passion, but sometimes they are expressed in a lesser degree of emotional stress.

Frustration is a conflicting negative emotional state that arises in connection with the collapse of hopes, unexpected, seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieving highly significant goals. If it is impossible to eliminate the causes of frustration (irretrievable loss), a deep depressive state may occur. The consequence of this may be a weakening of memory, the ability to think logically, etc. Often in a state of frustration, due to the inability to overcome the true causes of this state, a person looks for some kind of compensating way out of the situation. For example, if he goes into the world of dreams, the work of the Ego’s defense mechanisms may intensify (according to Freud). Most often, among the known defenses, the regression mechanism is activated.

Stress is a neuropsychic overstrain caused by too strong an impact, an adequate response to which is not sufficiently formed. In the process of experiencing stress, there is a total (universal) mobilization of the body’s forces (physical and mental) to find a way out of a dangerous situation that threatens the integrity of the individual, to adapt to new difficult conditions.

Emotions and stress

Too strong stimuli (objects or certain events) are called stressors.

In response to an extremely difficult situation, the body reacts with a complex of defensive reactions. Stressful conditions arise in all cases of threat to the life of the subject. Stagnant, long-term stressful conditions can be caused by a long stay in a life-threatening environment.

Stress syndrome often occurs in situations that are dangerous for a person’s prestige, when he is afraid of disgracing himself in someone else’s eyes or in his own eyes. A state similar to stress can be generated by systematic failures in life.

The concept of stress was introduced by Canadian scientist Hans Selye. He defined stress as a set of adaptive and protective reactions of the body to influences that cause physical and mental trauma.

In the development of a stressful state, Selye identified three stages:

1. Stage of increasing anxiety - when a stressor appears, a person, even if not always clearly aware of it, begins to experience an increase in anxiety. He feels increasingly uncomfortable and frantically searches for ways to cope with this discomfort. This takes a lot of effort. A person spends more energy than he is used to and unconsciously looks for sources of its replenishment. For example, he starts eating too much, or sleeping too much, etc.
2. Stage of resistance (stabilization). A person adapts to the stressor and outwardly manages to maintain a relatively normal state, but maintaining a satisfactory state now requires significantly more energy than before the stressful situation arose.
3. Exhaustion stage. If at the second stage the effect of the stressor does not stop, then in the end, the body’s “strategic reserves” of energy are exhausted and then a sharp loss of ability to work may occur. A person may become seriously ill and may experience nervous exhaustion. Sometimes this state of affairs can lead to the death of the organism.

The nature of a stressful situation depends not only on the person’s assessment of the harmfulness of the stressor, but also on the ability to react to it in a certain way. A person is able to learn adequate behavior in various stressful situations.

In overcoming stress, two behavioral personality types are manifested:

1. Internals- people who rely only on their own strength.
2. Externals- people who rely on the help of other people in difficult situations.

These characteristics are, in fact, two poles of one scale (externals ... internals). Mostly people demonstrate a mixed type of reaction. In some situations they expect support, but in others, on the contrary, they rely only on their own strengths. However, different people may have one type of behavior that predominates.

The external type of behavior is characteristic of immature, insecure individuals. An extremely internal type of behavior is characteristic of people who are not inclined to communicate; these are closed, self-sufficient individuals. Sometimes such excessive closeness prevents you from seeking the help of other people and solving the problem most effectively.

Stress poses some threat to life, but it is also necessary for it.

There is so-called austress (“good” stress). Austress contributes to the development of the individual’s adaptation mechanisms and mobilizes his strength. Another type of stress - distress - has a depressing effect on the human body. For example, the birth of a child and his further stay in the family is stressful for most young parents, but for some this event can be perceived as distress.

Components of Emotions

1. Subjective set of emotions.
2. Features of the biological reaction, especially the autonomic nervous system.
3. Individual knowledge about the manifestation of emotions and associated states.
4. Mimic emotional reaction.
5. Reaction to the manifestation of emotions.
6. Features of active response.

None of these components is an emotion, but their combination forms an emotion.

Physiology of emotions

The quality of an emotion is determined by the triune effect of temperament, situation, hormonal status and levels of neurotransmitters in an individual at the time of the event.

Excitement and emotions

Most physiological changes during emotion relate to the activation of the sympathetic autonomic nervous system.

1. Increased blood pressure and increased heart rate
2. Increased breathing.
3. Pupil dilation.
4. Increased sweating with decreased secretion of saliva and mucus.
5. Increased blood glucose levels.
6. Acceleration of blood clotting.
7. Redistribution of blood from the abdomen and intestines to the brain.
8. Elevation of skin hair - “Goose bumps”.

The sympathetic response prepares the body for a “Release of Energy.” After the emotion is resolved, the parasympathetic (energy-saving) system returns the body to its original state.

As a result of emotions such as “Fear” and “Anger”, the body prepares for fight or flight. Some of these manifestations are observed in “Pleasure” and “Sexual Arousal”. Emotions such as “Sorrow” or “Melancholy” can, however, be expressed in depression and slower reactions.

Qualities of emotions

Intensity of emotions

The intensity of emotions depends on the usefulness and functional integrity of the central and autonomic nervous systems. Thus, in patients with spinal cord damage at different levels, the maximum decrease in the intensity of emotions is observed in patients with damage to the cervical segments of the spinal cord.

Differentiation of emotions

The James-Lange theory (James-Lange, 1884) assumes the presence of a certain Pattern (Image) of activity of the autonomic nervous system for each individual emotion. This statement was confirmed by the work of Ekman and Friesen (1990).

Cognitive assessment

It consists of analyzing the situation that leads to the manifestation of emotions. Both the intensity and quality of emotions are assessed in this way. If a person is in a state of uncertain emotion, cognitive appraisal allows him to evaluate the situation. There are, however, situations where the emotional state cannot be assessed either consciously or intentionally. Such conditions include “childhood fears.” In these cases, the development of the emotional state occurs along specialized neuronal pathways in the brain.

Facial manifestations of emotions

A universal way of showing emotions among people, regardless of race and social class. The emotion recognition center is located in the right hemisphere of the brain and has a different localization from the face recognition center.

Communication and emotions

The well-known role of emotions in communication between humans and animals is complemented, however, by the possibility of deliberately enhancing the emotional response by deliberately enhancing facial expressions (the facial feedback hypothesis)

Mood as an emotional state

Behavior and emotions

A typical activity trend is determined by a specific emotion. Aggression is a typical tendency in response to anger. The aggressive reaction in animals is regulated by certain neuronal structures of the brain (hypothalamus). In humans, this activity is regulated by the cerebral cortex and may be part of acquired experience. According to social-learning theory, aggressive behavior can be acquired by children as a result of imitating behavior in scenes of violence shown on television.

Interdependencies of Emotions

In addition, basic emotions can cooperate with reactions to complex social tasks, acquiring the character of cognitive emotions. Thus, a “feeling of disgust” may arise in you when observing feces - this is the main emotion, but a feeling of disgust can also arise in you in response to immoral behavior in society, and then this emotion manifests itself as a high, cognitive emotion.

Properties of emotions and feelings

1. Transferable, generalizable. Feelings developed for one object are transferred to a certain extent to the entire class of similar objects.
2. Dullness. Under the influence of long-term stimuli, feelings cease to be vivid (any song becomes boring if you constantly hear it, an often repeated joke no longer causes laughter). Both positive and negative feelings are subject to dulling. Dulling negative feelings is dangerous because negative feelings signal an unfavorable environment, prompting a person to change.
3. Interaction. The different feelings that arise when exposed to a variety of stimuli influence each other. For example, the feeling of frustration at one person's unethical action is enhanced when it is contrasted with another person's noble action in the same situation. There is a contrast of feelings.
4. Summation. Feelings systematically evoked by one or another object accumulate and are summed up. So, as a result of summation, love and respect for a person can strengthen, or, conversely, hatred, which can lead to affect.
5. Substitution. Failure in one area can be compensated by success in another.
6. Switchability. Emotions that are not satisfied with one object can be transferred to other objects.

Feelings and emotions

1. The concept of feelings, emotions and their types. Emotional states

Interacting with the world around us, a person relates to it in a certain way, experiences some feelings about what he remembers, imagines, and thinks about.

A person’s experience of his relationship to what he does or learns, to other people, to himself, is called feelings and emotions.

Feelings and emotions are interconnected but distinct phenomena of the emotional sphere of personality . Emotions consider a simpler, more immediate experience at the moment associated with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of needs. Manifesting as reactions to objects in the environment, emotions are associated with initial impressions. The first impression of something is purely emotional in nature and is a direct reaction (fear, anger, joy) to some of its external features.

Feeling - it's more complex than emotions,a constant, established attitude of the individual to what he knows and does, to the object of his needs. Feelings are characterized by stability and duration, measured in months and years of life of their subject. Feelings are unique to humans, they are socially conditioned and represent the highest product of human cultural and emotional development. A sense of duty, self-esteem, shame, pride are exclusively human feelings. Animals also have emotions associated with the satisfaction of physiological needs, but in humans even these emotions bear the stamp of social development. All human emotional manifestations are regulated by social norms. A person often subordinates physiological needs to higher, specifically human spiritual needs.

The sources of emotions and feelings are, on the one hand, the surrounding reality reflected in our consciousness, and on the other, our needs. Those objects and phenomena that are not related to our needs and interests do not evoke noticeable feelings in us.

The physiological basis of feelings is primarily the processes occurring in the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex regulates the strength and stability of feelings. Experiences cause excitation processes that, spreading across the cerebral cortex, capture the subcortical centers. In the parts of the brain lying below the cerebral cortex, there are various centers of physiological activity of the body: respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive and secretory. That is why excitation of the subcortical centers causes increased activity of a number of internal organs. In this regard, the experience of feelings is accompanied by a change in the rhythm of breathing and cardiac activity, the functioning of the secretory glands is disrupted (tears from grief, sweat from excitement). Thus, when experiencing feelings, during emotional states, either an increase or decrease in the intensity of various aspects of human life is observed. In some emotional states we experience a surge of energy, we feel cheerful and efficient, while in others we experience a loss of strength and stiffness in muscle movements.

It must be borne in mind that the inextricable connection between the cerebral cortex and the subcortical region allows a person to control the physiological processes occurring in the body and consciously manage their feelings.

There are three pairs of the simplest emotional experiences.

"Pleasure - displeasure." Satisfaction of a person's physiological, spiritual and intellectual needs is reflected as pleasure, and dissatisfaction is reflected as displeasure.

"Voltage-resolution". The emotion of tension is associated with creating a new or breaking an old way of life and activity. The completion of this process is experienced as an emotion of resolution (relief).

"Excitement - calming." The emotion of excitement is determined by impulses going to the cerebral cortex from the subcortex. The emotional centers located here activate the activity of the cortex. Inhibition by the cortex of impulses coming from the subcortex is experienced as calming.

There are also sthenic (Greek "stenos" - strength) and asthenic (Greek "asthenos" - weakness, impotence) emotions. Stenic emotions increase activity, energy and cause uplift, excitement, vigor (joy, combat excitement, anger, hatred). With sthenic emotions, it is difficult for a person to remain silent, it is difficult not to act actively. Feeling sympathy for a friend, a person looks for a way to help him. Asthenic emotions reduce a person’s activity and energy, and reduce vital activity (sadness, melancholy, despondency, depression). Asthenic emotions are characterized by passivity, contemplation, and relax a person. Sympathy remains a good but sterile emotional experience.

Feelings are usually classified by content. It is customary to distinguish the following types of feelings: moral, intellectual and aesthetic.

Depending on the combination of speed, strength and duration of feelings, they distinguish types of emotional states, the main ones being mood, passion, affect, inspiration, stress and frustration.

Mood is an emotional state that is characterized by weak or medium strength and significant stability. This or that mood can last for days, weeks, months. This is not a special experience about any specific event, but a “diffused” general state. Mood usually “colors” all other emotional experiences of a person and is reflected in his activity, aspirations, actions and behavior.

Passion is a long-term and stable emotional state. But, unlike mood, passion is characterized by strong emotional intensity. Passion arises when there is a strong desire for certain actions, to achieve a goal and helps this achievement. Positive passions serve as a stimulus for great creative human activity. Passion is a long-lasting, stable and deep feeling that has become a characteristic of a person.

Affects extremely strong, quickly arising and violently occurring short-term emotional states (affects of despair, rage, horror) are called. A person’s actions when affected occur in the form of an “explosion.” Strong emotional arousal manifests itself in violent movements and disordered speech. Sometimes affect manifests itself in tense stiffness of movements, posture or speech (for example, it may be confusion at pleasant but unexpected news). Affects negatively affect human activity, sharply reducing the level of its organization. In a state of passion, a person may experience a temporary loss of volitional control over his behavior, and he may commit rash acts. Any feeling can be experienced in an affective form. Affect is no longer joy, but delight, not grief, but despair, not fear, but horror, not anger, but rage. Affects arise when the will is weakened and are indicators of incontinence, a person’s inability to self-control.

Inspiration how the emotional state manifests itself in various activities. It is characterized by great strength and striving for a certain activity. Inspiration occurs in cases where the goal of an activity is clear and the results are clearly presented, and at the same time as necessary and valuable. Inspiration is often experienced as a collective feeling, and the more people are overwhelmed by the feeling of inspiration, the stronger this feeling is experienced by each person individually. This emotional state is especially often and most clearly manifested in people’s creative activity. Inspiration is a kind of mobilization of all the best mental forces of a person.

Stress (English 51ge85 - tension) is a state of excessively strong and prolonged psychological stress that occurs in a person when his nervous system receives emotional overload. The word “stress” was first used by the Canadian biologist G. Selye (1907-1982). He also introduced the concept of “stress phase”, highlighting the stages of anxiety (mobilization of defenses), resistance (adaptation to a difficult situation) and exhaustion (consequences of prolonged exposure to stress). Stress is caused by extreme conditions for a given individual and is experienced with great internal tension. Stress can be caused by dangerous conditions for life and health, great physical and mental overload, and the need to make quick and responsible decisions. With severe stress, the heartbeat and breathing become more frequent, blood pressure rises, a general reaction of excitation occurs, expressed in varying degrees of disorganization of behavior (erratic, uncoordinated movements and gestures, confused, incoherent speech), confusion, difficulties in switching attention are observed, and perception errors are possible , memory, thinking. Stress disorganizes a person’s activities and disrupts the normal course of his behavior. Frequent and prolonged stress has a negative impact on a person’s physical and mental health. However, with mild stress, general physical composure, increased activity, clarity and clarity of thought, and quick wits appear.

Frustration - This is a psychological state of disorganization of consciousness and personal activity, caused by objectively insurmountable (or subjectively understood and experienced) obstacles on the way to a very desirable goal. This is an internal conflict between the direction of the individual and objective possibilities with which the individual does not agree. Frustration occurs when the degree of dissatisfaction is greater than what a person can bear, i.e. above the threshold of frustration. In a state of frustration, a person experiences a particularly strong neuropsychic shock. It can manifest itself as extreme annoyance, embitterment, depression, complete indifference to the environment, unlimited self-flagellation.

2. Functions of emotions and feelings, their meaning in human life

Emotions and feelings perform the following functions. Signal(communicative) function is expressed in the fact that emotions and feelings are accompanied by expressive movements:

facial (movement of facial muscles), pantomimic (movement of body muscles, gestures), voice changes, autonomic changes (sweating, redness or paleness of the skin). These displays of emotions and feelings signal to other people what emotions and feelings a person is experiencing; they allow him to convey his experiences to other people, inform them about his attitude to objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality.

Regulatory the function is expressed in the fact that persistent experiences guide our behavior, support it, and force us to overcome obstacles encountered along the way. Regulatory mechanisms of emotions relieve excess emotional arousal. When emotions reach extreme tension, they are transformed into processes such as the release of tear fluid, contraction of facial and respiratory muscles (crying).

Reflective(evaluative) function is expressed in a generalized assessment of phenomena and events. The senses cover the entire body and allow one to determine the usefulness or harmfulness of the factors affecting them and react before the harmful effect itself is determined.

Incentive(stimulating) function. Feelings, as it were, determine the direction of the search that can provide a solution to the problem. Emotional experience contains the image of an object that satisfies needs, and its biased attitude towards it, which prompts a person to act.

Reinforcing the function is expressed in the fact that significant events that cause a strong emotional reaction are quickly and permanently imprinted in memory. Thus, emotions of “success - failure” have the ability to instill love for any type of activity or extinguish it.

Switchable the function is revealed by the competition of motives, as a result of which the dominant need is determined (the struggle between fear and a sense of duty). The attractiveness of the motive, its closeness to personal attitudes, directs the individual’s activity in one direction or another.

Adaptive function. Emotions arise as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions in order to satisfy the needs that are relevant to them. Thanks to the feeling that arises in time, the body has the opportunity to effectively adapt to environmental conditions.

We get angry at our colleagues because they shirk work and burden us with additional tasks... We experience great joy when we see clear skies and bright sunshine... We are proud of our children, we love our parents, and we are sad about our school years... All these experiences are emotions and feelings. In psychology, they are always considered as two halves of one whole, since they are interconnected and often complement each other.

The essence of emotions

The definition of this concept is given by practical psychology. A person’s emotions are his internal experiences in relation to a particular person, object, phenomenon or action. They can be colored in positive or negative tones. Usually closely related to the internal needs of the individual, therefore a psychological state called emotions arises in a person depending on how well or poorly his needs are satisfied and his interests are met. For example, we may experience anger if we are offended, that is, our “I” is infringed upon, if they go against our desires, because we always expect praise.

It is impossible to briefly explain what emotions and feelings are in psychology. Since they cover a very wide range of life, activity, and human relationships. There can be hundreds of emotions themselves, and each of them is colored in new shades, which means they are always characterized differently. For example, pleasure. This feeling is always different: if we get it from work, then it is mixed with a sense of pride; if from a hobby, then there is a touch of relaxation and lightness; from communicating with a friend - intimacy and trust. In short, every emotion always looks different depending on the specific situation.

Feelings: how are they different from emotions?

Often these two phenomena are confused. And this is not surprising: they are very similar, often even identical. Despite this, differences still exist. How are human emotions and feelings different? Psychology characterizes the former as a temporary state that arose in the form of a response to events occurring at the moment. Emotions are situational: if we want to eat, we feel hungry. But as soon as we have a snack, the need and the emotion associated with it disappear. It all depends on the specific circumstances, time, place and even the company of people.

Feelings, on the contrary, are secondary. They are based on emotions, only their action lasts longer. For example, you experience temporary sympathy when meeting a young man. This is an emotion. After some time, it transforms and reincarnates into love, which is already a feeling. It no longer depends on changes in the situation and will accompany us throughout our lives (or some segment of our life’s journey). Emotions and feelings in psychology are separated by a thin line; often for a long time we cannot understand what exactly we are experiencing and feeling.

Demonstration of emotions and feelings

So, we have figured out the characteristics of these two phenomena. Now let's define how emotions and feelings manifest themselves. In psychology, the former are always conscious, but they can also be latent. For example, we are angry with our spouse because she did not have time to prepare dinner. We clearly understand that we are angry, but nevertheless we hide our emotion: we do not want to spoil our nerves after a hard day at work, we avoid spreading negativity in the presence of children, or we ourselves have been guilty for some reason. Adults are accustomed to masking their true feelings so as not to offend or disappoint other people, not to lose their trust, and so on. When it comes to expressing emotions, we usually do this by screaming, crying, laughing, gesturing or moving. If they are latent, then we give ourselves away through facial expressions or voice intonation.

If an individual can easily explain why he experiences a particular emotion, then feelings cannot be described in words. Often we ourselves do not understand why we love this or that person. We do not always know how to hide feelings, since they are deep in the heart: it is not we who influence them, but they who influence us. We demonstrate through actions, facial expressions, and verbal signs.

Main types

To make it easier to understand the difference between these two concepts, you need to classify them. According to general psychology, emotions and feelings can be positive, negative and neutral. A person manifests them depending on his life situation. For example, positive emotions include joy, pleasure, delight, bliss, negative emotions include fear, sadness, sadness, grief, despair, anxiety, and neutral emotions include surprise, indifference, curiosity. As for feelings, love, happiness, responsibility are positive, while hatred and alienation are considered negative. Neutral ones are difficult to identify, since a person usually takes one side or another, with only indifference serving as a narrow bridge between them.

In addition, there are feelings:

1. Moral or ethical. They arise as a relationship between social rules and human behavior. They are social in nature and can be positive or negative: patriotism, friendship, contempt, disrespect.
2. Intelligent. Based on cognitive activity. For example, self-satisfaction, disappointment.
3. Aesthetic. The ability to create or perceive beauty.

Every feeling and emotion easily moves from one category to another, as it is capable of transformation and completely changing its “color”.

What shapes feelings and emotions

The starting point of human reactions is difficult to determine. Therefore, the reasons why emotions and feelings arose often remain a mystery. In psychology, pictures shown to different people during an experiment provoke different behavior. For example, when showing experimental participants a photograph of fire, scientists see completely different reactions: for some, the flame causes irritation, for others - fear, for others - a feeling of warmth. Life experience and acquired knowledge shape our attitude towards a particular phenomenon. It is clear that if we survived a fire or received a severe burn, then the contemplation of fire cannot be associated with anything joyful.

Since feelings and emotions are a social phenomenon, they arise in the process of life. We acquire them by communicating with parents, friends, colleagues, reading literature, watching movies. Already in early childhood, we are taught what is good and what is bad. And if you don't have tender feelings for a particular subject, you are considered strange or selfish. For example, even at school, a sense of duty and love for the Motherland is drilled into our heads. But if a person does not accept violence and refuses to go to war to protect the country from the enemy, he is immediately called a non-patriot, a pathetic coward and a traitor.

Innate feelings and emotions

Not all of our sensations are formed under the influence of society; we absorb some with our mother's milk. Innate emotions and feelings in psychology are those that arise in a baby immediately after his birth. There are very few of them, and the border between them and acquired ones is quite blurred. Many psychologists argue that interest, excitement, joy, surprise, fear, anger, disgust are already inherent in the genes. The rest of man's senses were taught to him by others like him. But this is debatable. Consider, for example, fear. It cannot be said that a baby is immediately afraid of everything. Most likely, he acquires this feeling depending on life situations: the sound of thunder, the barking of a dog, the absence of his mother. On the other hand, perhaps the baby is already inclined to be afraid at birth; it’s just that a certain incident activates this emotion.

Emotions and feelings fill our lives with meaning, coloring gray everyday life with bright colors. Of course, I would like to experience only positive feelings. But, you must admit that we also cannot do without the bad ones. After all, only after experiencing grief and disappointment do we know how to appreciate love, greedily drawing pleasure and happiness from it.

Emotional stability is the main component of a harmonious personality. Emotions and feelings in psychology are the connection between a person’s internal state and the external circumstances that surround him. Behavioral reactions, interaction with people around you, and circumstances directly depend on the ability to deal with your emotions in a timely manner and present them competently. Society requires increased self-control, but not in all cases this is justified and passes without consequences. Learning to manage feelings is useful, because emotional comfort is directly related to physical condition, illness, and failures.

In psychology, emotions are a person’s reaction to the environment. The desire or unwillingness to participate in events around, a demonstration of the internal state: anger, melancholy or joy, falling in love. This reaction is based on a subjective assessment of reality. It has been proven that feelings directly depend on the attitude towards oneself and are built on the basis of the internal worldview, as well as the characteristics of the nervous system. Different people may have different reactions to the same situation.

Emotions in psychology are divided into three categories according to their manifestation:

1. Positive ones carry a positive charge. These include interest, joy, delight, jubilation.
2. Negative ones are negatively charged. For this category, the list is much wider: anger, resentment, melancholy, grief, shame, guilt, fear, uncertainty.
3. Neutrals can have a positive or negative connotation, but do not carry a strong emotional coloring and do not have violent manifestations. This is curiosity, surprise, revival.

Each reaction is accompanied by verbal manifestations: words, intonations. If you are able to determine in time which emotion has captured you at a particular moment, you can learn to control them.

Table of human feelings and emotions

Despite the variety of manifestations, types of emotions in psychology are reduced to four basic ones: joy, sadness, fear, anger. Each has subspecies. The degree of manifestation depends on the individual and the situation.

Basic reaction	Expanded concept	Manifestations
Joy	Revival	Sparkle in the eyes, smile, desire to hug, open palms, laughter, relaxation, willingness to help.
	Happiness
	Anticipation
	Hope
	Delight
	Rejoicing
	Interest
	Acceptance
Fear	Fright	Goosebumps, wide-open eyes, trembling, tension, trembling voice, pain behind the sternum, the desire to hide, the urge to leave.
	Horror
	Anxiety
	Suspicion
	Anxiety
	Confusion
	Uncertainty
	Guilt
Sadness	Yearning	A dull look, a distracted look, a quiet voice, a lowered head, weakness of the arms, the corners of the lips are lowered, the shoulders are raised, the breathing is weak.
	Sadness
	Hopelessness
	Dejection
	Regret
	Bitterness
	Laziness
	Pity
Anger	Anger	Palms clenched into fists, body tension, an angry gleam in the eyes, a grin, a loud voice, a scream, harshness of phrases, a glance from under the brows, eyes bulging or squinted, eyebrows drawn together.
	Fury
	Hatred
	Discontent
	Arrogance
	Irony
	Negation
	Disturbance

Demonstration of emotions and feelings

Only children openly demonstrate their feelings. They are unfamiliar with reproach for anger or excessive joy. Everything that resonates in their personality immediately breaks through.

The older a person gets, the more opportunities he has to control his emotional background. Consciously or under the influence of others, an adult learns to keep a reaction to surrounding events within himself. There are two ways to control yourself:

1. Hold back against your will, do not express anger, do not show love. This method is the result of either upbringing or a psychological shock.
2. Show emotions regarding the situation, process unwanted ones mentally, transforming them from destructive to constructive or neutral. This method is the result of working on yourself. It is considered safer for mental and physical health.

Those who have been taught that reacting to situations is wrong may need to consult a specialist. Psychologist-hypnologist Nikita Valerievich Baturin will help you understand yourself, tell you how useful it is to manage your emotional background, and suggest ways to do this.

A person who is able not to close himself off, but to control his state, as well as accurately recognize the emotions and feelings of others, is correlated with such a concept in psychology as emotional intelligence. The degree of manifestation of their own reactions is commensurate with the situation: such individuals do not lose their temper over a broken nail or under-salted soup, but they know how to support and encourage if a loved one is feeling sad or angry.

How are feelings different from emotions?

Close in meaning, but still not identical, are the concepts of emotions and feelings. In scientific psychology, these terms define different components of a single emotional background.

Feelings are deeper states that determine a person’s stable attitude to surrounding events. They are often less pronounced and have smoothed manifestations. Emotions are a reaction-outburst to a specific situation, causing vivid manifestations, often born unconsciously. B - more conscious manifestations of attitude towards a particular object. A person can experience the whole gamut of emotions, but at the same time not show feelings if there are no prerequisites for this. For example, do not hate an enemy if the enemy does not exist. At the same time, show anger if something served as a reason for this.

The feelings inherent in a particular person are significantly influenced by the society surrounding the space. Emotions are a subjective assessment based on an internal understanding of reality and the characteristics of the nervous system.

Types of feelings

In fact, this part of the perception of the environment is difficult to classify, since it is multifaceted and diverse. Conventionally, psychology defines the following types of feelings:

• moral;
• intellectual;
• practical;
• aesthetic.

Category	Subcategory	Manifestations	Characteristic
Moral	Moral	Humanity	Relationships between people, attitudes towards one’s own position in society, determining acceptable behavior and the limits of what is permitted.
		Patriotism
		Call of Duty
		Love
	Immoral	Cruelty
		Selfishness
		Hatred
		Greed
Intelligent	Specific	Inspiration	Determine attitude to intellectual needs.
		Determination
		Thirst for knowledge
		Satisfaction from new knowledge and discoveries
	Nonspecific	Curiosity
		Astonishment
		Humor
		Irony
Praxic	Choice of activity	Profession	They determine the attitude towards everyday worries, responsibilities, and relationships with society.
		Favorite leisure activity
		Interesting activities
Aesthetic	Satisfaction from seeing, touching, listening	Love for nature	Determine the range of interests aimed at satisfying aesthetic needs
		Love for technology
		Favorite music
		Works of art, architecture, sculpture

There are more complex feelings that cannot be clearly attributed to one of the types. For example, love awakens a person to strive for knowledge, to reveal aesthetic potential, inspires, and determines the choice of activity.

What are feelings for?

The functions of feelings in psychology are determined by their ability to leave information about significant events and objects.

• reflective - an assessment of what is happening in order to determine the degree of danger in order to find ways to prevent it;
• stimulating - feelings encourage you to look for ways to solve certain problems and determine goals for the future;
• reinforcing - thanks to feelings, a person remembers significant events, giving his own subjective assessment;
• switching - help set priorities, determine more important objects, actions, decisions. In other words, it is willpower;
• adaptive - based on previously experienced feelings, a person can more easily adapt to a new reality;
• communicative - the language of feelings is one of the effective ways to interact with others.

Managing Emotions

Creation and destruction are two extremes to which human emotions lead. There is an important rule in psychology: in order to be a harmonious person, you must learn to manage the emotions themselves, and not just their manifestations.

Misunderstandings, conflicts, and quarrels arise due to lack of control. Physical illnesses, nervous exhaustion, and other psychosomatic phenomena are the result of incorrect processing: attempts to show joy instead of sadness, to hide anger inside.

In the book by psychologist-hypnologist Nikita Valerievich Baturin “55+ exercises for panic and fear. How to manage emotions » you will find exercises, techniques that can teach you to control yourself, your emotions and body.

How do emotions arise?

To better understand yourself and deal with dangerous situations in a timely manner, you need to understand the basics of the psychology of emotions.

A person adopts basic reactions from those who care for him in the first year of life: parents, close relatives, nannies, guardians. The child learns to react to the world in the same way as others do.

The desire to learn to respond correctly is inherent at the genetic level and is reinforced by interaction with society. But to the question of whether innate emotions and feelings exist, psychology does not yet give an unambiguous answer. Most likely, a newborn can only react on an unconscious level: widen his eyes when he is afraid, scream in indignation if he is uncomfortable, follow a toy that is interesting. But the moments when to manifest them still remain in the environment where the baby is. Therefore, some children wake up from every rustle, while others will not be awakened by barking dogs or noise outside the window: they do not react emotionally to their usual surroundings.

In adulthood, a person already has his own set of reactions to surrounding events, an individual “card index” of feelings. In psychology this is called the emotional background. For some it is stable, for others it is not. We consider someone calm, confident, consistent. Others are remembered as anxious, they lack confidence in themselves and those around them, they become “hysterical” for no apparent reason, and worry excessively.

The higher the emotional intelligence, the more comfortable it is to communicate with the person. Psychologist Nikita Baturin calls control of one’s own emotional background one of the basic methods of winning people over. A variety of people are drawn to such personalities; all that remains is to learn how to choose the most necessary ones, carefully getting rid of energy vampires.

Nonverbal expression of emotions

To learn to control yourself and read others, you need to know what emotions and feelings are in psychology and how they manifest themselves. It is especially useful to know body language.

In fiction there are phrases like “Nothing betrayed his excitement except a slight trembling of his right knee.” Sometimes even subtle symbols are enough to read a person at a certain moment, and then take advantage of the acquired knowledge.

Movements, gestures, glances, head tilt or straight posture - all this can tell a lot about a person’s condition. Nonverbal signs include:

• look: burning, extinguished, running;
• color, skin condition: pale, red, with sweat, covered with wrinkles;
• tremor: trembling of hands, fingers, lips, eyelashes, legs;
• heartbeat: fast, slow;
• breathing: confused, measured, noisy, stringy;
• posture: stooped, shoulders high, shoulders back, back too straight, relaxed posture;
• objects in the hands that a person twists, touches, or unconsciously holds. He can do it quickly, slowly, chaotically, in order.

There are actually a lot of nonverbal manifestations. need to be studied for a long time, consistently.

It is on non-verbal manifestations that an ordinary untrained person cannot control that the principle of operation of a lie detector is built. Sensitive sensors read the slightest changes in the client’s reactions and draw a conclusion: a liar or an honest person is being tested.

Verbal expression of emotions

This item includes everything related to speech. From specific verbal formulations like “I’m happy”, “I’m very angry”, “I’m sad” to words woven into the context. The stronger the emotion or feeling, the brighter the sound coloring of the expressions. An exclamation for joy, a scream for anger, a whisper or deep tone for sadness. Increased tone, slight sadness, addition of emotionally charged words from the state category (good, bad, uncomfortable, great).

Changes in the tone and timbre of the voice a person learns to read from the first months of life, as soon as the brain connects the organs of perception. We correlate the nuances of speech with nonverbal manifestations and the surrounding situation. He is already learning to determine the emotional background of his loved ones by his voice. By adolescence, a personal set of emotional colors of speech is formed, based on the lifestyle and reactions of the surrounding society.

The words used in context may not have a bright color or give a clear understanding of the mood. But thanks to the psychology of feelings, we read the emotions conveyed by the author of the message. This technique is often used by deceivers, presenting thoughts in such a context that the listener gets the impression they want.

External manifestation of emotions

Everything would be very simple if everyone said what they feel. But the older a person gets, the more skillfully he can mask some experiences with others. For example, he is sad, but by adding joy to his voice and smiling, he will seem serene and cheerful. For those interlocutors who are not sensitive, this is quite enough not to go into details of the emotional background. But there can be no talk of intimacy, heart-to-heart conversations with such an attitude.

To learn to communicate with people, you need to be able to read their inner world. Behind the joy you can see sadness, behind the fake calmness you can detect nervousness. It is also important to understand how strong this or that hidden feeling is, whether a person needs support and help.

​​​​​​​Why do humans and animals need such a variety of emotional reactions? How do the mechanisms of occurrence of one emotion differ from another? Why does this object, signal, this situation evoke in us this particular emotion and not another? Is this due to the stimulus or the specificity of the functioning of certain brain structures?

W. James (1991), based on his understanding of the mechanism of the emergence of emotions, saw the reason for the diversity of emotional reactions in the countless reflex acts that arise under the influence of external objects and are immediately recognized by us. Since there is nothing immutable, absolute in a reflex act, and reflex actions can vary indefinitely, the mental reflections of these physiological changes, i.e., emotions, also vary indefinitely.

It should be noted that often the diversity of emotions is a consequence of an incorrect expansion of their list, the attribution to emotions of phenomena that have nothing to do with them. For example, in the work of S. O. Berdnikova et al. (2000), emotions include the desire to win recognition and respect, the desire to take revenge, and a feeling of tension; a feeling of distance that beckons; the desire to communicate, the desire to achieve success in one’s business, the desire to repeatedly acquire something, the desire to do something, to penetrate into the essence of phenomena, to overcome differences in one’s own thoughts. As follows from this list, the authors expanded the list of emotions to include needs, desires, and aspirations, i.e., they confused motives with emotions.

5.2. Different approaches to emotion classification

The question of the number and types of emotional reactions has been discussed for a long time. Aristotle also distinguished love and hatred, desire and disgust, hope and despair, timidity and courage, joy and sadness, anger. Representatives of the ancient Greek philosophical school of Stoicism argued that emotions, having at their basis two goods and two evils, should be divided into four main passions: desire and joy, sadness and fear. They further divided them into 32 minor passions. B. Spinoza believed that there are as many types of pleasure, displeasure and desire as there are types of those objects from which we are affected. R. Descartes recognized six main passions: surprise, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness. As we see, the separation of motivational formations (desires) from feelings and emotions in these ideas is absent, as is the separation of feelings and emotions.

Many scientists have made attempts to give universal classifications of emotions, and each of them put forward their own basis for this. Thus, T. Brown based the classification on the temporal sign, dividing emotions into immediate, i.e., manifested “here and now,” retrospective and prospective. Reid. built a classification based on the relationship to the source of action. He divided all emotions into three groups: 1) which are characterized by a mechanical origin (instincts, habits); 2) emotions with an animal origin (appetite, desire, affectation); 3) emotions with a rational beginning (pride, duty). D. Stewart's classification differs from the previous one in that the first two Reed groups are combined into one class of instinctive emotions. I. Kant reduced all emotions to two groups, which were based on the reason for the emergence of emotions: sensory and intellectual emotions. At the same time, he attributed affects and passions to the volitional sphere.

G. Spencer proposed dividing feelings based on their occurrence and reproduction into four classes. To the first, he included presentational feelings (sensations) that arise directly from the action of external stimuli. To the second class - presentational-representational, or simple, emotions, for example fear. He included in the third class representative emotions evoked by poetry as a stimulus that does not have a specific objective embodiment. Finally, Spencer included in the fourth class higher, abstract emotions that are formed without the help of an external stimulus in an abstract way (for example, a sense of justice).

A. Bahn (1902) identified 12 classes of emotions.

The founder of scientific psychology, W. Wundt, believed that the number of emotions (more precisely, shades of the emotional tone of sensations) is so large (considerably more than 50,000) that the language does not have enough words to denote them.

The opposite position was taken by the American psychologist E. Titchener (Titchener, 1899). He believed that there are only two types of emotional tone of sensations: pleasure and displeasure. In his opinion, Wundt confused two different phenomena: feelings and feeling. Feeling, according to Titchener, is a complex process consisting of sensation and feelings of pleasure or displeasure (in the modern sense - emotional tone). The appearance of the existence of a large number of emotions (feelings), according to Titchener, is created by the fact that an emotional tone can accompany innumerable combinations of sensations, forming a corresponding number of feelings.

Titchener distinguished between emotions, mood and complex feelings (sentimentes), in which states of pleasure and displeasure play a significant role.

The difficulty of classifying emotions lies in the fact that, on the one hand, it is difficult to determine whether the identified emotion is really an independent type or whether it is a designation of the same emotion in different words (synonyms), and on the other hand, whether it is a new verbal designation emotions are only a reflection of the degree of its expression (for example, anxiety - fear - horror).

This was also noted by W. James, who wrote: “The difficulties that arise in psychology when analyzing emotions stem, it seems to me, from the fact that they are too accustomed to being viewed as completely separate phenomena from each other. So long as we regard each of them as some eternal, inviolable spiritual entity, like the species once considered immutable entities in biology, so long we can only respectfully catalog the various features of the emotions, their degrees, and the actions produced by them. If we begin to consider them as products of more general causes (for example, in biology, the difference between species is considered as a product of variability under the influence of environmental conditions and the transmission of acquired changes through heredity), then the establishment of differences and classification will acquire the meaning of simple auxiliary means" (1991, p. 274).

As P.V. Simonov (1970) notes, none of the proposed classifications received wide recognition and did not become an effective tool for further searches and clarifications. According to Simonov, this is explained by the fact that all these classifications were built on an incorrect theoretical basis, namely: on the understanding of emotions as a force that directly guides behavior. As a result, emotions appeared that encourage one to strive for an object or avoid it, sthenic and asthenic emotions, etc.

Division of emotions according to the type of contact of living beings. P.V. Simonov (1966), based on the nature of the interaction of living beings with objects that can satisfy an existing need (contact or remote), proposed a classification of emotions presented in Table. 5.1.

Table 5.1 Classification of human emotions depending on the nature of the action

The author of this classification believes that it is also valid for those human emotions that are caused by the needs of a higher social order, therefore he does not agree with S. X. Rappoport (1968), who assessed it as a reflection of the biological theory of motivation.

In my opinion, the advantage of this classification is the attempt to find a criterion by which one can differentiate the emotional tone of sensations from emotions themselves (contact forms of interaction for the former and distant forms for the latter). But in general, this classification does little to clarify the truth, since for some reason it contains not only emotions, but also volitional qualities (courage, fearlessness) or emotional and personal characteristics (equanimity, optimism).

Later, Simonov (1983), despite the statement about the hopelessness of constructing a complete classification of emotions, again reproduces his classification, albeit in a shortened form. It is based on a system of two coordinate axes: the attitude towards one’s condition and the nature of interaction with objects that can satisfy the existing need. As a result, he received four pairs of “basic” emotions: pleasure-disgust, joy-sorrow, confidence-fear, triumph-rage. Each of these emotions has qualitative differences in experiences (shades), which are entirely determined by the need, in connection with the satisfaction of which this emotional state arises. The author believes that this classification inevitably follows from the “theory of emotions” he develops. Whether this is true or not is difficult to judge, but the question arises: why is confidence an emotion, and a basic one at that? Why can’t I experience pleasure when I’m happy, and disgust when I’m angry? And if I can, then which emotion will be basic and which will not?

Perhaps the answer to the last question may be that in addition to the basic positive and negative emotions that manifest themselves in their pure form, Simonov also identifies complex mixed emotions, which arise when two or more needs are simultaneously actualized. In this case, as Simonov (1981) writes, very complex emotional chords can arise (Table 5.2).

Classifications of emotions in connection with needs. When classifying emotions, some psychologists proceed from the needs that provoke the appearance of these emotions. This position is taken by P.V. Simonov, who believes that the pleasure of eating kebab is not equivalent to the pleasure of contemplating a beautiful picture, and B.I. Dodonov, who agrees with Simonov’s opinion.

Based on the identification of basic and secondary needs, emotions are divided into primary (basic) - joy, fear and secondary (intellectual) - interest, excitement (Vladislavlev, 1881; Kondash, 1981; Olshannikova, 1983). In this division, it is incomprehensible to classify excitement as an intellectual emotion (if it is advisable to talk about such things at all), and to classify interest as an emotion - from my point of view, a motivational rather than an emotional formation. If we follow this principle, then all motivational formations (drives, desires, personality orientation, etc.) must be attributed to emotions (which, unfortunately, is observed by some authors).

Table 5.2. Examples of situations and mixed emotional states arising on the basis of two coexisting needs "

K.I. Dodonov (1978) notes that it is generally impossible to create a universal classification of emotions, therefore a classification suitable for solving one range of problems turns out to be ineffective when solving another range of problems.

He proposed his own classification of emotions, and not for all, but only for those of them in which a person most often feels the need and which attach direct value to the very process of his activity, which thanks to this acquires the quality of interesting work or study, “sweet” dreams, gratifying memories, etc. For this reason, sadness was included in his classification (since there are people who like to be slightly sad) and envy was not included (since even envious people cannot be said to like to envy). Thus, the classification proposed by Dodonov concerns only “valuable,” in his terminology, emotions. Essentially, the basis of this classification is needs and goals, i.e., the motives that certain emotions serve. It should be noted that the author often includes desires and aspirations in the category of “emotional tools,” i.e., signs of identifying a given group of emotions, which creates confusion.

1. Altruistic emotions. These experiences arise from the need for assistance, help, patronage of other people, and the desire to bring people joy and happiness. Altruistic emotions are manifested in the experience of concern for the fate of someone and in care, in empathy for the joy and good fortune of another, in feelings of tenderness, tenderness, devotion, participation, pity.

2. Communicative emotions. They arise based on the need for communication. According to Dodonov, not every emotion that arises during communication is communicative. When communicating, different emotions arise, but only those that arise as a reaction to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the desire for emotional intimacy (to have a friend, a sympathetic interlocutor, etc.), the desire to communicate, share thoughts and experiences, and find a response are communicative. . The author includes a feeling of sympathy, affection, a feeling of respect for someone, a feeling of appreciation, gratitude, a feeling of adoration for someone, a desire to earn approval from loved ones and respected people.

3. Gloric emotions(from lat. gloria - glory). These emotions are associated with the need for self-affirmation, fame, and the desire to win recognition and honor. They arise during a real or imaginary “reaping of laurels”, when a person becomes the subject of everyone's attention and admiration. Otherwise, he experiences negative emotions. These emotions manifest themselves in a feeling of wounded pride and a desire to take revenge, in a pleasant tickling of pride, in a feeling of pride, superiority, in satisfaction that a person has grown in his own eyes.

4. Praxic emotions(or practical feelings, according to P. M. Yakobson). These are emotions arising in connection with an activity, its success or failure, the desire to succeed at work, the presence of difficulties. Dodonov connects their appearance with the “target reflex”, according to I.P. Pavlov. These emotions are expressed in a feeling of tension, passion for work, admiring the results of one’s work, pleasant fatigue, and satisfaction that the day was not in vain.

5. Scary emotions(from lat. pugna - struggle). They are associated with the need to overcome danger, on the basis of which interest in fighting arises. This is a thirst for thrills, an intoxication with danger, risk, a sense of sports excitement, “sports anger,” the utmost mobilization of one’s capabilities.

6. Romantic emotions. These are emotions associated with the desire for everything unusual, mysterious, and unknown. They manifest themselves in anticipation of a “bright miracle”, in an alluring sense of distance, in a feeling of special significance of what is happening, or in an ominously mysterious feeling.

7. Gnostic emotions(from Greek gnosis - knowledge). These are what are commonly called intellectual feelings. They are associated not simply with the need to obtain any new information, but with the need for “cognitive harmony,” as Dodonov writes. The essence of this harmony is to find the familiar, familiar, understandable in the new, unknown, to penetrate into the essence of the phenomenon, thus bringing all available information to a “common denominator.” A typical situation that arouses these emotions is a problem situation. These emotions manifest themselves in a feeling of surprise or bewilderment, a feeling of clarity or vagueness, in the desire to overcome the contradiction in one’s own reasoning, to bring everything into the system, in a feeling of conjecture, the proximity of a solution, in the joy of discovering the truth.

8. Aesthetic emotions. There are two main points of view regarding these emotions. First: aesthetic emotions do not exist in their pure form. These are experiences in which various emotions are intertwined (Kublanov, 1966; Shingarov, 1971; Yuldashev, 1969). Second: aesthetic emotion is nothing more than a feeling of beauty (Molchanova, 1966). According to Dodonov, not every perception of a work of art evokes aesthetic emotions. Aesthetic emotions are manifested in the enjoyment of beauty, in the feeling of elegant, graceful, sublime or majestic, exciting drama (“sweet pain”). A variety of aesthetic feelings are lyrical feelings of light sadness and thoughtfulness, touch, a bitterly pleasant feeling of loneliness, the sweetness of memories of the past.

9. Hedonic emotions. These are emotions associated with satisfying the need for bodily and mental comfort. These emotions are expressed in the enjoyment of pleasant physical sensations from tasty food, warmth, sun, etc., in a feeling of carelessness and serenity, in bliss (“sweet laziness”), in mild euphoria, in voluptuousness.

10. Active emotions(from French. acquisition - acquisition). These emotions arise in connection with an interest in accumulating, collecting, and acquiring things. They manifest themselves in joy on the occasion of acquiring a new thing, increasing their collection, in a pleasant feeling when reviewing their savings, etc. This classification seems to me somewhat far-fetched. The point of classifying emotions should not be to correlate them with specific types of needs (for this you also need to have a reasonable and consistent classification of the needs themselves, which still does not exist), but to identify groups of emotions that differ in the quality of experiences and their roles for humans and animals. It is difficult to agree that the pleasure received from your favorite activity, listening to music or eating food will be qualitatively different like an attitude to the perceived and felt. Another thing is that this attitude is mixed with various specific sensations, which can create the illusion of different emotions experienced by a person.

A more adequate understanding of the classification carried out by B.I. Dodonov, from my point of view, is found in E.I. Semenenko (1986). The author considers the emotions identified by Dodonov as types of emotional orientation. Among the students of the pedagogical institute, these types, according to the brightness of their manifestation, were arranged as follows:

When assessing oneself: praxic, communicative, altruistic, aesthetic, gnostic, gloric, hedonistic, romantic, fearful, active;

When assessed by peers: praxic, acquisitive, communicative, hedonistic, romantic, gloric, aesthetic, gnostic, altruistic, fearful.

As can be seen from this list, the coincidence was observed only in relation to the praxic and fearful types of emotional orientation.

The emotional orientation of the personality of athletes in accordance with the classification of B. I. Dodonov was studied by S. O. Berdnikova, Ya. Yu. Kopeika and V. I. Lysy (2000).

The division of emotions into primary (basic) and secondary. This approach is typical for supporters of a discrete model of the human emotional sphere. However, different authors name different numbers of basic emotions - from two to ten. P. Ekman and his colleagues, based on the study of facial expression, identify six such emotions: anger, fear, disgust, surprise, sadness and joy. R. Plutchik (1966) identifies eight basic emotions, dividing them into four pairs, each of which is associated with a specific action:

1) destruction (anger) - protection (fear);

2) acceptance (approval) - rejection (disgust);

3) reproduction (joy) - deprivation (dejection);

4) exploration (expectation) - orientation (surprise).

K. Izard names 10 basic emotions: anger, contempt, disgust, distress (grief-suffering), fear, guilt, interest, joy, shame, surprise.

From his point of view, basic emotions must have the following mandatory characteristics:

1) have distinct and specific neural substrates;

2) manifest themselves through an expressive and specific configuration of muscle movements of the face (facial expressions);

3) entail a distinct and specific experience that is conscious to the person;

4) arose as a result of evolutionary biological processes;

5) have an organizing and motivating influence on a person, serve his adaptation.

However, Izard himself admits that some emotions classified as basic do not have all these characteristics. Thus, the emotion of guilt does not have a clear facial and pantomimic expression. On the other hand, some researchers attribute other characteristics to basic emotions.

Obviously, those emotions that have deep phylogenetic roots can be called basic, that is, they are present not only in humans, but also in animals. Other emotions that are unique to humans (shame, guilt) do not apply to them. Interest and shyness can hardly be called emotions either.

Close to this is the division of emotions by R. Plutchik into primary and secondary (the latter means combinations of two or more primary emotions). Thus, he classifies secondary emotions as pride (anger + joy), love (joy + acceptance), curiosity (surprise + acceptance), modesty (fear + acceptance), etc. It is not difficult to notice that his emotions included feelings, and moral qualities (modesty) and a very strange emotion - acceptance.

Dividing emotions into leading and situational. V. K. Viliunas (1986) divides emotions into two fundamental groups: leading and situational (derived from the former).

The first group consists of experiences generated by specific mechanisms of needs and coloring directly items related to them. These experiences usually arise when a certain need intensifies and an object that responds to it is reflected. They precede the corresponding activity, encourage it and are responsible for its general direction. They largely determine the direction of other emotions, which is why the author calls them leading.

The second group includes situational emotional phenomena generated by universal motivation mechanisms and aimed at circumstances mediating satisfaction of needs. They arise already in the presence of a leading emotion, i.e. in the process of activity (internal or external), and express the motivational significance of the conditions that favor its implementation or make it difficult (fear, anger), specific achievements in it (joy, grief), the prevailing or possible situations, etc. Derived emotions are united by their conditioning by the situation and the activity of the subject, dependence on leading emotional phenomena.

If leading experiences reveal to the subject the significance of the very object of the need, then by derived emotions the same function is performed in relation to the situation, the conditions for satisfying the need. In derivative emotions, the need is, as it were, objectified secondarily and more widely - in relation to the conditions surrounding its object.

Analyzing situational emotions in a person, Viliunas identifies a class of success-failure emotions with three subgroups:

1) stated success or failure;​

2) anticipating success-failure;

3) generalized success-failure.

Emotions that indicate success or failure respond for changing behavior strategies; a generalized emotion of success or failure arises as a result of evaluating the activity as a whole; anticipatory emotions of success and failure are formed on the basis of ascertaining ones as a result of their association with the details of the situation. When a situation arises again, these emotions allow one to anticipate events and encourage a person to act in a certain direction.

L.V. Kulikov (1997) divides emotions (“feelings”) into activation, which include cheerfulness, joy, excitement, tension(tension emotions) - anger, fear, anxiety, and self-esteem - sadness, guilt, shame, confusion.

Obviously, we may not be talking about some comprehensive unified classification emotional phenomena, and about them classifications, each of which emphasizes some characteristic by which these phenomena are combined into groups and at the same time separated from other groups. Such signs may be the mechanisms of appearance, the reasons that cause emotional reactions, the sign of experiences, their intensity and stability, the influence of emotions on human behavior and activity.