The emotional sphere of a person is characterized by the following features. Emotional sphere of personality

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

State educational institution higher vocational education

PENZA STATE UNIVERSITY

Department of "Professional Pedagogy and Psychology"

Test

In the discipline "Psychology of Management"

On the topic: "Emotional sphere of personality"

Completed by: student of group 11ZEM51

Nemov M.Yu.

Checked by: Eremina E.K.

Penza 2012

INTRODUCTION

Emotions express our attitude to what we know, to our actions. Knowledge of emotions is necessary for everyone in order to better understand others and themselves. Without understanding yourself, it is impossible to understand another person.

Life without emotions is just as impossible as life without sensations. Emotions, argued the famous naturalist C. Darwin, arose in the process of evolution as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to meet their urgent needs. Emotionally expressive human movements - facial expressions, gestures, pantomime - perform the function of communication, i.e. communication to a person of information about the state of the speaker and his attitude to what is happening at the moment, as well as the function of influence - exerting a certain influence on the one who is the subject of perception of emotional and expressive movements. The interpretation of such movements by the perceiving person occurs on the basis of the correlation of the movement with the context in which the communication takes place.

The term "emotions" (French emotion - excitement, excitement, emotion, from Latin emoveo - shake, excite) is used to denote the mental processes of a person experiencing a relationship to certain phenomena of the surrounding reality.

1.1 Theories of emotion

In 1872, C. Darwin published the book Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, which was a turning point in understanding the relationship between biological and psychological phenomena, in particular, the organism and emotions. It proved that the evolutionary principle is applicable not only to the biophysical, but also to the psychological and behavioral development of the living, that there is no impassable abyss between the behavior of an animal and a person. Darwin showed that in the external expression of different emotional states, in expressive bodily movements, there is much in common between anthropoids and blind children. These observations formed the basis of the theory of emotions, which was called evolutionary. Emotions, according to this theory, appeared in the process of evolution of living beings as vital adaptive mechanisms that contribute to the adaptation of the organism to the conditions and situations of its life. Its authors were W. James and K. Lange. James believed that certain physical states are characteristic of different emotions - curiosity, delight, fear, anger and excitement. Corresponding bodily changes were called organic manifestations of emotions. According to the James-Lange theory, it is the organic changes that are the root causes of emotions. Being reflected in a person's head through a feedback system, they generate an emotional experience of the corresponding modality. First, under the influence of external stimuli, changes in the body, characteristic of emotions, occur, and only then - as a result of them - does the emotion itself arise.

An alternative point of view on the correlation of organic and emotional processes was proposed by W. Kennon. He was one of the first to note the fact that the bodily changes observed during the occurrence of different emotional states are very similar to each other and are not sufficient in diversity to completely satisfactorily explain the qualitative differences in the highest emotional experiences of a person. The internal organs, with changes in the states of which James and Lange associated the emergence of emotional states, in addition, are rather insensitive structures that very slowly come into a state of excitation. Emotions usually arise and develop quite quickly.

Cannon's strongest counterargument to the James-Lange theory was the following: an artificially induced cessation of the flow of organic signals to the brain does not prevent the emergence of emotions.

Cannon's provisions were developed by P. Bard, who showed that in fact both bodily changes and the emotional experiences associated with them occur almost simultaneously.

In later studies, it was found that of all the structures of the brain, the most functionally connected with emotions is not even the thalamus itself, but the hypothalamus and the central parts of the limbic system. In experiments on animals, it was found that electrical effects on these structures can control emotional states, such as anger, fear (X. Delgado).

The psycho-organic theory of emotions (this is how the concepts of James-Lange and Cannon-Bard can be conditionally called) was further developed under the influence of electrophysiological studies of the brain. On its basis, the activation theory of Lindsay-Hebb arose. According to this theory, emotional states are determined by the influence of the reticular formation of the lower part of the brain stem. Emotions arise as a result of disturbance and restoration of balance in the corresponding structures of the central nervous system. The activation theory is based on the following main provisions:

The electroencephalographic picture of the brain that occurs with emotions is an expression of the so-called "activation complex" associated with the activity of the reticular formation.

The work of the reticular formation determines many dynamic parameters of emotional states, their strength, duration, variability, and a number of others.

In a person, in the dynamics of emotional processes and states, cognitive-psychological factors (cognitive means related to knowledge) play no less a role than organic and physical influences. In this regard, new concepts have been proposed to explain human emotions. dynamic features cognitive processes.

One of the first such theories was L. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. According to it, a person has a positive emotional experience when his expectations are confirmed, and cognitive ideas are realized, i.e. when the actual results of the activity correspond to the intended ones, are consistent with them, or, what is the same, are in consonance. Negative emotions arise and intensify in cases where there is a discrepancy, inconsistency or dissonance between the expected and actual results of the activity.

Subjectively, the state of cognitive dissonance is usually experienced by a person as discomfort, and he seeks to get rid of it as soon as possible. The way out of the state of cognitive dissonance can be twofold: either change cognitive expectations and plans in such a way that they correspond to the actual result obtained, or try to get a new result that would be consistent with previous expectations.

In modern psychology, the theory of cognitive dissonance is often used to explain the actions of a person, his actions in various social situations. Emotions are considered as the main motive for the corresponding actions and deeds. The underlying cognitive factors are given a much greater role in determining human behavior than organic changes.

The dominant cognitivist orientation of modern psychological research has led to the fact that conscious assessments that a person gives to situations are also considered as emotional factors. It is believed that such assessments directly affect the nature of emotional experience.

In addition to what was said about the conditions and factors for the emergence of emotions and their dynamics by W. James, K. Lange, W. Cannon, P. Bard, D. Hebb and L. Festinger, S. Schechter made his contribution. He showed that a person's memory and motivation make a significant contribution to emotional processes. The concept of emotions proposed by S. Schechter is called cognitive-physiological.

According to this theory, the emerging emotional state, in addition to the perceived stimuli and the bodily changes generated by them, is influenced by a person's past experience and his assessment of the current situation from the point of view of his interests and needs. An indirect confirmation of the validity of the cognitive theory of emotions is the influence of verbal instructions on human experiences, as well as that additional emotional information that is intended to change a person’s assessment of the situation that has arisen.

In one of the experiments aimed at proving the stated provisions of the cognitive theory of emotions, people were given a physiologically neutral solution as a “medicine”, accompanied by various instructions. In one case, they were told that this "medicine" would cause them a state of euphoria, in the other - a state of anger. After taking the appropriate "medicine", the subjects after some time, when it was supposed to begin to act according to the instructions, were asked what they felt. It turned out that the emotional experiences they were talking about corresponded to what was expected from the instructions given to them.

Domestic physiologist P.V. Simonov tried in a brief symbolic form to present his totality of factors influencing the emergence and nature of emotion. He proposed the following formula for this.

E \u003d R (P, (In, -Is, ...))

where E is an emotion, its strength and quality, P is the magnitude and specificity of the actual need, (In, - D.) is an assessment of the probability (possibility) of satisfying this need based on innate and life-long experience, In ~ information about the means that are prognostically necessary to meet an existing need, Is - information about the means that a person has at a given time. According to the formula proposed by P.V. Simonov (his concept has a special name - informational), the strength and quality of the emotion that arose in a person is ultimately determined by the strength of the need and the assessment of the ability to satisfy it in the current situation.

1.2 Functions of emotions

Emotions, first of all, organize some activity, diverting strength and attention to it, which, of course, can interfere with parallel activities, i.e. perform an organizing function. Even such a biological reaction as affect, usually a disorganizing human activity (a disorganizing function), under certain conditions, can be useful. For example, when an individual has to escape from a serious danger, relying solely on physical strength and endurance.

The evaluative function of emotions puts them on a par with other forms of cognition. Emotions reflect in the form of direct experience the significance (meaning) of phenomena and situations, conditions of the body and external influences and serve as one of the main mechanisms for the internal regulation of mental activity and behavior aimed at meeting urgent needs.

The regulatory function of emotions, discussed in the psychological literature under various names: fixation - inhibition (P.K. Anokhin), trace formation (A.N. Leontiev), reinforcement (P.V. Simonov), - indicates the ability of emotions to leave traces in experience individual, fixing in him those influences and successful - unsuccessful actions that aroused them.

The logical continuation of the regulatory function (the trace itself would not make sense if it were not possible to use it in the future) is the anticipatory function of emotions, since the actualization of traces usually outstrips the development of events and the emotions that arise in this case signal a possible favorable or unfavorable outcome.

The emotional experience of a person is much broader than the experience of his individual experiences: it is also formed as a result of emotional empathy that arises in communication with other people, in particular, transmitted by means of art. The ability to evoke (empathy) and experience (empathy) sympathy, compassion, to share the feelings of another person is another expressive-communicative function of emotions, perhaps one of the most important, since in the manifestation of sympathy, the emotional realization of humanity as a need for the well-being of another takes place. .

1.3.Types of emotional states

Depending on the depth, intensity, duration and degree of differentiation, the following types of emotional states can be distinguished: sensual tone, emotions proper, affect, passion, mood.

1.Sensual or emotional tone is the simplest form of emotions, an elementary manifestation of organic sensitivity that accompanies certain vital influences and encourages the subject to eliminate or preserve them. Can be compared with primitive mental tropisms (approaching a pleasant stimulus of low intensity and moving away from a stimulus of greater intensity). Often, such experiences, due to their weak differentiation, cannot be expressed verbally (for example, “here you feel somehow wrong”). They are perceived as an emotional coloring, a kind of qualitative shade of the mental process, as a property of the perceived object, phenomenon, action, etc. (for example, “a pleasant conversationalist”, “a boring book”).

2.Emotions proper are a psychic reflection in the form of a direct biased experience of the vital meaning of phenomena and situations, conditioned by the relation of their objective properties to the needs of the subject. These are subject-specific mental processes and states that arise in a specific situation and have a narrowly focused character.

Emotions arise with excessive motivation in relation to the real adaptive capabilities of the individual. Depending on which of the two factors in the balance of motivation and capabilities of the subject mismatch occurs faster, we can distinguish two categories of causes that cause the emergence of emotions: lack of adaptive capabilities, excessive motivation. In the first case, emotion arises due to the fact that the subject cannot or does not know how to give an adequate response to stimulation (situations characterized by novelty, unusualness or suddenness). In the second case, there is excessive motivation that does not find application (before the action, after the action), and excessive motivation in social behavior (socially significant, socially undesirable, socially incomprehensible behavior).

The division of emotions into positive and negative is traditionally considered. Although this very general classification of emotions is generally correct and useful, the concepts of positivity and negativity as applied to emotions require some clarification. For example, such emotions as anger, fear, shame cannot be unconditionally categorized as negative, negative. Anger is sometimes directly correlated with adaptive behavior and even more often with the protection and assertion of personal integrity. Fear is also associated with survival and, along with shame, contributes to the regulation of permissive aggressiveness and the establishment of social order. Instead of talking about negative and positive emotions, it would be more accurate to consider that there are emotions that contribute to psychological entropy, and those that facilitate constructive behavior. In this sense, whether a given emotion will be positive or negative depends on the intra-individual processes of interaction between the subject and his environment, as well as on more general ethological and environmental factors.

No less popular is the classification of emotions in relation to activity and, accordingly, their division into sthenic (inciting action, causing tension) and asthenic (inhibiting action, depressing).

Classifications of emotions are also known: by origin from groups of needs - biological, social and ideal emotions, by the nature of actions on which the probability of satisfying a need depends - contact and distant.

3. Affect - a rapidly and violently flowing emotional process of an explosive nature, which can give a discharge in action that is not subject to conscious volitional control. The main thing in affect is an unexpectedly coming, sharply experienced by a person shock, characterized by a change in consciousness, a violation of volitional control over actions. In affect, the parameters of attention change dramatically: its switchability decreases, concentration and memory are disturbed, up to partial or complete amnesia. Affect has a disorganizing effect on activity, sequence and quality of performance, with maximum disintegration - stupor or chaotic non-purposeful motor reactions. Distinguish between normal and pathological effects. The main signs of pathological affect: altered consciousness (disorientation in time and space); inadequacy of the intensity of the response to the intensity of the stimulus that caused the reaction; presence of post-affective amnesia.

4. Passion - an intense, generalized and prolonged experience that dominates other human motives and leads to a focus on the subject of passion. The causes of passion can be different - ranging from bodily desires to conscious ideological convictions. It can be accepted, sanctioned by the personality, or it can be experienced as something undesirable, obsessive. characteristic features passions are the power of feeling, expressed in the appropriate direction of all the thoughts of the individual, stability, the unity of emotional and volitional moments, a kind of combination of activity and passivity.

5. Mood - a relatively long, stable mental state of moderate or low intensity. The reasons that appeal to the mood are numerous - from organic well-being (the tone of life) to the nuances of relationships with others. The mood has a subjective orientation, in comparison with the sensual tone, it is perceived not as a property of the object, but as a property of the subject (for example, regarding a piece of music, emotional accompaniment in the form of a sensual background will sound like “beautiful music”, and in the form of mood - “ yf I’m in a great mood "(from music). Individual-personal characteristics play a certain role (for example, personal accentuations, hyperthymia - a tendency to high mood, dysthymia - a tendency to low mood and depressive response, emotivity - high emotional sensitivity and depth of emotional reactions and etc.).

1.4 Emotions and motives

Emotions accompany almost any manifestation of the subject's activity and determine its character. Positive emotions caused by beneficial effects encourage the subject to achieve and maintain them. Negative emotions initiate activity aimed at avoiding harmful influences. Emotions are a special class of mental processes and states that reflect in the form of direct experience the significance of phenomena and situations affecting the individual for the implementation of his life activity. Arising in response to the impact of vital events, emotions contribute to the direction of behavior towards them.

Emotions not only indicate the importance and modality of the phenomena of reality. They support the installation on one or another functional-energy level of life activity: active or passive, calm or anxious, etc. When we do what we love, we tend to work hard. With a negative emotional attitude, a person's performance deteriorates.

The qualitative specificity of emotions largely depends on the need on the basis of which they are formed. This pattern is convincingly demonstrated in the need-information theory of emotions by P.V. Simonov. In accordance with this theory, emotion is a reflection by the human and animal brain of some actual need (its quality and magnitude) and the probability (possibility) of its satisfaction, which the brain evaluates on the basis of genetic and previously acquired individual experience. Simonov proposed his informational theory of emotions, in which he argued that a situation about which the subject has enough information to help realize the need causes positive emotions. A situation about which there is not enough information causes negative emotions, since the subject does not know, is not sure of the possibility of satisfying the need.

A.N. Leontiev believed that emotions themselves are not motives, and as an illustration of this conclusion he used the statement of J.St. Mill about the “cunning strategy of happiness”: in order to experience the emotions of pleasure, happiness, one must strive not to experience them, but to achieve the goals that give rise to these experiences. Motivational theories of emotion recognize the motivating function of subjective experiences. According to R.W. According to Leeper, emotions are one of the forms of motivation along with such “physiologically determined” motives as hunger or physical pain.

Assuming emotion as a component of motivation, B.I. Dodonov emphasizes the duality of its psychological essence: emotions are both an assessment of other values ​​and values ​​in themselves. How evaluations of emotions direct a person's activity towards certain objects or turn away from them. As values, they determine the inclination of the individual to some one activity and indifference to others. Emotions play the role of a kind of object of needs: a person wants to experience any experiences, enjoy them.

In the works of V.K. Vilyunas, the emphasis is on the inseparable connection of emotions and motives as two sides of the motivational system of the individual. The feelings of the individual are as numerous, contradictory and hierarchically organized as the motives. Among them, one or more leading feelings can also stand out, subjugating all the others. Leading emotions and feelings reveal to the subject the significance or meaning of the very object of need. The author shares Rubinstein's opinion that emotions are subjective form the existence of needs (motivation).

Motivation is revealed to the subject in the form of emotional phenomena that signal to him about the need significance of objects and encourage him to direct activity towards them. In this case, it is fair to assume that emotional experiences can be the final, productive form of the existence of motivation.

Those processes that prepare and determine the appearance of emotional assessments and motives deserve special attention from psychologists who study the problem of the relationship between emotions and motives.

affect emotion feeling facial expressions

2.EMOTIONALITY

In the ordinary, worldly sense, emotionality is understood in two meanings.

Firstly, an emotional person is called a person who reacts violently to circumstances: quick-tempered, unbridled or enthusiastic, cheerful.

Secondly, they say so about a person who is impressionable, sensitive, easily vulnerable

In scientific psychology, the concept of "emotionality" is very productively used when considering individual differences in emotional life.

Emotionality is interpreted as a set of human properties that characterize the content, quality and dynamics of his emotions and feelings. The content aspects of emotionality are determined by those phenomena, situations and events that are of particular importance for the subject. They are associated with the core parameters of the personality: its motivational orientation, worldview, system of values ​​and basic ideas, etc. Qualitative characteristics of emotionality describe the attitude of the individual to the phenomena of reality. They are expressed in the sign and modality of the dominant emotions. The dynamic properties of emotionality include the features of the emergence, course and termination of emotional processes and their external expression.

The question of whether emotionality is an innate or acquired property cannot be answered unambiguously. Even I. P. Pavlov believed that differences in the emotionality of animals or people depend on the type of nervous system itself and on the influences that the individual has been subjected to since birth.

It has been observed that people who have had serious illnesses react more strongly to situations that cause anger and fear, and people who have several diseases react even more sharply. At the same time, emotional upheavals have a more or less generalized effect, and emotionality is usually selective. In emotional subjects, regardless of what causes their emotionality, there is a high energy mobilization, which is difficult to control and generates emotional reactions. In similar situations, unemotional subjects show only adaptive reactions. This pattern allows us to consider emotionality in two ways: as a different degree of sensitivity and as a different degree of violation of the mechanisms of regulation. In this case, the minimum emotionality will be found with low sensitivity and a high level of development of behavior regulation skills.

Most psychologists agree that emotionality should be considered as one of the central components of temperament. Emotionality itself has a complex structure, which includes a number of basic components.

Let's dwell on them.

Emotional excitability. With increased emotional excitability, the functional level of activity changes in response to weaker external and internal influences.

The power of emotions. The function of this property is the energization of activity depending on the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of motives.

Anxiety is emotional excitability in a threatening situation, a tendency to experience anxiety, characterized by a low threshold for the occurrence of an anxiety reaction.

Emotional stability. The function of this property is resistance to the action of emotiogenic factors, control of impulses and drives.

An attempt to expand the list of components of emotionality leads to going beyond its understanding as a component of temperament. At the same time, such personality parameters as sensitivity (increased sensitivity to events happening to a person) and emotiveness (richness of nuances and refinement of emotional experiences) are recognized as characteristic and logical features. It is assumed that there is a general emotional orientation of the personality, which is manifested in what emotions are closest to a person, the most desirable and stable. It determines the selectivity of the subject's attitude to the phenomena of nature and art, life situations and the people around him.

3. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS IN HUMAN LIFE

In the individual development of a person, feelings play an important socializing role. They act as a significant factor in the formation of personality, especially its motivational sphere. On the basis of positive emotional experiences such as feelings, the needs and interests of a person appear and are fixed.

Feelings play a motivating role in the life and activities of a person, in his communication with other people. In relation to the world around him, a person seeks to act in such a way as to reinforce and strengthen his positive feelings. They are always associated with the work of consciousness, they can be arbitrarily regulated.

Emotions influence the expression of a person's feelings. At the same time, the mood is determined by the emotional reaction not to the mediocre consequences of certain events, but to their significance for a person in his general life plans. The mood of most people fluctuates between moderate despondency and moderate joy. People differ greatly in the speed of transition from a joyful mood to a dull one and vice versa.

Emotions also affect the sphere of perception: memory, thinking, imagination. Negative emotions give rise to a feeling of sadness, grief, despondency, envy, anger, moreover, often repeated, they can cause psychogenic skin diseases: eczema, neurodermatitis, secretory and trophic skin changes - hair loss or graying.

Acute emotional stress can be manifested by a variety of painful sensations - excessive sweating, nausea, loss of appetite for some, or a feeling of insatiable hunger, thirst for others.

Such functional changes in the well-being and activity of internal organs are due to deviations in the autonomic nervous system.

Emotions and thinking and thinking are interconnected and therefore there is a connection between the nature of the thoughts that come to mind and the mood. So, a pleasant thought has a beneficial effect on overall well-being, contributing to the solution of any complex problem.

Emotional interpersonal relationships have their own specific dynamics. They can reach the greatest tension and gradually fade away or critically collapse or resolve. Time itself erases the tragic in memory, the experienced sufferings are forgotten, past insults and sorrows become less significant. Emotions that turn into affects in the unsuccessful struggle of reason with passions are difficult to correct understanding. At the same time, neither intellect nor good will are often able to normalize the mental balance of a person. Under the influence of emotions, he becomes, as it were, blind in the face of facts, unable to control his actions. At the same time, people explain their actions something like this: “I didn’t want to scream, hit the table, insult you, but I was out of my mind, I couldn’t help myself.”

We can observe abnormally prolonged affects in persons with an epileptoid temperament, who are congenitally feeble-minded, and who are easily aroused by a petty nuisance for several days.

Emotions perform the function of evaluation, being a kind of system of signals through which the subject learns about the significance of what is happening. Grot (1879-1880) pointed to this in his works, as well as a number of contemporaries.

The ability of a person to restrain his feelings, postponing their manifestation until a more appropriate moment, depends on the efficiency of the brain. Some people are rational, others are impulsive. It is reasonable to develop patience in yourself, learn to restrain your tongue so as not to aggravate relationships with relatives and friends. A well-built brain is worth more than a well-filled brain.

Warmth always emanates from a kind person, he is more emotional than a rational, mentally cold person. Mentally cold people can neither sympathize with someone else's grief, nor rejoice in the success, good luck of a loved one. Typical coldness was presented by I.S. Turgenev as Bazarov in Fathers and Sons.

A person always strives not only to strengthen the feeling of pleasure, pleasant sensations, but also to repeat. At the same time, he acts unconsciously, impulsively, i.e. his psychological state is undifferentiated. In order to extend the pleasure and make it pleasant, it is necessary to reduce it. “Every pleasure is intensified by the passion that can deprive us of it. To enjoy always means not to enjoy at all. Master the passions, otherwise the passions will take possession of you.”

In some forms of neurosis, the patient may also experience a "feeling of loss of feeling", i.e. painful insensibility, painful emotional devastation, irretrievable loss, the ability to rejoice and suffer. In patients with schizophrenia, for example, perception is not identified with real images and is not projected outward. Patients “hear” voices that sound in the head, see with the “inner eye”, talk about smells coming from the head, but in reality all this does not exist.

A person often experiences a sense of his own inferiority, most often it happens in childhood and leaves an imprint on the formation and development of personality. Overcoming the feeling of one's own inferiority proceeds more harmoniously at a young age, when the body and its nervous system easier to adapt to change. At the same age, especially in old age, attempts to overcompensate are more painful.

Compensation for the feeling of one's own inferiority can be useful for the individual and for society if he is activated in studies, some hobbies, social life. But it happens that a person tries to find spiritual comfort through alcohol, smoking, medicinal drugs, etc. This only exacerbates the problems.

They point out that the influence of emotions on a person is much more significant than needs. Easily refuses to satisfy a need if it is associated with negative experiences, or seeks to enjoy, realizing that it is impossible or harmful.

A person is at the mercy of emotion, even if it is not very strong. He is practically defenseless when he cries or laughs!

So, emotions can be a direct signal, an assessment, a stimulus for action or inaction, and underlie the energy of the individual himself.

CONCLUSION

Emotions form the main motivating force and their influence can change the way of life, actions and communication. The inability or unwillingness to understand the emotional state of another person leads to psychological incompatibility and often becomes the cause of certain conflicts.

The role of emotional motives cannot be overestimated. The spiritual world of a person is not determined by the scope of his profession or education. His emotional demands and relationships can be multilateral or narrow, wide, rich or poor, limited.

Knowledge of Newton's law of gravitation, Mendeleev's periodic system of elements and other regularities expands the scope of general knowledge, but they do not cover the sensual nature of man.

Human consciousness, according to the famous academician V.I. Vernadsky, there is a special force of nature among all others. The socially determined consciousness of a person is knowledge that can become the property of other members of society. Consciousness is thinking together with someone. To realize means to acquire the potential opportunity to transfer one's consciousness to another, moreover, to sympathize with him, to cooperate with him.

The desire to maintain a positive emotional mood in oneself and others ensures health, vigor and happiness. Goodwill and culture are necessary for a favorable, positive “emotional climate”.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

1.General psychology: Textbook / under the general. editorial prof. A.V. Karpov. - M.: Gardariki, 2004.

.Brief Pedagogical Dictionary: Study Guide / Andreeva G.A., Vyalikova G.S., Tyutkova I.A. - M.: V. Sekachev, 2005.

.Reader in psychology. - M.: Enlightenment, 1987.

.Nemov R.S. Psychology: Textbook. In 3 books. Book 1 General foundations of psychology.--M.: Humanit. ed. center VLADOS, 1997

.General psychology / Ed. A.V. Petrovsky. - M.: Enlightenment, 1986.

.Psychology: Dictionary / Under the general. ed. A.V. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky. M .: Politizdat, 1990

.Druzhinin V.E. Psychology of emotions, feelings, will.-M .: TC Sphere, 2003

.Kamenskaya E.N. Fundamentals of Psychology.-Rostov n / D: Phoenix, 2003

.Izard K.E. Human emotions. - M.: MGU, 1980.

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The senses- a complex set of various emotions associated with a person with certain people, objects, events. Feelings are subject related, that is, they arise and manifest themselves only in relation to certain objects: people, objects, events, and so on.

Mood- a general emotional state, coloring for a considerable time individual mental processes and human behavior. The mood significantly depends on the general state of health, on the work of the endocrine glands, and especially on the tone of the nervous system. This kind of mood is called well-being. Mood is influenced by the environment, events, activities performed, and people. Moods can vary in duration. The stability of mood depends on many reasons: the age of a person, the individual characteristics of his character and temperament, willpower, the level of development of the leading motives of behavior. Mood leaves a significant imprint on behavior. The mood can both stimulate, strengthen, and suppress, upset human activity.

Emotions in the strict sense of the word, it is a direct, temporary experience of a feeling. From the point of view of the impact on human activity, emotions are divided into sthenic and asthenic. Sthenic emotions stimulate activity, increase the energy and tension of a person, induce him to actions, statements. They talk about asthenic emotions if a person experiences a kind of stiffness, passivity.

Affects called short-term, but strong emotional experiences that are violently manifested in human behavior and have a vivid external expression in his gestures, facial expressions, pantomime, voice modulations. Unlike mood, affect arises suddenly, grows rapidly, and passes relatively quickly. Affects appear either at the beginning or at the end of the corresponding activity, reflecting the person's expectations from the upcoming activity that is significant for him or its expected end result.

Stress- an emotional state that occurs in response to a variety of extreme influences. Modern psychologists agree on the point of view that stress at the initial stage of development has a positive effect on a person, since it contributes to the mobilization of mental forces and does not cause physiological changes (. However, stress is gradually transformed into the so-called, and this state has a clear negative effect on the body If a person's defense mechanisms cannot cope with stress, then in the end he gets a psychosomatic or other mental deviation.

Passion called a strong, persistent, all-encompassing feeling that determines the direction of a person’s thoughts and actions. Passion is selective and always subjective. Passion captures all the thoughts of a person, often it cannot be controlled, and she herself begins to control him.

frustration- the mental state of a person caused by objectively insurmountable (or subjectively perceived as such) difficulties that arise on the way to achieving a goal or solving a problem, experiencing failure. Frustration is accompanied by a range of mostly negative emotions: anger, irritation, guilt, and so on. The level of frustration depends on the strength, intensity of the frustrator, the functional state of a person who has fallen into a frustration situation, as well as on the stable forms of emotional response to life's difficulties that have developed in the process of personality formation.

Emotions- mental reflection in the form of a biased experience of the vital meaning of phenomena and situations, which is based on the relationship of their objective properties to the needs of the subject.

Functions of emotions

1. reflective function lies in the fact that a person can navigate in the surrounding reality, evaluate objects and phenomena in terms of their desirability.
2. Signal function. Emerging experiences signal to a person about his needs, about what obstacles he meets on his way, what should be paid attention to in the first place, and so on.
3. Information function. Feelings give us a signal about what is the most important, significant for a person in all the variety of surrounding objects, phenomena, people.
4. Stimulating function. Feelings determine the direction of the search, capable of satisfying the solution of the problem. Emotional experience contains the image of the object of satisfying the need and its biased attitude towards it, which prompts a person to act.
5. Regulatory function. Experiences also play the role of a regulator of our behavior, activities and ways of performing them.
6. Reinforcing function. Interesting material, important facts and events that cause a strong emotional reaction are quickly and permanently imprinted in memory.
7. switching function feelings is especially clearly revealed in the competition of motives.
8. adaptive function. Emotions are one of the forms of species experience. Based on them, the individual performs the necessary actions that contribute to his survival and procreation.
9. communicative function. Facial expression and body movements allow a person to convey their experiences to other people, to inform them about their attitude to objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality.
10. protective function. In some life situations, emotions can protect the body from all sorts of threats to its well-being.

Emotions and feelings.

Basic emotions
The main emotions common to humans and higher mammals include:
Interest
Satisfaction
Hope
Joy
neglect
Anger
Fear
Woe
According to K. Izard, 10 main (basic) emotions are distinguished:
Joy
Astonishment
sadness
Anger
Disgust
Contempt
Fear
Shame
Interest
Guilt
The main emotional states that a person experiences are divided into emotions and feelings proper. 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 connected with the social essence of a person, with social norms and attitudes.

Feeling- a special form of a person's attitude to the phenomena of reality, due to their compliance or non-compliance with human needs, characterized by relative stability. Thanks to the feeling, you can find out the emotional attitude of a person to certain things, determine his moral convictions and characteristics. inner world person.

Classification of feelings: feelings are distinguished by modality, intensity, duration, depth, awareness, genetic origin, complexity, conditions of occurrence, functions performed, effects on the body, forms and conditions of their development, mental processes with which they are associated, according to needs, subject content. Existing classifications differ in their theoretical and empirical validity.

It is customary to distinguish between lower and higher feelings:

• The lower feelings are associated with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of a person's physical or physiological needs.
• A special group of feelings are higher feelings: moral, aesthetic, intellectual. Higher feelings reflect spiritual world of a person and are associated with the analysis, comprehension and evaluation of what is happening and determining his personality.

Moral or moral feelings- this is a form of experiencing a value or vice versa, the inadmissibility of other actions, deeds, thoughts, intentions of a person from the point of view of the attitude required from him to society, to the interests of society, to the norms of behavior developed by society. These experiences can arise only on the basis of correlating actions, actions of people with norms that express social requirements for human behavior. They depend on the knowledge of the norms of behavior, the requirements of morality adopted in a given society, express the attitude of a person towards other people. Such feelings include feelings of camaraderie, friendship, love, reflecting varying degrees of attachment to certain people, the need to communicate with them. The attitude to one's duties assumed by a person in relation to other people, to society is called duty. Failure to comply with these obligations leads to the emergence of a negative attitude towards oneself, expressed in guilt, shame and remorse. They also include a feeling of pity, envy, jealousy and other manifestations of attitude towards a person.

aesthetic feelings represent the experience of something as beautiful. In the most typical and vivid form, they arise when perceiving works of art (natural phenomena, people's actions, things). They develop in connection with the development of art. It is music that awakens our musical feeling. These feelings are a person's attitude to the beautiful and the ugly, associated with the understanding of beauty, harmony, the sublime and the tragic. These include a sense of humor, irony, malice, mockery, sarcasm, a sense of the tragic, dramatic.

Intellectual Feelings associated with the cognitive activity of people, with the satisfaction of curiosity, cognitive interests, with the search for truth, with the solution of a mental problem.

Child psychology as a branch of developmental psychology.

A branch of developmental psychology devoted to the study of the patterns of mental development of a child. The main subject of analysis is the driving causes and conditions for the ontogenetic development of individual mental processes, including the formation of various types of child activity.

Child psychology, a branch of psychology that studies the facts and patterns of a child's mental development. Has a number of common problems with educational psychology. It is closely connected with pedagogy, as well as with age-related morphology and physiology, in particular with the physiology of the higher nervous activity of the child. The study of the origin and development of mental processes in ontogenesis sheds light on their nature and contributes to the solution of questions of general psychology, as well as some philosophical problems. Research in the field of child psychology is of great importance for pedagogical practice, since knowledge of the conditions and patterns of a child's mental development is necessary for the conscious control of this process. Studies of various forms of abnormal development of the psyche are very important for defectology and child psychiatry.

The subject of science is the study of the conditions and driving causes of the ontogenesis of the human psyche, the development of individual mental processes (cognitive, volitional, emotional), as well as various types of children's activities (games, labor, teaching), the formation of personality traits, age and individual psychological characteristics of children.

Separate mental processes do not develop independently, but as properties of the integral personality of a child who has certain natural inclinations and who lives, acts and is brought up in certain social conditions. In the process of transforming a helpless infant into an independent adult who is a full-fledged member of society, the development of the child's psyche also takes place, the reflection of objective reality becomes more complicated and improves. In accordance with such a dialectical-materialist understanding of the subject of D. P., her research is aimed not only at ascertaining the age-related changes occurring in the psyche, but also at clarifying the mechanisms underlying them, as well as at establishing the regular dependences of these changes on the conditions of life and activity of the child. from his relationship with the people around him.

The methods used in child psychology include: systematic observation, conversations, collecting and analyzing the products of children's activities (drawing, modeling, designing, literary creativity), as well as various types of experiment. An important role is also played by the psychological study of the experience of educators and teachers.

Mental development. Main characteristics. Driving forces.

Let us formulate the main regularities of this process.

1. Development is characterized by unevenness and heterochrony. Uneven development is manifested in the fact that various mental functions, properties and formations develop unevenly: each of them has its own stages of rise, stabilization and decline, i.e., development is characterized by an oscillatory character. The uneven development of mental function is judged by the pace, direction and duration of the ongoing changes. It has been established that the greatest intensity of fluctuations (unevenness) in the development of functions falls on the period of their highest achievements. The higher the level of productivity in development, the more pronounced the oscillatory nature of its age dynamics.

This explains the sharp fluctuations in the development, for example, of cognitive functions in adolescence and adolescence.

It is shown that the uneven, oscillatory nature of development is due to the non-linear, multivariant nature of the developing system. At the same time, the lower the level of development of the system, the stronger the fluctuations: high rises are replaced by significant declines. In complexly organized (highly developed) systems, oscillations become frequent, but their amplitude sharply decreases. That is, a complex system, as it were, stabilizes itself. The system in its development goes to the unity and harmony of parts. These conclusions are confirmed by data on the dynamics of the development of cognitive functions throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. With age, the drop in the development of a particular function sharply decreases, but the frequency of oscillations increases. Thus, through the uneven or oscillatory nature of development, the system maintains its integrity and at the same time develops dynamically.

Heterochrony of development means asynchrony (mismatch in time) of the phases of development of individual organs and functions. What is it called?

Irregularity - unevenness, inconstancy in the development of mental functions. Heterochrony - different times, asynchrony, mismatch in time of the phases of development of individual organs and functions.

If uneven development is due to the non-linear nature of the system, then heterochrony is associated with the features of its structure, primarily with the heterogeneity of its elements. "Unity through diversity" is the manifesto for the existence of any self-developing and self-organizing system. It is this circumstance that determines the selective nature of the development of structures and functions in accordance with external and internal factors. In this regard, it becomes clear why the rates of development of different mental formations turn out to be different.

The mental development of the individual is due to various factors, prerequisites and driving forces. The effectiveness of a correct understanding of all individual and social actions and deeds of a person depends on how much we know them and take into account the specifics of their manifestation.
1. Factors of the mental development of the individual. It is that objectively existing that necessarily determines its vital activity in the broadest sense of the word. Factors of mental development of a person can be external and internal.
The external factors are the natural-geographical environment, the macroenvironment, the microenvironment and socially useful activities.
The natural and geographical environment has big influence on the development of personality. It is known, for example, that those who grew up on Far North people are more self-possessed, more organized, they know how to value time and treat correctly what they are taught.
The macroenvironment, that is, society in the aggregate of all its manifestations, also has a great influence on the formation of personality. So, a person who grew up in a totalitarian society, as a rule, is not developed and brought up in the same way as a representative of a democratic state.
The microenvironment, i.e. group, microgroup, family, etc., is also an important determinant of personality formation. It is in the microenvironment that the most important moral and moral-psychological characteristics of a person are laid, which, on the one hand, must be taken into account, and on the other hand, improved or transformed in the process of training and education.
Socially useful activity is labor in which a person develops and his most important qualities are formed.
The internal factors of personality development are the biogenetic features of the personality and its psyche (anatomical and physiological and inclinations).
The anatomical and physiological features of a personality are: the specifics of the functioning of its nervous system, expressed in a wide variety of characteristics: the originality of the work of the entire nervous system, the ratio of the processes of excitation and inhibition in the cerebral cortex, the manifestation of temperament, emotions and feelings, behavior and actions, etc. .; characteristics that depend on the anatomical and physiological structure of the human body, which has a serious impact on both his psyche and behavior, and the susceptibility of the latter to the influences of circumstances and other people. For example, a person's poor eyesight and hearing naturally affect his actions and deeds and must be taken into account in the process of communication and interaction.
Inclinations are congenital anatomical and physiological features of the body that facilitate the development of abilities. For example, such a deposit as a mobile nervous system can contribute to the development of many abilities in any type of activity related to the need to adequately respond to changing situations, quickly adapt to new actions, change the pace and rhythm of work, and establish relationships with other people. And consequently, this can be specifically manifested in the course of joint activities with them and, of course, should be taken into account.
2. The driving forces of the mental development of the individual are the following contradictions: between the needs of the individual and external circumstances, between her increased physical abilities, spiritual needs and old forms of activity; between new requirements of activity and unformed skills and abilities.
3. Prerequisites for the mental development of the individual. This is something that has a certain influence on the individual, that is, external and internal circumstances on which the characteristics, the levels of her mental, actual and immediate development depend.
The levels of mental development reflect the degree and indicators of the mental development of a person (child) in the process and at various stages of the formation of his personality.
The level of actual personality development is an indicator that characterizes a person's ability to perform various independent tasks. It testifies to what kind of training, skills and abilities of the individual, what are its qualities and how developed.
The level of proximal development of personality indicates that a person cannot accomplish on his own, but with a little help from others.

Crises.

Age crises is a theoretical concept denoting a transition in age development to a new qualitatively specific stage. According to L.S. Vygotsky, age crises are primarily due to the destruction of the usual social situation of development and the emergence of another, which is more consistent with a new level of psychological development of the child. In external behavior - age crises are found as disobedience, stubbornness -, negativism -. In time, they are localized at the boundaries of stable ages and manifest as a neonatal crisis - (up to 1 month), a crisis of one year, a crisis of 3 years, a crisis of 7 years, adolescence - a crisis (11 - 12 years old) and a youthful crisis.

Staged.

Cyclic/Staging - Mental development proceeds in stages.

In ontogenesis, periods can be distinguished that are characterized by general features of development that differ from development at any other stage.
Each age stage has not only its own content, but also its own pace and rhythm of development.
Moreover, the younger the person, the more intensively mental development takes place (the more compressed the pace of development).
Stages of mental development follow one after another. They obey their own internal logic, their sequence cannot be changed, and the passage of each stage cannot be accelerated.

The characteristics of the stages of mental development are:
1. Social situation of development- (school, family, work. Environment, media, etc.) - this concept was introduced by Vygotsky to denote not only the influence of society on a person, but also a person's response to this society.
- this is not only an impact, but also a response, an attitude to these influences (the interaction of the child and society).
Attitude towards influences and attitude towards oneself.
The higher the self-worth and self-respect, the more adequate perception of the world around.
The lower the self-worth and self-esteem, the more problematic perception.

2. Leading activity- the concept is introduced by Leontiev.
- each age has its own leading activity. And in this activity:

• mental processes are formed;
• a personality is formed; the foundations of the next leading activity are laid.

Leading activities:
0-1 year - emotional communication.
1–3 years – object-manipulative activity.
3-6-7 years old (preschool age) - role-playing game.
6-7-10-11 years old (primary school age) - educational activity.
Adolescence - communication, the establishment of intimate-personal relationships.
Adolescence is an educational and professional activity.
Adulthood - realization, self-realization through the creation of any products = productive activity.
Elderly and senile age - productivity and transfer of experience (as a rule, the leading type of activity is not singled out).

3. Age neoplasms- each age is characterized by the new that appears here.

Metamorphoses .
Vygotsky pointed out that...
Development This is not only a quantitative, but also a qualitative change.
This is a transition from one form to another => the child's psyche is different at each stage (metamorphoses in mental development).
* a child is not like a small adult.
Each stage carries its own content => it must be understood not from one's own point of view, but from the point of view of a certain age.

Evolution and involution .
Evolution - progressive development, forward development.
involution backward development, extinction, reverse development.
These processes are combined in the development of the child.
!! Each stage is characterized not only by the development of something, but also by the death of something.
(ex: speech - cooing à babble à imitate à speak, etc.).

Differentiation and Integration processes, properties, qualities.
Differentiation - lies in the fact that the properties and qualities are separated from each other and turn into separate ?????? (mental processes)
Differentiation is complemented by process integration = unity, connections between separate aspects of the psyche.
(ex: thinking develops and at a certain stage begins to influence other mental processes à intellectualization of all mental processes (end of primary school, adolescence and youth).
In old age, individual processes begin to compensate for the shortcomings in the development of each other).

Cumulation - the accumulation of individual indicators that serve to prepare qualitative changes, leaps in the development of the child's psyche.

Changing determinants of mental development - the relationship between biological and social determinants is changing.
The biological determinant is intense - 1 year, puberty, end of life.

The social determinants themselves are changing.
Relationships with adults, reference groups, and so on change at each stage.
The older a person is, the more social determinants affect him.

Plastic - appears in...
- the possibility of changing the psyche under the influence of various conditions, the possibility of assimilating different experiences.
(ex: language - English-speaking environment - the child speaks English).
Social conditions - the child perceives what society gives him, etc.

-imitation (Obukhov, Shapovalenko). On the basis of imitation, a special mental warehouse is formed in a small child.
"A peculiar form of orientation of the child in the world of specifically human activities by modeling them in their own activities."

compensation of mental or physical functions.

Cumulative development (according to Rean) - the result of the development of each subsequent stage includes the previous one. This accumulation of changes prepares the leap to the next stage of development.

Divergence - Convergence of development.
Divergence - divergence of mental processes, etc. With age, there is an increasing variety of properties, signs, actions.

• Convergence- convergence, curtailment, synthesis of properties and mental processes in the course of development (eg: perception + thinking = meaningful perception).

development factors.

Factors are called permanent circumstances that cause stable changes in a particular feature. In the context we are considering, we must determine the types of influences that affect the occurrence of various deviations in the psychophysical and personal-social development of a person.

Factors of mental development are the leading determinants of human development. They are considered to be heredity, environment and activity. If the action of the factor of heredity is manifested in the individual properties of a person and acts as prerequisites for development, and the action of the environmental factor (society) - in the social properties of the individual, then the action of the activity factor - in the interaction of the two previous ones.
HEREDITY
Heredity is the property of an organism to repeat in a number of generations similar types of metabolism and individual development as a whole.
The following facts testify to the action of heredity: the curtailment of the instinctive activity of the infant, the length of childhood, the helplessness of the newborn and the infant, which becomes reverse side richest opportunities for further development. Thus, genotypic factors typify development, i.e., ensure the implementation of the species genotypic program. That is why the species homo sapiens has the ability to walk upright, verbal communication and the versatility of the hand.
At the same time, the genotype individualizes development.

WEDNESDAY
Environment - the social, material and spiritual conditions surrounding a person for his existence.
In order to emphasize the importance of the environment as a factor in the development of the psyche, they usually say: a person is not born, but becomes. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the theory of convergence by V. Stern, according to which mental development is the result of the convergence of internal data with external conditions of development. At the same time, the contribution of each of these factors to the process of mental development has not yet been determined. It is only clear that the degree of determination of various mental formations by the genotype and the environment turns out to be different. At the same time, a stable trend is manifested: the “closer” the mental structure is to the level of the organism, the stronger the level of its conditionality by the genotype. The farther it is from it and closer to those levels of human organization that are commonly called a personality, a subject of activity, the weaker the influence of the genotype and the stronger the influence of the environment. It is noticeable that the influence of the genotype is always positive, while its effect becomes less as the “removal” of the trait under study from the properties of the organism itself. The influence of the environment is very unstable, some of the bonds are positive, and some are negative. This indicates the greater role of the genotype in comparison with the environment, but does not mean the absence of the influence of the latter.
ACTIVITY
Activity - the active state of the body as a condition for its existence and behavior. An active creature contains a source of activity, and this source is reproduced in the course of movement. Activity provides self-movement, during which the individual reproduces himself. Activity is manifested when the body's programmed movement towards a specific goal requires overcoming the resistance of the environment. The principle of activity is opposed to the principle of reactivity. According to the principle of activity, the vital activity of the organism is an active overcoming of the environment, according to the principle of reactivity, it is the balancing of the organism with the environment. Activity manifests itself in activation, various reflexes, search activity, arbitrary acts, will, acts of free self-determination.
Of particular interest is the action of the third factor - activity.

To the question of what characterizes the active purposefulness of the organism to the greatest extent, Bernstein answers as follows: “The organism is always in contact and interacting with the external and internal environment. If its movement (in the most generalized sense of the word) has the same direction as the movement of the medium, then it is carried out smoothly and without conflict. But if the movement to a defined goal, programmed by it, requires overcoming the resistance of the environment, the organism, with all the generosity available to it, releases energy for this overcoming ... until it either triumphs over the environment or perishes in the struggle against it.” From this it becomes clear how a “defective” genetic program can be successfully implemented in an adjusted environment that enhances the activity of the organism “in the struggle for the survival of the program”, and why a “normal” program sometimes does not achieve successful implementation in an unfavorable environment, which leads to a reduction in activity. . Thus, activity can be understood as a system-forming factor in the interaction between heredity and the environment.

Similar information.

In modern psychology, emotional phenomena are understood as subjective experiences by a person of his attitude to objects, phenomena, events, and other people. The word "emotion" itself comes from the Latin "emovere", which means to excite, excite, shock. Emotions are closely related to needs, because, as a rule, when needs are met, a person experiences positive emotions and, conversely, when it is impossible to get what he wants, negative ones.

There are many classifications of emotions. The most obvious division of emotions into positive and negative. Using the criterion of mobilization of the body's resources, sthenic and asthenic emotions are distinguished (from the Greek "stenos" - strength). Sthenic emotions increase activity, causing a surge of energy and elevation, while asthenic emotions act in the opposite way. According to needs, lower emotions are distinguished, associated with the satisfaction of organic needs, the so-called general sensations (hunger, thirst, etc.) from higher emotions (feelings), socially conditioned, associated with social relations.

According to the strength and duration of manifestations, several types of emotions are distinguished: affects, passions, emotions proper, moods, feelings and stress.

Affect is the most powerful emotional reaction that completely captures the human psyche. Usually occurs in extreme conditions when a person is unable to cope with the situation. Distinctive features affect is situational, generalized, short duration and high intensity. There is a mobilization of the whole organism, movements are impulsive. Affect is practically uncontrollable and is not subject to volitional control.

Passion is a strong, persistent, long-lasting feeling that captures a person and owns him. In strength it approaches affect, and in duration it is closer to feelings.

Emotions in the narrow sense are situational in nature, they express

evaluative attitude to emerging or possible situations.

Actually, emotions can be weakly manifested in external behavior,

if a person skillfully hides his emotions, then it is generally difficult to guess what he is experiencing.

Feelings are the most stable emotional states. They are subjective. It is always a feeling for something, for someone. Sometimes they are called "higher" emotions, because they arise when needs of a higher order are satisfied.

Mood is a state that colors our feelings, the general emotional state for a significant amount of time. Unlike emotions and feelings, mood is not objective, but personal / it is not situational, but stretched out in time.

Emotions are manifested in the so-called expressive movements (facial expressions - expressive movements of the face; pantomime - expressive movements of the whole body and "vocal facial expressions" - the expression of emotions in intonation and timbre of the voice).

A number of emotional states are clearly differentiated both in terms of external objective signs and in terms of the quality of subjective experiences. The general characteristics of emotions formed the basis of "the creation of a number of scales of emotional states.

To date, it is customary to distinguish several basic functions of emotions: adaptive, signaling, evaluative, regulatory and communicative. Emotions reflect the significance and evaluation of different situations by a person, so the same stimuli can cause the most dissimilar reactions in different people. It is in emotional manifestations that the depth of a person's inner life is expressed. Personality is largely formed under the influence of lived experiences. Emotional reactions, in turn, are due to the individual characteristics of the emotional sphere of a person.

higher feelings

Stress is a form of emotional experiences that arise in a special, emergency situation and require a person to mobilize forces. It also, as an affect, can lead to changes in the organization of mental processes, to emotional shifts, to states where a person "cannot say a word." There are 3 stages of stress:

1. alarm reaction - mobilization of the body's defenses

2. resistance - complete adaptation to stress

3. stage of exhaustion

It should be noted that stress is sometimes necessary for a person, for example, to adapt to changing conditions of existence.

Feeling is a stable form of emotional experience associated with a particular object or category of objects that have a special meaning for a person. This is the highest manifestation of the emotional sphere, expressing the spiritual world of the individual.

At present, there is no exhaustive generally accepted classification of feelings due to their great diversity and historical variability.

The most common of the existing classifications identifies separate subspecies of feelings in accordance with specific areas of activity and areas of social phenomena in which they appear.

A special group is made up of higher feelings, which contain all the richness of a person's emotional relationship to social reality. Depending on the subject area to which they relate, the highest feelings are divided into moral, aesthetic, intellectual and practical. Higher senses have a number of characteristic features:

The great degree of generality which they can achieve in their developed forms;

Higher feelings are always associated with a more or less clear awareness of social norms relating to one or another side of reality.

Since the attitude of a person as a whole to the world and to life is revealed to a certain extent in higher feelings, they are sometimes called ideological feelings.

Moral, or moral, are the feelings that a person experiences when perceiving the phenomena of reality and comparing these phenomena with the norms, categories of morality developed by society.

The objects of moral feelings are social institutions and institutions, the state, human groups and individuals, life events, human relations, the person himself as an object of his feelings, etc.

Moral feelings include: a sense of duty, humanity, benevolence, love, friendship, sympathy, etc.

Among moral feelings, moral and political feelings are sometimes singled out separately as a manifestation of emotional attitudes towards various public organizations and institutions, collectives, the state as a whole, to the Motherland, etc.

One of the most important features of moral feelings is their effective nature. They act as the motivating forces of many heroic deeds and sublime deeds.

Aesthetic feelings are the emotional attitude of a person to the beautiful or ugly in the surrounding phenomena, objects, in people's lives, in nature and in art.

The basis for the emergence of aesthetic feelings is the ability of a person to perceive the phenomena of the surrounding reality, guided not only by moral standards, but also by the principles of beauty. Man acquired this ability in the process of social development, social practice.

Aesthetic feelings are characterized by great diversity, complexity of the psychological picture, versatility and depth of influence on a person's personality.

The subject of aesthetic feelings can be various phenomena of reality: the social life of a person, nature, art in the broadest sense of the word.

Aesthetic feeling cannot be characterized by any one emotion involved in its manifestation. The complexity and originality of aesthetic experiences lies in the specific and unique combination of emotions that are different in their direction, intensity and meaning.

Although aesthetic feelings are specific, different from moral ones, they are directly related to the latter, often influence their upbringing and formation, and play a role in the social life and activities of people similar to that played by moral feelings.

Intellectual, or cognitive, feelings are called experiences that arise in the process of human cognitive activity.

One of the most necessary for intellectual activity is the feeling of curiosity, the love of truth. It has an active, "forcing" character, expressed in the constant search for and struggle for something new, progressive, revolutionary both in the field of knowledge and in practical activity.

Intellectual feelings reinforce, make pleasant the activity associated with overcoming difficulties on the way to achieving the goal. They provide the energy for the work necessary to advance knowledge from the existing level to new heights. It is the strength of intellectual feelings that can explain the amazing efficiency of some scientists.

Practical, or practical ("praxis", from ancient Greek, - deed, activity) feelings are characterized by different content and varying degrees of intensity of experience, depending on the forms, complexity of the activity and its significance for a person. As the activity that a person performs becomes more complex, his emotional response to it changes, and the range of feelings associated with it becomes wider. When the usual simple work is performed, the process of which is sufficiently automated, the emotional response relates more to the very result of labor than to its process. The complication of activity, the introduction of creativity into it generates a response to the very process of its implementation in the form of so-called creative feelings. Some psychologists distinguish them (creative feelings) in a separate group in the field of practical feelings.

Youth covers the period from 16 to 18 years and emphasizes in a person the moment of conscious self-determination.

In the psychological periodizations of A. N. Leontiev and D. B. Elkonin, the emphasis is on a new type of leading activity - educational and professional. L. I. Bozhovich connects youth with the definition of one's place in life and inner position, the formation of a worldview, moral consciousness and self-awareness.

The transition to adolescence is associated with the expansion of the range of social roles that are actually available to a person or normatively obligatory, with the expansion of the sphere of life.

The most important new formations of the intellectual sphere in adolescence are: the development of theoretical (hypothetical-deductive, abstract) thinking, philosophical reflection; craving for abstraction, broad generalizations, the search for general patterns and principles behind particular facts; the tendency to exaggerate the strength of one's intellect, the level of knowledge and independence. The degree of individualization in interests and abilities increases, an individual style of mental activity is formed.

Adolescence is associated with the formation of an active life position, self-determination, awareness of one's own importance, the formation of beliefs and values.

In social terms, young men are characterized by awareness of themselves as a particle, an element of a social community (social group, nation, etc.), the choice of their future social position and ways to achieve it. The circle of personally significant social relations is expanding, the need for friendly, intimate communication is growing.

In emotional and personal terms, adolescence is vulnerable because it is characterized by the inconsistency of the level of claims and self-esteem, the inconsistency of the image of "I", the inner world, etc. Mental health standards for young men are significantly different from those for adults. The central psychological neoformation of adolescence is the formation of a stable self-awareness and a stable image of the "I". This is due to the strengthening of personal control, self-government, with a new stage in the development of the intellect, with the discovery of one's inner world and its emancipation from adults. This is due to the strengthening of personal control, self-government, a new stage in the development of the intellect. The main psychological acquisition is the discovery of one's inner world, emancipation from adults, awareness of one's own mental states, and at the same time one's uniqueness, unlikeness to others with a feeling of loneliness or fear of loneliness characteristic of early youth. An extremely important component of self-awareness is self-respect.

In fact, the self-consciousness of youth is focused on three points that are essential for age: 1) physical growth and puberty; 2) concern about how the young man looks in the eyes of others, what he is; 3) the need to find one's professional vocation that meets the acquired teachings, individual abilities and the requirements of society. Young men are especially sensitive to their internal psychological problems and tend to overestimate their significance.

In adolescence, there is a tendency to emphasize one's own individuality, dissimilarity to others.

The danger of this stage, according to E. Erickson, is role confusion, diffusion (confusion) of "I"-identity. An identity crisis is followed by either the acquisition of an “adult identity” or a delay in personal development (identity pathology syndrome).

The boundaries of youth are conditionally located on the interval from 18-20 to 30 years. This period of life is associated with the formation of a person’s independence and responsibility for his actions, the ability to make “meaningful” decisions, the consolidation of worldview orientations, the construction of a stable “image of the world”, the definition of prospects and goals of life, etc.

Researchers emphasize the dual nature of youth: having the entire set of rights to lead an adult life, a young person is far from always able to find and realize himself in it. The duality is exacerbated by one of the well-known features of this phase - the pronounced infantilism of youth, which consists in the preservation in the adult state of a person of character traits characteristic of children and adolescents. This is not about the widespread "old-age dependency", i.e. social, moral and civic underdevelopment, immaturity of a young man.

In youth, general somatic development ends, physical and puberty reach their optimum.

During this period, a person begins to meaningfully build the future, focusing on the entire age perspective as a whole, and not only on mastering the values ​​and goals of the next age period, as was the case at all previous stages of development.

In all spheres of life (professional, emotional, personal, social) there is a strong desire for personal expansion, for self-expression. First of all, these tendencies are clearly manifested in the choice of a profession, the implementation of professional self-determination and the beginning of an independent professional career, and the construction of a life strategy. If the solution of these problems is slowed down or frustrated, then internally it is experienced as a deficit, a lack, and a person throws all his strength to get rid of it. This requires the development of creative abilities in oneself from the age.

The search for a life partner, separation from the parental family, the acquisition of a profession and the beginning of one's own professional and personal life are the conditions for developing one's own individual life style, acquiring and realizing individual meanings of life. The ability of a person to resolve internal contradictions, build his own system of values, create a life perspective and determine strategic goals are the measure of his human maturity.

The meaning of life is one of the main categories that youth operates with.

Emotionally, for a young person, self-acceptance is essential condition self-realization. In youth, a person is able to treat himself realistically and critically, accept the disadvantages of his development and at the same time learn to use the advantages and beneficial aspects of his personality and character, turn them to the benefit of his development.

For youth, building a system of personal moral, cultural, spiritual values, associated with the awareness of one's own uniqueness and originality, is of particular importance.

Since age presupposes the realization of the presence of the most diverse possibilities of life-affirmation, the desire to change, to become different, to acquire a new quality is expressed in a crisis of youth, generalized and transmitted.

In youth, self-awareness, inner spiritual life, is of particular importance. A person has a new interest in himself, not only as an individual or personality, but as an existence, a phenomenon of a higher order - the embodiment of a destiny from above, a calling, etc.

In social terms, the leading place is occupied by the search for a partner and marriage, which are associated with new social roles (spouse, sexual partner, parent), development of a lifestyle, acceptance of obligations, emotionally - love. The emergence of a mature feeling of love and the establishment of a creative atmosphere of cooperation in labor activity prepare the transition to the next stage of development. Career development, Basic new formations: the acquisition of knowledge and skills

planning family budget. The crisis of this period is interpersonal negotiations and conflict resolution.

It is well known that the human psychic sphere includes emotions and feelings. Attempts to distinguish between these concepts have been made for a long time. So, even W. McDougall tried to differentiate these mental phenomena on the basis of such a criterion as "a functional relationship to the purposeful activity that they accompany and determine." However, the result obtained cannot be considered successful, since the presented criteria for diluting these concepts are rather vague. For example, it is not clear what "specific impulse" means, to which W. McDougall refers only emotions, and the grounds for classifying certain emotional phenomena as feelings or emotions are insufficiently substantiated and poorly understood. All this necessitates further development of the problem.

To date, the existing variety of positions and approaches to the distinction between feelings and emotions has led to disorderly use of these concepts and terminological confusion when referring this or that mental phenomenon to feelings or emotions.

There are three main approaches to this problem:

• The terms "feeling" and "emotion" are used as synonyms (L. G. Babenko; P. Kutter and others).
• The correlation of these concepts is considered on the basis of the species / generic parameter (B.I. Dodonov; R.S. Nemov; A.G. Maklakov; K. Izard and others).
• · Feelings and emotions are treated as independent mental phenomena (T.V. Bulygina, A.D. Shmelev; E.P. Ilyin and others).

Let's consider each of the selected points of view in more detail. Within the framework of the first approach, the terms "emotion" and "feeling" are explained one through the other and are used as synonyms. So, in the reference literature the following definitions of these concepts are presented: "emotion - feeling, emotional experience of a person", "feeling - an internal mental state of a person, his emotional experience" .

A number of scientists also use the terms "emotion" and "feeling" as equivalent designations for the mental experiences, states, and sensations of a person that actually exist. So, modern linguistic dictionaries and a number of scientists do not make a clear distinction between the concepts of "emotion" and "feeling", explaining the terms one through the other.

Representatives of the second approach correlate the concepts under consideration on the basis of the generic / specific criterion. In this case, there are two points of view on their relationship. According to the first one (A. Zarudnaya; A.N. Leontiev; A.G. Maklakov and others), emotions are a generic concept in relation to feelings. According to the second, scientists, based on the interpretation of W. Wundt, define feelings as a generic concept that includes different types emotions as a form of experiencing feelings (G.A. Fortunatov; A.V. Petrovsky; K. Izard and others). Let's consider these points of view in more detail.

So, A. Zarudnaya defines emotion as a short-term experience, and feeling as a stable emotion. Thus, the difference between these concepts lies in the duration of the experience: for emotions proper, they are short-term, and for feelings, they are stable, long-lasting.

The "Concise Psychological Dictionary" analyzes two forms of emotions: 1) the simplest - the emotional tone of sensations and 2) complex - feelings and passions. Qualitative characteristics of emotions are sign and modality. The dictionary "Psychology" clarifies that feelings are a generalization of specific situationally manifested emotions, long-term emotional relationships of a person to the phenomena of reality, expressing the significance of these phenomena in connection with his motives and needs, the highest product of the development of emotional processes in social conditions. Feelings have a clearly defined subject orientation, stability and duration.

A similar point of view is shared by B.I. Dodonov, who believes that emotions include moods, lower and higher feelings, affects. The lower feelings arise in connection with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of natural needs. They also include sensations (feelings), which represent the well-being of a person. Higher feelings arise as a result of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of human social needs and can be pleasant, unpleasant and mixed. Needs refers to the conformity of a situation to a certain standard.

R.S. Nemov, A.A. Davtyan et al., clarifying the above point of view, define feelings as higher, complex, culturally conditioned emotions that arise in the presence of a certain level of intelligence and reflect the relation of phenomena and objects to the motives of activity and the higher needs of a person as a person. Higher feelings are social in nature and testify to a person's attitude to various aspects and phenomena of social life - moral, intellectual and aesthetic.

It should be noted that a number of scientists, considering feelings as a special subclass of emotions, highlight clear criteria for distinguishing between these concepts.

The most detailed distinction between emotions and feelings was first presented by A.N. Leontiev. He notes that emotion has a situational character, i.e. expresses an assessment of a real or potential situation, as well as activities in a situation. Feeling, on the other hand, has a pronounced "objective" (objective) character, arising as a result of a certain generalization of emotions associated with some object, and is distinguished by stability. An important statement is A.N. Leontiev, that emotions and feelings may not correspond and even contradict each other (for example, a strongly loved person can cause a temporary emotion of displeasure, even anger and irritation in a certain situation).

R.S. Nemov adds that the difference between emotions and feelings lies in the fact that the former are not always recognized, while feelings are outwardly almost always noticeable, subjective and personal.

The point of view of K.K. Platonov, who believes that feeling is a form of reflection, which is a combination of the conceptual form of mental reflection and emotions. The scientist sees the main difference from emotions in the presence of a criterion of awareness. So, in order for a person to have a feeling of love for Rodina, he needs to know what "Motherland" is, and understand what experiences may appear in connection with this concept. This concept is reflected in the selection of the so-called higher feelings, which are a reflection of the inner world of a person and are associated with the analysis and evaluation of the events of reality. A person realizes why he loves, despises, hates.

A.G. Maklakov, summarizing the experience of his predecessors (A.N. Leontiev; Psychological Dictionary; R.S. Nemov and others), indicates the following as differentiating emotions and feelings of signs: 1) emotions are indefinite and insufficiently conscious, while feelings are in the majority cases are substantive and specific; 2) emotions are largely associated with biological processes, and feelings - with social ones; 3) emotions are more related to the sphere of the unconscious, and feelings, as a rule, are represented in our minds; 4) emotions do not have a specific external expression, but feelings do; 5) emotions are short-term, and feelings are long-term.

The remark of E.P. Ilyin about the eclecticism of these differentiating features. This scientist believes that the first and fourth points rather distinguish between the emotional tone of sensations and emotions, and the second and fifth - emotions and feelings. E.P. Ilyin does not agree that emotions belong to the sphere of the unconscious, and also notes the unsuitability of criteria that manifest themselves "to a greater or lesser extent."

So, supporters of this point of view consider feelings as a kind of emotions or emotional states and consider object orientation, stability, duration and cultural conditioning to be the most relevant differentiating features of feelings. Emotions, on the contrary, are always situational and short-lived. Let's move on to the consideration of the second point of view within the framework of this approach, according to which feeling is a generic concept and includes various types of emotions as forms of experiencing feelings (emotions, moods, affects, passions and feelings themselves). So, W. Wundt, distinguishing between objective and subjective elements of sensation, considers the former to be simply sensations, and the latter to be simple feelings. However, the characteristic of simple feelings presented by him shows that we are talking about emotional experiences and emotions.

A similar position is held by V.S. Deryabin and G.A. Fortunatov. The first scientist, sharing the concepts of "sensation" and "feeling", relates the latter to the emotional (sensual) tone of sensations.

G.A. Fortunatov believes that sensual tone, affects, mood, emotional processes and states (actually emotions) are an expression of feelings. However, the scientist believes that the concepts of "feeling" and "emotion" should not be considered as synonyms. For example, one cannot call the feeling of love of parents for children an emotion, although it manifests itself through emotional experiences.

In a number of textbooks on psychology, only the chapter "Feelings" is presented, which discusses various forms of experiencing feelings - moods, emotions, affects, passions, and even feelings themselves. It follows from this that the authors of these chapters (A.M. Schwartz, A.V. Petrovsky and others) support the point of view of V. Wundt and G.A. Fortunatov, who consider feelings to be a broader concept and define them as stable conditioned reflex formations present in the human mind and forming the basis of his affective-volitional reactions (emotions and motives) in various situations.

K. Izard also considers emotions to be a kind of feelings, however, in his definition of the concept of "emotion" he notes not only the sensual, but also the functional side: "emotion is something that is experienced as a feeling that motivates, organizes and directs perception, thinking and actions."

Thus, feelings, according to the above authors, are a generic concept for emotions, which are interpreted as forms of experiencing feelings.

According to a number of authors (V.V. Nikandrov, E.K. Sonina and others), the criteria for differentiating emotions and feelings as qualitatively different mental phenomena of the emotional sphere are: firstly, the needs that cause them; secondly, the functions they perform; thirdly, the physiological mechanisms by which they are caused.

Other scientists (O.K. Tikhomirov, G.A. Fortunatov and others) believe that feelings differ from emotions in strength, ambivalence and dynamism.

Such a scientist as A.M. Leiko believes that a feeling is a more complex, permanent, formed attitude of a person (love, hatred) to something or someone, a personality trait. Emotion is a simpler, direct experience at the moment (joy, anger, anxiety).

Using the criterion of "selection of the contextual environment" (A. Vezhbitskaya), T.V. Bulygin, A.D. Shmelev share such concepts as "impressions", "feelings" and "emotions" in accordance with the metaphorical representation in the language: "impressions are what the world brings or delivers to a person, he comes into emotional states, falls or plunges (in depending on the type of state), and elemental feelings embrace a person.

Summarizing and supplementing the experience of their predecessors, most modern scientists differentiate emotions and feelings according to the nature of the course and the cause of occurrence. Emotions are characterized by a short duration of flow, the cause of their occurrence is a situation or event. Feelings, on the other hand, are interpreted as relatively long-term (stable) socialized relations to an object caused by this object. Emotions highlight phenomena that have a meaning "here and now", while feelings are phenomena that have motivational significance.

A number of scientists note that in some cases it is not possible to clearly distinguish between feelings and emotions. One and the same phenomenon can act both as an emotion (as a short-term, acute experience) and as a feeling (as a long-term relationship to an object).

There is no direct correspondence between emotions and feelings: the same emotion can express different feelings, and the same feeling can manifest itself in different emotions depending on the situation in which the object to which the person feels is located. In the same feeling, emotions of different signs (positive and negative) often combine, pass into each other. This is due to the complexity of phenomena, the versatility and multiplicity of their relationships with each other.

So, the emotional sphere of a person is a complex, multifaceted entity, which causes ambiguity in the interpretation of the concepts of "emotion" and "feeling", as well as many approaches to the problem of their relationship in psychology and linguistics. Some scientists identify these concepts, others consider feelings to be one of the types of emotions, others, on the contrary, define feelings as a generic concept in relation to emotions, and others separate emotions and feelings as two different forms of reflection of the world.

The most appropriate is the point of view, according to which feelings and emotions are considered as two closely interconnected, but different from each other, phenomena of the emotional sphere of a person. The main differentiating features of these phenomena are the cause of occurrence and the nature of the course.

Emotions are short-term reactions of a person associated with the expression of a subjective biased attitude (in the form of an experience) to a situation, its outcome (event) and contributing to the organization of appropriate behavior in this situation. Feelings are relatively stable socialized attitudes of a person to the phenomena of the surrounding reality, reflecting the significance of these phenomena in connection with his motives and needs and having a clearly defined subject orientation and duration compared to emotions.

Lecture 11

Basic concepts:

emotion; signaling function; regulatory function; joy; grief; fear; anger; disgust; contempt; astonishment; sthenic emotions; asthenic emotions; emotional tone; indicative function; providing feedback; affect; affective shock; mood; hyperthymia; hypothymia; the senses; passion; intellectual feelings; moral feelings; aesthetic feelings; stress; frustration; extrapunitive form of response; intrapunitive form of frustration; impulsive form of response; emotional natures; sentimental natures.

The concept of emotions

Everyone knows what emotions are. And yet, if you ask what you feel when you sit near a fire by a night river, or in relation to a loved one, this is likely to cause certain difficulties. "We live in a world of emotions" is a statement as true as "We do not know our emotional world." As a rule, it is very difficult for us to describe our experiences. We often experience confusion under the influence of many conflicting feelings. And we seek to control our emotions rather than trying to sort them out.

In this chapter, you will find information about what “emotions” are, what role they play in our lives, how scientists explain the functioning of emotions, what our main emotions are, and, finally, what is the peculiarity of our emotional world and how you can harmonize it.

Emotion (from the Latin emovere - to excite, excite) is usually understood as an experience, emotional excitement. Emotions are not only the protagonist of great dramas, they are a daily companion of a person.

From the standpoint of scientific psychology, emotion is a process of reflection by a person in the form of a direct biased experience of relations to objects and phenomena of reality.

S.L. Rubinshtein, considering emotion as a phenomenon, identifies three of its main features:

Emotions express the state of the subject and his relationship to the object (as opposed to perception, which reflects the content of the object itself);

Emotions usually differ in polarity, i.e. have a positive or negative sign: pleasure - displeasure, fun - sadness, joy - sadness, etc. Moreover, these two poles are not mutually exclusive. In complex human feelings they often form a contradictory unity;

In emotional states, just as V. Wundt noted, opposites of tension and discharge, excitement and depression are found. The presence of tension, excitement and opposite states introduces a significant differentiation in emotions: along with joy-delight, joy-jubilation, there is a “quiet” joy - emotion, etc.

The Biological and Psychological Significance of Emotions

In relation to any event or object, a person takes a certain position. This position is not only rationally conditioned, but also biased, since it includes emotional experience. Thus, emotions perform a signaling function, showing what is happening is significant, what is not, what is valuable, and what is better to refuse. Emotions are a system of signals about what is happening in the world that matters to a person.

The regulatory function is closely related to the signaling function of emotions. Emotions not only guide us in relation to various events and objects, but also encourage us to certain actions - approaching or avoiding, searching or rejecting. For example, fear causes a child to avoid fire because he was once burned. As a regulator of behavior, emotion can act indirectly, being a link in a complex chain of interactions. Moderate anxiety, manifested by concern for the outcome of the case, enhances the sense of responsibility, i.e. acts as an additional motivating factor, contributing to the effectiveness of the activity.

Emotions play a big role in the energy mobilization of the body. When a person is emotionally aroused, his condition is accompanied by certain physiological reactions: blood pressure changes, the sugar content in it, the frequency of the pulse and breathing, and muscle tension. These reactions are essential for activating all the forces of the body for increased muscular activity (in fight or flight), which usually follows a strong emotional reaction.

Emotions perform a stabilizing function. P.K. Anokhin believed that emotional manifestations were fixed in evolution as a mechanism that keeps life processes within optimal limits and prevents the destructive nature of a lack or excess of vital factors.

Emotions provide a person with the opportunity to adapt to existence in an informationally uncertain environment. In conditions of complete certainty, the goal can be achieved without the help of emotions. A person will have neither joy nor triumph if, at a predetermined time, having performed several specific actions, he will reach a goal, the achievement of which was obviously not in doubt. Emotions contribute to the search for new information and thereby increase the likelihood of achieving the goal.

The role of emotions in establishing contacts between people is indisputable. Expressive movements accompanying emotional phenomena allow us to navigate what a person is experiencing at the moment - joy, sorrow or envy. Thanks to this, we can offer our help or avoid unwanted contact (the boss “vomits and thrashes”) or show others that “it’s better not to touch me now.”

Components of emotion

Emotion is a reaction of the body and personality, it is a psychophysiological phenomenon, therefore, the occurrence of emotion can be judged not only by a person’s message about what he is experiencing, but also by the nature of changes in autonomic indicators (heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, etc.). ) and psychomotor (facial expressions, pantomime, motor reactions, voice). A holistic definition of emotion must take into account three aspects or components: a) the experienced or conscious sensation of the emotion; b) processes occurring in the nervous, endocrine, respiratory, digestive and other systems of the body; c) observable expressive complexes of emotions, in particular those that are reflected on the face.

6 basic emotions are especially well studied and described: joy, surprise, grief, fear, anger, disgust.

Joy. V. Quinn defines joy as an active positive emotion, expressed in a good mood and a sense of pleasure. K. Izard notes that joy is accompanied by an experience of satisfaction with oneself and the world around.

Joy is easily recognizable, as a rule, smile and laughter testify to its presence. Characteristic of joy is its very rapid occurrence.

Grief is a deep sadness over the loss of someone or something valuable, necessary.

According to K. Izard, grief comes down to suffering, sadness, despondency. N.D. Levitov writes that a number of components can be distinguished in the affective experience of grief: pity for the one with whom the misfortune happened, and pity for oneself, as well as a feeling of helplessness, the impossibility of returning everything back, in rare cases - despair. J. Bowlby notes the adaptive value of grief for a person. It allows him to "get over himself" and adjust to the loss, show others how loving and caring he is, and also evoke compassion and help from those around him.

Fear is an emotional state of a person that reflects a defensive reaction when experiencing a real or imaginary danger to his health or well-being. Thus, in the presence of a real threat, the emergence of fear is not only biologically expedient, but also useful.

However, often fear arises as a reaction to an imaginary threat and becomes an obstacle to achieving goals. At the same time, ignoring fear, as well as ridiculing it, gives a negative result. It is wiser to acknowledge the presence of fear and try to overcome it, realizing that there are no real reasons for its occurrence. The state of fear is quite typical for a person, especially in extreme activities and in unfamiliar surroundings.

Anger can be caused by a personal insult, deceit, or an insurmountable obstacle standing in the way of a goal. The concept of "anger" is synonymous with the concepts of "indignation", "indignation", "anger". Anger is accompanied by a surge of strength, energy. This increases self-confidence, reduces fear in the presence of danger. The evolutionary meaning of anger is to mobilize energy for active self-defense. With the development of civilization, this function of anger becomes less important. In addition, the manifestation of anger contributes to emotional release. However, as L. Tolstoy said, "what is started in anger ends in shame."

Disgust, like contempt, is a specific manifestation of hostility. E.P. Ilyin believes that contempt is a social aversion to a person who has committed an unworthy act. Some scholars argue that disgust evolved from hunger and related behaviors. Perhaps, in the process of evolution, disgust contributed to the maintenance of a sanitary condition of the environment and prevented the use of spoiled food and stale water. It is possible that disgust plays a role in the implementation of body hygiene. Disgust, like contempt, can be directed at an idea or person, including one's own. AT last case, disgust lowers self-esteem and causes self-condemnation. A distinctive feature of this emotion is that, having arisen situationally, it does not disappear without a trace, but turns into a persistent negative attitude.

Surprise arises when a person meets a new object. According to K. Izard, the external cause of surprise is often a sudden and unexpected event - a thunderclap, a fireworks explosion or the unexpected appearance of a friend. It comes on quickly and passes quickly. Surprise is an experience of captivity, fascination, curiosity. A person experiencing surprise has a desire to explore, to intervene, to expand their experience by incorporating new information.

If man lived in a stable, unchanging world, perhaps there would be no need for surprise. However, we live in an ever-changing world and have the ability to experience surprise, which does not allow changes to go unnoticed. With the help of surprise, it is emotionally colored and the new, which has value for a person, is highlighted. Surprise "starts" thinking. According to Plato, all knowledge begins with surprise.

Types of emotional response

Considering the duration parameter, we can talk about emotional experiences that are fleeting, unstable (for example, the appearance of annoyance for a second or two in a basketball player who did not hit the ball in the basket), long-lasting, lasting several minutes, hours and even days (for example, first-grade children have negative experiences after evacuation from the school, provoked by the “bomb” planted in it, were observed for three days) and chronic, which occurs in pathology.

When differentiating emotional states according to the parameter of intensity and depth, a linear approach is most often used: at one end of the series there are emotions of low intensity (mood), at the other - emotions of high intensity (affects).

S.L. Rubinshtein in the diverse manifestations of the emotional sphere of the personality identifies three levels:

The first is the level of organic affective-emotional sensitivity. It is associated with physical feelings of pleasure - displeasure, which are due to the organic needs of man. An example of this can be our sensations that have a peculiar emotional coloring or tone (a pleasant or unpleasant smell, etc.), or sensations of a more general nature, reflecting a person’s well-being and not associated in his mind with a specific object (pointless longing, anxiety or joy );

The second, higher level of emotional manifestations, according to S.L. Rubinshtein, is subject feelings - emotions. The person is aware of the cause of the emotional experience. Pointless anxiety is replaced by a specific fear (for example, thunderstorms, a serious illness, loneliness, etc.). The feelings themselves, in this case, are differentiated depending on the subject area to which they belong, intellectual, aesthetic and moral. This level includes such feelings as love or hatred for a certain person, admiration for one object and disgust for another, indignation at some event, surprise at information received, etc.;

The third level is associated with more generalized feelings, similar in level of generalization to abstract thinking. This is a sense of humor, irony, a sense of the sublime, tragic, etc. They can sometimes act as private states associated with a specific event, however, more often they express the general stable worldview attitudes of the individual. SL Rubinshtein calls them ideological feelings.

Highlighting the levels of emotional response, S.L. Rubinshtein made an attempt to outline the evolutionary path of development of the emotional sphere of a person.

There are other classifications of emotions. In accordance with the proposal of I. Kant, emotions are usually divided into sthenic (from the Greek "stenos" - strength), i.e. tonic, exciting, providing an energetic effect, and asthenic - suppressing human activity, inhibiting, relaxing. Sthenic emotions include such emotions as joy, anger, anger, asthenic - melancholy, anxiety, complacency. In domestic psychology, it is traditionally customary to single out: the emotional tone of sensations, emotions (including affects) and moods.

Characteristics of different types of emotional response

Emotional tone as a reaction to sensations and impressions. The emotional tone of sensations is phylogenetically the most ancient emotional reaction. It is associated with the experience of pleasure or displeasure in the process of sensation. The emotional tone of sensations is characterized by a reaction to certain properties of objects or phenomena: a pleasant or unpleasant smell of a chemical or a taste of a product; pleasant or unpleasant sound; an annoying or pleasing combination of colors, etc.

The first function of the emotional tone of sensations, which is pointed out by many authors, is the orienting function, which consists in telling the body whether this or that effect is dangerous or not, whether it is desirable or should be eliminated.

The second function of the emotional tone of sensations is to provide feedback, the task of which is to inform the person that his biological need is satisfied (and then a positive emotional tone arises - pleasure) or not satisfied (then a negative emotional tone arises - displeasure). The emotional tone of impressions is the next step in the development of emotional response. It accompanies a person's impressions from the processes of perception, representation, mental activity, and communication. We can remember a pleasant vacation, call the interlocutor “boring”, and the lecture “interesting”, talk with pleasure about our successful presentation, etc.

The emotional tone of impressions enters integral part in emotion. It is this circumstance that gives reason to divide emotions into positive (associated with pleasure) and negative (associated with displeasure), i.e. mark out sign. Therefore, we can say that the emotional tone of impressions is a sign of emotion. The emotional tone of impressions cannot be reduced to a specific emotion. For example, fear can cause not only negative experiences, but, under certain circumstances, positive ones (otherwise, why jump with a “bungee?”).

Feeling pleasure or displeasure about various objects, a person often cannot explain what exactly attracts or repels him in them. The most interesting thing is that such an analysis is not required, and sometimes it would even interfere. I.M. Sechenov also noted that “analysis kills pleasure”, and P.V. Simonov, in this regard, wrote that “if a person behaved like a computer when choosing a life partner, he would never be able to marry ".

Emotion as a reaction to a situation and an event

Most often, emotions are defined as a person's experience at the moment of his attitude to something or to someone (in a current or future situation, to other people, to himself, etc.). However, emotions are not only the experience of a relationship, but also what motivates, organizes and directs our perception, thinking and action, and therefore behavior in general. The role of emotions in the organization of appropriate behavior for a given situation is undoubted. In this case, P. Janet's statement (1928), that the function of emotions is to disorganize behavior, is perceived as a completely natural joke.

Unlike emotional tone, emotion is a reaction to a situation, and not to a separate stimulus. When we suddenly experience intense pain, fear arises. And fear is a reaction not so much to the painful stimulus itself, but rather reflects the characteristics of the situation as a whole: a threat in the present, unpleasant consequences in the future, perhaps an experience of inability to oppose something to a traumatic stimulus, etc.

Emotion is often an early reaction to a situation. Thanks to emotional foresight, a person reacts to an event that has not yet occurred: anticipation of a date, joyful chores on the eve of a vacation or travel, expectation of the birth of a child. Often, experiences in anticipation of something bring no less, if not more pleasure than real events. Emotion acts as a mechanism for foreseeing the significance for a person of a particular situation, a mechanism for advance and adequate preparation for it.

Emotion quite subtly shows us the desirability - undesirability, significance - the insignificance of a particular situation or event. Something may not just displease us: it may upset, sadden, cause disappointment, anger or grief, resent, cause hatred or disgust.

Emotion is a mechanism for fixing positive and negative experiences. Occurring when a goal is achieved or not achieved, emotions are a positive or negative reinforcement of behavior. Emotions can be expressed actively and passively. Fear manifests itself actively (running away) and passively (freeze from fear). Joy can be stormy and quiet. Angry, a person can get excited, or can only frown. In anger, a person may rage, or he will not show his anger in any way (“everything is boiling inside”).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, affects began to be singled out as an independent group. Yet affect is just a special kind of emotion. An affect is nothing but a strongly expressed emotion. As A.G. Fortunatov (1976) writes, if emotion is emotional excitement, then affect is a storm. Any emotion can reach the level of affect if it is caused by a strong or especially significant stimulus for a person. Almost always affects arise in the form of a reaction in which tension is reacted.

The effect is characterized by:

rapid onset;

very high intensity of experience;

brevity;

violent expression (expression);

lack of accountability, i.e. loss of conscious control over their actions. In a state of passion, a person is not able to "control himself." With affect, the consequences of what is being done are little thought out, as a result of which a person's behavior becomes impulsive. Such a person is sometimes said to be "unconscious";

diffuseness. Strong affects capture the entire personality, which is accompanied by a decrease in the ability to switch attention, a narrowing of the field of perception. Attention control focuses mainly on the object that caused the affect: “anger blinds the eyes”, “rage blinds”.

Affective manifestations of positive emotions are delight, enthusiasm, enthusiasm, bouts of unbridled fun, laughter; affective manifestations of negative emotions are rage, anger, horror, despair.

Sometimes the affect is accompanied by stupor (freezing in a motionless posture). More often, the affect has bright external manifestations, which, in some cases, acquire a destructive and even criminal character. After an affect, there often comes a breakdown, indifference to everything around or remorse for what you have done, that is, the so-called affective shock. The frequent manifestation of affect in a normal environment indicates either bad manners (a person, as it were, allows himself extreme emotional manifestations), or a neuropsychiatric disorder that he has.

Mood (emotional tone at the moment.) Of all the emotional phenomena, mood is the most vague, hazy, almost mystical. A.G. Maklakov (2000) considers mood as a “chronic” emotional state that colors all human behavior. In ordinary consciousness, it is often understood as a good or bad "disposition of the spirit", as the mood (presence or lack of desire) of a person at the moment to communicate, do something, agree or disagree, etc. (It is not for nothing that subordinates, going to an appointment with their boss, try to find out what mood he is in).

In most psychology textbooks, mood is described as an independent emotional phenomenon, distinct from emotions. According to S.L. Rubinshtein, “Mood is not a special experience dedicated to some particular event, but a diffuse general state. The mood is somewhat more complex and, most importantly, more iridescent and diverse and, for the most part, vague, richer in subtle shades than a clearly defined feeling ”(1989, p. 176). SL Rubinshtein also emphasizes that mood, unlike other emotional experiences, is personal.

Unlike emotions, mood is characterized by:

weak intensity;

significant duration (mood can last for hours or even days);

sometimes the ambiguity of its cause. Experiencing this or that mood, a person, as a rule, is poorly aware of the reasons that caused it, does not associate it with certain people, phenomena or events. For example, if a person is in a bad mood after sleep, they say about him that he “got up on the wrong foot”;

influence on human activity. Constantly present as an emotional background, the mood increases or decreases its activity in communication or work.

The mood can be good (sthenic) and bad (asthenic). In the first case, with its stable manifestation, one speaks of hyperthymia, i.e. about high spirits. It is characterized by elation, cheerfulness, cheerfulness with bursts of cheerfulness, optimism, happiness. The constant manifestation of hyperthymia is embodied in such a characterological feature as hyperthymia. This is an emotional stereotype of behavior, which, when pronounced, can lead to an uncritical manifestation of activity: a person claims to do more than he can and can do, he strives to take on everything, teach everyone, tries to attract attention to himself at any cost. Such a person is often "carried away".

The opposite of hyperthymia is hypothymia: low mood, a kind of emotional "minor", which, similarly to a hyperthymic characterological warehouse, can become the basis for the formation of a hypothymic character. Mood is actually closely related to characterology, which will be discussed below.

Feelings as a type of emotion

There is no doubt that feelings and emotions are closely related. It is more difficult to answer the question of how they relate. Emotions are often referred to as feelings, and vice versa, feelings are referred to as emotions. This trend is typical of Western psychology. In domestic psychology, the idea that feelings are one of the main forms of a person's experience of his attitude to objects and phenomena of reality, which is relatively stable, is more common.

What makes it possible to consider feelings as a special kind of emotional response?

The feeling has a clearly expressed "objective" (objective) character, in contrast to the emotion, which has a situational character. There can be no feeling of patriotism without the Motherland, motherly love - without a son or daughter, i.e. the corresponding object of love, a sense of pride in oneself - without that achievement that a person can be proud of, etc. Feeling is a stable emotional attitude. The feeling is supra-situational. Often, emotions and feelings come into discord precisely for this reason. For example, a deeply loved person situationally can cause irritation, even anger. At the same time, the basic feeling remains unchanged, moreover, the anger we experience in a particular situation once again convinces us of how significant and dear this person is.

Feelings are long, they express a stable attitude towards any specific objects. The stability of emotional relationships can have different incarnations (“love to the grave”, the role of a “fighter for justice”, etc.). Feelings can vary in strength. The maximum degree of expression of feelings is passion. Passionately you can love and hate. Passion resembles an affect, but it is not an affect. I. Kant vividly showed the difference between passion and affect. Affect, according to I. Kant, is a surprise, it arises suddenly, rapidly reaches the level at which deliberation is excluded, it is recklessness. Passion needs time to take root deeply, it is more deliberate, but it can be swift in achieving its goal. I. Kant compared affect with the action of a stream of water crushing a dam, and passion - with a deep current that rushes along a certain channel.

Feelings are characterized by subjectivity, since the same phenomena for different people can have different meanings. A number of feelings are characterized by intimacy, i.e. deeply personal meaning of experiences, their secrecy. If a person shares such feelings with someone, it means that communication takes place at a very short psychological distance, this is a “heartfelt” conversation.

Feelings are expressed through certain emotions, depending on the situation in which the object to which the person feels is located. A mother can worry about her son, and be proud of him, and be disappointed, and indignant - depending on the situation and the real behavior of her son. However, the feeling of love remains unchanged. At the same time, the mother may experience anxiety for other reasons. Thus, the same feeling can be expressed by different emotions, and the same emotion can express different feelings.

Classifying feelings is not easy. The most common classification of feelings is their division, depending on the sphere of manifestation, into three groups: moral, intellectual and aesthetic.

Moral feelings are the feelings that a person experiences in connection with the realization of the conformity or inconsistency of his behavior with the requirements of public morality. They reflect a different degree of attachment to certain people, the need to communicate with them, attitudes towards them. Thus, positive moral feelings include benevolence, friendship, patriotism, duty, etc., and negative ones include individualism, selfishness, enmity, envy, etc.

Intellectual - these are feelings associated with human cognitive activity. These include curiosity, curiosity, surprise, the joy of solving a problem. Although, perhaps, in this case we are talking more about emotions associated with intellectual activity, and not actually about intellectual feelings.

Aesthetic feelings are called feelings associated with the experience of pleasure or displeasure, caused by the beauty or ugliness of perceived objects, whether they are natural phenomena, works of art or people, as well as their actions and actions. This is an understanding of beauty, harmony, sublime, tragic or comic. These feelings are realized through emotions, which in their intensity range from slight excitement to deep excitement, from emotions of pleasure to aesthetic delight.

Currently, instead of the concept of "emotional stress", the term "stress" is often used. It turned out that the body responds to adverse effects of various kinds - cold, fatigue, humiliation, pain, and much more - not only with a protective reaction to this effect, but also with a common, uniform complex process, regardless of which particular stimulus acts on it at a given time. moment. It is important to note that the intensity of developing adaptive activity does not depend on physical strength impact, but on the personal significance of the acting factor.

In its final form, the doctrine of stress as a general adaptation syndrome under the action of various damaging agents was formulated by G. Selye. Initially, G. Selye and his collaborators paid attention only to the biological and physiological aspects of stress. Therefore, it has become traditional to understand stress as a physiological reaction of the body to the action of negative factors that pose a threat to it. Stress is expressed by a general adaptation syndrome, which manifests itself regardless of the quality of the pathogenic factor (chemical, thermal, physical), and has certain stages:

an alarm reaction, during which the body's resistance first decreases ("shock phase"), and then defense mechanisms are activated ("anti-shock phase");

the stage of stability, when, due to the tension of functioning systems, the body's adaptation to new conditions is achieved;

the stage of exhaustion, in which the failure of protective mechanisms is revealed and the violation of the coordination of vital functions is growing.

As he studied stress, G. Selye came to understand the role of the psychological factor in its development. This was largely facilitated by the work of scientists who summarized the experience of the Second World War.

Currently, there is no doubt that any stress is both physiological and mental (emotional). With the help of stress, the body, as it were, mobilizes itself for self-defense, for adaptation to a new situation.

Under stress, certain hormones begin to be released into the blood. Under their influence, the mode of operation of many organs and systems of the body changes. The body is prepared to fight, to overcome the danger, in one way or another the body is ready to cope with it - this is the main biological significance of stress.

The positive effect of moderate stress is manifested in a number of physiological and psychological properties - in the shift of somatic (bodily) indicators towards intensification, improving attention (its volume and stability), increasing a person's interest in achieving the goal, positive emotional coloring of work.

A certain level of emotional arousal provides an increase in the efficiency of activity. At the same time, emotional overstrain can lead to a decrease in a person's ability to work. Yerkes and Dodson found that the dependence of the productivity of an activity on the level of activation associated with it can be described by an inverted U - shaped curve. It follows from this that as emotional stress increases, productivity first grows rapidly, and then its growth slows down, and, starting from a certain critical level, emotional arousal already leads to a decrease in the level of productivity - at first slowly, then sharply.

Stress is an integral part of our life. It cannot be avoided, just as food and drink cannot be avoided. But stressful influences should not exceed the adaptive capabilities of a person. Already at the first stages of the creation of the doctrine of stress, G. Selye emphasized that with prolonged stress, not only functional changes occur in the internal organs, which are reversible, but also morphological irreversible changes, i.e. serious bodily illness.

Often, in a stressful situation, a person is forced to behave with restraint, completely controls his behavior, makes accurate and responsible decisions, however, at the same time, his adaptive reserve decreases and, at the same time, the risk of being exposed to various diseases increases. As K. M. Bykov wrote, “sadness, which is not manifested in tears, makes internal organs cry,” and there is a lot of evidence for this. At present, it is well known that as a result of mental trauma, a person may develop pathology of internal organs, up to oncological diseases. Different people react to the same stress in different ways. For some, under stress, the efficiency of activity continues to grow to a certain limit (“lion stress”), for others it immediately drops (“rabbit stress”).

frustration

The concept of "frustration" (from Latin frustratio - disorder (of plans), collapse (of plans, hopes)) is used in two meanings: 1) the act of blocking or interrupting behavior aimed at achieving a significant goal, i.e. frustration situation; 2) an emotional state that occurs after failure, dissatisfaction with any need, reproaches from outside. This state is accompanied by strong emotions: hostility, anger, guilt, anxiety, etc.

A frustrator is an obstacle that is insurmountable for a person, blocking the achievement of the goal set by him. From the point of view of S. Rosenzweig, any reaction to a frustrator is aimed at maintaining balance within the body. Domestic psychologists tend to believe that the state of frustration is a reaction of the personality.

Frustration can have various effects on human activity. In some cases, she mobilizes him to achieve a distant goal in time, increases the strength of the motive. However, this behavior can be impulsive and irrational. In other cases, frustration demobilizes a person, and then he, either through substitutive actions, tries to get away from conflict situation or refuse to act at all.

According to S. Rosenzweig, the state of frustration can manifest itself in three forms of behavior (reactions): extrapunitive, intrapunitive and impunitive, which indicate the direction of reactions.

The extrapunitive form of response is characterized by the outward orientation of the reaction. A person tends to blame circumstances, other people for what happened. He discovers increased irritability, annoyance, anger, stubbornness, as well as the desire to achieve the goal, no matter what. As a result, behavior becomes less plastic, primitive, stereotyped, even if the previously learned ways of behavior do not lead to the desired result.

The intrapunitive form of frustration is characterized by autoaggression: self-accusation, the appearance of guilt. A person has a depressed mood, anxiety increases, he becomes withdrawn, silent. When solving a problem, a person returns to more primitive forms of behavior, limits activities and the satisfaction of his interests.

The impulsive form of response is associated with the attitude to failure either as inevitable, fatal, or as an insignificant event, which over time “deregulates” by itself. Thus, a person does not blame either himself or others.

In addition, there are certain types of frustration response:

Motor excitation - aimless and disordered reactions;

Apathy (for example, a child in a situation of frustration lay down on the floor and looked at the ceiling);

Aggression and destruction;

Stereotype - the tendency to blindly repeat fixed behavior;

Regression, manifested in the primitivization of behavior, in the appeal to behavioral models that dominated in earlier periods of life, or in a decrease in the quality of performance.

The appearance of a state of frustration, in one form or another of response, depends on personal characteristics, and therefore, the concept of frustration tolerance has been introduced, i.e. resistance to frustrators. Determining one's own frustration tolerance can be useful both when choosing a profession and field of activity, and when setting tasks for managing emotions and self-education, which will be discussed below.

Emotional properties of personality

Individual differences between people are especially pronounced in the emotional sphere. The main differences in the emotional sphere of a person are associated with differences in the content of human feelings, in what, what objects they are directed at, and what attitude of a person they express.

According to S.L. Rubinshtein (10), typical differences in the emotional characteristics of a person are manifested: 1) in strong or weak emotional excitability; 2) in greater or lesser emotional stability. These differences characterize the temperament of a person. There are people who easily ignite and quickly go out (“straw fire of feelings”), as well as people in whom a feeling does not arise immediately, but, having ignited, they will not soon cool down. The emotional differences of people in the perception of the surrounding world, in its assessment, in relation to ongoing and expected events, etc. are well known. Even A.F. Lazursky wrote that if a good or bad mood becomes dominant, constant, then a type of optimist or pessimist arises, who looks at the whole world through pink or dark glasses. As a psychological emotional characteristic of a person, this is his general tone and attitude towards the perception and assessment of reality. For an optimist, this is a bright, joyful tone of perception of life and the future, for a pessimist, this is a mood of depression and hopelessness.

Further, S.L. Rubinshtein distinguishes: 3) the strength or intensity of feeling and 4) its depth. A feeling that is strong in the sense of the intensity or swiftness with which it seizes a person may be shallow. This is what distinguishes infatuation from love. Love is different from infatuation, first of all, not by the intensity of the feeling, but by its depth, i.e. not by how quickly it bursts into action, but by how deeply it penetrates the personality. The depth of penetration of a feeling is determined by how essential this feeling and the sphere with which it is connected are for a given person. In this case, the breadth of the distribution of feelings plays an important role. It is determined by how wide and diverse those spheres of the personality with which this feeling is intertwined. It is on this that the strength of the feeling largely depends.

Characterologically very significant and deep are the differences between emotional, sentimental and passionate natures. Emotional natures experience their feelings, surrendering to them, plunging into them. They are impressionable, excitable, but rather impulsive than effective.

Sentimental natures rather contemplate their feelings, "admiring their play." They are contemplative and sensitive, but passive.

Passionate natures live by their feeling, embodying its tension in action. Passionate are effective. They are not satisfied either by the direct experience of their feeling, or by its contemplation. For them, feeling is a passionate desire.

E.P. Ilyin, describing emotional personality types, along with optimists, pessimists and sentimental, singles out and considers shy, touchy and vindictive, empathic, anxious, conscientious and inquisitive.

Emotion management

Our emotions can be both pleasant and unpleasant, they can contribute to effective activity and completely disorganize it, emotions can provoke a crime and be embodied in brilliant poems, i.e. we are constantly confronted with a wide variety of manifestations and consequences of emotions, which can be both desirable and appropriate, and inappropriate and, accordingly, undesirable. The latter implies the need to manage one's own emotions.

It is important that the absence of external manifestation of emotions does not mean that a person does not experience them. As you know, he can hide his feelings, drive them inside. Such restraint, as you learned above, is fraught with very serious consequences, in particular, the occurrence of somatic (bodily) diseases and neuroses. Therefore, the desire to suppress or eradicate emotions is fundamentally wrong, but the ability to regulate their manifestations is absolutely necessary.

Control in the expression of emotions is manifested in three main forms: 1) "suppression" (hiding the experienced emotional state); 2) "masking" (replacing the experienced emotional state with the expression of another emotion that is not present at the moment); 3) “simulation” (expression of an emotion that is not experienced). Situationally, the use of these methods of controlling emotional manifestations can be justified. However, constant control of emotional manifestations leads to the fact that a person ceases to “recognize” his emotions, may find it difficult to determine what he really feels at the moment, thus losing the most important landmark in reality.

So, we need to find effective ways to eliminate unwanted emotional states that do not lead to neurosis or release of tension to the bodily level, as well as ways to evoke desired emotions that can help optimize mood and creative activity.

Regulation of emotional states (elimination of unwanted emotions) is possible either under the influence from the outside (another person, music, color, natural landscape), or as a result of self-regulation.

Currently, many different methods of self-regulation have been developed: relaxation training, autogenic training, desensitization, reactive relaxation, meditation, etc. Mastering any of the above methods of self-regulation is best done under the guidance of a specialist. And do not forget that mastering your emotions will take a long time.

Directly relieve yourself of emotional stress will help:

Shutdown (distraction). The ability to think about anything, but not about what upsets or worries. Distraction was used in Russian healing spells as a way to eliminate unwanted emotions. Distraction requires considerable volitional effort, it is this that will ultimately determine the success of the distraction;

Switching. It is connected with the orientation of consciousness to some interesting business (reading a fascinating book, watching a movie, etc.) or to the business side of the upcoming activity;

Reducing the importance of upcoming activities. It is carried out by giving the event a lower value or generally reassessing the significance of the situation according to the type “I didn’t really want to”, “this is not a tragedy”, etc .;

Development of a backup retreat strategy for achieving the goal in case of failure (for example, if I don’t enter this institute, then I’ll go to another);

Obtaining additional information that removes the uncertainty of the situation;

Postponing for a while the achievement of the goal in case of realizing the impossibility of doing this with the available knowledge, means, etc.;

Physical relaxation (as I.P. Pavlov said, you need to “drive passion into the muscles”). To do this, you can take a long walk, do some useful physical work, etc.

You can use your imagination to actualize the desired emotion. A person recalls a situation from his life, which was accompanied by strong positive experiences. Very soon, past joy or pride in oneself, experienced earlier, will begin to “work” in the present, changing the current state. Music can be used to evoke desired emotions. Music is the real ruler of the feelings and moods of a person. In one case, it is able to weaken excessive excitement, in the other - to change the sad mood to cheerful, in the third - to give vigor and relieve fatigue.

Security questions for topic number 11

Identify the components of emotion.

Name the levels of emotional manifestations.

Types of response.

How do you understand the stressful state of the individual?

What emotional personality traits do you know?