The emergence of emotions and the ability to control the emotional states of a person. Origin and mechanism of emotions

There is a wide range of hypotheses concerning the probable causes of emotional phenomena.

Emotion as biofeedback from organs involved in expression. One of the first concepts describing the causes of emotional experience, which has retained its significance to this day, is the concept proposed by W. James and S. Lange (James, 1884; Lange, 1895). These researchers lived in different countries and at the same time independently put forward similar ideas. They explained the emergence of emotional experience by the functioning of the feedback mechanism from the effector organs involved in the expression of emotion. According to this view, we are sad because we cry, we are angry because we strike, we are afraid because we tremble, we are happy because we laugh. Thus, in this concept, the relationship between awareness of emotion and behavior

Its expression is the opposite of what is obviously observed: awareness of the emotional state occurs after a physiological reaction.

This hypothesis was initially rejected due to the existence of a significant amount of facts that contradict it. However, at present, many researchers are beginning to return to it again. This is because psychotherapeutic practice relies heavily on the existence of such feedback and includes techniques such as having to smile to change your mood, or relaxing your muscles to calm yourself.

The importance of feedback from effectors is also supported by neurological practice (Hohman, 1966). So, when examining patients with spinal cord injuries, a clear pattern is found, according to which, the higher the level of damage, the lower the intensity of emotions experienced by these patients.

Experiments also confirm the importance of back stimulation from effectors. In one study, subjects were asked to change the tension of those facial muscles that corresponded to a particular emotion, but nothing was said about the emotion itself (Ekman et al. 1983; Levenson et al. 1990). This is how they mimically reproduced the expression of fear, anger, surprise, disgust, grief, happiness. At the moment of muscle tension, vegetative functions were recorded. The results indicated that simulated expression did indeed alter the state of the autonomic nervous system. When anger was simulated, the heart rate increased and the body temperature rose, when fear was reproduced, the heart rate increased, but the body temperature fell, and when the state of happiness was simulated, only a slowing of the heartbeat was noted.

The physiological rationale for the possibility of the participation of reverse stimulation in the formation of psychological experience can be such a sequence of events. During a person's life, classical conditioned reflexes are formed, which associate the change in facial muscles with a particular state of the autonomic nervous system. This is why feedback from facial muscles can be accompanied by autonomic changes.

So far there is no reason to reject the possibility that these connections may be innate. Proof of the possibility of such an assumption can be the fact that when observing other people's emotions, people involuntarily repeat them. Anyone reading these lines, looking at the figure (Fig. 13.6), cannot intuitively fail to follow the emotion depicted on it.

It is possible that the conditioned reflex connection, which connects emotional manifestation and mental experiences, occurs at very early stages of ontogenesis in the corresponding critical period. It can be so close to the moment of birth and be so short that it leads to an illusory idea of ​​the innate nature of this kind of relationship.

Emotion as the activity of brain structures. W. Cannon (Cannon, 1927) and P. Bard (Bard, 1929) proposed a concept, the essence of which is

the fact that psychological awareness and physiological response in the process of emotional response occurs almost at the same time. Information about the emotional signal enters the thalamus, from it simultaneously - to the cerebral cortex, which leads to awareness, and to the hypothalamus, which leads to a change in the autonomic status of the organism (Fig. 13.8). Further research has identified a significant number of brain structures involved in the formation of emotion.

Hypothalamus. WITH using the technique of self-stimulation, the pleasure center was discovered (Olds, Fobes, 1981). In a similar experiment, electrodes implanted in the rat's brain, a pedal contact, and a source of electric current are included in one circuit. Moving, the rat could press the pedal. If the electrodes were implanted into the area of ​​the lateral hypothalamus, then after a single pressing, the rat did not stop doing this. Some of them pressed the pedal up to 1000 times an hour and died as they stopped performing the actions necessary to survive.

The emotional state of an animal can be changed by introducing certain biologically active substances into certain areas of the hypothalamus (Iktmoto and Panksepp, 1996). The role of this brain structure in emotional response has been demonstrated many times. In the lateral hypothala-

Rice. 13.8. The Kennon-Bard model assumes the simultaneous flow of information from the thalamus into the cortex and subcortical structures.

Duse identified two types of neurons that react differently to emotional situations. One type of neuron was named motivational, since it showed maximum activity in motivational behavior, and the other - reinforcing, since these cells were activated when the animal was satiated (Zaichenko et al., 1995).

Tonsil (amygdala). X. Kluver and P. Bucy (Kluver, Bucy, 1939) removed the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex in monkeys and described the syndrome later named after them. In the monkey, which was an aggressive alpha male before the operation, after extirpation of the temporal lobe, the former aggressiveness and fear disappeared, but hypersexuality was revealed. On the one hand, these data indicate the importance of the temporal lobes for the development of aggression, on the other hand, they demonstrate the presence of a reciprocal relationship between sexuality and aggressiveness. This contradicts the concept of K. Lorenz (Lorenz, 1969), who asserted the identity of aggressiveness and male sexuality, since, from his point of view, sexual behavior is an integral part of aggressive behavior.

It has been established that Kluver-Bucy syndrome is due to the absence of the amygdala. It has now been proven that this structure forms the body's response to an aversive stimulus (causing an avoidance response). Any emotional response is associated with the circumstances in which it occurs. This is how the classic conditioned reflex is developed, where the reinforcement is this or that emotional state of the organism. This type of training is called conditional emotional response.

The amygdala plays a role in several types of emotional behavior: aggression, fear, disgust, and maternal behavior. This structure is the focal point of the sensory and effector systems, responsible for the behavioral, autonomic and hormonal components of the conditioned emotional response, activating the corresponding nerve circles located in the hypothalamus and brain stem.

J.E. LeDoux (1987) showed the need for a central amygdala nucleus for the development of a conditioned emotional response, since in its absence it was not possible to develop a reflex (Fig. 13.9). As can be seen from the figure, the amygdala is associated with the lateral hypothalamus, which is responsible for the vegetative component of the emotional response, and with the periaqued gray matter, which organizes the behavioral response. The amygdala also has projections in the hypothalamus that are involved in the release of stress hormones. That is why irritation of the central nucleus of the amygdala leads to ulceration of the gastrointestinal tract. However, with prompt removal of the tonsil, an ulcer does not form under stress. Apparently, it implements this function through the tailed kernel.

Sensory associative cortex analyzes complex incentives of sufficient complexity. Although individual emotional reactions in a person are caused by simple stimuli, most of them are quite complex, for example, the appearance of a particular person in the field of vision. The amygdala receives information from the inferior temporal cortex and the temporal tubercle cortex. The latter is projected from visual, auditory and

Rice. 13.9. Involvement of the amygdala in the formation of a conditioned emotional response (Carlson, 1992).

somatosensory associative cortex. Thus, the amygdala has information of any modality.

D f. L. Downer experimentally destroyed the left amygdala in monkeys, simultaneously performing commissurotomy (Downer, 1961). Thus, the left half of the brain was devoid of a structure that synthesized the information of all sensory inputs, and could not compensate for this deficiency with information from the right hemisphere. Before the operation, touching the monkey caused an aggressive reaction. After the operation, this behavior was induced only when the animal looked with its right eye. When viewed with the left eye, there was no aggressiveness. This suggests, in particular, that the right hemisphere of the brain is of particular importance for emotional reactions.

The role of the thalamus in the implementation of the conditioned emotional response. Most of the emotional reactions are quite primitive, since they arose quite early on the path of evolutionary development. The destruction of the auditory cortex does not entail the absence of an emotional conditioned response, while the destruction of the thalamus inevitably leads to the impossibility of its production.

For the formation of a conditioned emotional response to sound, it is necessary to preserve the medial part of the medial geniculate body, which sends auditory information to the primary auditory cortex of the cerebral hemispheres (Fig. 13.10). In addition, the neurons of the medial geniculate body are projected into the amygdala. The destruction of these connections leads to the impossibility of developing an emotional conditioned response to a sound signal. In the same way, in order to develop a conditioned emotional response to a visual signal, the lateral geniculate bodies that carry visual information to the brain must be preserved.

Orbitofrontal cortex located at the base of the frontal lobes (Fig. 13.11). It has direct entrances from the dorsomedial thalamus, temporal cortex, and ventromedial tegmental area. Indirect connections go to it from the amygdala and olfactory cortex, are projected into the singular cortex, hippocampal system, temporal cortex, lateral hypothalamus, amygdala. It is connected in multiple ways with other areas of the frontal lobes of the brain.

Rice. 13.10. Medial section of the brain through the medial geniculate body, which receives information from the auditory systems and projects into subcortical structures (Carlson, 1992)

The role of the orbitofrontal cortex first began to be defined in the middle of the 19th century. Important information about the function of this area in emotional behavior was provided by the case of the demolitionist Phineas Gage. A metal rod ejected from the explosion pierced the frontal part of his brain. Gage survived, but his behavior changed significantly. If before the injury he was serious and thorough, then after this incident he turned into a frivolous and irresponsible person. His behavior was characterized by childishness and carelessness, it was difficult for him to draw up a plan for future actions, and his actions themselves were capricious and random.

Rice. 13.11. Orbitofrontal cortex.

Such injuries reduce the processes of inhibition and self-concentration, change personal interests. Back in the 40s of the XX century, a lot of material was collected on the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in emotional behavior. Most of the data indicated that damage to it, changing the emotional sphere of a person, does not affect the intellectual level.

For example, in one curious case, a person suffered from compulsive disorder, which manifested itself in the constant washing of hands. This anomaly prevented him from leading a normal life and eventually led to a suicide attempt. The patient shot himself in the head through the mouth, but survived, although he damaged the frontal cortex. At the same time, obsession disappeared, but the intellectual level remained the same.

Numerous studies on the destruction of the orbitofrontal cortex,

conducted on animals, testified to a significant change in their behavior: the disappearance of aggressiveness and the absence of visible intellectual deviations. This led the Portuguese scientist Egas Moniz to persuade neurosurgeons to perform a similar operation on humans. He believed that such an operation could remove the pathological emotional state in aggressive psychopaths, while keeping their intellect intact. Several such operations were actually carried out, and their results confirmed the original idea of ​​the author. For this E. Monitz received the Nobel Prize in 1949.

Later, this operation, called lobotomy, was carried out to thousands of patients. Especially a lot of such surgical interventions were performed on American soldiers who returned after World War II with the syndrome, which later came to be called according to the place of hostilities - "Vietnamese", "Afghan", etc. People who have been participating in hostilities for a long time are typical in an alarming situation, launching a physical attack without having time to think whether such a reaction is justified. In all other respects, they do not differ from the norm, being, moreover, physically healthy and efficient. Now it is obvious that E. Monitz was wrong, since lobotomy leads not only to a decrease in the intellectual level, but, which is no less important, to irresponsible behavior. Such patients cease to plan their actions, to be responsible for them and, as a result, lose their ability to work and the ability to live independently. Lobotomy as an operation was quite well developed and was carried out not even in the operating room, but in a regular doctor's office. It was performed using a special knife called transorbital lysotome. The surgeon, using a wooden mallet, inserted the knife into the brain through a hole made just below the upper eyelid, and then turned it to the right and left until the orbital bone near the eye. Essentially, the operation was done in the dark, since it was not clear where the knife was located and what structures it was cutting, so there was more damage than necessary, although its main consequence was the separation of the prefrontal region from the rest of the brain (Carlson, 1992).

The results of NMR tomography indicate that the more the prefrontal cortex, the left temporal region (amygdala), and the bridge are captured by the activity, the greater the amplitude of the orientational GSR (Raine e. A., 1991). It is now believed that the orbitofrontal cortex is included in the sequencing assessment. If this area is damaged by a disease, then the subject can estimate the emotional significance of the stimulus theoretically, that is, he can easily analyze situations in pictures and diagrams. However, he will not be able to apply this knowledge in life. Likewise, Gage, mentioned earlier, lost one job after another, spent all his savings, and eventually lost his family.

It can be assumed that the orbitofrontal cortex is not directly involved in the decision-making process, but ensures the translation of these decisions into life, into specific feelings and behavior. The ventral connections of this area of ​​the cortex with the diencephalon and the temporal region bring her information about the emotional significance of the signal. Dorsal connections with the singular cortex allow it to influence both behavior and vegetation.

Rice. 13.12. Singular cortex (Carlson, 1992).

Singular cortex plays an important role in the formation of emotional experience (Fig. 13.12). J.W. Papez (1937) suggested that the singular cortex, entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus and thalamus form a circle that is directly related to motivation and emotion. Psychologist P.D. McLean (MacLean, 1949) also included the amygdala in this system and called it limbic. The singular cortex provides interactions between decision-making structures in the frontal cortex, the emotional structures of the limbic system, and the brain's mechanisms that control movement. It interacts in forward and backward directions with the rest of the limbic system and other areas of the frontal cortex. Electrical stimulation of the singular gyrus can induce the experience of positive or negative emotions (Talairach e. ​​A., 1973).

Damage to the singular cortex is associated with akinetic mutism, in which patients refuse to speak and move. Significant trauma to this area is incompatible with life. There is reason to believe that it plays an initiating role in emotional behavior.

Scientific views on the nature and essence of emotional manifestations are presented in two main directions. Scientists belonging to the first, intellectualistic direction (I.F. Herbart, 1824-1825), argued that organic manifestations of emotions are a consequence of mental phenomena. According to Herbart, emotion is a connection that is established between representations, caused by a mismatch (conflict) between representations. This affective state involuntarily causes vegetative changes.

Representatives of the other position - sensationalists - on the contrary, declared that organic reactions affect mental phenomena. F. Dufour (1883) wrote about this: “Have I not sufficiently proved that the source of our natural inclination to passions lies not in the soul, but is associated with the ability of the autonomic nervous system to communicate to the brain about the excitation it receives, that if we cannot voluntarily regulate functions of blood circulation, digestion, secretion, then it is impossible, therefore, in this case, we can explain the violation of these functions by our will, which arose under the influence of passions. " These two positions were later developed in the cognitive theories of emotions and in the peripheral theory of emotions by W. James - G. Lange.

The modern history of emotions begins with the appearance in 1884 of an article by W. James "What is emotion?" W. James and, independently of him, G. Lange formulated a theory according to which the emergence of emotions is caused by changes both in the voluntary motor sphere and in the sphere of involuntary acts under the influence of external influences. The sensations associated with these changes are emotional experiences. According to James, "we are sad because we cry; we are afraid because we tremble; we rejoice because we laugh." Thus, peripheral organic changes, which were usually seen as a consequence of emotions, became their cause. Hence, a simplified interpretation of the voluntary regulation of emotions becomes understandable - it was believed that unwanted emotions, such as grief, could be suppressed if one deliberately performed actions characteristic of achieving positive emotions.

The James-Lange concept has raised a number of objections. The main points of criticism were expressed by W. Cannon, who drew attention to the fact that bodily reactions arising from various emotions are very similar to each other and as such are insufficient to satisfactorily explain the qualitative diversity of human emotions. In addition, organic changes artificially induced in humans are far from always accompanied by emotional experiences.

According to Cannon, bodily processes during emotions are biologically expedient, since they serve as a preliminary adjustment of the whole organism to a situation when an increased waste of energy resources is required from it. Emotional experiences and the corresponding organic changes arise in the same center - the thalamus. Later P. Bard showed that not the thalamus itself is associated with emotions from all brain structures, but the hypothalamus and the central part of the limbic system. Having published the book "Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals" in 1872, Charles Darwin showed the evolutionary path of development of emotions and substantiated the origin of their physiological manifestations. The essence of his evolutionary theory of the emergence and development of emotions is that emotions are either useful or are only remnants (rudiments) of various expedient reactions that were developed in the process of evolution in the struggle for existence. An angry person blushes, breathes heavily and clenches his fists because in its primitive history, all anger led people to a fight, and it demanded vigorous muscle contractions and, consequently, increased breathing and blood circulation, ensuring muscle work. He explained the sweating of hands with fear by the fact that in the ape-like ancestors of man, this reaction in danger made it easier to grasp the branches of trees. Thus, Darwin argued that in the development and manifestation of emotions there is no impassable chasm between man and animals. In particular, he showed that in the external expression of emotions, anthropoids and children born blind have much in common.

The "associative" theory of W. Wundt (1880) envisaged to some extent the influence of representations on feelings, and, on the other hand, characterized emotions as internal changes characterized by the direct influence of feelings on the course of representations. Wundt considers "bodily" reactions only as a consequence of feelings. According to Wundt, mimicry arose initially in connection with elementary sensations, as a reflection of the emotional tone of sensations; higher, more complex feelings (emotions) developed later. When an emotion arises in a person's consciousness, it always evokes by association a lower feeling or sensation corresponding to it, close in content, which causes those mimic movements that correspond to the emotional tone of sensations. So, for example, facial expressions of contempt (pushing the lower lip forward) are similar to the movement accompanying spitting out something unpleasant that has fallen into a person's mouth.

At the end of the 19th century, experiments carried out by physiologists with the destruction of structures that conduct somatosensory and viscerosensory information into the brain allowed C. Sherrington to conclude that vegetative manifestations of emotions are secondary in relation to its cerebral component, which is expressed by a mental state.

Physiologist W. Cannon, conducted experimental research on the study of emotions with the exclusion of all physiological manifestations. When the nerve pathways between the internal organs and the cerebral cortex were dissected, the subjective experience was still preserved. Physiological shifts develop for many emotions a second time, as an adaptive phenomenon (for mobilizing the reserve capacities of the organism in case of danger and the fear it generates, as a form of relaxation of the tension that has arisen in the central nervous system). Kennon's research revealed two patterns. First, physiological shifts that arise with different emotions are very similar to each other and do not reflect their qualitative originality. Secondly, these physiological changes unfold slowly, while emotional experiences arise quickly, that is, precede the physiological reaction. He also showed that artificially induced physiological changes characteristic of certain strong emotions do not always cause the expected emotional behavior. From Cannon's point of view, emotions arise from a specific reaction of the central nervous system and, in particular, of the thalamus.

According to Kennon, the stages of the emergence of emotions and the accompanying physiological shifts can be represented as follows: the action of the stimulus -> excitation of the thalamus -> the development of emotion -> the occurrence of physiological changes. In later studies, P. Bard supplemented Kennon's ideas and showed that emotional experiences and physiological the shifts accompanying them occur almost simultaneously.

Psychoanalytic theory of emotions 3. Freud included a kind of views on the development of affect, the theory of drives. Z. Freud essentially identified both affect and attraction with motivation. The most concentrated idea of ​​psychoanalysts about the mechanisms of the emergence of emotions is given by D. Rapaport. The essence of these ideas is as follows: a perceptual image perceived from the outside causes an unconscious process, during which there is a mobilization of instinctive energy unconscious by a person; if it cannot find application for itself in the external activity of a person (in the case when the attraction is tabooed by the culture existing in a given society), it looks for other channels of discharge in the form of involuntary activity. Different types of such activity are "emotional expression" and "emotional experience". They can appear simultaneously, alternately, or completely independently of each other.

Freud and his followers considered only negative emotions arising from conflicting drives. Therefore, they distinguish three aspects in affect: the energetic component of the instinctive drive ("charge" of the affect), the process of "discharge" and the perception of the final discharge (sensation, or experience of emotion).

Freud's understanding of the mechanisms of the emergence of emotions as unconscious instinctual drives has been criticized by many scientists.

What are emotions? How and why do they arise? What is the difference between feelings and emotions? Where do our emotions live? What is the life force of a person? Where does it come from? Why do we periodically experience the same, not always joyful, emotions? Answers to all these questions in a short video, an excerpt from Lilia Gafar's speech at the conference "Find and Accept Yourself 2.0"

We have two sources of influence on internal state... The first is ourselves, our personal will, and the second is the will of others, the will from outside. If you take responsibility for your reactions and emotions on yourself, then you are in control, your will. Otherwise, you will be controlled by others.

We often see ourselves as a consequence and the world around us as a cause. We accuse others of something and say: "It was you who made me angry, you are to blame for the fact that I was upset" and so on in the same spirit. So this is where it lies the first secret to control your reality - my reactions are happening in me! In thoughts or in the emotional sphere, it doesn't matter. My reactions belong only to me and only I have a choice of how to react. I can be offended or end the relationship, or I can just walk by and not pay attention. I can get angry, start screaming, or I can react calmly. There are thousands of options, and only our choice, our inner attitude to the situation determines how we react.

Why are negative emotions dangerous?

Emotions, especially positive ones, make our life bright, colorful and eventful. But, unfortunately (and maybe fortunately), not all emotions in our life are positive. And uncontrolled negative surges can poison our existence very strongly.

Firstly, strong negative experiences "wear out" our body, since the muscles of the body involuntarily begin to contract, which affect certain internal organs (heart pounds, breathing quickens, etc.), which does not in the best way affect our health and well-being.

Secondly, under the influence of strong negative emotions (anger, anger, irritation, etc.), we can lose control over ourselves and our behavior. I think that almost everyone encountered such situations and they clearly did not bring joy.

Thirdly, strong negative emotions create in the body energy blocks , which interferes with the free flow of vital energy through the body.

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Fourth, emotions are powerful energy radiations, and people around you can pick up on your fears or irritations, which will make them uncomfortable. Emotions can be passed from person to person without screaming or insulting. This is clearly seen at political rallies or football matches. A random person, getting to a rally, quickly picks up the energy of the crowd and begins, together with everyone, to demand justice, order and other blessings of life. But as soon as he leaves, then after half an hour he will calmly wonder: "Why am I so indignant?" The same thing happens at sporting events.

Why is this happening? Our body is a source of various types of energy. The average power of one healthy person is about 1000-1500 watts, or the power of an iron. This power is used in calculations by the designers of closed halls when they calculate the power of the ventilation unit, which should remove human heat from the hall. We eat, drink, breathe - all this is processed in the body and radiated out. Moreover, our radiation is modulated (encoded) by our thoughts and emotions. That is, the radiation records what we think and what we feel. It turns out that we emit the same vibrations when we are in anger. And completely different when we laugh or rejoice.

When people gather in a crowd and experience the same emotions (rally, match), they create a very powerful homogeneous energy field that affects the solution of electrically conductive liquids that fill our body (blood, lymph, etc.). As a result, we perceive external vibrations as our own, that is, we are "charged" by them. And we shout "Goal !!!", although we may not even know who is playing on the field. Vibrations, where can you go from them ...

The same effect takes place when communicating with one person, just the field emitted by him is clearly weaker than the field of the crowd, but it can also be felt.

How do negative emotions arise?

The first is behavioral stereotypes developed from childhood or already in adulthood... For example, a small child notices that when he starts crying, everyone is fussing around. The conclusion is made: "When I cry, everyone does what I need, become more attentive and affectionate." This conclusion is laid in subconscious and a person already in adulthood uses tears as an element of control over other people. Women especially like to use this manipulation technique.

Or another option, if a boy in childhood sees that dad proves his "correct" opinion through heightened emotions (shouting, shouting), then he gets the impression that it is so normal and correct, and in the future this is how he can prove his innocence in the family or in another place where he will feel his superiority in power. This method is often used by men or women living in masculine energies.

The only problem is that it gives a lot of discomfort to themselves and the people around them. Such behavior speaks of emotional immaturity and licentiousness, a person's unwillingness to take responsibility for his life and his emotions. In addition, as mentioned earlier, it leads to various diseases and even more unhappy sensations (feelings of guilt, emptiness, depression, emotional exhaustion, etc.)

The second is the discrepancy between our expectations and reality. For example, a girl expected that her beloved would be the first to congratulate her on her birthday, give her a bouquet of flowers and a Mercedes of the elite class. And this asshole slept, forgot about the flowers, and he still hasn’t earned money for a Mercedes. Well, here's the girl and gives him "on the mountain" everything that thinks about him in a rather emotional form. And the stronger the expectations, the stronger the emotion.

What is emotion?

For any person, the natural state is calmness. This state requires a minimum expenditure of energy for its maintenance. Emotion is the body's energetic response to comparing its expectations with reality. If the reality coincided with the best expectations, the emotion is positive. For example, my beloved not only gave me a Mercedes, but also brought it to the Seychelles. Then we experience joy, delight, positive experiences. If reality did not coincide, then screams, tears, resentment and tantrums. This mechanism is clearly visible in the image.

What quality and intensity the emotion will be, again depends on the assessment of the situation. our subconscious... If the subconscious mind decides that we can rectify the situation, then we will be given a lot of energy so that we go and explain "where the crayfish hibernate." For example, if the girl's subconsciousness decides that she can somehow influence her beloved, then a lot of energy will be released and the girl will go into a high-energy state, that is, she will start screaming or in some other active form express her dissatisfaction. If she (or rather her subconsciousness) decides that everything is useless, then no one will give her energy and she will cry as much as possible, fall into despondency, apathy and other "joys of life."

In historical chronicles, the same story is told about different commanders: when recruiting new soldiers, they insulted them. And we watched the candidate's complexion change. If he blushed, then he was accepted. If he turned pale, they refused. Why? I think that this is already clear to you. All people have their own set of behaviors in the same situation. If the candidate was insulted, and he boiled, that is, the reaction process went along the middle branch - his energy increased in an effort to take revenge, then he was accepted. If the candidate turned pale when insulted, this means that his Subconscious chose the lower branch and lowered energy. This means that in a difficult situation he will slow down, this is not suitable for warriors.

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The essence of negative emotions.

Initially, at its core, any emotion carries a positive intention. Firstly is a way of communication, praised - rejoiced, scolded - scared. Secondly is a way to mobilize energy resources in certain situations... After all, why are we angry, shouting, annoyed? With the best intentions - to change the situation for the better, to adjust reality to our expectations. The child received a deuce, and we believe that he should study only excellently. The subconscious mind sees a mismatch, evaluates the situation as one that we can fix and gives us energy that we spend on screaming, anger and other methods of fighting for our ideals. Unfortunately, there is often very little sense from this. A child does not always start to do well when parents scold him. Unless he will get scared when his parents go berserk after seeing his diary. And it’s not a fact that fear will help him to study well - fear can act as a strong paralyzer of efforts (the lower branch of the diagram), and his studies can become even worse.

The boss will not stop nagging at you, even if you send him away in anger. And the drinking husband does not stop drinking, even if you are experiencing bouts of rabies about it. Although the frenzy may be such that he really gets scared of you. And he will go to drink somewhere else. He drinks because you are trying to remake him, and he does not have the strength to give you back.

This is approximately the simplified model of the emergence and essence of negative emotions. There are many techniques for dealing with negative emotions. And the first thing to do is to take responsibility for your reactions to yourself. It is you who choose how to react in a given situation. You are the master of your life and your emotions, your reactions depend only on you.

Using materials from the book by Alexander Sviyash "Open Subconsciousness"

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A person not only cognizes reality in the processes of perception, memory, imagination and thinking, but at the same time he relates in one way or another to certain facts of life, experiences certain feelings in relation to them. Such an internal personal relationship has its source of activity and communication, in which it arises, changes, strengthens or fades away. Feeling is also called patriotism, which largely determines a person's life path. Feeling is also called a person's disgust for a liar who deceived someone out of petty motives. The same concept denotes a fleeting pleasure that arose from the fact that the sun flashed after a long rain.

The senses- these are internal relations of a person experienced in various forms to what is happening in his life, what he knows or does.

The experience of feeling acts as a special mental state experienced by the subject, where the perception and understanding of something, knowledge of something appears in unity with a personal relationship to the perceived, understood, known or unknown. In all these cases, they speak of experiencing feelings as a special emotional state of a person. At the same time, the experience of feeling is a mental process that has its own dynamics, current and changeable. In particular, for example, experiencing the severity of the loss of a loved one means actively rethinking your place in life, which has changed after an irreparable loss, overestimating life values, finding the strength to overcome a critical situation, etc. has some balance of positive and negative assessments of the situation of loss and itself in this situation. So, the experience is associated with the objective need to endure a situation that has become critical, withstand it, endure it, cope with it. This is what it means to emotionally experience something. Experiencing, therefore, acts as a special emotional activity of great tension and often of great productivity, contributing to the restructuring of the inner world of the individual and the acquisition of the necessary balance.

Various forms of experiencing feelings - emotions, affects, moods, stressful states, passions and, finally, feelings in the narrow sense of the word - form the emotional sphere of the personality, which is one of the regulators of human behavior, a living source of knowledge, the expression of complex and diverse relationships between people. Feelings contribute to the selection of objects that meet the needs of the individual, and stimulate activities aimed at their satisfaction. The experience of joy during a scientific discovery activates the scientist's search activity, maintains the intensity of the process of satisfying the cognitive need. Interest as a form of manifestation of a need always has a bright emotional coloring.

Feelings subjectively - for a person - are an indicator of how the process of satisfying his needs occurs. The positive emotional states (delight, pleasure, etc.) that have arisen in the process of communication and activity indicate a favorable course of the process of satisfying needs. Unmet needs are accompanied by negative emotions (shame, remorse, longing, etc.).

In psychology, the idea has developed, according to which emotional states are determined by the quality and intensity of the actual needs of the individual and the assessment that he gives the likelihood of its satisfaction. This view of the nature and origin of emotions is called the informational concept of emotions (P.V. Simonov). Conscious or unconscious, a person compares information about what is required to satisfy a need with what he has at the moment of its occurrence. If the subjective likelihood of satisfying the need is high, positive feelings appear. Negative emotions are generated by the real or imagined impossibility of satisfying the need, more or less realized by the subject, or by a drop in its probability compared to the forecast that the subject gave earlier. The informational concept of emotions has undoubted evidence, although, most likely, the explanation does not cover the entire diverse and rich emotional sphere of the individual. Not all emotions by their origin fit into this scheme. For example, the emotion of surprise clearly cannot be attributed to either positive or negative emotional states.

The most important characteristic of emotional states is their regulatory function. Experiences arising in a person act as signals informing a person about how his needs are being satisfied, what kind of obstacles he encounters, what needs to be paid attention to, what needs to be thought about, what needs to be changed. A teacher who has unacceptably rudely shouted at a student who is really guilty, but probably would not have caused such a violent reaction of the teacher, if it were not for the latter’s fatigue and irritation after an unpleasant conversation with the school principal, may, having calmed down, experience the emotion of upset, annoyance at his incontinence , shame. All these emotional states prompt the teacher to somehow correct the mistake, to find a way to show the boy that he regrets his harshness, in general to build his behavior and his relationship with him on the basis of an objective assessment of the situation that led to the conflict.

Emotion signals a successful or unfavorable development of events, a greater or lesser certainty of the subject's position in the system of his subject and interpersonal relations, and thereby ensures regulation, debugging of his behavior in the conditions of communication and activity.

The senses- one of the specific forms of reflection of reality. If objects and phenomena of reality are reflected in cognitive processes, then the feelings reflect the attitude of the subject with his inherent needs to the objects and phenomena of reality that he knows and changes.

Let's take a simple example. If a history teacher is informed that in one of the foreign countries the teaching time for teaching his subject has been sharply reduced, then this will cause some emotional interest in the fact and an attempt to comprehend and understand it, but no more. At the same time, if the same teacher is informed that the study time is even slightly reduced for the passage of one of the specific topics in history according to some new instruction, this will cause a strong emotional reaction in him. The relationship between his needs (the desire to present historical facts in the most complete and accessible way) and their subject (program material) changed and gave rise to an emotional reaction.

Like all mental processes, emotional states, feelings of feelings are the result of brain activity. The emergence of emotions has its origin in the changes that take place in the external world. These changes lead to an increase or decrease in vital activity, the awakening of some needs and the extinction of others, to changes in the processes taking place inside the human body. Physiological processes characteristic of the experience of feelings are associated with both complex unconditioned and conditioned reflexes. As you know, the systems of conditioned reflexes are closed and fixed in the cerebral cortex, and complex unconditioned reflexes are carried out through the subcortical nodes of the hemispheres, visual hillocks related to the brain stem, and other centers that transmit nervous excitement from the higher parts of the brain to the autonomic nervous system. Feelings are the result of the joint activity of the cortex and subcortical centers.

The more important for a person the changes taking place around him and with him, the more profound are the experiences of feelings. The resulting serious restructuring of the system of temporary connections causes excitation processes, which, spreading along the cerebral cortex, capture the subcortical centers. In the parts of the brain, lying below the cerebral cortex, there are various centers of physiological activity of the body: respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, secretory, etc. Therefore, the excitation of the subcortical centers causes increased activity of a number of internal organs. In this regard, the experience of feelings is accompanied by a change in the rhythm of breathing (a person suffocates from excitement, breathes heavily and intermittently) and cardiac activity (the heart freezes or beats hard), the blood supply to certain parts of the body changes (they turn red from shame, turn pale from horror), the functioning of secretory glands (tears from grief, dry mouth during excitement, “cold” sweat from fear), etc. These processes occurring in the internal organs of the body are relatively easy to register and self-observation, and because of this, for a long time, they were often taken as the cause feelings. In our usage of words, the following expressions have survived to this day: “the heart does not forgive,” “longing in the heart,” “to conquer the heart,” etc. In the light of modern physiology and psychology, the naivety of these views is obvious. What was taken as the cause is only a consequence of other processes taking place in the human brain.

The cerebral cortex under normal conditions has an inhibitory effect on the subcortical centers, and thus external expressions of feelings are inhibited. If the cerebral cortex comes into a state of excessive excitement when exposed to stimuli of great strength, with overwork, with intoxication, then as a result of irradiation, the centers lying below the cortex are also overexcited, as a result of which the usual restraint disappears. And if in the subcortical nodes of the hemispheres and the diencephalon, in the case of negative induction, the process of wide inhibition spreads, depression, weakening or stiffness of muscle movements, a decline in cardiovascular activity and respiration, etc. and an increase and decrease in the intensity of various aspects of human life.

Recently, physiological studies have revealed the importance of some highly specialized brain structures for the onset of emotional states. The experiments were carried out on animals, which were implanted with electrodes in certain areas of the hypothalamus (experiments by D. Olds).

When some areas were irritated, the subjects developed clearly pleasant, emotionally positive sensations, which they actively sought to renew. These areas were called “pleasure centers”. When other brain structures were stimulated with an electric current, it was noticed that the animal experienced negative emotions and in every possible way tried to avoid the situation of affecting these areas, which were therefore called “centers of suffering”. It has been established that there is a connection between different areas responsible for the emergence of negative emotions - “centers of suffering” located in different parts of the brain, form a single system. In this regard, negative emotions are experienced in a rather uniform way, signaling the general ill-being of the body. At the same time, the centers specializing in the production of positive emotions are less connected with each other, which is the basis for a greater variety, a more differentiated picture of positive emotions.

Of course, in the features of the functioning of the human brain one should not see a direct analogy with the physiology of emotional states in animals, however, there is, obviously, the possibility to put forward grounded hypotheses based on the above facts about the physiological prerequisites for the emergence of human emotions.

Essentially important data for understanding the nature of emotions have also been obtained in the study of functional asymmetry of the brain. In particular, it turned out that the left hemisphere is more associated with the emergence and maintenance of positive emotions, and the right - with negative emotions.

All studies of the physiological foundations of emotions clearly show their polar nature: pleasure - displeasure, pleasure - suffering, pleasant - unpleasant, etc. This polarity of emotional states is based on the specialization of brain structures and patterns of physiological processes.

Feeling is sometimes experienced only as a pleasant, unpleasant or mixed shade of any mental process. At the same time, it is recognized not by itself, but as a property of objects or actions, and we say: a pleasant person, an unpleasant aftertaste, a terrible bull, a funny expression, tender foliage, a fun walk, etc. experiences, echoes of past experience. Sometimes it serves as an indicator of whether the subject of a person satisfies or not, whether the activity proceeds successfully or unsuccessfully. For example, the same geometric problem can be accompanied by different feelings depending on the success of its solution.

Satisfaction or dissatisfaction of needs gives rise to specific experiences in a person that take on various forms: emotions, affects, moods, stressful conditions and feelings proper (in the narrow sense of the word). Quite often the words “emotion” and “feeling” are used synonymously. In a narrower sense, emotion is a direct, temporary experience of some more permanent feeling. In the exact translation into Russian, “emotion” is emotional excitement, spiritual movement. Emotion is called, for example, not the very feeling of love for music, as an ingrained feature of a person, but the state of pleasure, admiration that he experiences, he experiences, listening to good music in a good performance at a concert. The same feeling is experienced in the form of a negative emotion of indignation when listening to a piece of music in poor performance. Let's take another example. Fear or fear as a feeling, that is, the prevailing peculiar attitude towards certain objects, their combinations or life situations, can be experienced in different emotional processes: sometimes a person runs away from the terrible, and sometimes he becomes numb and freezes from fear, finally, he can out of fear and despair to rush into danger.

In some cases, emotions are effective. They become motives for actions, for statements, increase the tension of forces and are called sthenic. With joy, a person is ready to “turn mountains”. Feeling compassion for a friend, he looks for a way to help him. With an effective emotion, it is difficult for a person to remain silent, it is difficult not to act actively. In other cases, emotions (called asthenic) are characterized by passivity or contemplation, experiencing feelings relaxes a person. From fear, his legs may buckle. Sometimes, experiencing a strong feeling, a person withdraws into himself, becomes isolated. Sympathy then remains a good, but fruitless emotional experience, shame turns into a secret painful remorse.

Affects are emotional processes that quickly take possession of a person and proceed rapidly. They are characterized by significant changes in consciousness, impaired control over actions, loss of self-control, as well as changes in the entire life of the body. Affects are short-lived, as they immediately cause a tremendous expenditure of energy: they look like an outburst of feeling, an explosion, a flurry. If the usual emotion is emotional excitement, then the affect is a storm.

The development of affect is characterized by various stages that replace each other. Seized by an affective outburst of rage, horror, confusion, wild delight, despair, a person at different times reflects the world differently, expresses his experiences in different ways, controls himself in different ways and regulates his movements.

At the beginning of an affective state, a person cannot but think about the object of his feeling and about what is connected with it, involuntarily distracting himself from everything extraneous, even practically important. Expressive movements are becoming more and more unaccountable. Tears and sobs, laughter and shouts, characteristic gestures and facial expressions, rapid or labored breathing create the usual picture of growing affect. From strong tension, small movements are upset. Inductive inhibition more and more covers the cerebral cortex, which leads to disorganization of thinking; excitement grows in the subcortical nodes. A person experiences a persistent urge to succumb to the feeling he is experiencing: fear, anger, despair, etc. Every normal person can restrain himself, not to lose power over himself at this stage. Here it is important to postpone the onset of affect, to slow down its development. A well-known folk remedy: if you want to restrain yourself, try to count to yourself at least to ten.

At further stages of affect, if they occur, the person loses control over himself, committing already irresponsible and reckless actions, which later will be ashamed to remember and which are sometimes recalled as if in a dream. Inhibition covers the cortex and extinguishes the established systems of temporary connections, in which a person's experience, his cultural and moral foundations are fixed. After an affective outburst, weakness, loss of strength, indifference to everything, immobility, and sometimes drowsiness occur.

It should be noted that any feeling can in some cases be experienced in an affective form. For example, there are cases of affective delight in stadiums or in the auditorium. Affective experiences of "crazy" love are well studied in psychology and even better described in fiction. Even scientific discoveries after years of persistent search are sometimes accompanied by a stormy outburst of triumph and joy. We can say that affect is good or bad, depending on what kind of feeling a person experiences and how much a person controls himself in an affective state.

Mood is a general emotional state that colors all human behavior for a significant time. The mood is joyful or sad, cheerful or lethargic, agitated or depressed, serious or frivolous, irritable or good-natured, etc. Being in a bad mood, a person reacts to a joke or remark from a friend in a completely different way than in a cheerful mood.

Generally, moods are characterized by lack of accountability and weakness. The person does not even notice them. But sometimes the mood, for example, cheerful and cheerful or, on the contrary, dreary, acquires significant intensity. Then it leaves its imprint on mental activity (on the train of thought, ease of consideration), and on the characteristics of a person's movements and actions, even affecting the productivity of the work performed.

Mood can have very different immediate and more distant sources. The main sources of moods are satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the whole course of life, in particular, with how relationships develop at work, in the family, at school, how all kinds of contradictions that arise in a person's life are resolved. Long-term bad or sluggish mood of a person is an indicator that something in his life is unfavorable.

Moods are highly dependent on overall health, in particular on the state of the nervous system and the endocrine glands that regulate metabolism.

Certain diseases can also greatly affect the general mood of a person. Physical education and sports are very useful for improving mood, but the content of the activity, satisfaction with it and the moral support of a team or a loved one are especially important.

The sources of the mood are not always clear to the person experiencing it. However, the mood always depends on some reasons, and you should be able to understand them. So, a bad mood can be caused by an unfulfilled promise, an unwritten letter, although a promised letter, an unfinished business. All this gradually oppresses a person, although he often says that he has “just”, “no one knows why” in a bad mood. In this case, it is necessary to find out and, if possible, eliminate the objective reasons that give rise to such a state (keep your word, write a letter, finish the job you have started, etc.).

Stress conditions (from the English word stress - pressure, tension), or emotional stress, represent a special form of experiencing feelings, which is close in its psychological characteristics to affect, but in terms of the duration of the course approaching moods. Emotional stress occurs in situations of danger, resentment, shame, threat, etc. The intensity of affect is not always achieved, the state of a person under stress is characterized by disorganization of behavior and speech, manifested in some cases in chaotic activity, in other cases - in passivity, inactivity in circumstances where it is necessary to act decisively. At the same time, when stress is insignificant, it can help to mobilize forces, revitalize activity. The danger, as it were, spurs a person on, makes him act boldly and courageously. The behavior of an individual in stressful conditions significantly depends on the type of a person's nervous system, the strength or weakness of his nervous processes. The situation of the exam usually well reveals a person's resistance to the so-called stressful (i.e., generating emotional stress) influences. Some of the examinees get lost, discover “memory lapses”, cannot concentrate on the content of the question, while others turn out to be more collected and active on the exam than in everyday circumstances.

The experience of feelings in the form of emotions, affects, moods, stressful conditions, as a rule, is accompanied by more or less noticeable external manifestations. These include expressive facial movements (facial expressions), gestures, postures, intonation, dilation or constriction of the pupils. These expressive movements in some cases occur unaccountably, and in others - under the control of consciousness. In the latter case, they can be deliberately used in the communication process, acting as non-verbal communication means. With clenched fists, with narrowed eyes, threatening intonations, a person demonstrates his indignation to those around him.

The following basic emotional states can be distinguished (according to K. Izard - “fundamental emotions”), each of which has its own spectrum of psychological characteristics and external manifestations.

Interest (as an emotion) is a positive emotional state that promotes the development of skills and abilities, the acquisition of knowledge, and motivates learning.

Joy is a positive emotional state associated with the ability to sufficiently fully satisfy an urgent need, the likelihood of which up to this point was small or at least uncertain.

Surprise is an emotional reaction that does not have a clearly expressed positive or negative sign to sudden circumstances. Surprise inhibits all previous emotions, directing attention to the object that caused it, and can turn into interest.

Suffering is a negative emotional state associated with the received reliable or seeming information about the impossibility of satisfying the most important vital needs, which until that moment seemed more or less likely, most often proceeds in the form of emotional stress. Suffering has the character of asthenic (weakening) emotion.

Anger is an emotional state, negative in sign, as a rule, proceeding in the form of affect and caused by the sudden appearance of a serious obstacle to the satisfaction of an extremely important need for the subject. Unlike suffering, anger has a sthenic character (that is, it causes an upsurge, albeit short-term, of vitality).

Disgust is a negative emotional state caused by objects (objects, people, circumstances, etc.), contact with which (physical interaction, communication in communication, etc.) comes into sharp conflict with the ideological, moral or aesthetic principles and attitudes of the subject. Disgust, when combined with anger, can motivate aggressive behavior in interpersonal relationships, where attack is motivated by anger, and disgust - by the desire to "get rid of someone or something."

Contempt is a negative emotional state that arises in interpersonal relationships and is generated by the mismatch of life positions, views and behavior of the subject with life positions, views and behavior of the object of feeling. The latter appear to the subject as vile, not corresponding to accepted moral norms and aesthetic criteria. One of the consequences of contempt is the depersonalization of the individual or group to which it belongs.

Fear is a negative emotional state that appears when the subject receives information about the possible damage to his life well-being, about a real or imagined danger threatening him. In contrast to the emotion of suffering caused by the direct blocking of the most important needs, a person experiencing the emotion of fear has only a probabilistic forecast of possible trouble and acts on the basis of this (often insufficiently reliable or exaggerated) forecast. You can recall the popular saying: "Fear has big eyes." The emotion of fear can be both sthenic and asthenic in nature (“Fear the legs buckled”) and proceed either in the form of stressful conditions, or in the form of a stable mood of depression and anxiety, or in the form of affect (horror as an extreme variant of the emotion of fear).

Shame is a negative state, expressed in the awareness of the discrepancy between one's own thoughts, actions and appearance, not only to the expectations of others, but also to one's own ideas about appropriate behavior and appearance.

The above list of basic emotional states (the total number of emotions, the names of which are recorded in the dictionaries, is enormous) is not subject to any classification scheme.

Each of the above emotions can be represented as a gradation of states that increase in severity: calm satisfaction, joy, delight, exultation, ecstasy, etc., or shyness, embarrassment, shame, guilt, etc., or displeasure, grief , suffering, grief. It should not be assumed that if six of the nine basic emotional states are negative, this means that in the general register of human emotions, positive emotional states have a smaller share. Apparently, a greater variety of negative emotions makes it possible to more successfully adapt to unfavorable circumstances, the nature of which is successfully and subtly signaled by negative emotional states.

Feelings are not always unambiguous. An emotional state can contain in itself, in a peculiar combination, two opposite feelings; for example, love and hate are combined when experiencing jealousy (the phenomenon of ambivalence of feelings).

The great English naturalist Charles Darwin suggested that the expressive movements accompanying human feelings arose from the instinctive movements of his animal ancestors. Fists clenched in anger and bared teeth in ancient apes were unconditional reflex defensive reactions that forced the enemy to keep a respectful distance.

Human feelings, being associated by origin with complex unconditioned reflexes, nevertheless have a social character. The fundamental difference between the feelings of man and animals is revealed, firstly, in the fact that they are immeasurably more complex in humans than in animals, even when it comes to analogous feelings; this becomes obvious when comparing anger, fear, curiosity, a cheerful and depressed state in both, from the side of the reasons for their occurrence, and from the side of the peculiarities of their manifestation.

Secondly, humans have many feelings that animals do not. The richness of relationships that arise between people in work, political, cultural, family life has led to the emergence of many purely human feelings. Thus, contempt, pride, envy, triumph, boredom, respect, a sense of duty, etc. arise. Each of these feelings has its own specific ways of expression (in speech intonations, in facial expressions, gestures, laughter, tears, etc.) ...

Thirdly, a person takes possession of his feelings, restraining their inappropriate manifestations. Often people, experiencing strong and vivid feelings, remain calm from the outside, sometimes they consider it necessary to pretend to be indifferent so as not to reveal their feelings. A person sometimes even tries to express other, opposite feelings in order to restrain or hide the real ones; smiles at the moment of upset or severe pain, makes a serious face when you want to laugh.

The emotional component performs a special function in the structure of motivation. Emotion arising in the composition of motivation plays an important role in determining the direction of behavior and the ways of its implementation.
Emotion is a special form of mental reflection, which in the form of direct experience reflects not objective phenomena, but a subjective attitude towards them. The peculiarity of emotions is that they reflect the significance of objects and situations acting on the subject, due to the relationship of their objective properties to the needs of the subject. Emotions serve as a link between reality and needs.
Emotions cover a wide range of phenomena. There are several points of view about which subjective experiences should be called emotions. Here are three of them.
Thus, P. Milner believes that although it is customary to distinguish emotions (anger, fear, joy, etc.) from the so-called general sensations (hunger, thirst, etc.), nevertheless, they reveal much in common and their division is rather arbitrary. One of the reasons for their distinction is the different degree of connection between subjective experiences and the excitation of receptors. So, the experience of heat, pain is subjectively associated with the excitation of certain receptors (temperature, pain). On this basis, such states are usually designated as sensations. The state of fear, anger is difficult to associate with the excitation of receptors, therefore they are designated as emotions. Another reason why emotions are opposed to general sensations is their irregular occurrence. Emotions often arise spontaneously and depend on random external factors, while hunger, thirst, sex drive occur at regular intervals. However, both emotions and general sensations arise as part of motivation as a reflection of a certain state of the internal environment, through the excitation of the corresponding receptors. Therefore, their difference is conditional and is determined by the peculiarities of changes in the internal environment.
At the same time, there is another point of view. Thus, P. Fress believes that, although there is a single continuum of inner experiences - from weak feelings to strong ones, only strong feelings can be called emotions. Their distinguishing feature is their disruptive influence on current activities. It is these strong feelings that are designated as emotions. Emotions develop when the motivation becomes too strong in comparison with the real capabilities of the subject. Their appearance leads to a decrease in the level of adaptation. According to this point of view, emotions are fear, anger, grief, sometimes joy, especially excessive joy. For example, joy can become an emotion when, due to its intensity, we lose control of our own reactions, as evidenced by excitement, incoherent speech, and even unrestrained laughter. This narrowing of the concept of emotion corresponds to the concept expressed in the activation theory of D. Lindsley, according to which emotions correspond to a local site at the top of the activation scale with its highest level. Their appearance is accompanied by a deterioration in the activities performed.
Not all subjective experiences belong to emotions and according to the classification of emotional phenomena by A. N. Leontiev. He distinguishes three types of emotional processes: affects, actually emotions and feelings. Affects are strong and relatively short-term emotional experiences accompanied by pronounced motor and visceral manifestations. In a person, affects are caused both by biologically significant factors affecting his physical existence, and by social, for example, social assessments, sanctions. A distinctive feature of affects is that they arise in response to a situation that has actually come. Unlike affects, emotions themselves are a longer state, sometimes only weakly manifested in external behavior. They express an evaluative personal attitude to an emerging or possible situation. Therefore, they are able, in contrast to affects, to anticipate situations and events that have not really occurred yet. They arise on the basis of ideas about experienced or imagined situations. The third type of emotional processes is the so-called object feelings. They arise as a specific generalization of emotions and are associated with a representation or idea of ​​some object - concrete or abstract (for example, a feeling of love for a person, hatred, etc.). Object feelings express stable emotional relationships.
Thus, the least clear question remains about the relationship of emotions as a narrower class of phenomena characterized by the brightness of subjective experiences, with those experiences, the emotional saturation of which is less pronounced. The latter are characteristic of a very wide class of human conditions. For example, these are experiences of fatigue, boredom, hunger, etc. Do these two groups of experience exist separately, or do they have a common, single neurophysiological mechanism?
A number of experimental data obtained by psychosemantics methods rather speak in favor of the latter assumption.
Functions of emotions
The biological significance of emotions is that they allow a person to quickly assess his inner state, the emerging need, the possibility of its satisfaction. For example, the true nutritional requirement for the amount of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, salts, etc. we evaluate through the appropriate emotion. This is the experience of hunger or - the feeling of satiety.
There are several functions of emotions: reflective (evaluative), motivating, reinforcing, switching and communicative.
The reflective function of emotions is expressed in a generalized assessment of events. Emotions cover the entire body and thus produce an almost instantaneous integration, generalization of all types of activities that it performs, which allows, first of all, to determine the usefulness and harmfulness of factors affecting it and react before the localization of harmful effects is determined. An example is the behavior of a person with an injury to a limb. Focusing on pain, a person immediately finds a position that reduces pain.
Emotional evaluative abilities of a person are formed not only on the basis of the experience of his individual experiences, but also as a result of emotional empathy arising in communication with other people, in particular through the perception of works of art, the media.
The evaluative or reflective function of an emotion is directly related to its motivating function. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "emotion" comes from the French verb "mouvoir", meaning "to set in motion." It began to be used in the 17th century, speaking of feelings (joy, desire, pain, etc.) as opposed to thoughts. Emotion reveals the search area, where the solution to the problem will be found, the satisfaction of the need. Emotional experience contains an image of the object of satisfying a need and an attitude towards it, which prompts a person to action.
P.V. Simonov highlights the reinforcing function of emotions. It is known that emotions are most directly involved in the processes of learning and memory. Significant events that cause emotional reactions are quickly and permanently imprinted in the memory. Thus, conditioned food reflexes cannot be developed in a well-fed cat. Successful learning requires the presence of motivational excitement, in this case reflected in the feeling of hunger. However, the combination of an indifferent stimulus with hunger excitement is still insufficient for the development of conditioned food reflexes. A third component is required - the impact of a factor that can satisfy an existing need - food. In the experiments of T.N. Oniani, who combined an external stimulus with electrical stimulation of the limbic structures of the brain, causing a need for food in a well-fed cat, it was possible to develop only a conditioned response of avoidance and fear. And the conditioned reflexes of food could not be obtained for the main reason - the electrical stimulation of the limbic structure, used as a reinforcement, did not contain a reward - satisfaction of the need.
Also, it is not possible to develop conditioned reflex hunger if you combine indifferent stimuli - situational signals with a state caused by food deprivation. In such an animal, it is not an exploratory feeding behavior that is developed to the experimental setting, but a reaction of fear and avoidance. Those. an indifferent stimulus is associated with the avoidance response, with which the animal reacts to a situation of prolonged fasting, since this response reduces fear.
Thus, the real reinforcement for the development of a conditioned reflex (classical and instrumental) is a reward. Food can be a reward for a hungry animal. Pain irritation itself is not a reward, it is only liberation, its avoidance. Receiving an award is associated with the emergence of positive emotions. Therefore, "only the integration of hunger excitement with arousal from a factor capable of satisfying this need, that is, the mechanism that generates positive emotion, provides the development of a conditioned reflex" (Simonov PV Motivated brain. M., 1987).
The reinforcing function of emotions was most successfully investigated on the experimental model of "emotional resonance" proposed by P.V. Simonov. It was found that the emotional reactions of some animals can arise under the influence of negative emotional states of other individuals exposed to electrocutaneous stimulation. This model reproduces the situation of the emergence of negative emotional states in the community, typical for social relationships, and makes it possible to study the functions of emotions in their purest form without the direct action of painful stimuli. In the experiments of L.A. Preobrazhenskaya, in which the “victim” dog was subjected to electric shock in front of the “observer” dog, the latter's heart rate increased and the synchronization of the hippocampal theta rhythm increased. This indicates the appearance of negative emotional stress in her. Under such conditions, the "observer" dog is able to develop an avoidance instrumental reflex (in the form of raising the paw), which stops the current flow to the "victim" dog. The development of such an instrumental reflex in the "observer" dog is accompanied by a decrease in its heart rate and a decrease in the hippocampal theta rhythm, i.e. the disappearance of a negative emotional state. Consequently, the prevention of negative emotional stress is the reward on which this conditioned instrumental reflex is developed.
Under natural conditions, human activity and animal behavior are determined by many needs at different levels. Their interaction is expressed in the competition of motives, which manifest themselves in emotional experiences. Emotional assessments are motivating and can guide behavioral choices.
The switching function of emotions is especially clearly revealed in the competition of motives, as a result of which the dominant need is determined. So, in extreme conditions, a struggle may arise between the natural instinct of self-preservation for a person and the social need to follow a certain ethical norm; it is experienced in the form of a struggle between fear and a sense of duty, fear and shame. The outcome depends on the strength of motives, on personal attitudes.
Consider the communicative function of emotions. Mimic and pantomimic movements allow a person to transmit his experiences to other people, inform them about his attitude to phenomena, objects, etc. Facial expressions, gestures, postures, expressive sighs, changes in intonation are the "language of human feelings", a means of communicating not so much thoughts as emotions.
There are genetically defined universal complexes of behavioral reactions that express the emergence of basic fundamental emotions. The genetic determinism of expressive reactions is confirmed by the similarity of expressive facial movements in the blind and sighted (smile, laughter, tears). Differences in facial movements between blind and seeing young children are quite insignificant. However, with age, the mimicry of the sighted becomes more expressive and generalized, while in the blind it not only does not improve, but even regresses. Consequently, facial movements have not only a genetic determinant, but also strongly depend on training and education.
Physiologists have found that the expressive movements of animals are controlled by an independent neurophysiological mechanism. By stimulating electrical shocks at various points in the hypothalamus in awake cats, the researchers were able to detect two types of aggressive behavior: "affective aggression" and "cold-blooded" attack. To do this, they put a cat in the same cage with a rat and studied the effect of stimulating the cat's hypothalamus on its behavior. When some points of the hypothalamus are stimulated in a cat, at the sight of a rat, affective aggression occurs. She pounces on the rat with her claws released, hissing, i.e. her behavior includes behavioral responses that exhibit aggression, which usually serve as intimidation in the struggle for primacy or territory. In a "cold-blooded" attack, which is observed when another group of hypothalamic points is stimulated, the cat catches a rat and grabs it with its teeth without any sounds or external emotional manifestations, i.e. her predatory behavior is not accompanied by a demonstration of aggression. Finally, by re-locating the electrode again, it is possible to induce rage behavior in the cat without attack. Thus, the demonstrative reactions of animals expressing an emotional state may or may not be included in the behavior of the animal. The centers or group of centers responsible for the expression of emotions are located in the hypothalamus.
The communicative function of emotions presupposes the presence of not only a special neurophysiological mechanism that determines the implementation of the external manifestation of emotions, but also a mechanism that allows you to read the meaning of these expressive movements. And such a mechanism has been found. Studies of neural activity in monkeys have shown that the identification of emotions based on facial expressions is based on the activity of individual neurons that selectively respond to emotional expression. Threatening neurons are found in the superior temporal cortex and amygdala in monkeys. Not all expressions of emotion are equally easily identifiable. Horror is more easily recognized (57% of the subjects), then disgust (48%), surprise (34%). According to some data, the most information about emotion is contained in the expression of the mouth. Emotion identification increases with learning. However, some emotions begin to be well recognized at a very early age. 50% of children under 3 years old recognized the reaction of laughter in the photographs of the actors, and the emotion of pain at the age of 5-6 years.
Physiological expression of emotions
Emotions are expressed not only in motor reactions: facial expressions, gestures, but also in the level of tonic muscle tension. In the clinic, muscle tone is often used as a measure of affect. Many consider increased muscle tone as an indicator of a negative emotional state (discomfort), a state of anxiety. The tonic reaction is diffuse, generalized, captures all muscles and thus makes it difficult to perform movements. Ultimately, it leads to tremors and chaotic, uncontrollable movements.
Persons suffering from various conflicts, and especially with neurotic deviations, are characterized, as a rule, by greater stiffness of movements than others. R. Malmo and his co-workers showed that muscle tension in mental patients is higher than in the control group. It is especially high in psychoneurotics with a predominance of pathological anxiety. Many psychotherapeutic techniques are associated with the release of this tension, for example, relaxation techniques and autogenous training. They are taught to relax, resulting in reduced irritability, anxiety and related disturbances.
One of the most sensitive indicators of a change in a person's emotional state is his voice. Special methods have been developed that make it possible to recognize the occurrence of emotional experiences by voice, as well as to differentiate them by sign (into positive and negative). For this, a person's voice recorded on a magnetic tape is subjected to frequency analysis. With the help of a computer, the speech signal is decomposed into a frequency spectrum. It was found that as emotional stress increases, the width of the frequency spectrum of spoken words and sounds expands and shifts to the region of higher-frequency components. At the same time, for negative emotions, the spectral energy I is concentrated in the lower-frequency part of the shifted spectrum, and for positive emotions - in its high-frequency zone. These shifts in the spectrum of the speech signal can be caused by even very intense physical exertion. This method allows in 90% of cases to correctly determine the increase in emotional stress, which makes it especially promising for the study of human states.
An important component of emotion is changes in the activity of the autonomic nervous system. Vegetative manifestations of emotions are very diverse: changes in skin resistance (GSR), heart rate, blood pressure, vasodilation and narrowing, skin temperature, hormonal and chemical composition of blood, etc. It is known that during rage, the level of norepinephrine and adrenaline in the blood increases, the heart rate becomes more frequent, the blood flow is redistributed in favor of the muscles and the brain, the pupils dilate. These effects prepare the animal for the intense physical activity required to survive.
A special group of emotional reactions is made up of changes in the biocurrents of the brain. Physiologists believe that in animals the EEG correlate of emotional stress is the alertness rhythm (or hippocampal theta rhythm), the pacemaker of which is located in the septum. Its enhancement and synchronization are observed when an animal develops a defensive, orienting-exploratory behavior. The hippocampal theta rhythm also increases during paradoxical sleep, one of the features of which is a sharp increase in emotional tension. In humans, it is not possible to find such a bright EEG indicator of the emotional state, which is the hippocampal theta rhythm of an animal. A rhythm similar to the hippocampal theta rhythm is generally poorly expressed in humans. Only during the performance of certain verbal operations and writing in the human hippocampus is it possible to observe an increase in the regularity, frequency and amplitude of the theta rhythm.
Emotional states of a person are reflected in the EEG most likely in a change in the ratio of the main rhythms: delta, theta, alpha and beta. EEG changes characteristic of emotions occur most clearly in the frontal areas. According to some data, the alpha rhythm and slow components of the EEG are recorded in persons with a predominance of positive emotions, and in those with a predominance of anger, beta activity.
P.Ya. Balanov, V.L. Deglin and N.N. Nikolaenko, to regulate emotional states in patients, used electroconvulsive therapy by the method of unipolar seizures, which are caused by the imposition of electrical stimulation on one side of the head - right or left. They found that positive emotional states were associated with increased alpha activity in the left hemisphere, and negative emotional states were associated with increased alpha activity in the right and increased delta activity in the left hemisphere.
In addition, the appearance of emotional states is accompanied by changes in the electrical activity of the amygdala. In patients with implanted electrodes in the amygdala, when discussing emotionally colored events, an increase in its electrical activity of high-frequency oscillations was found. In patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, who are characterized by pronounced emotional disturbances in the form of increased irritability, malice, rudeness, epileptic electrical activity was recorded in the dorsomedial part of the amygdala. The destruction of this section of the amygdala makes the patient non-aggressive.
Emotion neuroanatomy
Structural basis of emotions (by J. Peipets, 1937)
Information about the anatomical substrate for the development of certain emotions is usually drawn from experiments with the destruction and stimulation of various parts of the brain, as well as from the study of the functions of the human brain in the clinic in connection with operations on the brain and various medical procedures.
The first most harmonious concept, linking emotions with the functions of certain brain structures, was published in 1937 and belongs to the American neuropathologist J. Peipets. Studying emotional disorders in patients with lesions of the hippocampus and cingulate gyrus, he put forward hypotheses about the existence of a single system that unites a number of brain structures and forms a cerebral substrate for emotions. This system is a closed circuit and includes: the hypothalamus - the anteroventral nucleus of the thalamus - the cingulate gyrus - the hippocampus - the mammillary nuclei of the hypothalamus. It received the name of the Peipets circle (see figure). Later P. McLean in 1952, considering that the cingulate gyrus, as it were, borders the base of the forebrain, proposed to call it and other brain structures associated with it the limbic system (limbus - edge). The source of excitation for this system is the hypothalamus. Signals from it follow to the midbrain and lower regions to initiate autonomic and motor emotional responses. At the same time, neurons in the hypothalamus through the collateral and send signals to the anterior ventral nucleus in the thalamus. Along this path, excitement is transmitted to the cingulate gyrus of the cerebral cortex.
The cingulate gyrus, according to J. Peipets, is a substrate of conscious emotional experiences and has special inputs for emotional signals, just as the visual cortex has inputs for visual signals. Further, the signal from the cingulate gyrus through the hippocampus again reaches the hypothalamus in the region of its mamillary bodies. This is how the nerve circuit is closed. The pathway from the cingulate gyrus connects subjective experiences arising at the level of the cortex with signals emerging from the hypothalamus for visceral and motor expression of emotions.
However, today the beautiful hypothesis of J. Peipets contradicts many facts. Thus, the role of the hippocampus and thalamus in the generation of emotions was questioned. In humans, stimulation of the hippocampus with an electric current is not accompanied by the appearance of emotions (fear, anger, etc.) Subjectively, patients experience only confusion.
Of all the structures of the Peipets circle, the hypothalamus and cingulate gyrus are most closely associated with emotional behavior. In addition, it turned out that many other brain structures that are not part of the Peipets circle have a strong influence on emotional behavior. Among them, a special role belongs to the amygdala, as well as the frontal and temporal cortex of the brain.
The role of the hypothalamus is great both in the development of motivational behavior and in the development of emotions associated with it. The hypothalamus, where dual centers are concentrated that regulate the launch and termination of the main types of innate behavior, is considered by most researchers as an executive system in which autonomic and motor manifestations of motivation, including emotions, are integrated. As part of an emotion, it is customary to single out the actual emotional experience and its somatic and visceral expression. The possibility of their appearance independently of each other indicates the relative independence of their mechanisms. Dissociation of emotional experience and its expression in motor and autonomic reactions was found in some lesions of the brain stem. It acts in the so-called pseudo-effects: intense mimic and vegetative reactions, characteristic of crying or laughter, can proceed without corresponding subjective sensations.
The amygdala has important emotiogenic properties. In higher animals, it is located in the cortex, at the base of the temporal lobe. Removing the amygdala disrupts the mechanisms of emotion. According to V.M. Smirnov, electrical stimulation of the amygdala in patients causes emotions of fear, anger, rage and rarely pleasure. Rage and fear are caused by irritation of various parts of the amygdala. Experiments with bilateral removal of the tonsil mainly indicate a decrease in the aggressiveness of the animal. The attitude of the amygdala to aggressive behavior was convincingly demonstrated by K. Pribram in experiments on monkeys in a colony of rhesus monkeys. After bilateral amygdala removal from the leader of the pack, Dave, who was distinguished by his imperiousness and occupied the highest level of the zoosocial hierarchy, he lost his aggressiveness and moved to the lowest rung of the zoosocial ladder. His place was taken by the most aggressive, who before the operation was the second in the hierarchy (Zeke). And the former leader turned into a submissive, frightened animal.
According to a number of researchers, the emotional functions of the amygdala are realized at relatively late stages of behavior, after the actualized needs have already been transformed into the corresponding emotional states. The amygdala weighs the competing emotions generated by competing needs and thereby determines the choice of behavior. The amygdala receives extensive information about the outside world. Its neurons respond to light, sound and skin stimulation.
In addition, the frontal and temporal cortex are of particular importance in the regulation of emotions. The defeat of the frontal lobes leads to profound disturbances in the emotional sphere of a person. Mainly, two syndromes develop: emotional dullness and disinhibition of lower emotions and drives. In this case, first of all, the higher emotions associated with activity, social relations, and creativity are violated. Removal of the temporal poles in monkeys leads to the suppression of their aggressiveness and fear. The anterior limbic cortex controls emotional intonation; expressiveness of speech in humans and monkeys. After bilateral hemorrhage in this area, the patient's speech becomes emotionally expressionless.
According to modern data, the cingulate gyrus has bilateral connections with many subcortical structures (septum, upper tubercles of the quadruple, blue spot, etc.), as well as with various areas of the cortex in the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes. Its connections are more extensive than that of any other part of the brain. There is even an assumption about the higher coordinating function of the cingulate gyrus in relation to emotions.
Currently, a large number of experimental and clinical data have been accumulated on the role of the cerebral hemispheres in the regulation of emotions. A study of the functions of the left and right hemispheres revealed the existence of emotional asymmetry in the brain. According to VL Deglin, a temporary shutdown of the left hemisphere by an electroconvulsive current shock causes a shift in the emotional sphere of the “right hemisphere person” towards negative emotions. The mood worsens, he is pessimistically assessing his situation, complains of poor health. Turning off the right hemisphere has the opposite effect - improving the emotional state. T.A. Dobrokhotova and N.N.Bragina found that patients with lesions in the left hemisphere are anxious, anxious. Right-sided defeat is combined with frivolity, carelessness. The emotional state of complacency, irresponsibility, and carelessness arising under the influence of alcohol is associated with its predominant effect on the right hemisphere of the brain.
Demonstration of films of different content using contact lenses in the right or left visual field showed that the right hemisphere responds faster to slides with expressions of sadness, and the left - to slides of joyful content. According to other data, the right hemisphere recognizes emotionally expressive faces faster, regardless of the quality of the emotion.
Recognition of facial expressions is more closely related to the function of the right hemisphere. It worsens when the right hemisphere is affected. Damage to the temporal lobe, especially to the right, interferes with the recognition of the emotional intonation of speech. Turning off the left hemisphere, regardless of the nature of the emotion, improves the recognition of the emotional color of the voice.
Turning off the left hemisphere makes the situation incomprehensible, non-verbal and, therefore, emotionally negative. Turning off the right hemisphere makes the situation simple, clear, understandable, which causes the predominance of positive emotions.
Emotional asymmetry of the brain is also characteristic of normal healthy people. Individuals with a dominant right hemisphere are characterized by increased anxiety and neuroticism. The predominance of the functions of the left hemisphere, determined by the group of motor, visual and auditory techniques, is combined with low values ​​of anxiety.
The neurochemistry of emotions
The emergence of any emotion is based on the activation of various groups of biologically active substances in their complex interaction. The modality, quality of emotions, their intensity are determined by the relationship between the noradrenergic, dopaminergic, serotonergic, cholinergic systems, as well as a number of neuropeptides, including endogenous opiates.
Biogenic amines (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine) play an important role in the development of pathology of mood and affects.
According to S. Keti, with an increase in the concentration of serotonin in the brain, a person's mood rises, and its lack causes a state of depression. The positive effect of electroshock therapy, which in 80% of cases eliminates depression in patients, is associated with an increase in the synthesis and growth of norepinephrine in the brain. Substances that improve mood increase the content of norepinephrine and dopamine in nerve endings. The results of examination of the brain of patients who committed suicide in a state of depression showed that it is depleted in both norepinephrine and serotonin. Moreover, a norepinephrine deficiency is manifested by depression of melancholy, and a lack of serotonin is manifested by anxiety depression. Disturbances in the functioning of the cholinergic system lead to psychosis with a predominant defeat of intellectual (information) processes. The cholinergic system provides informational components of behavior. Cholinolytics - substances that reduce the level of activity of the cholinergic system, impair the performance of food-gathering behavior, impair the perfection and accuracy of motor avoidance reflexes, but do not eliminate the reaction to pain and do not relieve hunger.
The state of aggressiveness depends on the ratio of the activity of the cholinergic and noradrenergic systems. The increase in aggressiveness is explained by an increase in the concentration of norepinephrine and a weakening of the inhibitory effect of serotonin. Aggressive mice have decreased levels of serotonin in the hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus. The introduction of serotonin inhibits the aggressiveness of the animal.
A good experimental model for studying the biochemical nature of emotions is the phenomenon of brain self-stimulation. The technique for self-stimulation of the brain was developed by J. Olds and P. Milner. The most detailed map of points of self-stimulation in the rat brain was compiled by J. Olds. It turned out that the strongest self-irritating effect is associated with the hypothalamus, the medial anterior cerebral bundle and the septum. With electrical self-stimulation of the brain through implanted electrodes, animals show amazing persistence in their desire to continue self-irritation. This means that this self-stimulation is accompanied by positive emotions that the animal seeks to prolong. All points of self-stimulation are united by the fact that they coincide with the localization of noradrenergic and dopaminergic structures. Consequently, the phenomenon of self-irritation is associated with the participation of two main systems: noradrenergic and dopaminergic.
In the phenomenon of self-stimulation, motivational and reinforcing (rewarding) components are distinguished. It is assumed that norepinephrine is associated with an inducing, motivating component in the reaction of self-stimulation, and dopamine is associated with a reinforcing, “rewarding” effect arising from self-stimulation and accompanied by a positive emotional experience.
Based on the data on the mechanisms of self-irritation, most researchers are inclined to believe that the emergence of positive emotions is associated with the activation of a special mechanism of reward (“reward”). The basis of this mechanism is the catecholaminergic system.
In this way, modern data indicate a strong dependence of our moods and experiences on the biochemical composition of the internal environment of the brain. The brain has a special system - a biochemical analyzer of emotions. This analyzer has its own receptors and detectors, it analyzes the biochemical composition of the internal environment of the brain and interprets it in terms of emotions and mood.
At present, the concept of J. Peipets about the special functions of the cingulate gyrus, which he considers as an organ in which a subjective, conscious emotional experience is formed, is of increased interest. Perhaps this is where the cortical level of the emotional analyzer is represented. The feedback of the cingulate gyrus with the hypothalamus, which is affirmed in the concept of the "Peipets circle", gives reason to see in it a path through which the influence of conscious subjective experience on the behavioral expression of emotions is carried out, which is ultimately programmed at the level of the hypothalamus, which coordinates autonomic and motor manifestations of emotions ...

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