Emotion

Emotions form an important component of psychological events. They can be defined as a set of psychological and physiological phenomena.

Emotion feature
Emotion:


 * characterize an individual's reaction to a given situation
 * they represent an important governing regulatory mechanism
 * they direct the activities of the individual
 * they satisfy our needs
 * they automatically direct human tendencies and relationships
 * they overcome even instincts
 * lead to suppression of the fear of death
 * they play an important role in the field of sexual desire, etc.

Experiencing emotions
Emotional experiences can be divided into:
 * experiences – reflect the positive or negative value of the stimulus situation in relation to the individual's needs
 * affects (= short-term attunements) and moods (= prolonged attunements)
 * ← these are positive or negative stimuli to objects and phenomena of the external and internal environment and to one's own manifestations
 * ← used for tactical programs


 * feelings and higher emotions – positive or negative stimuli regarding perspective, long-term relationships
 * ← main – love, hate
 * ← feelings serve strategic goals

The emotional circuit and its mediators

 * in addition to subjective experience, emotions also have somatic-vegetative manifestations, mainly negative emotions
 * motor manifestations can be suppressed (laughter, crying, gestures), vegetative manifestations cannot (changes in muscle tone, blood pressure, pulse, etc.) → it can lead to psychosomatic diseases
 * the anatomical basis for the emergence and experience of emotions is represented by the so-called emotional circuit:
 * it represents: hypothalamus, pituitary gland, adrenal cortex, reticular formation, thalamus, limbic system, cortex
 * it involves the interplay of subcortical areas with the crust
 * mediators playing a role in mood:
 * depression : noradrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, GABA
 * fear : GABA, NA, serotonin
 * aggression : GABA, serotonin, NA, dopamine

According to the basic focus

 * positive, pleasant (joy, love)
 * negative, unpleasant (grief, hatred)


 * sthenic, mobilizing (anger)
 * asthenic, demobilizing (sadness)

According to intensity and time course

 * emotional coloring of feelings and perceptions (pleasant, unpleasant)
 * affects (short-term, violent emotional reactions)
 * moods (prolonged emotional states)
 * feelings and higher emotions

By hierarchical arrangement

 * lower (stimuli from the vital area, satisfaction of basic needs)
 * higher (social, specifically human)
 * intellectual feelings (associated with intellectual activity)
 * aesthetic feelings
 * moral feelings
 * ethical feelings

Affects and their disorders

 * rapid-onset and rapid-fading emotional responses
 * accompanied by distinct vegetative and mimic reactions
 * tendency to reckless behavior (can be handled freely, but needs to be acquired through education and self-discipline)
 * the emergence depends on dispositions and the immediate state of emotionality
 * every affect tends to discharge
 * displacement of the affect – it is discharged, for example, on another person
 * stagnation of affect - after a series of insufficiently intense and cumulative stimuli, the last one causes an inadequate explosion

Affective Disorders

 * Pathetic affect
 * unusually intense
 * at its peak there will be a short-term clouding of consciousness → a serious event may occur (murder, suicide, etc.) ← memory is missing
 * relatively rare
 * Etiology :
 * after a severe attack of epilepsy
 * alcohol
 * dementia
 * even in normal people - during starvation, exhaustion, etc.
 * Pathetic affective irritability
 * tendency to excessively strong affects
 * Etiology :
 * mainly in organic brain conditions – atherosclerosis, dementia, oligophrenia, intoxication, alcoholism
 * Paroxysmal affects
 * Etiology :
 * biological factors: pheochromocytoma, temporal lobe lesions, epilepsy
 * Emotional lability
 * changeable emotions even to weak stimuli
 * Etiology :
 * the cause is natural
 * organic disorder (atherosclerosis, dementia)
 * Emotional incontinence
 * reaction with pathetic crying even to non-emotional stimuli
 * Etiology :
 * typically in cerebral atherosclerosis
 * Hypersensitivity
 * easy emergence of emotions - they are more permanent than in lability
 * Affective ambivalence
 * opposite emotions at the same time (love x hate)
 * Etiology :
 * schizophrenia
 * Phobia
 * intrusive fears also have an emotional component, but intrusiveness is characteristic

Moods and their disorders

 * mood is a long-lasting setting of the emotional system
 * it is the base for a number of psychic processes
 * it is not tied to the content of consciousness, but affects the character of other functions – attention, inculcation, memory, alertness, evaluation, motivation, affects, etc.
 * intense, repeated exposure to certain stimuli can modify mood:
 * physical factors – environmental temperature, atmospheric pressure, geomagnetic field, humidity, sun, length of day, season, time of day
 * chemical factors – poisons, drugs, psycholeptics, dysleptics, dysphoria, antidepressants
 * metabolic factors – irritability in hypoglycemia and hyperthyroidism, anxiety in cardiac and asthmatic patients, premenstrual syndrome, postpartum depression , toxic infection, exhaustion, hunger, weight loss, CNS diseases
 * psychological factors - mainly mood quality

Pathetic moods

 * characteristic :
 * intensity and duration (months to years)
 * independence of emergence from psychogenic factors
 * influence on personality
 * it is important to realize that there is a pathic endogenous mood – folk psychological wisdom attributes every mood change to an experience
 * types:
 * euphoric = blissful
 * occurrence: frontal lobe affections
 * expansive = high activity, self-confidence
 * incidence: mania, hebephrenia
 * exalted = feeling of well-being, enthusiasm
 * incidence: epilepsy, hysterical psychotic states
 * apathetic = reduced pace, indifference, loss of initiative
 * incidence: depression, dementia, drug addiction
 * explosive = explosive
 * incidence: epilepsy, chronic alcoholism, explosive psychopathy
 * clueless = inability to make a decision, is experienced unpleasantly
 * incidence: depression, schizophrenia
 * anxious = a feeling of tension, restlessness, threatened suicide
 * incidence: depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia
 * depressed = sadness, desolation, fear, high risk of suicide!
 * incidence: depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia

Feeling and their disorders

 * the most common disorders are:
 * undeveloped feelings
 * loss of higher feelings
 * reduction of higher emotions
 * Etiology :
 * innately - insensitive, ruthless people
 * organic disorder – oligophrenia, tumors, encephalitis, injuries, etc.
 * manifestations :
 * egocentrism, bad taste, tactlessness, bluntness, rudeness
 * infantile and hysterical personality i - on the one hand warm and devoted, on the other ruthless and hateful
 * passions = exaggerated feelings – collecting, gambling, careerism, jealousy, etc.
 * some hypersensitive overly conscientious persons – excessive development of higher feelings

Source

 * BENEŠ, Jiří. Study materials  [online]. [feeling. 2009]. < http://jirben.wz.cz >.