Everyone has wondered what emotions are. We could define them as the “glue of life”, that invisible but intense material, which connects us with people, which allows us to be partakers of reality, laughing at it, admiring it, for ourselves. surprising us in the face of its wonders and also saddening us with your problems.
There are few conditions that reveal both mystery and emotions, it is true that they are part of our culture, our education, our gender or our country of origin, however it is true that it is already integrated into our genetic base. To demonstrate this, the Universities of Durham and Lancaster (England) conducted a fascinating study where it can be observed that fetuses already express a small variety of emotions in the womb.
- Through ultrasounds.
- They discovered how babies.
- Before birth.
- Already smile and even show expressions associated with crying.
- All this shows that already in this placid and silent universe of the uterus is the human being and the formation of that instinctive and essential language that will guarantee their survival.
- The smile will help demonstrate well-being and satisfaction.
- While crying will fulfill the function of “alarm system”: through which it will express its most basic needs.
Emotions give us humanity, and although many times we make the mistake of classifying them as negative and positive emotions, they are all necessary and precious, in the end they fulfill an adaptive function and nothing can be as important as understanding them to use them. “Smartly” for our benefit.
Paul is working on his thesis. On his return from college, he went to his room to continue his work, sits in front of the computer and opens a drawer to look at some documents, doing so sees that inside this drawer and right above the backrest he needs is a big spider and immediately shuts up scared. Gradually he realizes that his body temperature rises and his heart beats, oxygen is lacking and his hair is bure.
A few minutes later, he thinks it’s silly, that he has to keep working and not waste time, reopens the drawer and realizes that the spider wasn’t as big as he had noticed, in fact it was much smaller. of his irrational fear, he takes the spider with a piece of paper and leaves it in the outdoor garden, satisfied and laughing at himself.
This simple example shows how in a few minutes we are able to experience a wide range of emotions: fear, shame, satisfaction and pleasure, on the other hand, all combine three very clear aspects:
The most complex part of this study of emotions is that they are very difficult to measure, describe or predict, each person lives them in a certain way, they are very particular and exclusive subjective entities, however, scientists know more about the physiological response, because in this case, and regardless of age, race or culture, we all do the same , like adrenaline, for example, which is usually everywhere. Experience associated with fear, panic, stress or the need to escape.
Emotions fulfill a very concrete goal: to allow us to adapt to our environment, to ensure our survival, as Charles Darwin has already indicated in his studies, when he showed us that animals also had and expressed emotions, and that this gift allowed them to move forward as a species and collaborate with each other to achieve this goal.
Darwin was perhaps one of the personalities who understood what emotions are and what emotions are for, however, throughout history, we have found more names, more interests and more oriented theories to give us more answers on this subject.
The Book of Rites? It is a Chinese encyclopedia of the first century that everyone should go through at least once, it is part of the Confucian model and addresses the ceremonial, social and mainly human aspects, if we refer to this book it is because it also explains what emotions are. However, this work describes the basic emotions: joy, anger, sadness, fear, love and revulsion.
It is the nineteenth century and William James, together with the Danish scientist Carl Lange, explains that emotions depend on two factors: the physical changes that occur in our body in the face of a stimulus and the subsequent interpretation we make of them.
That is, for these authors, the physiological reaction is triggered by subjective thoughts or feelings, something that certainly has nuances and offers us a somewhat deterministic vision.
“When I say control emotions, I mean emotions that are really stressful and disabling. Is feeling emotions what enriches our lives?
Now we go to the 1960s, to the prestigious Yale University, to meet two scientists: Stanley Schacter and Jerome Singer. The two refined the theories that existed up to this point about what emotions are and shaped their well-known and interesting model.
Schacter and Singer taught us that emotions can appear effectively when interpreting our body’s peripheral physiological responses, as William James and Carl Lange explain; However, and here’s the novelty, they can also come from a cognitive evaluation, that is, our thoughts and cognitions can trigger an organic response and the subsequent release of a number of neurotransmitters that will trigger a specific emotion and an associated response.
If you want to know what emotions are, you have to go almost necessarily through Paul Ekman’s work, when this psychologist at the University of San Francisco started studying this topic, I believed, like most of the scientific community, that emotions had a cultural character. Origin.
However, after more than 40 years of study and analysis of most of the cultures that make up our world, he concluded a thesis that Darwin had already raised in his day: basic emotions are innate and the result of our evolution. , and in his theory, Ekman established that human beings are defined by a set of fundamental and universal emotions in each of us:
Later, and in the late 1990s, he expanded this list by studying facial expressions more deeply:
Robert Plutchik’s theory explains what emotions are from a more evolutionary point of view, this doctor and psychologist has created an interesting model in which eight basic emotions are well identified and differentiated, all of them would have guaranteed our survival throughout our evolution, to which are added other secondary emotions, even tertiary, that we would have developed over time , to better adapt to our environment.
All this interesting interest is known as the ‘Wheel of Emotions of Plutchick’, we can appreciate how emotions vary in degree and intensity, so, by way of example, it is interesting to remember that anger is less intense than anger, understanding will help regulate our behaviors a little better.
When you get to this point there is one aspect to keep in mind: it is not enough to know what emotions are, it is not enough to know which neurotransmitter is behind each emotional state, physiological reaction or sensation, it is like having an instruction manual on a machine. , but not knowing how to use it in your favor.
Transforming theoretical knowledge into practical knowledge is critical. Manage our emotional universe to promote our well-being, improve the quality of relationships, productivity, creativity, in essence, the quality of our lives.
If, in the end, emotions, as Darwin told us, are used to facilitate our adaptation, our survival and our coexistence between us, we must learn to make them our own without fear, without hiding or hiding them.
So one way to achieve this learning about this vital tool is to develop emotional intelligence, we’ve all heard of it, we’ve read a book by Daniel Goleman and several articles related to the subject, yet are we really applying their main strategies?Factors such as empathy, recognition of emotions, attention, correct communication, assertiveness, tolerance to frustration, positivity or motivation are aspects that we should not neglect at any time.
As we already know what emotions are, let us make it the best channel to build a true well-being, a true happiness.
references
Ekman, Paul (2017). “The face of emotions? Barcelona: RBA Books
Punset, Eduard. Bisquerra, Rafael, Bisquerra (2014). “A universe of emotions, ” Planet.
Goleman, Daniel (1996). ? Emotional intelligence? Madrid: Kairos.
LeDoux, Joseph (1998). The emotional brain: the mysterious foundations of emotional life. New York: Simon and Schuster.