What is emotion? This is a process that reflects a subjective assessment, experience and attitude of a person to the world around him, to current or possible external events and situations, to the internal state of his body, to his own actions and actions. Everything that a person does, experiences what he interacts with, gives rise to various emotions.
Ancient philosophers took emotions very negatively, believing that emotional outbursts interfere with a person and destroy his rational activity. A similar attitude today can be encountered in legal practice, where the state of affect, leading to the loss of control over the action at the time the crime was committed, is considered as a mitigating factor. However, emotions in the evolutionary development of man as a biological species played a positive role. According to researchers, a person has the richest and most diverse emotional world compared to other animals, therefore, emotions play a certain and very important role in his survival, development and improvement.
Emotion Functions
One of the most important functions of emotional experiences is the function of motivation or mobilization, which stimulates or inhibits a person in the implementation of certain activities and manifests itself, first of all, at the physiological level. Depending on the situation, emotions direct or control human activities.
The organizing functions of emotions attract strength and attention to one type of activity, while hindering the implementation of its other kind and acting in this case as a disorganizing factor. For example, the state of affect in certain cases can become useful by turning off the mind and mobilizing the internal hidden physical resources of the human body in situations of danger to life.
The estimated functions of emotions allow, before the mind turns on, to determine the significance of the current situation, the internal state of the organism or an external stimulus, and direct the further process of conscious processing of the received information in a certain direction.
The regulatory functions of emotions in psychology are also called the functions of consolidation - inhibition, tracing, reinforcement. They are one of the mechanisms regulating the internal activity of a person aimed at meeting certain needs. Any need gives rise to emotional experiences that can have a different effect on her and the forecast of her satisfaction. For example, fear can interfere with the fulfillment of a specific need, and inspiration and joy from minor successes contribute to the achievement of the ultimate goal. The experience of negative and positive emotions associated with successes and failures in life, leaves in the person’s experience significant “nicks” that help in choosing similar situations to choose appropriate forms of behavioral reactions.
The regulatory functions of emotions logically flow into an anticipatory function that aims to motivate future actions. Emotions, as a rule, are ahead of the course of events and, depending on their characteristics, indicate a favorable or negative result. The emotional experience gained in the past is always used to predict the future.
The communicative functions of emotions are closely related to such a concept as empathy - empathy, “entering” the other person’s emotional world, which facilitates communication and mutual understanding of people. An emotional state is often contagious. One has to laugh, and he “infects” with his laughter the whole group of people. Such properties of emotional states are possible only because a person is able to understand and accept the experiences of another.
The communicative function of emotions is very important in infancy, when children still cannot speak, and emotional communication is the only way for them to interact with their environment.
The main functions of emotions are important regulators in the knowledge of the world. They contribute to a better understanding of the internal state and external events and phenomena, and encourage people to work together.