Description of a person's emotional state. Emotions

Feelings and emotions are closely related to our internal qualities, they are simply a reflection of what is happening inside us. We are often afraid and deny our own emotions, confuse emotions with feelings, feelings with states.

After talking with people, attending many trainings and conducting more than one consultation, we became convinced that people are not at all aware of their emotions. Oh no, they are not insensitive idiots, they continue to experience a whole range of emotions, without any understanding of what emotion they are experiencing at the moment. The simplest and most common question in all trainings and psychological consultations: “How are you feeling now?” - confuses people.

It is absolutely impossible to deal with your problems if you cannot even determine how you feel about this or that person or situation, or about this or that event.

What causes feelings and emotions

Not only are our feelings and emotions not recognized in themselves, but their causes remain a mystery to many.

There are a huge number of emotions and feelings and there is no definitive list of them either in psychology or physiology. The reason for this is that many emotions and feelings are purely social phenomena. The emergence of new emotions or their acquisition of a different meaning is due to the development of society. We do not feel many emotions and feelings at birth, but we learn them from our parents, relatives, friends, acquaintances, and even from the TV and film industry. All of them taken together from early childhood show and tell us what we should feel, how and in what situations. If you do not experience a certain range of feelings and sensations on some specific occasion, you are considered strange, not of this world, or even better - insensitive and selfish.

Innate human emotions

In addition to socially determined emotions, there are also innate ones. These are the emotions that a baby has from birth. Some experts classify as innate emotions those that appear in a baby soon after birth, where social factor and parental training appears to play a minimal role. The list of these emotions is very small and neither scientists nor psychologists have come to a consensus on which emotions should be included. Many agree that joy - contentment, interest - excitement, surprise - fear, anger - anger, disgust, fear - these are the emotions that are innate, the rest were taught to us.

We think it’s time to “take our head out of the sand” and figure out what we really feel, what caused this emotion in us and who “taught” us to feel this way and not otherwise.

Read and be surprised :-)

A

Excitement- an emotional state that is very different strong interest to what is happening and a persistent desire to continue.

Types of excitement:

• Resource passion - in this state the effectiveness of actions is very high.

The excitement of doing something you love; the passion of an entrepreneur; excitement in mastering new knowledge.

• Gambling is destructive - in it, self-control, as a rule, is lost.

Gambler's excitement in a casino.

Apathy - a state of complete indifference, disinterest, lack of emotions and feelings. A person with apathetic manifestations experiences neither pleasure nor displeasure. Apathy is often seen as a result of severe and prolonged severe stress. It is a product of a defensive struggle against unbearable feelings of despair and loneliness or the threat of death. Outwardly, manifestations of apathy have the character of alienation - “refusal” from the objective world, but analysis often reveals preserved unconscious attachments, denied or disavowed by the defense.

B

Serenity - an imperturbably calm state.

Hopelessness - complete despair, lack of any hope.

Safety - This is a calm and confident state of mind in a person who considers himself protected from threat or danger.

Indifference - a state of complete indifference, disinterest.

Anxiety - an emotional state characterized by the experience of excitement, anxiety, discomfort, and an unpleasant premonition of evil. Arises under the influence of poorly understood and unknown factors external environment or internal state the person himself.

Helplessness - a negative state caused by unfavorable situations that cannot be prevented or overcome.

Powerlessness - confusion and severe annoyance at the realization of the impossibility of improving the difficult state of affairs, getting out of a dangerous or difficult situation.

Rabies - state of extreme irritation.

Gratitude - a feeling of obligation, respect and love for another person (in particular, expressed in appropriate actions) for a benefit done to him.

Bliss - a state of complete and undisturbed happiness, pleasure, a state of supreme satisfaction, supersensual unearthly happiness.

Cheerfulness - a state of high energy, excess strength and desire to do something.

Pain - a painful sensation reflecting the psychophysiological state of a person, which occurs under the influence of super-strong or destructive stimuli. Heartache- this is a specific mental experience that is not associated with organic or functional disorders. Often accompanied by depression and mental illness. More often long-lasting and associated with loss loved one.

Disgust - exactingness, fastidiousness regarding cleanliness, compliance with hygiene rules (regarding food, clothing, etc.).

IN

Inspiration - a state of lightness, the ability to create, a feeling of “everything is within my power, everything works out!”, doing with enthusiasm and pleasure. A state of spiritual renewal, new birth, the will to creativity, elation, inner insight and passion.

Fun - a carefree and joyful mood, characterized by a desire to laugh and have fun.

Guilt - an affective state characterized by the manifestation of fear, remorse and self-reproach, a feeling of one’s own insignificance, suffering and the need for repentance.

Falling in love - a strong, positively colored feeling (or complex of feelings), the object of which is another person, accompanied by a narrowing of consciousness, which may result in a distorted assessment of the object of love. Acute emotional experience, attraction to the object sexual choice. V. can quickly fade away or turn into a stable feeling of love.

Lust - passionate desire, strong sensual attraction, sexual attraction.

Outrage - extreme dissatisfaction, indignation, anger.

Mental excitement - same as physiological affect, a condition that reduces a person’s ability to understand the meaning of his or her actions or to direct them.

Inspiration- increased desire to do something. Inspiration is a precursor to inspiration, a slightly less emotionally vibrant state. Inspiration arises and develops from inspiration.

Delight - overflowing joy. What will this overflow of energy result in? The next question is...

Admiration - a joyful state of admiration, radiance from beauty and gratitude for beauty.

Hostility - strong dislike for someone, including hatred, ill will.

Arrogance - to look at someone from the height of one’s greatness is contemptuous arrogance. Negative moral quality, characterizing a disrespectful, contemptuous, arrogant attitude towards other people (individuals, certain social strata or people in general), associated with exaggeration of one’s own own merits I am selfish.

G

Anger- targeted aggression through open direct pressure on a partner. The world is hostile. Anger is usually expressed by an energetic, powerful scream.

Pride- a feeling of strength, freedom and height of position. Respect for a person, oneself for one’s own or someone else’s achievements that seem significant.

Pride- this is crooked pride. A person's confidence that he himself is the only reason for his success. “I know for everyone what’s best for everyone.”

Sadness- an emotional state when the world around us seems gray, alien, hard and uncomfortable, painted in beautiful transparent gray and minor tones. Often, when you feel sad, you want to cry, you want to be alone. In sadness, the world is not yet hostile, but it is no longer friendly: it is only ordinary, inconvenient and alien, caustic. Usually the cause of sadness is a difficult event in life: separation from a loved one, loss of a loved one. Sadness is not an innate emotion, but an acquired one.

D

Duality- a feeling of duality, as a result of opposing internal urges to do something.

U

Respect- the position of one person in relation to another, recognition of the merits of the individual. A position that prescribes not to harm another: neither physically - through violence, nor morally - through judgment.

Confidence- a person’s mental state in which he considers some information to be true. Confidence is a psychological characteristic of a person's faith and beliefs. Confidence can be a result own experience personality and as a result of external influence. For example, confidence can appear in a person in addition to (and sometimes against) his will and consciousness under the influence of suggestion. A person can also induce a feeling of confidence through self-hypnosis (for example, autogenic training).

Hobby (extra valuable)- a one-sided and intense hobby that occupies an inappropriate place in a person’s life, having for him a disproportionately large significance, a special meaning. The ability to become strongly involved in something or someone is associated with the system personal values and ideals. This is, for example, sports fanaticism, which may hide a feeling of inferiority, or too close attention attention paid to one’s appearance, which may hide self-doubt.

Astonishment- is a short-term, quickly passing reaction to a sudden, unexpected event; a mental state when something seems strange, unusual, unexpected. Surprise occurs when there is dissonance between a person’s imaginary picture of the world and what is actually happening. The greater the dissonance, the greater the surprise.

Satisfaction- a feeling of contentment and joy about the fulfillment of one’s desires and needs, about successful conditions, one’s actions, etc. Satisfaction usually comes when a goal is achieved. For young children, satisfaction can still be brought by the work itself, the process, and not the results of its implementation. Due to socialization, it is becoming increasingly difficult for adults to receive satisfaction from the process.

Pleasure- a feeling, experience that accompanies the satisfaction of a need or interest (the same as pleasure). Pleasure accompanies the decrease internal tension(physical and mental), helps restore the vital functions of the body. Behind pleasure there is always a desire, which, ultimately, as an individual desire, society seeks to take control of. However, in the process of socialization, the natural attitude towards pleasure is limited. Expanding functional contacts with others require a person to control his desire for pleasure, delay receiving pleasure, tolerate displeasure, etc. The principle of pleasure manifests itself in opposition to social demands and rules and acts as the basis of personal independence: in pleasure a person belongs to himself, is freed from obligations and in this regard is sovereign.

Dejection– a depressed, painful, languid state (from poverty, illness, other unfavorable circumstances, due to serious failures).

Horror– sudden and strong fear, internal trembling, highest degree fear, permeated with despair and hopelessness when faced with something threatening, unknowable and alien; dizziness from the premonition of a total fiasco. Horror for a person is always forced, imposed from the outside - and in the case when we're talking about about psychic obsession.

Tenderness- a feeling of calm, sweet pity, humility, contrition, spiritual, welcoming participation, goodwill.

Pacification- a state of complete peace and satisfaction.

Humiliation– individual or group actions aimed at lowering a person’s status, usually in some way that embarrasses or offends the person. Some common actions, considered humiliating are offensive words, gestures, body movements, slaps in the face, spitting in his direction, etc. Some experts believe that the key point is that humiliation is determined by the consciousness of the humiliated person. In order to be humiliated, a person must consider the action humiliating. For some people, humiliation is a pleasure and a source of arousal (for example, in sexual role playing games), but for the vast majority - a difficult test that they do not want to undergo. Humiliation is accompanied by extremely painful emotional shock and affects the most sensitive parts of human self-esteem. If you hit it too hard, even modest person may respond with aggression.

Dejection– hopeless sadness, loss of spirit, loss of hope for achieving what is desired or essential.

Rapture- a state of delight, pleasure, “admiration, delight, moral, spiritual intoxication.”

Fatigue- a physical and mental state of fatigue, characterized by weakened reactions, lethargy, drowsiness, and inattention. Fatigue comes from overload, from strong voltage, from experiencing difficulties, grief, conflicts, from long periods of tedious, routine work. This condition is the result of either poor work organization or poor health, but the cause of fatigue is large quantities unresolved interpersonal and internal conflicts which, as a rule, are not realized.

F

Frustration- a state that arises as a result of anxiety about the impossibility of achieving goals and satisfying drives, the collapse of plans and hopes.

Sh

Shock (emotional)- a strong emotion accompanied by physiological shocks. Shock occurs as a result of the appearance of a new element in life to which the subject is not able to immediately adapt.

Psychologists distinguish:

• weak and fleeting shock, at the level of pleasant and unpleasant;
• shock causing more or less long-term maladjustment (strong emotion, loss of a dear being);
• shock, causing long-term maladjustment and thereby even leading to madness.

E

Euphoria- a mental state of joyful excitement and enthusiasm, accompanied by high spirits, excitement, and jubilation.

Exaltation- an emotional state of elevated liveliness with a tinge of unnatural enthusiasm, which seems to have no reason. It manifests itself either in the form of a dreamy mood or inexplicable inspiration.

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Theories of emotions

The concept of “emotion” appeared at the end of the 19th century and is associated with the names of W. James and G. Lange. According to their concept, emotions are caused external influences, changes in the voluntary motor sphere and in the sphere of involuntary acts - cardiac. The sensations that appear in this case are emotional states, i.e. cause and effect have switched places.

W. Cannon noticed this discrepancy and, moreover, noticed that the bodily reactions that arise during different emotions, have similarities and cannot explain the diversity of human emotions. Cannon believed that bodily emotions tune the body to situations that require large energy expenditures.

The opinion of many psychologists is based on the fact that emotions are not a mental state, they are simply the body’s response to a situation.

There are theories that explain the nature of emotions through cognitive factors. This is the theory of cognitive dissonance by L. Festinger, according to which dissonance is a negative emotional state that occurs when a person has psychologically contradictory information about one object.

Positive emotions will arise when actual results match those intended or expected. When a person experiences dissonance, he experiences discomfort and tries to get rid of it, either by changing his expectation or trying to obtain new information.

Cognitivist information theory emotions P.V. Simonova defines emotional states by the quality and intensity of an individual’s need and the assessment he gives of the likelihood of its satisfaction. This assessment of probability consists of one’s innate and acquired experience, and is compared with the means of time, the necessary resources required to satisfy the need and with momentary information.

It turns out that a person, consciously or not, constantly compares information about what is required to satisfy a need with what he has, and experiences corresponding emotions.

Well-being, activity, mood

A person in the process of his activity experiences a number of emotions, both positive and negative. According to K. Bueller's law, positive emotions during complex species activities move from end to beginning (action plan development and implementation).

Emotions, based on their impact on human activity, are divided into:

Stenic emotions, which help a person in his activities, increasing his energy and strength, give courage in committing actions and statements. A person in this state is capable of many accomplishments.

Asthenic emotions are characterized by passivity and stiffness.

Emotional states depend on the nature of mental activity, at the same time exerting their influence on it. At good mood human cognitive and volitional activity is activated.

Emotional state may depend not only on the activity performed, but also on the action, on well-being, piece of music, watched a film, performance, etc. And a person’s well-being, in turn, depends on his emotional state. After all, even a person who is in in serious condition, at the moment of emotional upsurge, can feel completely healthy.

Emotional states are transitory, but they reflect the individual characteristics of a person: a melancholic person has a minor mood, a choleric person has an excited mood. But basically, the vast majority of people, regardless of individual characteristics, have average, mixed indicators of activity, which directly depends on the person’s well-being and his mood.

Mood is an emotional state that gives color to a person’s experiences and activities; it has a reason that is not always realized by the person. The mood can change under the impression of any events, facts, people, surrounding nature, health, work performed, study. Personality development affects mood management.

Taking into account the individual characteristics of a person and the impact of emotions on him, you can assess his mental state using the “Well-being, activity, mood” test from the package psychological tests"State".

The greatest value is provided by such an express analysis of the dynamics of indicators of the current mental state depending on any significant events for the individual or the mode of training and work. To improve your well-being, increase activity, and therefore performance, and improve your mood, you can use exercises from the “Comfort” complex.

Situational anxiety

According to K. Izard, the main fundamental emotions can be divided into positive and negative.

positive emotional states - interest and joy;

negative emotional states - suffering, anger, disgust, contempt, fear and shame;

surprise - does not have a clearly defined negative or positive sign of an emotional reaction to suddenly appearing circumstances.

When connected fundamental emotions Complex conditions such as anxiety may appear, combining fear, anger, guilt and interest. Emotional experiences are ambiguous, much depends on a person’s character traits; if a person is an introvert by nature, then he to a greater extent anxiety is inherent.

A state of constant anxiety can develop into stressful situations, and, therefore, can lead a person to neurosis and other diseases, so it is advisable to identify the presence of high performance anxiety and take appropriate action. One of the ways to improve a person’s condition can be exercises from the “Comfort” package, especially psychotechnical exercises.

The "Situational Anxiety" scale from the "State" package allows you to quantitatively and qualitatively determine the state of anxiety that arises as an emotional reaction to a stressful situation.

Self-assessment of emotional states

Problems mental stress and worries occupy special place in ensuring normal human life. Before performing a responsible task or action, a person experiences excessive emotional arousal.

Most often, the concept of anxiety is used to describe an unpleasant emotional state or internal condition that is characterized by subjective feelings tension, anxiety, gloomy forebodings, and on the physiological side - activation of the autonomic nervous system.

A person himself can assess his state as calm, anxious or intermediate between them. After successful execution difficult work or successfully passing an exam, a person calms down, his mood becomes elevated, and a feeling of self-confidence appears.

In case of failure, i.e. poorly done work, or not passing an exam, a person experiences his failure emotionally, and he develops anxiety, fatigue, depression, helplessness, leading him to a painful state.

Emotions (from Latin emovere - to excite, excite) - special kind mental processes or human states that manifest themselves in the experience of any significant situations(joy, fear, pleasure), phenomena and events throughout life. Any need, including cognitive needs, is given to a person through emotional experiences. For a person, the main significance of emotions is that, thanks to emotions, we better understand those around us, we can, without using speech, judge each other’s state and better tune in to joint activities and communication. It is remarkable, for example, that people belonging to different cultures are able to accurately perceive and evaluate the expression human face, determine from it such emotional states, such as joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise. This fact not only convincingly proves the innate nature of basic emotions, but also “the presence of a genetically determined ability to understand them in living beings.” This refers to the communication of living beings not only of the same species with each other, but also different types among themselves. It is well known that higher animals and humans are capable of perceiving and assessing each other’s emotional states by facial expressions. Not all emotional and expressive expressions are innate. Some of them have been found to be acquired during life as a result of training and upbringing. Life without emotions is just as impossible as without sensations. Emotions, according to Charles Darwin, arose in the process of evolution as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to satisfy their actual needs. Emotions act as internal language, as a system of signals through which the subject learns about the need-based significance of what is happening. “The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly deny the relationship between motivations and the implementation that corresponds to these motives of activity. Emotions in human activity perform the function of assessing its progress and results. They organize activities, stimulating and directing them.” In critical conditions, when the subject is unable to find a quick and reasonable way out dangerous situation, a special type of emotional processes arises - affect. Thanks to timely emotions, the body has the ability to adapt extremely advantageously to environmental conditions. He is able to quickly high speed respond to external influence without yet determining its type, shape, and other specific specific parameters. Emotional sensations are biologically, in the process of evolution, fixed as a unique way of maintaining life process within its optimal boundaries and warn about the destructive nature of the deficiency or excess of any factors. The more complex the organization living creature, the higher the level on the evolutionary ladder it occupies, the richer the range of emotional states that the individual is able to experience. The quantity and quality of a person’s needs corresponds to the number and variety of emotional experiences and feelings characteristic of him, and “the higher the need in its social and moral significance, the more exalted the feeling associated with it.” Almost all elementary organic sensations have their own emotional tone. The close connection that exists between emotions and the activity of the body is evidenced by the fact that any emotional state is accompanied by many physiological changes in the body. The closer to the central nervous system the source of organic changes associated with emotions is located, and the less sensitive it contains nerve endings, the weaker the subjective emotional experience that arises. In addition, an artificial decrease in organic sensitivity leads to a weakening of the strength of emotional experiences. The main emotional states that a person experiences are divided into actual emotions, feelings and affects. Emotions and feelings anticipate the process aimed at satisfying a need and are, as it were, at the beginning of it. Emotions and feelings express the meaning of a situation for a person from the point of view of a currently relevant need, the significance of the upcoming action or activity for its satisfaction. “Emotions can be caused by both real and imaginary situations. They, like feelings, are perceived by a person as his own internal experiences, transmitted to other people, and empathized with.” Emotions are relatively weakly expressed in external behavior, sometimes from the outside they are completely invisible to an outsider if a person knows how to hide his feelings well. They, accompanying one or another behavioral act, are not always conscious, although all behavior is associated with emotions, since it is aimed at satisfying a need. A person's emotional experience is usually much broader than the experience of his individual experiences. A person’s feelings, on the contrary, are outwardly very noticeable. “Emotions usually follow the actualization of the motive and before the rational assessment of the adequacy of the subject’s activity to it. They are a direct reflection, an experience of existing relationships, and not their reflection. Emotions are capable of anticipating situations and events that have not yet actually occurred, and arise in connection with ideas about previously experienced or imagined situations.” Feelings are objective in nature and are associated with a representation or idea about a certain object. Another feature of feelings is that they are improved and, developing, form a number of levels, starting from immediate feelings and ending with your feelings related to spiritual values ​​and ideals. Feelings play a motivating role in a person’s life and activity, in his communication with people around him. In relation to the world around him, a person strives to act in such a way as to strengthen and strengthen his positive feelings. For him, they are always connected with the work of consciousness and can be voluntarily regulated.

Emotions are mental processes in which a person experiences his attitude to other phenomena of the surrounding reality; emotions also reflect various states of the human body, its attitude towards own behavior and to your activities.

Emotions have the following characteristics.

Subjective nature. The attitude that is expressed in emotions is always personal in nature and differs from the awareness of objective connections between things that are established in the process of learning about the world around us. Looking out the window, we see that the street is covered with snow, and we establish a connection between the appearance of snow and the time of year “winter has come.” This connection is established by us in the process of thinking. Having reflected this objective connection through thinking, one person can experience a feeling of joy that winter has come, and another a feeling of regret that summer is over. These various feelings express the subjective, personal attitude of people to objective reality: some people like a given object and gives them a feeling of pleasure, while others do not like the same object and causes displeasure. Extreme diversity quality features. The following, rather incomplete list of emotional states, since they are expressed in human speech, allows us to judge extremely large number and a variety of emotions:

Feelings of hunger, - thirst, - pleasant taste, pleasure, - disgust, a feeling of pain, - lust, possession, - sexual feeling; - a sense of self-satisfaction, - ambition, - arrogance, - shamelessness.

Plastic. For example, joy or fear can be experienced by a person in many shades and degrees, its causes, objects or activities with which it is associated. A person can experience joy when meeting a friend, in the process of work that interests him, admiring majestic pictures of nature, etc. - but all these manifestations of joy are very different in their quality and degree. Connection with intraorganic processes.

This connection is twofold: 1) intraorganic processes are the strongest stimulators of many emotions; 2) all emotions, without exception, in one form or another find their expression in bodily manifestations. Close connection The connection between emotions and the vital processes of the body was noticed a very long time ago.

Connection with the direct experience of one's own “I”. Even the most weak emotions capture the whole person. Since in his relationships with the environment a person does not experience changes caused in him by external influences, his emotions acquire the character of emotional states; when emotions are associated with active manifestations of personality and are expressed in activity. And emotional, relationships and emotional states are always experienced by a person as his direct experiences. Emotions and feelings are unique mental states that leave an imprint on a person’s life. The emotional state is determined mainly outside behavior and mental activity, then feelings influence the content and inner essence of a person’s experiences. Emotional states include: moods, affects, stress, frustrations and passions. Affect- a quickly arising and rapidly occurring emotional state that negatively affects the psyche and behavior of a person. If we compare affect with mood, then mood is a calm emotional state, and affect is a lot of emotions that suddenly came and destroyed the normal state of mind person. Affect takes over the human psyche. This entails a narrowing and sometimes even a shutdown of consciousness. For example, when very angry, many people lose control over themselves. Their anger turns into aggression. The person begins to scream, blush, wave his arms, and may hit the enemy. Affect occurs abruptly, in the form of a flash, an impulse. Managing and coping with this condition is very difficult. They negatively affect human activity, sharply reducing the level of its organization. In the heat of the moment, a person loses his head, he is delusional, his actions are unreasonable, committed without taking into account the situation. If a person gets objects, he can throw them in a rage, push a chair, or slam the table. It would be wrong to think that affect is completely uncontrollable. Despite the suddenness, affect has certain stages of development. The most important thing is to delay the onset of affect, “extinguish” the affective outburst, restrain yourself, and not lose power over your behavior.

Stress- an emotional state that suddenly arises in a person under the influence extreme situation involving life-threatening or strenuous activities. Stress, like affect, is the same strong temporary emotional experience

No person manages to live and work without experiencing stress. Heavy life losses, failures, trials, conflicts, every person experiences from time to time. Stressful conditions affect people's behavior in different ways. Some, under the influence of stress, show complete helplessness and are unable to withstand the effects of stress, others, on the contrary, are stress-resistant individuals and perform best in moments of danger and in activities that require the exertion of all forces. An emotional state close to stress is the “ emotional burnout" This condition occurs in a person who long time experiences negative emotions. Emotional burnout manifests itself in indifference, avoidance of responsibility, negativism or cynicism towards other people. As a rule, the causes of emotional burnout are monotony and monotony of work, lack of career growth.

Frustration- a deeply felt emotional state that arose under the influence of failures. It can manifest itself in the form of negative experiences, such as anger, frustration, apathy, etc. Frustration is accompanied by a whole set of negative emotions that can destroy consciousness and activity. In a state of frustration, a person may become angry and depressed. For example, when performing some activity a person fails, which causes negative emotions in him - grief, dissatisfaction with himself. If in such a situation the people around you support and help correct mistakes, the experienced emotions will remain only an episode in a person’s life. If failures are repeated and significant people at the same time they reproach, shame, call them incapable or lazy, this person usually develops an emotional state of frustration. The level of frustration depends on the strength of the factor, the person’s condition and his existing forms of response to life’s difficulties. A person’s resistance to frustrating factors depends on the degree of his emotional excitability, type of temperament, experience of interaction with such factors. Passion- a deep and very stable emotional state that captures a person completely and completely and determines all his thoughts. The object of passion can be various types of things, objects, phenomena, people that a person strives to possess at any cost. Passion is a strong, persistent, all-encompassing feeling that determines the direction of a person’s thoughts and actions. The reasons for the emergence of passion are varied - they can be determined by conscious beliefs. Passion is usually selective and objective. For example, a passion for music, for collecting, for knowledge, etc.

Passion captures all the thoughts of a person, in which all the circumstances related to the object of passion revolve, which imagines and ponders ways to achieve the need. What is not related to the object of passion seems secondary, unimportant. For example, some scientists who are passionately working on a discovery do not attach importance to their appearance, often forgetting about sleep and food. The most important characteristic is its connection with the will. Since passion is one of the significant motivations for activity, because it has great strength. In reality, assessing the meaning of passion is twofold. Plays a big role in assessment public opinion. For example, the passion for money and hoarding is condemned by some people as greed, acquisitiveness, while at the same time within the framework of another social group can be considered as economy, prudence.

The most general emotional state that colors all human behavior for a long time is called mood. It is very diverse and can be joyful or sad, cheerful or depressed, cheerful or depressed, calm or irritated, etc. Mood is an emotional reaction not to the direct consequences of certain events, but to their significance for a person’s life in the context of his general life plans, interests and expectations.

Affect

S. L. Rubinstein noted the peculiarities of mood in that it is not objective, but personal, and that the most powerful emotional reaction is affect.

Affect(from Latin affectuctus - “mental excitement”) - a strong and relatively short-term emotional state associated with a sharp change in life circumstances that are important for the subject and accompanied by pronounced motor manifestations and changes in the functions of internal organs.

Affect completely takes over the human psyche. This entails a narrowing and sometimes even a shutdown of consciousness, changes in thinking and, as a consequence, inappropriate behavior. For example, with severe anger, many people lose the ability to constructively resolve conflicts. Their anger turns into aggression. The person screams, blushes, waves his arms, and may hit the enemy.

Affect occurs sharply, suddenly in the form of a flash, an impulse. Managing and coping with this condition is very difficult. Any feeling can be experienced in an affective form.

Affects have a negative impact on human activity, sharply reducing the level of its organization. In passion, a person seems to lose his head, his actions are unreasonable, committed without taking into account the situation. If objects that are not related to the cause of the affect fall into the sphere of a person’s actions, he can throw away the thing he comes across in a rage, push a chair, or slap the floor. Losing power over himself, a person gives himself entirely to experience.

It would be wrong to think that affect is completely uncontrollable. Despite the apparent suddenness, affect has certain stages of development. And if at the final stages, when a person completely loses control over himself, it is almost impossible to stop, then at the beginning anyone can do it normal person. Of course, this requires enormous volitional efforts. The most important thing here is to delay the onset of affect, “extinguish” the affective outburst, restrain yourself, and not lose power over your behavior.

Stress

• Main article: Stress

Another broad area of ​​human conditions is united by the concept of stress.

Under stress(from the English stress - “pressure”, “tension”) understand the emotional state that arises in response to all kinds of extreme influences.

No person manages to live and work without experiencing stress. Severe life losses, failures, trials, conflicts, stress when performing difficult or responsible work Everyone worries from time to time. Some people cope with stress more easily than others, e.g. are stress-resistant.

An emotional state close to stress is the “ emotional burnout" This condition occurs in a person if, in a situation of mental or physical stress, he experiences negative emotions for a long time. At the same time, he can neither change the situation nor cope with negative emotions. Emotional burnout manifests itself in a decrease in the overall emotional background, indifference, avoidance of responsibility, negativism or cynicism towards other people, loss of interest in professional success, and limitation of one’s capabilities. As a rule, the causes of emotional burnout are monotony and monotony of work, lack of career growth, professional inconsistency, age-related changes and socio-psychological maladjustment. Internal conditions For the occurrence of emotional burnout, there may be accentuations of a certain type of character, high anxiety, aggressiveness, conformity, and an inadequate level of aspirations. Emotional burnout hinders professional and personal growth and, like stress, leads to psychosomatic disorders.

Frustration

Close in its manifestations to stress is the emotional state of frustration.

Frustration(from Latin frustration - “deception”, “frustration”, “destruction of plans”) - a human state caused by objectively insurmountable (or subjectively perceived) difficulties that arise on the way to achieving a goal.

Frustration is accompanied by a whole set of negative emotions that can destroy consciousness and activity. In a state of frustration, a person can show anger, depression, external and internal aggression.

For example, when performing some activity a person fails, which causes him negative emotions - grief, dissatisfaction with himself. If in such a situation the people around you support you and help you correct your mistakes, the emotions you experience will remain just an episode in a person’s life. If failures are repeated, and significant others reproach, shame, call him incapable or lazy, this person usually develops an emotional state of frustration.

The level of frustration depends on the strength and intensity of the influencing factor, the person’s condition and his or her existing forms of response to life’s difficulties. Especially often the source of frustration is negative social assessment, affecting significant relationships of the individual. A person’s resistance (tolerance) to frustrating factors depends on the degree of his emotional excitability, type of temperament, and experience of interaction with such factors.

Special shape emotional experience is passion. In terms of the intensity of emotional arousal, passion approaches passion, and in terms of duration and stability it resembles mood. What is the peculiarity of passion? Passion is a strong, persistent, all-encompassing feeling that determines the direction of a person’s thoughts and actions. The causes of passion are varied - they can be determined by conscious beliefs, they can come from bodily desires, or they can have a pathological origin. In any case, passion is related to our needs and other personality traits. Passion is usually selective and objective. For example, a passion for music, for collecting, for knowledge, etc.

Passion captures all the thoughts of a person, in which all the circumstances related to the object of passion revolve, which imagines and ponders ways to achieve the need. What is not related to the object of passion seems secondary, unimportant. For example, some scientists who passionately work on a discovery do not attach importance to their appearance, often forgetting about sleep and food.

The most important characteristic of passion is its connection with the will. Since passion is one of the significant motivations for activity, because it has great power. In reality, assessing the meaning of passion is twofold. Public opinion plays a big role in evaluation. For example, the passion for money and hoarding is condemned by some people as greed, acquisitiveness, while at the same time within another social group it can be considered as thriftiness and prudence.

Psychological self-regulation: affect, stress, emotional burnout, frustration, passion

The inability to regulate one’s emotional states and cope with affects and stress is an obstacle to effective professional activities, disrupts interpersonal relationships at work and in the family, interferes with the achievement of goals and intentions, and disrupts human health.

There are special techniques that help cope with strong emotion and prevent it from turning into passion. To do this, it is recommended to notice and realize the unwanted emotion in time, analyze its origins, and reset muscle clamp and relax, breathe deeply and rhythmically, attract a pre-prepared “duty image” of a pleasant event in your life, try to look at yourself from the outside. Affect can be prevented, but this requires endurance, self-control, special training, culture interpersonal relationships.

A means of preventing emotional burnout is the optimization of working conditions and psychological correction in the early stages of emotional disorders.

The factor of stressful time also matters. Long-term exposure to stress is especially dangerous. It has been noticed, for example, that over 10-15 years of work in extreme conditions the human body wears out as if it had suffered a severe heart attack. And, conversely, short-term severe stress activates a person, as if “shakes” him.

• You should not strive to avoid stress at all costs and be afraid of it. It’s paradoxical, but true: the more you try to live and work “always measuredly and calmly,” the more stress will destroy you. After all, instead of gradually and patiently accumulating experience in self-management under stress, you will “run away” from it.

You can compare methods effective management stress with the actions of an experienced climber. If a person, gripped by fear, turns his back to an avalanche and runs away from it, it will overtake him and destroy him. It is necessary to face danger in order to know how to protect yourself from it.

• To manage your stress, you need to use it useful features and exclude harmful ones.

• At constructive stress there is a release of accumulated dissatisfaction between people with each other, it is resolved important issue and mutual understanding between people improves.
• With destructive stress, relationships sharply deteriorate until they completely break down, the problem remains unresolved, and people experience severe feelings of guilt and hopelessness.

The most successful, both in the profession and in personal life, are people who have learned to control themselves, who have developed psychotechnics of personal self-regulation. They know their strengths and weaknesses, know how to restrain themselves, show patience, and slow down their internal “explosions.”

• Action one: they do not blame anyone: neither themselves nor others. They do not suffer from “reproaches of conscience” and do not “dump” their stressful energy on others.
• Action two: they strive to master themselves at the first stage of stress development, when self-control is still preserved and the “stressful element” has not completely taken over. They strive to stop themselves in time. One leading specialist at a large commercial bank expressed this idea this way: “It’s important not to hit point B.”
• Act three: they study themselves. People with developed self-regulation are well aware of how their stressful state. In other words, they become aware in time of a change in their internal sense of self during the first stage of stress development.
• Act four and most important. People with developed self-regulation intuitively find the optimal strategy in stress. Those who successfully master stress are those who understand that “dumping” dark stressful energy on others is uncivilized and, in a certain sense, unprofitable. The necessary business connections are lost and personal relationships are destroyed. They also understand that directing destructive stress energy at themselves by blaming themselves for their mistakes is not constructive. Really, what changes from this? The matter is still pending, and the problem is not being solved.

• correctly assess the significance of events;
• in case of defeat, act according to the principle “it didn’t hurt, that’s what I wanted”;
• increase physical activity(many women begin to do laundry or other heavy housework);
• form a new dominant, i.e. get distracted;
• speak out, cry;
• listen to music;
• cause a smile, laughter, humor is necessary in order to
• to perceive as comic what pretends to be serious;
• achieve relaxation.

21. Emotional states In psychology, there are a number of basic emotional states

1. Joy. This is an emotional state that has a bright positive connotation. It is associated with the ability to fully satisfy the current current need in conditions where the probability of this is up to at this moment was small or at least vague. Joy is a sthenic emotion.

2. Suffering. A negative emotional state that is the antipode of joy. Suffering occurs when it is impossible to satisfy an actual need or when receiving information about this, provided that until now the satisfaction of this need seemed quite probable. The form of suffering often takes emotional stress. Suffering is an asthenic emotion.

3. Anger. Negative emotional state. Most often it occurs in the form of affect. It is usually caused by the emergence of an unexpected serious obstacle to the satisfaction of a need that is extremely important for the subject. Unlike suffering, anger is sthenic in nature - it allows you to mobilize all your strength to overcome an obstacle.

4. Fear. Negative emotional state. It occurs when there is a real, perceived or imaginary threat to the life, health, or well-being of the subject. Unlike the emotion of suffering, caused by the real lack of opportunity to satisfy a need, the experience of fear is associated only with a probabilistic forecast of possible damage. Has an asthenic character.

5. Interest. A positive emotional state that promotes cognitive activity: development of skills and abilities, acquisition of knowledge. Interest motivates learning. This is a sthenic emotion.

6. Surprise. This emotion is neutral in sign. It is a reaction to a suddenly arising situation or object in the absence of information about the nature of this object or situation.

7. Disgust. Negative emotional state. Occurs in case of contact with objects that cause sharp negative attitude subject at any level - physical, moral, aesthetic, spiritual.

8. Contempt. Negative emotional state. It arises in interpersonal relationships, i.e. the object of contempt can only be another person or a group of people. This emotional state is a consequence of views, attitudes, and forms of behavior of the object that are unacceptable to the subject, regarded by the subject as unworthy, base, and inconsistent with his ideas about moral norms and aesthetic criteria.

9. Shame. Negative emotional state. It arises when the subject realizes his own inconsistency with the situation, the expectations of others, as well as the inconsistency of his thoughts, actions, and forms of behavior with his own moral and aesthetic standards.