Imagine what life would be like if you could think and move without feeling. We need a broader definition of this important concept, including body and mind. Contemporary psychologists define emotion as a complex pattern of physiological and psychological changes, including physiological activation, feeling, cognitive process and behavioral response, which is a response to the unique situation perceived by individuals.
People all over the world, regardless of cultural differences, race, gender and education, will express their basic emotions in the same way.
Emotional physiology
What happens when you experience strong emotions? Your heart rate is faster, your breathing is faster, your mouth is dry, your muscles are tense, and you may tremble. In addition, in addition to these visible changes, many things have happened under the instructions. All these reactions are designed to mobilize your body to respond to the source of emotions. Let's look at their origins.
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) prepares the emotional response of the body through the activities of its sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The balance between these two systems depends on the nature and intensity of the arousal stimulus. For mild and unpleasant stimuli, the sympathetic nervous system is more active; The parasympathetic nervous system is more active for mild and pleasant stimuli. When the intensity of the two stimuli increases, the activity of the two systems will be enhanced. Physiologically, strong emotional reactions such as fear and anger will activate the body's emergency response system and make the body prepare for potential dangers quickly and quietly. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for guiding the adrenal gland to release hormones (adrenaline and norepinephrine), which in turn leads to the release of blood sugar from internal tissues, which raises blood pressure and increases sweat and saliva secretion. After an emergency, the parasympathetic nervous system will inhibit the release of these active hormones in order to calm itself down. After experiencing a strong emotional event, you may stay awake for a while because some hormones are still in your blood circulation.
Awakening and emotional misinterpretation
? A female researcher interviewed a male participant who had just crossed two bridges in Vancouver, Canada. A bridge is very safe and strong. The other is a rickety dangerous bridge. Pretending to be interested in the impact of safety on creativity, the researchers asked these men to write a simple story based on a blurred photo of a woman and told them to call her if they were interested in more information about the study. The stories written by men who just crossed the bridge contained more sexual fantasies, and the number of people who called female researchers was four times that of subjects who crossed the safety bridge.
In order to prove that arousal is an independent variable affecting cognitive misinterpretation, the researchers also arranged for another group of men to be interviewed after crossing the dangerous bridge 10 minutes or more, which is enough time for their physiological activation symptoms to calm down. These men who are no longer awake no longer show the sexual response shown by sober people. (Darden & ampAron)
The important function of emotions is to motivate you to move forward-to push you towards important goals. The physiological activation caused by emotional environment can make you reach the highest performance level. However, you should be careful not to let your emotions get too strong, or you will be in the downward section of the performance curve. From the social level, emotions have a wide range of functions in social activities. As a positive adhesive, they bring you close to someone; As a negative social waterproof agent, they keep you away from others.
The researchers also pointed out the influence of emotion on prosocial behavior. When individuals are in the best health, they are more willing to do all kinds of helping behaviors. When research participants feel guilty about their mistakes, they are more willing to provide voluntary help in the future, thus reducing their guilt.
The influence of emotion on cognitive function is manifested in your attention, your perception of yourself and others, and your interpretation and memory of various life situations. Researchers have proved that emotional state can affect learning, memory, social judgment and creativity (Bradley,1994; Forgas,1995,2000) Your emotional reaction plays an important role in organizing and classifying your life experiences.
? Darwin first proposed that emotions evolved from responses to repetitive situations. Cross-cultural studies support the idea of evolution by providing some common examples of the generation and recognition of facial expressions. However, culture sets a routine for how and when to express emotions. Some areas of autonomic nervous system, limbic system and cortex participate in the physiological response of emotions. Typical emotional theory tries to clarify the relationship between physiological activation and individual emotional experience. Emotions can usually stimulate people's inspiration, they also play a certain role in general social relations, and at the same time determine the content and efficiency of the cognitive process.
Coping with stress
? What is the most stressful thing in your life? Will your life be better without stress? Without pressure, there will be no challenges-no difficulties to overcome, no new areas to explore, and no reason to use your brains or improve your ability. Every organism has to face the pressure from the external environment and individual needs. In order to survive and develop, individuals must solve these problems.
Stress is a reaction mode. When a stimulus event breaks the balance and load capacity of the organism, or exceeds the individual's tolerance, it will be reflected in stress. These stimulating events come from various external or internal situations and are collectively called stressors. They are all stimulating events, which require the organism to make an adaptive response.
Steps of rational decision-making/cognitive evaluation
1. Assessing the challenge Key question: If I don't change, will the risk be great?
2. Check the alternatives? Key question: Can this method accept the challenge? Have all possible options been explored?
3. weigh the options? Key question: which choice is the best? Can the best choice meet the demand?
4. Think carefully about your obligations? Key question: Have you put the best choice into practice and let others know?
Even negative feedback should stick to the key question: How serious is the risk if I don't change? How serious is the risk if I change?
? An effective way to adapt to stress is to change your assessment of stressors and your self-awareness of how to deal with them. You need to think about your situation, your role in it, and the attribution methods used to explain those unexpected results in different ways. There are two ways to deal with stress psychologically. One is to re-evaluate the nature of the stressor itself, and the other is to reorganize your cognitive structure of stress response.
health psychology
? Health is a stable and energetic overall state of body and mind. It is not simply not getting sick or injured, but paying attention to whether the various components of the human body work well together.
* * Treat the body with spirit.
Case: Social Support and Survival Time of Cancer Patients
Eighty-six patients with disseminated breast cancer were treated with conventional drugs, 50 of whom were used as experimental group. Members of the experimental group must also participate in weekly group support therapy for one year. These patients get together to discuss all the problems they encounter after cancer and their coping experiences. At the same time, they also have the opportunity to express their fears and other strong emotions and get such an accepted environment.
During the recent 10 years of follow-up, all the subjects except three died, but there was still a significant difference in survival time between the group receiving psychotherapy and the group receiving only drug treatment. The average survival time of the participants was 36.6 months, while that of the control group was only 18.9 months. The findings in this well-controlled experiment show that psychotherapy can affect the disease process and prolong life (Spiegel et al., 1989).
* * The health benefits of emotional catharsis
Case: 72 adults with rheumatoid arthritis participated in this study. This disease can lead to chronic inflammation of peripheral joints, accompanied by pain and disability. The researchers hypothesized that emotional catharsis can help relieve the stress related to diseases, thus alleviating some daily functional problems. Half of the patients were assigned to the catharsis group, and spent 15 minutes every day for four consecutive days talking to the tape recorder about their deepest feelings and stressful life events around them. The control group spent the same time on the neutral task of describing the color landscape. In a short time, the patients in the catharsis group were earlier-because the task triggered a lot of negative emotions. However, after 3 months of treatment, compared with the control group, members of the laxative group continued to experience fewer physiological dysfunction-fewer problems, for example, when walking and bending (Kelley et al., 1997). For the patients in the catharsis group, a relatively simple emotional release on the tape recorder can bring considerable improvement to the function.
A toast to your health.
? Set goals to organize your life healthily. The following nine steps can bring more happiness and better mental health. They can be used as a guide to encourage you to live a more active life and create a more positive psychological environment for yourself and others.
The following steps can be implemented within one year:
1. Never speak ill of you. Look for the root of unhappiness, and you can change it by taking action in the future. Only give yourself and others constructive criticism-what should you do differently next time to get what you want?
Compare your reactions, thoughts and feelings with your friends, colleagues, family members and others, so that you can estimate whether your behavior is appropriate and the relationship between your reaction and appropriate social norms.
Make some close friends and share your feelings, happiness and troubles with them. Devote yourself to developing, maintaining and expanding your social support network.
4. Develop the idea of balancing time, so that you can be flexible with your work, environmental requirements and your own needs. Please face the future when you have a job, cherish the present when you reach your goal and be happy, and cherish the past when you contact old friends.
Always have confidence in your success and happiness (and share your positive feelings with others). Have a clear understanding of your unique and distinctive qualities-those you can provide to others.
6. When you feel that you are about to lose control of your emotions, please avoid an unpleasant environment by leaving, or talk to a sympathizer. Please allow yourself to feel and express your emotions.
7. Remember that failure and disappointment are sometimes blessings in disguise. They can tell you that the goal may not be suitable for you; Or save you from further failure and learn from it. After suffering setbacks, every accident, misfortune and setback you have experienced is actually a potential good opportunity, but it has not been shown to people.
8. If you find that you can't get yourself or others out of depression, seek advice from a trained professional in the school or community health department. Some seemingly psychological problems are actually physical problems, while others are just the opposite.
9. Cultivate healthy happiness. Take some time to relax, reflect, collect information, enjoy your hobbies, do some activities that you can be alone, and those that you can do and prefer.
In non-western cultures, the tradition of using psychological factors to influence the spirit has a long history. The biological-psychological-social model of health reflects the biological, psychological and social factors that affect health. Health psychologists are seeking to use psychological techniques to get rid of unhealthy behaviors like smoking. Researchers have also developed complex behavior change programs to fight AIDS. The health psychology method of treatment includes analyzing why people obey or disobey the treatment plan. This study also shows many ways to use psychological power to influence the body. Health care conditions must be carefully planned to ensure that employees will not experience job burnout and continue to serve their patients and customers.
Next chapter: Will thinking about your personality affect your health?
Expression judgment answer
The first line: happy, surprised, angry, disgusted.
The second line: fear, sadness, contempt
Books: Psychology and Life
Translation: Chloe Wang? Wang Su? wait for