What are the misunderstandings about emotions?

Emotion can be said to be an evolutionary tool of self-defense and has its positive self-protection function. But many of us have some basic misunderstandings about our most familiar emotions.

First of all, we believe that our emotions lead to our behavior. For example, in our understanding, we are angry because of anger, smile because of pleasure, and cry because of sadness. However, according to James' emotional theory, our actions often lead to or tend to aggravate or alleviate some of our emotions, which has been supported by many psychologists and confirmed by many later theories. Therefore, according to this view, our smile will increase our happy emotional experience, crying will increase our sad emotional experience, and anger will increase our angry emotional experience. At the same time, if we give ourselves a smile when we are sad, it will also reduce the emotional experience of sadness, while maintaining a serious expression when we are happy will also reduce the emotional experience of pleasure. This relationship between emotion and expression is also called facial expression feedback theory.

Second, we think it's good to live or die without getting angry. Not only do we not offend or hurt others, but we can also smooth our temper. This idea is wrong to some extent. If our cognition of something hasn't changed, that kind of angry emotional experience will still exist, which is harmful to our physical and mental health. Because you are not angry, it doesn't mean that your emotional experience disappears, but you suppress it, which will do harm to your mental health for a long time. Due to the close relationship between physiology and psychology, this kind of emotional depression may even lead to some diseases. So emotions can't be suppressed and controlled properly.