Emotions by Iryna S. Palamarchuk

Understanding the Inner World

We all have a dynamic experience of emotions such as enjoyment, fear, anger, disgust or sadness. One may think that unlike the mind, emotions are irrational entities that happen to us as a mere reflex triggered by someone or something. This is a classical view that portrays some inner Emotional Beast: emotional circuits are wired in the brain, i.e., Lizard-Wizard brain. To tame the beast, Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud founded a psychoanalysis. To spot the beast, American psychologist, Paul Ekman revealed microexpressions, which inspired the TV series "Lie to Me".

“Emotions are a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is occurring, and a set of psychological changes and emotional behaviors begins to deal with the situation." ~ Paul Ekman

The keywords are 'appraisal' & 'personal past'. In other words, our emotions are the offsprings of our thinking. It is the very same Wizard-brain who creates emotions out of the body's basic senses (i.e., arousal & valence). The Wizard spices up the sensations with your concepts (derived from your past experiences). This is to give the sensations some meaning (automatic appraisal) to swiftly prepare you to act. Here I love the quotes below by a Canadian psychologist & neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett, distinguished for her theory of constructed emotion:

"[... ] your emotions are not built-in but made from more basic parts. They are not universal, but vary from culture to culture. They are not triggered; you create them. They emerge as a combination of the physical properties of your body, a flexible brain that wires itself to whatever environment it develops in, and your culture and upbringing, which provide that environment."

Thus, I may say that our emotions simply mirror our mindset: we are the Masters of our inner world, and each emotion is our both creation & apprentice.

"In constructionist theories, for example, it is no longer meaningful to ask what is, and what is not, an emotion. You don’t “have” emotions, “display” emotions or “recognize” them. You construct emotions as experiences or perceptions – they emerge from complex dynamics within your nervous system which is constantly in dynamic interaction with the surrounding context that usually includes other creatures, each of whom has a dynamically fluctuating nervous system. [...] Whatever you call them, emotional phenomena can be understood as events within a nervous system that continuously transitions from one state to another, described by low dimensional features (such as valence, arousal, and various appraisal dimensions)." ~ Lisa Feldman Barrett

Emotions help us to detect important events instantly without thinking, on the subconscious level:

• AROUSAL: The locus coeruleus, subcortical structure, helps with automatic scanning environment.
• VALENCE/LIZARD: When a salient stimulus is detected, another subcortical structure activates, the amygdala, to process the input & learn what's dangerous (i.e., the acquisition and expression of conditioned fear, including empathic concern).
• APPRAISAL/WIZARD: Next, the amygdala 'calls 911', the prefrontal cortex (related to the executive functions).

Like an inner GPS, emotions not only provide us with positioning (the positive and negative coordinates) but also timing (up-to-date) and navigation (affecting decision-making) services. Let's have a closer look at some of them:

Fear relates to the thinking/perception that we cannot control the challenge.

Outcomes: hesitating, avoiding, freezing or withdrawing.

The fear can be learned and, hence, the danger can be anticipated (i.e., anticipatory anxiety).

Pros: lesser risk-taking due to more cautious appraisals.

Cons: fear can lead to bias & attention tunneling that alter memory, thinking & well-being.

In contrast to the fear processing, anger relates to the thinking/perception that we can control the challenge (i.e., a feeling of high individual control).

Pros: anger mobilizes body functions to terminate the burden.

Anger can be minimal (e.g., annoyance or frustration) or culminated in fury. Initially, anger does boost the body with some energy to overcome the challenge. When anger is prolonged, it hinders the prefrontal cortex (decline in cognitive flexibility and rational thinking) and relates to the psychopathy construct.

Cons: (1) a risk for reactive aggression (that can be modulated by empathy); (2) more willingness to take risks although it can be counterbalanced by the emotion-congruent information (i.e., tendency to overweight adverse effects of risky choices); and (3) a risk for psychopathy.

Sadness reduces motivation, depletes energy and immune system.

Pros: lower risk-taking affinities & common judgmental biases.

*especially in those from western countries, e.g., the U.S.

Cons: ruminating, withdrawing or seeking comfort, & depression, which is a risk for cognitive decline.