Emotions
Emotions: Overview
Emotions are complicated mental states that happen when neurophysiological changes happen in your body. These changes are connected to your thoughts, feelings, and behavioural reactions.
Emotions are transient and typically related to specific events. In contrast, moods, which are more enduring and not directly tied to specific circumstances, set the emotional 'threshold', influencing your overall emotional response.
From a neuroscience perspective, emotions can be described as experiences, either positive or negative, associated with distinct physiological patterns. Emotions encompass a range of components, including subjective experience, cognitive processing, expressive behaviour, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behaviour.
What are emotions for?
Salience
As you explore the world, your brain builds a neural map from what you do and see, learning from what happens and how it happens and weighing risks and benefits. Emotions hep you learn because they tag situations as necessary i.e. salient, and direct your attention to important events or threats.
For example, emotions signal, "Something important is happening!" or they direct your attention towards risks. "That could kill me!" or towards outcomes of actions that matter, for example, "Well, that turned out better than expected! I'll try that again".
Negative emotions
Negative emotions have clearly been important in human evolutionary history and can still be important in some situations today. For instance, fear might keep you from crossing the street in a risky spot or disgust might stop you from eating smelly rotten food.
However, you might need to get help when feelings like anger, sadness, and fear take over and make your day-to-day life difficult for more than a few weeks at a time.
Positive emotions
Positive emotions include feelings such a joy, adoration, wonder or simple happiness. Positive emotions are more than just happy feelings you might chase for short-term joy. They're crucial in your daily life. True, chasing temporary pleasures won't bring lasting happiness, but positive emotions lay the groundwork for those brief yet impactful moments that give life its value.
According to positive psychologist, Barbara Fredrickson, emotions do something else rather special: they open up our world. Instead of making you focus on just a few things, they broaden your perspective, letting you think creatively and act differently. By broadening your perspectives, positive emotions encourage you to play, learn, and gain knowledge and skills, and form relationships.
The Neuroscience of Emotions
The neuroscience of emotions is ever-evolving and contemporary theories of emotions may challenge your long-held beliefs into how the brains construct emotions. Current theories suggest that emotions stem from a complex interplay of physiological states, cognitive processes, and personal experiences, rather than being innate ‘hard-wired’ responses.
The classic theories of emotions
- The James-Lange theory suggested that emotions are the brain's interpretation of physical reactions to stimuli; for instance, fear is recognised from the heart racing upon seeing a snake.
- According to the Cannon-Bard theory, emotional and physiological responses to stimuli, such as fear and a racing heart when seeing a snake, occur simultaneously but are not causally linked.
- The Schachter-Singer theory argued that emotions result from the cognitive interpretation of physiological responses; a racing heart might be labelled as fear in the presence of a snake, depending on context.
- Paul Ekman's research on facial expressions led to the theory that certain emotions are universally expressed and recognised, such as happiness or disgust being identifiable across different cultures.
The contemporary theory of constructed emotions
Neuroscientists Lisa Feldman Barrett and Joseph LeDoux propose two related updated theories of emotions suggesting that emotions are constructed by the brain based on context, past experiences, and cultural influences.
The theory of ‘constructed emotions’ is based on the idea that the brain constructs or even predicts emotions using information from the following sources:
- the body's physiological state
- external circumstances and context
- an individual's unique experiences, cultural standards, and personal beliefs
This predictive ability underlies perception, decision-making, and even creativity, shaping your understanding of consciousness and cognition. The theory discredits the notion that emotions are pre-programmed or ‘hard-wired’ responses. Instead, they’re actively generated by the brain in the same way your thoughts and behaviours are.
Interoception: Your Internal Sense
Interoception is your body's sense of its internal state. It's the system that picks up on data about hunger, breathing, heart rate, temperature, and feelings of pain or discomfort.
Interoception is an important part of keeping your body and emotions in balance. According to the theory of constructed emotions, our brains don't just respond to these messages from within; they also anticipate and regulate our bodies so that they work with your goals and the needs of others.
Interoceptive signals can be biochemical (e.g. pH or hormone levels) , mechanical (e.g. pressure), or electromagnetic (e.g. heat). Once perceived by various receptors, the vagus nerve and spinal cord sensory neurons transmit signals to the brain. In the brain the insula cortex interprets the various interoceptive cues from inside our bodies to shape our emotions and internal world.
Interoception and Emotional Equilibrium
Interoception, our internal monitoring mechanism, maintains emotional equilibrium by monitoring your physiological state (a process known as homoeostasis). For example, when your homoeostatic balance is disrupted by hunger, thirst, tiredness or discomfort, you’re more likely to construct negative emotions, or feel these sensations as something to be dealt with (by eating, drinking water, resting and so on).
Your brain is wired to prioritise balance or homeostatic. Negative emotions or discomfort thus encourage us to eat when hungry or rest when exhausted and restore balance.
Interoceptive dysfunction, when the body's signals are misread, can cause persistent negative emotions or inappropriate emotional reactions, as in irritable bowel syndrome.
A well-calibrated interoceptive system is essential for your physical health and emotional stability.
Are Emotions Hard-Wired or Learned?
The theory of constructed emotions suggests that emotions are not biological responses that are hard-wired into our brains from birth, but rather experiences that we learn. This idea goes against the idea that emotions are pre-programmed. Instead, it says that our emotions are affected by our experiences, the people we meet, and the world we inhabit.
Learning language is an important part of this process from infancy throughout childhood. Words and ideas that children (usually from their parents and other caregivers) combine with sensory information to make them experience a range of feelings. The language (‘emotion word’) framework helps us name and describe our events and teaches us the ‘scripts’ of how to act emotionally as we grow up.
Even complex emotions, such as schadenfreude—the pleasure derived from another's misfortune—are built upon this emotion learning framework. Prior to knowing the word our brains (not just those of German speakers!) engaged in a strenuous process to conceptualise the experience it describes.
Thus, expanding our emotional vocabulary in adulthood could lead to a more nuanced and rich emotional life.
Additional Strategies for Understanding Emotions
Expand Your Emotional Vocabulary
Having a rich emotional vocabulary is linked to better mental health. As we grow, our emotional vocabulary can expand, providing us with a nuanced understanding of our feelings.
Tools like the Emotion Wheel, “How we feel” app, the Positive Lexicography Project, and even creating your own words can help in this endeavour!
When our brain formulates an emotion, it contemplates information from our body state and the context, attaching a specific label to that feeling. It’s intriguing to reflect upon the words we regularly employ to describe our emotions.
How rich is your emotional vocabulary?
Cultivate Positive Emotional Experiences
Recall a time you felt truly joyful or content.
Remembering or cultivating such positive emotional experiences triggers a virtuous cycle. Increased well-being leads to more positive emotions, which fosters higher resilience, looping back to elevated well-being.
So, pondering on this, what were your three most positive moments or experiences in the past month? And crucially, which positive emotions can you leverage?
Practice Gratitude
It's no secret—practising gratitude escalates positive emotions and fortifies relationships. Regularly expressing gratitude can nurture a more optimistic and resilient mindset, aiding you in navigating challenging circumstances.
How do you practise gratitude in your daily life?
Buffer Stress
Cortisol and adrenaline increase arousal and alertness, improving memory and attention. Moderate stress can motivate, but prolonged or extreme stress can disrupt the balance and cause harm.
How does excessive stress affect your health? When stress levels rise, negative emotions rise and happy ones fall, affecting our ability to control emotions.
When stressful life events exceed your ability to copy, what do you do?
Build Agency and Resilience
Establishing a robust sense of agency and self-efficacy boosts resilience. It enhances your capability to adapt, overcome hurdles, and nurtures a positive mindset conducive to growth.
Consider this—how much time and energy do you allocate to concerns outside of your control? And, looking ahead, how will your current worries affect you a year from now?
Prioritise Self-Care
Identifying activities and practices that aid relaxation and recharge is fundamental. It might be a tranquil walk in the park, a rejuvenating yoga session, or immersing in a captivating book.
How do you make self-care a priority?
Shift from 'Me' to 'We'
Lastly, try to shift your focus from ‘me’ to ‘we’.
Integrating social connections into our lives is invaluable. Social support augments motivation and goal setting by positively impacting self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and goal commitment. This, in turn, enhances performance and elevates the probability of success.
How do you weave social connections into the tapestry of your life?
You can learn more in the Neuro Nudges pages on Relationships.
Relevance to coaching practice
Coaches will find it useful to understand the neurobiology of emotion because it gives them a scientific lens through which to understand and regulate emotions. This information helps to make it clearer that emotions are not just hard-wired stereotypical reactions, but are also made by how the brain interprets sensory information.
Furthermore, understanding the physiology of interoception - the sense of the internal state of the body - is useful. Coaches equipped with this knowledge can help clients become more attuned to their bodily signals, enhancing their emotional awareness and regulation. They can also apply what they've learned to their own work and personal life.
When coaches understand the neuroscience, they can help their clients better recognise, understand, and control their emotions. This information is very helpful for making personalised plans that deal with each person's unique emotional patterns and reactions, which makes coaching interventions more effective overall.
Emotions: Summary
Exploring the complexities of emotions and learning to regulate them can be a game-changer for personal development, whether you're a coach or just interested in the human mind.
The Neuro Nudges team wish you all the best!
Recommended Resources
Books
- Barrett, L.F (2017). How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Pan Books
- Brown, B (2022). Atlas of the Heart. Vermilion.
- David, S.(2016). Emotional Agility. Avery Publishing Group.
- Dent, S (2022). An Emotional Dictionary - Real Words for How You Feel. John Murray.
- LeDoux, J (2015). Anxious. Using the brain to understand and treat fear and anxiety. Penguin.
- Hari, J (2018). Lost Connections. Uncovering the real causes of depression - and the unexpected solutions. Bloomsbury Circus.
- Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score - Brain, Mind and Body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Publishing Group.
Podcasts & Video
- Brown, B. (2023). Brene Brown with Susan David: The Dangers of Toxic Positivity. [Audio podcast].
- Feldman Barrett, L. (2017) You aren't at the mercy of your emotions - your brain creates them. [TED].
- Huberman Lab. (2023). Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett: How to Understand Emotions [Audio podcast].
Other Resources
- Ackerman, C. (2018). What Are Positive Emotions in Psychology? (+List & Examples). Positive Psychology.
- Hodder’s Emotion and Feeling Wheel
- “How we feel” App
- Karimova, H. (2017). The Emotion Wheel. What it is and how to use it. Positive Psychology.
- Lomas, T. The Positive Lexicography Project.
- Mac, B. (2002). Developing imagery skills: A step-by-step guide to creating visualization.
- Riders and Elephants Emotional Culture Deck
- Pursuit of Happiness Resources
Academic
- Barker et al. (2021). What is Interoception and Why is it Important? Front. Young Minds. 9:558246. doi: 10.3389/frym.2021.558246
- Chen et al. The Emerging Science of Interoception: Sensing, Integrating, Interpreting, and Regulating Signals within the Self. Chen et al. TINS ;44(1):3-16. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2020.10.007
- Fredrickson, B. (2003). The Value of Positive Emotions. The emerging science of positive psychology is coming to understand why it’s good to feel good. American Scientist, 91: 330.
- On the nature of fear. Scientific American discussion between neuroscientists including Barrett & Le Doux. 2019.
- Vinograd & Craske. (2020) Using Neuroscience to Augment Behavioral Interventions for Depression. Harvard Rev Psychiatry. Volume 28 • Number 1
Links to the other neuroscience resources pages
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