Emotions

EMOTIONS [syn. feelings (Gefühle), affectivity (see Affect)], subjective experience of pleasure, enjoyment (positive E.) or displeasure and suffering (negative E.) under the influence of external irritation on the organism (sensations) or representations. E. together with intellect and will constitute the basic triad of psychological processes of classical psychology. Wundt, besides the usual antithesis pleasure-displeasure, counts two more pairs of basic E.: tension (e.g. in anticipation)-relief and excitation-calm, Schopenhauer believed that what is actually real in the realm of E. is only 'suffering', while pleasure is not an independent element of psychic life, but only the cessation or absence of suffering. Most psychologists deny this, however, even Wundt, for example, recognizes that suffering generally has a sharper character and exerts a stronger influence on behavior. Some psychologists (Lipps, Wundt, James) believe that pleasures and displeasures can in themselves have different qualities and shades (e.g. a headache has a different character than a toothache; there can be cutting, stabbing, drilling pains, etc.), but others (Fechner, Ebbinghaus, Külpe, Titchener) think that both suffering and pleasures are always identical in quality and have only different degrees of strength, intensity. Their difference is explained by the difference of the sensations and representations themselves, not by the nature of the emotion. The classification of varieties of E. is reduced to the classification of sensations with which E. are combined, i.e. taste, olfactory-'lower' or 'primary' E. (sinnliche Gefühle of Wundt) and 'higher', connected with higher, reproduced cognitive elements. At the same time, the concept of higher E. includes not only the E. as such, but combinations of representation and E., e.g. love as a combination of the representation of a certain person and pleasure, envy-representation of another person's success with the feeling of displeasure, etc. Besides lower and higher E., as special varieties of emotional states, three categories of psychic phenomena are usually mentioned: affects, moods, and passions. By affect is meant 'the sudden appearance of such strong E. that they displace all other content of consciousness' (Jodl), 'by which the normal course of psychic life and the free combination of cognitive processes is disturbed' (Höffding). By passions are meant directions of E. that have become rooted through habit and usually dominate. Mood is defined in opposition to affects as not acute, stormy, but uniform, diffuse, chronic emotional state. The general, characteristic for a given individual, setting of emotional life (tempo, tone) is called temperament (see). The modern concept of E. developed far from immediately. Ancient philosophy (Plato, Aristotle), as well as Locke, Leibniz, Hegel, considered E. as some kind of activity of cognition, only Kant singled out E. as a special class of psychic phenomena alongside intellect and will. While emphasizing the inseparable connection of cognitive and emotional aspects in one psychic phenomenon, he however pointed out that they cannot be confused and that they are equally primary. E., according to Kant, 'is that subjective in a certain representation that by no means can be a component of cognition-this is the pleasure or displeasure connected with it' ('Critique of Judgment'). A protest against the metaphysical theories, which considered E. 'as some eternal, inviolable psychic entity' (James), was the widely spread and to this day theory of emotion of James-Lange (1884-1887). According to James: 'E. devoid of bodily substratum is an empty sound', 'E. as an extraspatial mental process is a fiction'. The very idea that E. represent a psychic phenomenon conditioned by physiological excitation of the organism existed even before James. Descartes, Malebranche, most 17th century rationalists considered E. as a vague consciousness of the corresponding physiological excitation. Even Kant drew attention to the fact that E. are connected with organic sensations and are localized in the organism (in the heart, chest, viscera) and divided E. into sthenic, connected with increased activity of the organism, and asthenic, connected with its decrease. James and Lange only emphasized this idea in their aphorism: 'We are sad because we cry, are brought to anger because we strike another, fear because we tremble'. Physiological research at the present time has fully established the connection of E. with changes in vegetative innervation, changes in blood circulation, respiration, changes in electrical conductivity, muscle tone (precise research of Veragut, Sommer, Levenstein, etc.), in recent years especially the change in internal secretion during E. is noted (Cannon and others). However, the theory of James-Lange by no means can be considered correct. James stood on the point of view of psycho-physical parallelism: 'whatever the physiological conditions of the formation of our E. may be,' he writes, 'in themselves, as psychic phenomena, they must remain what they are...', i.e. a psychic phenomenon as such, independent and only parallel to physical phenomena. James separated reflexes from consciousness, did not understand how with the historical development of consciousness the essence of E. also changes, higher E. for him were only 'a pale, weak image of what was once an emotion'. A correct understanding of E., their changes and development is impossible without understanding the historical development of the organism, the historical development of consciousness. Arising on the soil of biochemical reactivity of lower organisms-tropisms, E. received their expressed form only at the highest stages of development. If in the area of so-called general feelings, which are created from diffuse, little localized internal and external sensations of the whole body (sensitivity to touch, muscular sensation, sensation of temperature and pain), sensation and feeling still appear as undifferentiated experiences, so that in colloquial speech they are used equally, then at higher stages, at the stage of development of complex reacting in the form of instincts (see), sensation and affect can already be considered as really separate in experience. Coming into contact with human consciousness, E. have different depths, sometimes touching perception (pain, warmth, cold, taste-sinnliche Gefühle), vital sensations and reflexes (hunger, thirst, sexual feeling-Vitalgefühle), then intertwining with different areas of higher conscious behavior (higher E.: aesthetic, moral, etc.). Higher E. in their content are closely connected with the concrete historical consciousness of man. 'For us morality, taken outside of human society, does not exist; this is a deception,' says Lenin. 'The moral sphere belongs to human history, is a historical product,' says Marx. And just as the classification of E., common to all animals, developed in the era of life of instincts, is best achieved in connection with understanding the biological significance of these instincts (McDougall: instinct of flight-E. of fear; sexual instinct-E. of coquetry; parental instinct-E. of tenderness, friendship, etc.), so higher E. can be understood only in connection with the peculiarities of the development of socio-economic life, socially-labor and class activity. Anat.-physiol. apparatuses of E. at the present time are represented mainly in such a form (theory of Hidd and L. R. Müller): all sensory paths going from the periphery to the brain enter the thalamus, from where centripetal paths of individual sensations go to various projection fields of the cerebral cortex. The thalamus is located next to the motor centers of the striatum (striatum, pallidum). The thalamus is assigned the basic significance in the physiology of E. Together with the striatal centers and centers of the autonomic nervous system, also located close to the thalamus in the intermediate brain, a kind of reflex arc is formed for viscer-emotional, instinctive and pantomimic acts. Thalamo-striatal arcs through their associated psychomotor functions of reflex-instinctive character, without giving an image of perception, give rise to organic settings and emotional experiences. Thus, contrary to James-Lange, bodily expression of E. is a consequence of brain activity. In the dorsal part of the peduncle and pons (cap), there pass paths connecting the thalamus and striatum with the cerebral cortex. Destruction of cortical centers or cortico-thalamic fibers, 'untying' the activity of the thalamus and striatal bodies, causes a reflex disharmonious flash of bodily emotional manifestations, while destruction of the fibers of this same system below the thalamus causes cessation of automatic mimicry. Considering the evolution of E. as psychic activity, we see that at the lowest stage of development, before consciousness, E. are the main agency contributing to the biological adaptation of animals to the environment. Not representing themselves as incipient actions, E., showing subjectively the degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the organism's vital needs, contribute to changing the direction of instincts.

For psychic life, the simplest emotions have the same significance as changes in position and the subsequent statokinetic reflexes (see Magnus-Klein reflexes) have for complex movements; they direct the life of drives along the path developed by the evolution of history. In primitive life, the expression of emotions and instinctive behavior are still little differentiated, but even here emotional life does not appear as simplified as the psycho-physiological theory of James-Lange depicts it. An animal simultaneously experiences numerous sensations colored with different emotional tones, and these psychic states merge into a single, qualitatively unique unity that, together with sensations-perceptions and instincts, directs all the animal's behavior. In further development, reasoning consciousness grows above emotions, which in humans is a reflection of his socio-economic being; emotions intertwine with cognitive processes, motor manifestations are delayed, and are connected with consciousness, just as rudiments of instinctive movements remain only as mimetic, expressive movements. When included in the process of the complex development of human psychic life, emotions cease to be treated as psychological states primarily connected with biological processes. Changing social relations and the associated changes in the influence and role of labor can give rise to completely new complexes of emotions, previously unknown. The influence of emotions on the course of ideas consists in that they raise the biological tone, promote the emergence of all associations corresponding to a given experience, and suppress all opposite ones. Under the influence of positive emotions, work becomes more lively, while under the influence of negative ones it slows down and causes fatigue. The emotional factor is the ferment without which no creativity is possible. 'Without human emotions there never was and cannot be human search for truth,' says Lenin (review of Rubakin's book). Similarly, Marx speaks of the 'igniting passion' that transforms in humans into 'interest.' At the same time, it should be emphasized that it is not emotions, but human consciousness that determines his behavior.