Question

As you should notice from your readings, emotions have several components. Emotions are typically the result of many components and functions involving both the causes (or origins) of the emotion, and the function or purpose the emotion serves. For this assignment, choose any one emotion and discuss the various components learned in this module as they might apply to you r chosen emotion. Then, discuss the various functions or purposes your chosen emotion might serve. Finally, discuss to what extent your chosen emotion might be automatic, intentional (or controllable), or both.

Answer 1

Emotions prepare us to deal with important events without our having to think about what to do. An emotion has the following defining characteristics:

• There is a feeling, a set of sensations that we experience and

often are aware of.

• An emotional episode can be brief, sometimes lasting only a

few seconds, sometimes much longer. If it lasts for hours, then it is a mood and not an emotion.

• It is about something that matters to the person.

• We experience emotions as happening to us, not chosen by us.

• The appraisal process, in which we are constantly scanning our

environment for those things that matter to us, is usually automatic.

We are not conscious of our appraising, except when it is extended

over time.

• There is a refractory period that initially filters information and

knowledge stored in memory, giving us access only to what supports the emotion we are feeling. The refractory period may last only a few seconds, or it may endure for much longer.

• We become aware of being emotional once the emotion has

begun, when the initial appraisal is complete. Once we become con-

scious that we are in the grip of an emotion, we can reappraise the

situation.

• There are universal emotional themes that reflect our evolu-

tionary history, in addition to many culturally learned variations

that reflect our individual experience. In other words, we become

emotional about matters that were relevant to our ancestors as well

as ones we have found to matter in our own lives.

• The desire to experience or not experience an emotion moti-

vates much of our behavior.

• An efficient signal—clear, rapid, and universal—informs oth-

ers of how the emotional person is feeling.

Let's consider the emotion of 'surprise' . Surprise is the briefest of all the emotions, lasting only a few seconds at most. In a moment surprise passes as we figure out what is happening, and then surprise merges into fear, amusement, relief, anger, disgust, and so forth, depending upon what it was that surprised us, or it may be followed by no emotion at all if we determine that the surprising event was of no consequence.

As any other emotions, we may find components of surprise, it charecteristics causes or origins. Surprise to be felt, the sensory information being processed need to be unexpected of our schemas, either totally unfamiliar that we could not decipher the meaning of it immediately or unexpected in terms of the situation. But does it serve any purpose. If we are to assume that every emotional response has functions, we will have to hypothesis that the brief emotion of surprise might be prepairing our neural network for a quicker evaluation of the event. Certainly this emotion is by defenition itself an automatic one and that cannot be made intentional.