Hi Devika, thank you for your great question!
To answer the question must first understand what an emotion is. An emotion is a mental and bodily reaction that happens as we process our moods, relationships with others and situations we are in.
For instance, we might get a hug from a friend and we then respond to that experience by thinking we are happy and can also act the emotion out, that is showing we are happy by smiling and hugging our friend back. We have a lot of different emotions such as, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust and anger. When we look at each of these five, we know that these are five of the most common and basic emotions felt by all humans across different cultures. This was why Disney Pixar chose these characters for the movie inside out!
To answer the question must first understand what an emotion is. An emotion is a mental and bodily reaction that happens as we process our moods, relationships with others and situations we are in.
For instance, we might get a hug from a friend and we then respond to that experience by thinking we are happy and can also act the emotion out, that is showing we are happy by smiling and hugging our friend back. We have a lot of different emotions such as, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust and anger. When we look at each of these five, we know that these are five of the most common and basic emotions felt by all humans across different cultures. This was why Disney Pixar chose these characters for the movie inside out!
Of course, there are many other emotions that humans can feel and all of these serve a very important role in our lives. They can help us achieve our goals, get us to run away from a dangerous situation or person or, help us to make relationships with other people.Of course, there are many other emotions that humans can feel and all of these serve a very important role in our lives. They can help us achieve our goals, get us to run away from a dangerous situation or person or, help us to make relationships with other people.
How does our body process our emotions? Scientists currently believe that emotions are regulated in an area of the brain called the ‘amygdala’. The amygdala receives messages from all our senses such as sight, hearing, feel and smell. We even have inputs to the amygdala from other parts of our brain. With all these different inputs from all different areas of our brain and our environment, it is no wonder that emotions are very complicated. Some researchers say that we can be aware or unaware of our emotions! It is currently thought that the amygdala is also where memory and emotions are combined. Have you ever remembered something funny that happened a long time ago and started laughing?
So how do we develop our emotions? Well, it is a mixture of a number of different things but we begin learning at least our five basic emotions from the moment we are born. The most important time for learning is when we are developing as a child. Our family and culture guide us through a set of particular ‘rules’ for how we show and control our emotions. For instance, a culture may not value being open about how we feel with others whereas, another culture sees discussing our emotions as very helpful. As time passes and we age we start to learn more complex emotions. This is done through our different social situations, that is at school, at home or in the community and our different roles and relationships with others, for example being a sibling, a student or a friend. We are constantly learning about our emotions and how to control them over time.
Author
This article was produced by PTW Volunteers Marie Mandicos, Mental Health Worker and Chirag Lodhia, PTW Director
RSS Feed