Emotion is not easy to define or describe because it is a description of a series of complex, inter-connected ‘happenings’ in a number of different locations in the body and mind. The task becomes even more awesome when you realize that emotion can be described as either a personal internal experience or as a series of scientifically observable facts.
My final attempt at a definition (in the box) is perhaps still a little too wordy for my own liking, but the examples and details given below should help to bring it to life.
| An emotion is a set sequence of responses automatically triggered by the brain to prepare the body and mind for appropriate action when our senses perceive that something relevant to our well-being is occurring. |
WHY DO WE HAVE EMOTIONS?
The reason which evolutionists have given for the origin of emotion is that, as animals grew in sophistication, their young needed a longer period of parenting to safeguard their survival. The emotional bond between mother and child ensures that both act in ways that will mean that the young are less likely to be abandoned until they are fully capable of surviving by themselves. Interestingly, scientists have found that the brains of the very earliest of animals, the reptiles, are totally devoid of emotional neurons. On birth, baby lizards, I am told, instinctively stay motionless to avoid being instantly eaten by Mum. In contrast, today’s young humans, with their sophisticated emotional brains, seem to know instinctively how to take actions which tug on Mum’s guilt strings to keep her hovering around for a lifetime!
But of course, emotions can do more for us than ensure we get protective bonding with a parent. They also help us to make decisions and act in ways which will sustain other key relationships. As life on earth has progressed, we humans have become faced with more and more choices concerning our means of survival. Emotions may have been designed in part to stop us becoming paralysed by an otherwise overwhelming array of options. For example, it is thought that love and jealousy are the ways nature devised to help us select and stay in a long-term, stable relationship to rear our young when social and geographical mobility greatly extended our choice of mates. Similarly, shame and guilt may have evolved to keep us tied to specific sets of people. Being bound by shared ‘restrictive’ values means that we are more likely to stay working co-operatively while we are completing the kind of complex tasks which modern civilization requires and which cannot be undertaken by lone individuals.
So, in short, the reason we have emotions is to motivate us to take actions which will be beneficial to the maintenance of our well-being and the survival of the human race.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OUR BODIES WHEN WE FEEL AN EMOTION?
Our emotional responses start their lives as soon as one or more of our senses detects that something is happening (either internally or externally) which could have some bearing on our well-being. This ‘perception’ by one or more of our senses sets off a kind of trigger switch in our brain, which then sets in motion a complex chain of physiological changes designed to make us react and act appropriately. For example:
– my eyes see a juicy ripe orange → the weather’s very hot and I’m ‘dying of thirst’, so I feel excited → my mouth waters → my hand moves speedily to grab the orange before anyone else in the crowded room can get to it
The diagram below illustrates the route this feeling response travels as it passes through the different centres in our emotional brain.
Instant Exercise
Think of an emotional response you have had in the last couple of days and imagine its journey from its trigger through to its action.
Now let’s take a more detailed look at information on the two parts of our emotional brain which have most relevance for our emotional confidence – the neocortex and the amygdala.
WHAT IS THE NEOCORTEX AND WHAT EXACTLY DOES IT DO?
This is our sophisticated comprehension centre situated in the limbic system surrounding the stem of the brain. It is made up of a complex set of layers of neural circuitry. It evolved originally from our ancestors’ primitive ‘nose brains’, when smell was the only tool they needed to help them distinguish between what was good and what was bad for them. As humans developed they began to need a more refined sensor, so ever-inventive Mother Nature duly produced the neocortex – commonly known as our ‘thinking brain’.
This amazing piece of grey jelly-like substance has now evolved to such a degree that it provides us with a high-speed analytical decision-making and opinion-forming service. Its intricate web of nerves enables us to feel feelings about an event plus think through ideas about the kind of action we could take in response.
Another of its functions is to enable us to ‘hook’ the emotions of others so they are more likely to give us what we need. For example, we can produce an appealing smile in order to seduce the passions of a fanciable mate, or an angry scowl in order to generate fear in an unwelcome trespasser.
Instant Exercise
Think of an emotional signal you have produced in the last day or so in order to get something you need or want from another person.
WHAT IS THE AMYGDALA AND WHAT IS ITS FUNCTION?
There is another important emotional centre in our brain architecture. It is situated in the pre-frontal lobes, just above the brainstem at the base of the limbic ring – the central terrain of our emotional lives. This centre (known as the amygdala) is also a web of nerves, but it has a much simpler structure. It is, in fact, our original primitive emotional brain. It evolved as a mechanism for getting early humans speedily into fight-or-flight action when danger was sensed. Nowadays it is linked to our thinking centre which, most of the time, controls its activities.
Once a significant event is sensed, our thinking centre analyses it and decides which emotional response is most apt. It then sets off appropriate action in our hormonal and muscular departments to prepare our bodies.
A) our eyes and ears sense a man running towards us who then trips on a banana skin and falls flat on his face
→ our brain thinks about the event and decides pleasure is the appropriate emotional response
→ a signal is sent to activate the production of some endorphins (popularly known as our ‘happy hormones’) which then fuels our muscular system into action to produce a smile, and/or our throat to produce a laugh
B) our eyes and ears sense a man running towards us who is waving his hands to attract our attention
→ our neocortex thinks through the scene and decides that this man could be a nuisance to us and that anxiety is the best response
→ it sends a message to our amygdala, which then activates the pituitary gland to produce a little adrenalin to divert blood from our skin in order to feed our heart and make it pump harder so our muscles have extra energy; we can speed up our pace and cross the road while at the same time screwing our facial muscles into a mildly ‘scary’ scowl