THE EMOTIONS
Feeling and emotion are not to be looked upon as two different _kinds_
of mental processes. In fact, emotion is but _a feeling state of a high
degree of intensity and complexity_. Emotion transcends the simpler
feeling states whenever the exciting cause is sufficient to throw us out
of our regular routine of affective experience. The distinction between
emotion and feeling is a purely arbitrary one, since the difference is
only one of complexity and degree, and many feelings may rise to the
intensity of emotions. A feeling of sadness on hearing of a number of
fatalities in a railway accident may suddenly become an emotion of grief
if we learn that a member of our family is among those killed. A feeling
of gladness may develop into an emotion of joy, or a feeling of
resentment be kindled into an emotion of rage.
1. THE PRODUCING AND EXPRESSING OF EMOTION
Nowhere more than in connection with our emotions are the close
inter-relations of mind and body seen. All are familiar with the fact
that the emotion of anger tends to find expression in the blow, love in
the caress, fear in flight, and so on. But just how our organism acts in
_producing_ an emotion is less generally understood. Professor James and
Professor Lange have shown us that emotion not only tends to produce
some characteristic form of response, but that _the emotion is itself
caused by certain deep-seated physiological reactions_. Let us seek to
understand this statement a little more fully.
PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF EMOTION.--We must remember first of all
that _all_ changes in mental states are accompanied by corresponding
physiological changes. Hard, concentrated thinking quickens the heart
beat; keen attention is accompanied by muscular tension; certain sights
or sounds increase the rate of breathing; offensive odors produce
nausea, and so on. So complete and perfect is the response of our
physical organism to mental changes that one psychologist declares it
possible, had we sufficiently delicate apparatus, to measure the
reactions caused throughout the body of a sleeping child by the shadow
from a passing cloud falling upon the closed eyelids.
The order of the entire event resulting in an emotion is as follows: (1)
Something is _known_; some object enters consciousness coming either
from immediate perception or through memory or imagination. This fact,
or thing known, must be of such nature that it will, (2) set up
deep-seated and characteristic _organic response_; (3) the feeling
_accompanying and caused by these physiological reactions constitutes
the emotion_. For example, we may be passing along the street in a
perfectly calm and equable state of mind, when we come upon a teamster
who is brutally beating an exhausted horse because it is unable to draw
an overloaded wagon up a slippery incline. The facts grasped as we take
in the situation constitute the _first_ element in an emotional response
developing in our consciousness. But instantly our muscles begin to grow
tense, the heart beat and breath quicken, the face takes on a different
expression, the hands clench--the entire organism is reacting to the
disturbing situation; the _second_ factor in the rising emotion, the
physiological response, thus appears. Along with our apprehension of the
cruelty and the organic disturbances which result we feel waves of
indignation and anger surging through us. This is the _third_ factor in
the emotional event, or the emotion itself. In some such way as this are
all of our emotions aroused.
ORIGIN OF CHARACTERISTIC EMOTIONAL REACTIONS.--Why do certain facts or
objects of consciousness always cause certain characteristic organic
responses?
In order to solve this problem we shall have first to go beyond the
individual and appeal to the history of the race. What the race has
found serviceable, the individual repeats. But even then it is hard to
see why the particular type of physical response such as shrinking,
pallor, and trembling, which naturally follow stimuli threatening harm,
should be the best. It is easy to see, however, that the feeling which
prompts to flight or serves to deter from harm's way might be useful. It
is plain that there is an advantage in the tense muscle, the set teeth,
the held breath, and the quickened pulse which accompany the emotion of
anger, and also in the feeling of anger itself, which prompts to the
conflict. But even if we are not able in every case to determine at this
day why all the instinctive responses and their correlate of feeling
were the best for the life of the race, we may be sure that such was the
case; for Nature is inexorable in her dictates that only that shall
persist which has proved serviceable in the largest number of cases.
An interesting question arises at this point as to why we feel emotion
accompanying some of our motor responses, and not others. Perceptions
are crowding in upon us hour after hour; memory, thought, and
imagination are in constant play; and a continuous motor discharge
results each moment in physical expressions great or small. Yet, in
spite of these facts, feeling which is strong enough to rise to an
emotion is only an occasional thing. If emotion accompanies any form of
physical expression, why not all? Let us see whether we can discover any
reason. One day I saw a boy leading a dog along the street. All at once
the dog slipped the string over its head and ran away. The boy stood
looking after the dog for a moment, and then burst into a fit of rage.
What all had happened? The moment before the dog broke away everything
was running smoothly in the experience of the boy. There was no
obstruction to his thought or his plans. Then in an instant the
situation changes. The smooth flow of experience is checked and baffled.
The discharge of nerve currents which meant thought, plans, action, is
blocked. A crisis has arisen which requires readjustment. The nerve
currents must flow in new directions, giving new thought, new plans, new
activities--the dog must be recaptured. It is in connection with this
damming up of nerve currents from following their wonted channels that
the emotion emerges. Or, putting it into mental terms, the emotion
occurs when the ordinary current of our thought is violently
disturbed--when we meet with some crisis which necessitates a
readjustment of our thought relations and plans, either temporarily or
permanently.
THE DURATION OF AN EMOTION.--If the required readjustment is but
temporary, then the emotion is short-lived, while if the readjustment is
necessarily of longer duration, the emotion also will live longer. The
fear which follows the thunder is relatively brief; for the shock is
gone in a moment, and our thought is but temporarily disturbed. If the
impending danger is one that persists, however, as of some secret
assassin threatening our life, the fear also will persist. The grief of
a child over the loss of someone dear to him is comparatively short,
because the current of the child's life has not been so closely bound up
in a complexity of experiences with the lost object as in the case of an
older person, and hence the readjustment is easier. The grief of an
adult over the loss of a very dear friend lasts long, for the object
grieved over has so become a part of the bereaved one's experience that
the loss requires a very complete readjustment of the whole life. In
either case, however, as this readjustment is accomplished the emotion
gradually fades away.
EMOTIONS ACCOMPANYING CRISES IN EXPERIENCE.--If our description of the
feelings has been correct, it will be seen that the simpler and milder
feelings are for the common run of our everyday experience; they are the
common valuers of our thought and acts from hour to hour. The emotions,
or more intense feeling states, are, however, the occasional high tide
of feeling which occurs in crises or emergencies. We are angry on some
particular provocation, we fear some extraordinary factor in our
environment, we are joyful over some unusual good fortune.
2. THE CONTROL OF EMOTIONS
DEPENDENCE ON EXPRESSION.--Since all emotions rest upon some form of
physical or physiological expression primarily, and upon some thought
back of this secondarily, it follows that the first step in controlling
an emotion is to secure _the removal of the state of consciousness_
which serves as its basis. This may be done, for instance, with a child,
either by banishing the terrifying dog from his presence, or by
convincing him that the dog is harmless. The motor response will then
cease, and the emotion pass away. If the thought is persistent, however,
through the continuance of its stimulus, then what remains is to seek to
control the physical expression, and in that way suppress the emotion.
If, instead of the knit brow, the tense muscles, the quickened heart
beat, and all the deeper organic changes which go along with these, we
can keep a smile on the face, the muscles relaxed, the heart beat
steady, and a normal condition in all the other organs, we shall have no
cause to fear an explosion of anger. If we are afraid of mice and feel
an almost irresistible tendency to mount a chair every time we see a
mouse, we can do wonders in suppressing the fear by resolutely refusing
to give expression to these tendencies. Inhibition of the expression
inevitably means the death of the emotion.
This fact has its bad side as well as its good in the feeling life, for
it means that good emotions as well as bad will fade out if we fail to
allow them expression. We are all perfectly familiar with the fact in
our own experience that an interest which does not find means of
expression soon passes away. Sympathy unexpressed ere long passes over
into indifference. Even love cannot live without expression. Religious
emotion which does not go out in deeds of service cannot persist. The
natural end and aim of our emotions is to serve as motives to activity;
and missing this opportunity, they have not only failed in their office,
but will themselves die of inaction.
RELIEF THROUGH EXPRESSION.--Emotional states not only have their rise
in organic reactions, but they also tend to result in acts. When we are
angry, or in love, or in fear, we have the impulse _to do something
about it_. And, while it is true that emotion may be inhibited by
suppressing the physical expressions on which it is founded, so may a
state of emotional tension be relieved by some forms of expression. None
have failed to experience the relief which comes to the overcharged
nervous system from a good cry. There is no sorrow so bitter as a dry
sorrow, when one cannot weep. A state of anger or annoyance is relieved
by an explosion of some kind, whether in a blow or its equivalent in
speech. We often feel better when we have told a man "what we think of
him."
At first glance this all seems opposed to what we have been laying down
as the explanation of emotion. Yet it is not so if we look well into the
case. We have already seen that emotion occurs when there is a blocking
of the usual pathways of discharge for the nerve currents, which must
then seek new outlets, and thus result in the setting up of new motor
responses. In the case of grief, for example, there is a disturbance in
the whole organism; the heart beat is deranged, the blood pressure
diminished, and the nerve tone lowered. What is needed is for the
currents which are finding an outlet in directions resulting in these
particular responses to find a pathway of discharge which will not
produce such deep-seated results. This may be found in crying. The
energy thus expended is diverted from producing internal disturbances.
Likewise, the explosion in anger may serve to restore the equilibrium of
disturbed nerve currents.
RELIEF DOES NOT FOLLOW IF IMAGE IS HELD BEFORE THE MIND.--All this is
true, however, only when the expression does not serve to keep the idea
before the mind which was originally responsible for the emotion. A
person may work himself into a passion of anger by beginning to talk
about an insult and, as he grows increasingly violent, bringing the
situation more and more sharply into his consciousness. The effect of
terrifying images is easily to be observed in the case of one's starting
to run when he is afraid after night. There is probably no doubt that
the running would relieve his fear providing he could do it and not
picture the threatening something as pursuing him. But, with his
imagination conjuring up dire images of frightful catastrophes at every
step, all control is lost and fresh waves of terror surge over the
shrinking soul.
GROWING TENDENCY TOWARD EMOTIONAL CONTROL.--Among civilized peoples
there is a constantly growing tendency toward emotional control.
Primitive races express grief, joy, fear, or anger much more freely than
do civilized races. This does not mean that primitive man feels more
deeply than civilized man; for, as we have already seen, the crying,
laughing, or blustering is but a small part of the whole physical
expression, and one's entire organism may be stirred to its depths
without any of these outward manifestations. Man has found it advisable
as he has advanced in civilization not to reveal all he feels to those
around him. The face, which is the most expressive part of the body, has
come to be under such perfect control that it is hard to read through it
the emotional state, although the face of civilized man is capable of
expressing far more than is that of the savage. The same difference is
observable between the child and the adult. The child reveals each
passing shade of emotion through his expression, while the adult may
feel much that he does not show.
3. CULTIVATION OF THE EMOTIONS
There is no other mental factor which has more to do with the enjoyment
we get out of life than our feelings and emotions.
THE EMOTIONS AND ENJOYMENT.--Few of us would care to live at all, if all
feeling were eliminated from human experience. True, feeling often makes
us suffer; but in so far as life's joys triumph over its woes, do our
feelings minister to our enjoyment. Without sympathy, love, and
appreciation, life would be barren indeed. Moreover, it is only through
our own emotional experience that we are able to interpret the feeling
side of the lives about us. Failing in this, we miss one of the most
significant phases of social experience, and are left with our own
sympathies undeveloped and our life by so much impoverished.
The interpretation of the subtler emotions of those about us is in no
small degree an art. The human face and form present a constantly
changing panorama of the soul's feeling states to those who can read
their signs. The ability to read the finer feelings, which reveal
themselves in expression too delicate to be read by the eye of the gross
or unsympathetic observer, lies at the basis of all fine interpretation
of personality. Feelings are often too deep for outward expression, and
we are slow to reveal our deepest selves to those who cannot appreciate
and understand them.
HOW EMOTIONS DEVELOP.--Emotions are to be cultivated as the intellect or
the muscles are to be cultivated; namely, through proper exercise. Our
thought is to dwell on those things to which proper emotions attach, and
to shun lines which would suggest emotions of an undesirable type.
Emotions which are to be developed must, as has already been said, find
expression; we must act in response to their leadings, else they become
but idle vaporings. If love prompts us to say a kind word to a suffering
fellow mortal, the word must be spoken or the feeling itself fades away.
On the other hand, the emotions which we wish to suppress are to be
refused expression. The unkind and cutting word is to be left unsaid
when we are angry, and the fear of things which are harmless left
unexpressed and thereby doomed to die.
THE EMOTIONAL FACTOR IN OUR ENVIRONMENT.--Much material for the
cultivation of our emotions lies in the everyday life all about us if we
can but interpret it. Few indeed of those whom we meet daily but are
hungering for appreciation and sympathy. Lovable traits exist in every
character, and will reveal themselves to the one who looks for them.
Miscarriages of justice abound on all sides, and demand our indignation
and wrath and the effort to right the wrong. Evil always exists to be
hated and suppressed, and dangers to be feared and avoided. Human life
and the movement of human affairs constantly appeal to the feeling side
of our nature if we understand at all what life and action mean.
A certain blindness exists in many people, however, which makes our own
little joys, or sorrows, or fears the most remarkable ones in the world,
and keeps us from realizing that others may feel as deeply as we. Of
course this self-centered attitude of mind is fatal to any true
cultivation of the emotions. It leads to an emotional life which lacks
not only breadth and depth, but also perspective.
LITERATURE AND THE CULTIVATION OF THE EMOTIONS.--In order to increase
our facility in the interpretation of the emotions through teaching us
what to look for in life and experience, we may go to literature. Here
we find life interpreted for us in the ideal by masters of
interpretation; and, looking through their eyes, we see new depths and
breadths of feeling which we had never before discovered. Indeed,
literature deals far more in the aggregate with the feeling side than
with any other aspect of human life. And it is just this which makes
literature a universal language, for the language of our emotions is
more easily interpreted than that of our reason. The smile, the cry, the
laugh, the frown, the caress, are understood all around the world among
all peoples. They are universal.
There is always this danger to be avoided, however. We may become so
taken up with the overwrought descriptions of the emotions as found in
literature or on the stage that the common humdrum of everyday life
around us seems flat and stale. The interpretation of the writer or the
actor is far beyond what we are able to make for ourselves, so we take
their interpretation rather than trouble ourselves to look in our own
environment for the material which might appeal to our emotions. It is
not rare to find those who easily weep over the woes of an imaginary
person in a book or on the stage unable to feel sympathy for the real
suffering which exists all around them. The story is told of a lady at
the theater who wept over the suffering of the hero in the play; and at
the moment she was shedding the unnecessary tears, her own coachman,
whom she had compelled to wait for her in the street, was frozen to
death. Our seemingly prosaic environment is full of suggestions to the
emotional life, and books and plays should only help to develop in us
the power rightly to respond to these suggestions.
HARM IN EMOTIONAL OVEREXCITEMENT.--Danger may exist also in still
another line; namely, that of emotional overexcitement. There is a great
nervous strain in high emotional tension. Nothing is more exhausting
than a severe fit of anger; it leaves its victim weak and limp. A severe
case of fright often incapacitates one for mental or physical labor for
hours, or it may even result in permanent injury. The whole nervous tone
is distinctly lowered by sorrow, and even excessive joy may be harmful.
In our actual, everyday life, there is little danger from emotional
overexcitement unless it be in the case of fear in children, as was
shown in the discussion on instincts, and in that of grief over the loss
of objects that are dear to us. Most of our childish fears we could just
as well avoid if our elders were wiser in the matter of guarding us
against those that are unnecessary. The griefs we cannot hope to escape,
although we can do much to control them. Long-continued emotional
excitement, unless it is followed by corresponding activity, gives us
those who weep over the wrongs of humanity, but never do anything to
right them; who are sorry to the point of death over human suffering,
but cannot be induced to lend their aid to its alleviation. We could
very well spare a thousand of those in the world who merely feel, for
one who acts, James tells us.
We should watch, then, that our good feelings do not simply evaporate as
feelings, but that they find some place to apply themselves to
accomplish good; that we do not, like Hamlet, rave over wrongs which
need to be righted, but never bring ourselves to the point where we take
a hand in their righting. If our emotional life is to be rich and deep
in its feeling and effective in its results on our acts and character,
it must find its outlet in deeds.
4. EMOTIONS AS MOTIVES
Emotion is always dynamic, and our feelings constitute our strongest
motives to action and achievement.
HOW OUR EMOTIONS COMPEL US.--Love has often done in the reformation of a
fallen life what strength of will was not able to accomplish; it has
caused dynasties to fall, and has changed the map of nations. Hatred is
a motive hardly less strong. Fear will make savage beasts out of men who
fall under its sway, causing them to trample helpless women and children
under feet, whom in their saner moments they would protect with their
lives. Anger puts out all the light of reason, and prompts peaceful and
well-meaning men to commit murderous acts.
Thus feeling, from the faintest and simplest feeling of interest, the
various ranges of pleasures and pain, the sentiments which underlie all
our lives, and so on to the mighty emotions which grip our lives with an
overpowering strength, constitutes a large part of the motive power
which is constantly urging us on to do and dare. Hence it is important
from this standpoint, also, that we should have the right type of
feelings and emotions well developed, and the undesirable ones
eliminated.
EMOTIONAL HABITS.--Emotion and feeling are partly matters of habit. That
is, we can form emotional as well as other habits, and they are as hard
to break. Anger allowed to run uncontrolled leads into habits of angry
outbursts, while the one who habitually controls his temper finds it
submitting to the habit of remaining within bounds. One may cultivate
the habit of showing his fear on all occasions, or of discouraging its
expression. He may form the habit of jealousy or of confidence. It is
possible even to form the habit of falling in love, or of so
suppressing the tender emotions that love finds little opportunity for
expression.
And here, as elsewhere, habits are formed through performing the acts
upon which the habit rests. If there are emotional habits we are
desirous of forming, what we have to do is to indulge the emotional
expression of the type we desire, and the habit will follow. If we wish
to form the habit of living in a chronic state of the blues, then all we
have to do is to be blue and act blue sufficiently, and this form of
emotional expression will become a part of us. If we desire to form the
habit of living in a happy, cheerful state, we can accomplish this by
encouraging the corresponding expression.
5. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
1. What are the characteristic bodily expressions by which you can
recognize a state of anger? Fear? Jealousy? Hatred? Love? Grief? Do you
know persons who are inclined to be too expressive emotionally? Who show
too little emotional expression? How would you classify yourself in this
respect?
2. Are you naturally responsive to the emotional tone of others; that
is, are you sympathetic? Are you easily affected by reading emotional
books? By emotional plays or other appeals? What is the danger from
overexciting the emotions without giving them a proper outlet in some
practical activity?
3. Have you observed a tendency among adults not to take seriously the
emotions of a child; for example, to look upon childish grief as
trivial, or fear as something to be laughed at? Is the child's emotional
life as real as that of the adult? (See Ch. IX, Betts, "Fathers and
Mothers.")
4. Have you known children to repress their emotions for fear of being
laughed at? Have you known parents or others to remark about childish
love affairs to the children themselves in a light or joking way? Ought
this ever to be done?
5. Note certain children who give way to fits of anger; what is the
remedy? Note other children who cry readily; what would you suggest as a
cure? (Why should ridicule not be used?)
6. Have you observed any teacher using the lesson in literature or
history to cultivate the finer emotions? What emotions have you seen
appealed to by a lesson in nature study? What emotions have you observed
on the playground that needed restraint? Do you think that on the whole
the emotional life of the child receives enough consideration in the
school? In the home?