List of negative human emotions. How to resist negativity?

Classification of feelings

To understand what feelings are, you need to understand by what criteria they can be assessed. Criteria are another basis for classification.

Criteria serve so that experiences can be measured, characterized and called into words, that is, defined.

There are three criteria of feelings:

1. valence (tone);
2. intensity (strength);
3. sthenicity (activity or passivity).

Feelings table No. 1 allows you to characterize any difficult experience:

For example, a person may experience a positive, strong sthenic experience. It could be love. If the intensity of the sensations is weak, it is just sympathy.

The table of feelings, characterizing experiences, does not allow us to name them in words. The name can only be guessed. A person does not always have enough knowledge and experience to decide how to correctly name the emotional excitement he is experiencing. This is not surprising, since there are a lot of them. However, some people cannot name even ten feelings, but this is how many, on average, a person experiences every day.

The third basis for classifying socially determined experiences is depending on the basic emotion.

American psychologist Paul Ekman identified seven basic emotions:

• joy;
• sadness;
• anger;
• fear;
• astonishment;
• disgust;
• contempt.

Table of feelings No. 2 involves searching for the name of the emotional experience being experienced, starting from the first four basic emotions:

The second table of feelings complements the first. By using both of them, you can understand what kind of power has taken over the mind and heart, how to describe and name it. And this is the first right step towards awareness.

What emotions can harm a person?

In addition to the good and pleasant ones, there are also negative ones in a person’s life. This is an unpleasant feeling that you often want to get rid of as quickly as possible. We advise you to find out how positive ones differ from negative ones, which is well described in the publication: https://fb.ru/post/wellness/2016/9/3/7270.

However, sometimes negative ones also contain an important task - to motivate a person to action, to change something in himself or in his life, so as not to experience similar things again. Negative ones include:

• fright;
• anxiety;
• fear;
• disturbance;
• anger;
• shame;
• rage;
• bitterness.

However, emotions are what is on the surface, deeper feelings. They are tested for a long time, sometimes for years and sometimes for decades. And overcoming them can be much more difficult than coping with momentary anxiety.

List of moral, intellectual, aesthetic feelings

To the question: “what are the feelings,” each person can give his own answer. Some people often experience strong and deep experiences, while others experience them mildly and short-lived. The ability to feel depends on the temperament, character, principles, priorities and life experience of the individual.

Most often, feelings are classified depending on the sphere in which the object of experience is located:

• Moral

These are sympathy and antipathy, respect and contempt, affection and alienation, love and hatred, as well as feelings of gratitude, collectivism, friendship and conscience. They arise in relation to the actions of other people or their own.

They are determined by the moral norms accepted in society and acquired by the individual in the process of socialization, as well as his views, beliefs, and worldview. If other people's or one's own actions correspond to moral standards, satisfaction arises; if not, indignation arises.

• Intelligent

A person also has experiences that arise in the process of mental activity or in connection with its result: joy, satisfaction from the process and result of work, discovery, invention. It is also inspiration and bitterness from failure.

• Aesthetic

Emotional excitement arises when perceiving or creating something beautiful. A person experiences incredible sensations when he sees the beauty of the Earth or the power of natural phenomena.

A person feels a sense of beauty when looking at a small child or an adult, harmoniously built person. Beautiful works of art and other human creations can evoke delight and elation.

Since this classification does not reveal the entire palette of feelings, they are usually classified on several other grounds.

Emotions. Concept and their manifestation

Experiencing a whole range of feelings every day, few people think about what definition psychologists give. According to the scientific definition, emotions are a certain mental state of an individual at the moment of experiencing any life situations.

The human daily list of emotions, both positive and negative, is incredibly numerous. A person’s emotional state can be conveyed by his demeanor, posture, voice, gait, facial expressions and even physiological indicators (pressure, pulse, breathing rate).

Most often, it is possible to read a person’s emotions or feelings through facial expressions. The position of the lips, wrinkles, eyebrows and eyes always immediately responds to the felt emotion. So, by too raised eyebrows you can understand that a person is surprised, by the downturned corners of his lips - that he is upset.

How do feelings differ from emotions?

All people experience emotional experiences and worries, but not everyone knows how to name them and express them in words. But it is precisely the knowledge of what feelings there are that helps not only to correctly identify, but also to control and manage them.

Feelings are a set of experiences associated with people, objects or events. They express a subjective evaluative attitude towards real or abstract objects.

People in everyday life and some psychologists use the words “feelings” and “emotions” as synonymous words. Others say that feelings are a type of emotion, namely higher emotions. Still others share these concepts: emotions belong to the class of mental states, and feelings to mental properties.

Yes, there is a direct relationship between them, because they are human experiences. Without emotional unrest, an individual would not live, but exist. They fill life with meaning and make it diverse.

But there are still significant differences between feelings and emotions:

• Emotions are innate and instinctive reactions of the body to changes in the environment, feelings are social, developed in the process of upbringing and learning experiences. A person learns to feel, everyone knows how to express emotions from the moment of birth.
• Emotions are difficult to control through willpower; feelings are easier to manage, despite their complexity and ambiguity. Most of them arise in a person’s consciousness; emotions are often not realized, as they are associated with the need to satisfy an instinctive need.
• A feeling changes, develops and fades, varies in strength, manifests itself in different ways, can develop into its opposite, an emotion is a certain reaction. For example, if a person experiences hatred for another person, it is possible that this experience will develop into love, and the emotion of fear is always fear, regardless of the object (it can also be causeless). There is either fear or there is no fear.
• Emotions do not have an objective correlation, feelings do. They are experienced in relation to something or someone differently. For example, loving a child is not the same as loving a spouse. And for example, bewilderment is always expressed in the same way, regardless of what specifically causes it.
• Feelings are a stronger motivator than emotions. They encourage, inspire, push to perform actions in relation to the object at which they are directed. Emotions only give rise to actions in the form of responses.
• Emotions are short-lived and superficial, although vivid manifestations, but feelings are always complex and strong emotional disturbances.

It can be difficult to determine when a combination of emotions will give rise to a feeling, and what higher experience is expressed in a particular series of emotional manifestations. These are close, accompanying phenomena, but they still need to be distinguished. The individual is responsible for his highest emotions and for the actions that they entail.

We formulate what we feel

The second point that impoverishes our lives is a small vocabulary for describing internal experiences. Good, cool, awesome, super - this is all an assessment of the condition, but not its description. We have already written many times about why it is important to move from assessment to description and constantly talk at our trainings. Now we won’t dwell on this in more detail, just take my word for it that this is important.

Therefore, in order to master your inner world, it is important to accept your feelings and formulate them. For example, below is a “positive” excerpt from our “ state dictionary” . Such a list of positive emotions and their shades.

Use it if you are not very good at finding words to describe your condition.

Properties of sensations

1. Modality is a qualitative characteristic of sensations. This is the basic feature of each particular sensation that can distinguish it from another sensation. For example, for auditory sensations this is pitch, timbre, volume.

2. Intensity is a quantitative characteristic of sensations. It is determined by the force with which the stimulus acts on the object.

3. Localization is a spatial characteristic of sensations. A property that indicates the localization of a stimulus in space.

4. Duration is a temporary characteristic of sensations. Indicates the time during which the stimulus was in effect.

Physiological mechanism of sensations

The process of the emergence of sensations can be represented as follows. An irritant (music) with certain characteristics affects a certain sense organ (ears), which perceives information and transmits it along conductive pathways to the brain, where this information is processed, and we begin to hear music. This is how the surrounding world is reflected.

Charles Sherrington, an English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate in physiology or medicine, proposed a classification of sensations according to the nature of reflection and location of receptors.

Adaptation, synesthesia, sensitization

Adaptation means that under the influence of the analyzers’ adaptation to the current stimuli, their sensitivity changes. It can occur in two directions: increasing and decreasing sensitivity.

Adaptation manifests itself in all types of sensations. It is especially noticeable in the areas of vision, smell, skin sensations and taste; less pronounced in the hearing area. For example, we need time to get used to bright sunlight after a dark room. Or you’ve noticed that if you spend some time in a room with an unpleasant smell, you won’t be able to smell it in the future.

Sensitization is an increase in the sensitivity of analyzers under the influence of internal (mental) factors. Caused by the interaction of different analyzers. Under certain conditions, it entails an increase in the sensitivity of one of the senses under the influence of the simultaneous functioning of the other. For example, the feeling of cold increases auditory and visual sensitivity, while high temperature and stuffy atmosphere lead to their decrease.

The phenomenon of compensation (reimbursement) often occurs. People suffering from a certain illness (for example, blindness) can compensate for this by increasing the abilities of another sense organ (hearing becomes more sensitive).

Synesthesia is the occurrence, under the influence of stimulation of one analyzer, of a sensation characteristic of other analyzers. You don't see this phenomenon often. An example is the many composers who had “colored” hearing (high sounds are most often recognized as “light”, and low sounds as “dark”.)

Sensory disorders

1. Sensory hypopathy is a disorder of sensitivity in such a way that both weak and strong stimuli are felt weakly.

2. Sensory hyperpathy is a sharp increase in the intensity of sensations when exposed to weak stimuli.

3. Paresthesia is sensations without stimulus (numbness, tingling).

Sensitivity thresholds

So, in order for a person to feel the effect of any stimulus, the intensity of this stimulus must have a certain value (if you are standing at a distance of a kilometer from your interlocutor, a whisper is clearly not going to help you). You can take this situation as an example.

You ask your friend, who is at a distance from you, how he is doing. But he didn’t hear you, since your voice as an irritant does not have the required intensity. You ask a little louder in hopes that he will hear you. But the interlocutor hears something vaguely reminiscent of your question. Your friend’s senses (ears) have perceived this information, but if you repeat this question a little quieter, he will no longer hear. This is called the lower absolute threshold of sensitivity, i.e. the minimum strength of the stimulus causing a barely noticeable sensation. At one point, you get tired of choosing the right sound level, because your friend can’t hear you well anyway. Instead of just walking up to him, you decide to scream at the top of your lungs so that he can definitely hear you. And you started screaming without noticing your other friend who approached you from the other side. For him, this volume level was too high, it caused pain. This is called the upper absolute threshold of sensitivity, i.e. the maximum magnitude of the stimulus at which sensations disappear or change (for example, turn into pain).

Sensation thresholds are the ability of analyzers to reflect individual properties of stimuli or subtle differences between them. Psychophysics, whose founder is considered to be Gustav Theodor Fechner, studies and measures sensation thresholds.

The absolute threshold of sensation is the minimum value of the stimulus at which sensation first occurs. Stimuli that do not reach it lie below the threshold of sensations, i.e. we do not feel them (for example, dust particles that constantly fall on the skin). The weaker the stimuli that cause sensations (i.e., the lower the absolute threshold value), the higher the ability of the sensory organs to respond to these influences.

The difference (differential) threshold is the minimum change in the intensity of the stimulus, causing a barely noticeable change in sensations.

Difference sensitivity is a relative value. Ernst Weber came to the conclusion that we do not perceive differences between objects, but the relation of the difference to the size of the objects being compared.

The essence of the negative reaction

The word "emotion" contains the Latin root "moveo".

Literally it means “to move, to come into motion .

Emotion is an instant action program embedded in a person’s subconscious.

Thus, a negative emotion is a person’s reaction to a situation that does not fit into his understanding of what is happening. A kind of trigger that forces you to turn on defensive behavior .

In essence, Homo sapiens is driven by two powerful forces. This is the mind and emotions. At first glance, analytical skills seem much more useful than emotional reactions. However, evolution decreed otherwise.

For thousands of years, people have faced situations where emotions were decisive. In the face of danger, our ancestors did not try to analyze what was happening. Long thoughts about how best to deal with the attacking predator could cost them their lives.

Instant emotions came onto the scene, followed by lightning-fast decisions - to defend, run away, attack, hide, etc. The feeling of fear, danger and anger saved a person, gradually turning into an automatic reaction to danger.

A negative, or negative, emotion occurs instantly and almost automatically. It is unconscious, but contains colossal power. An individual, driven by such emotions, mobilizes all his forces - his verbal arsenal, physical capabilities, and speed of reaction.

Modern man rarely faces a direct threat to his life.

Most negative experiences today “grow” from other sources .

The ancient “This snake will bite me” has transformed into “This boss is oppressing me.”

Emotions have evolved along with man, so today negative experiences are caused by the same lack of money or the obsessive signal of a neighboring car at a traffic light.

A seemingly trivial situation provokes the same reaction that was once caused by an attacking predator. A person instantly responds with rudeness to an irritant and “rushes” at the offender.