Emotions are our real attitude towards people and events. “Good” are expressed openly, “bad” are often hidden and even suppressed. In fact, there are no “extra” emotions: each has its own purpose. Regardless of coloring, they are all necessary for meaningful perception of the world, the specialist in
the field of positive psychology Courtney Acerman is confident.
Many people think that positive psychology is engaged exclusively with positive emotions. Quite logical: the direction is really focused on achieving happiness. This is not limited to this: negative emotions are an integral part of experience, without them the perception of the world would be meager and one -sided.
Humanity has been studying the emotional sphere for several millennia. For such a period, people learned to understand their feelings well, but still did not fully understand that for a healthy person it is normal to experience diametrically opposite states. Let’s figure out the concepts.
Positive emotions are pleasant experiences. The Oxford reference book of positive psychology defines them as “pleasant or desirable situational reactions that are different from a sense of pleasure and undifferentiated positive affect”. In fact, this is an approving attitude to events, objects and impressions, more complex and specific than physical sensations.
A negative emotion is a painful experience, “an unpleasant or oppressed state that arises in response to a negative event or act”. If emotion leads to despondency and demoralizes, it is negative.
Examples of positive and negative emotions
The scale of emotions is quite extensive, and the method of expression largely depends on the personality warehouse. The theoretical base is good, but in most cases, recognition occurs at an intuitive level. We just “know” how the manifestations of different emotions look like.
Distributed positive emotions include:
- Love,
- joy,
- satisfaction,
- bliss,
- interest,
- fun,
- happiness,
- Pacific,
- Delight.
Among the common negative emotions:
- fear,
- anger,
- disgust,
- Sadness,
- rage,
- loneliness,
- despondency,
- irritation.
Do we really need both?
Let’s look more carefully at the list of negative emotions. Do you want you to experience them? Most likely no, and this is not surprising. Any of them is associated with suffering.
Now take a look at the list of positive emotions. Having hardly experienced these feelings, you said to yourself: “How I would like this to never happen!”These states are familiar to everyone, and we strive to survive them again and again.
But if you experience negative emotions, it is unpleasant if you can do without them? They benefit us. Negative emotions are given as opposed to positive. Without them, we would not realize the last. They are an integral part of the process of evolution, thanks to them people have learned to survive, develop and grow.
Keny’s coach Kennedy recalls that every basic emotion, regardless of its coloring, has its own task.
- Anger teaches to resist difficulties.
- Fear protects from danger.
- Anxiety makes you plan the future.
- Surprise opens the way to knowledge.
- Joy reminds of an important.
- Sorrow brings closer to your loved ones.
- Trust awakens the willingness to come to the rescue.
- Disgust warns against everything that can harm.
How long we would have managed to live if we were not afraid of anything? If there were no fear, we would constantly fall into dangerous situations and undergo unjustified risk. If there were no disgust, we would have swallowed chemicals in early childhood, to which we could reach. No matter how unpleasant the negative emotions are, it cannot be denied that they serve as important goals.