by Clay Tucker-Ladd, PhD

The nature of emotions

Our feelings or emotions are a major part of our inner lives. Our emotions are sometimes rapid primitive reflexes independent of our thoughts, but at other times, our feelings reflect our cognitive assessment of our current situation.

Our feelings involve both our emotions and our urges to act certain ways. Thus, emotions determine if we are happy or unhappy, if we want to approach something or run away from it, if we are exuberant or frozen, etc.

Emotions are frequently unrealistic and irrational, i.e. unreasonable, unthinking automatic physiological reactions or based on faulty ideas distorted by our past experiences, misperceptions, exaggerated fears or hopes or needs.

Examples: Reason usually doesn't over-ride subjective experience, i.e. telling a person afraid of spiders that this specific spider right here is completely harmless, doesn't completely reduce his/her fear.

The intensity of an emotion is not so much determined by the current situation as it is by the amount of actual or expected change (Frijda, 1988).

Thus, a small spider seen 15 feet away (a small change) is not as scary as a large one suddenly only 6 inches away.

Likewise, if economic conditions in the 1990's changed radically and returned to 1935 standards, our national feelings of crisis would be much greater than they were during the middle of the Great Depression.

Where the change is greatest, the feelings are most intense. It was the wealthy and ambitious who committed suicide in 1929, not the poor.

The college graduate who always wanted and expected to become a doctor is more crushed by rejection letters from Medical School than the graduate who rather expected the rejections.

Since emotions seem to be designed by nature to help us adapt --to solve problems--we tend to get "used to" positive conditions (a loving, giving spouse) but our fears and hostilities continue on and on upsetting and urging us to "do something."

As Frijda observes, the human mind was apparently not made for happiness, but for survival. Happiness is possible, but it may take intentional thought and effort; it is not always an automatic process. But anger, grief, insecurity, and jealousy are automatic, sometimes even unstoppable.

The desire to remove serious emotional hurts from our life can become so primary that our strong feelings over-ride reason, close our minds to other viewpoints, and dominate our actions. Suicide is a way to escape pain and hurts.

Likewise, the enraged ex-spouse can hardly think of anything else, certainly not any explanations for the former spouse's wrongdoings. The badness of the ex-spouse becomes an obsession, an unshakeable conviction which will often last forever, regardless of other peoples' opinions.

This single-minded view is a characteristic of emotions: the fearful flyer can not consider the high probability of his/her flight arriving safely; the jealous person is absolutely certain the lover is interested in someone else; the insecure spouse feels sure his/her partner doesn't really care for him/her.

Yet, there sometimes seems to be a consideration of the probable consequences at some semi-conscious level because the fearful passenger usually doesn't get off the plane and we don't always immediately dump the "unfaithful" lover or "indifferent" spouse.

Indeed, many "healthy" people tend to distort their view of a situation in such a way that their negative feelings and dangers are minimized and/or their positive feelings are maximized.

Fortunately, under favorable conditions, reason can help us see other possibilities, see the likely long-term consequences of an action, see the implications of a code of ethics, etc.

Reason (cognition) can modify the impulsive actions of the more rigidly mechanistic emotions.

One of Frijda's points is that emotions, as well as behavior and reason, are lawful and understandable (but not logical). The more you know about those laws, the better your chances of controlling your unwanted emotions.

Learning to control our emotions

We are probably always feeling emotions; they seem to impose themselves on us; we ordinarily don't "will" to feel certain ways. The range of emotions is extensive. We can feel terrible, as in horror, suicidal depression, rage, and self-depreciation.

Even in milder forms, such as tension or boredom or irritation or subordination, emotions may make us miserable. Yet, we can feel happy, proud, loving, or fascinated, which makes life great.

At this point in time, psychologists know more about reducing unwanted feelings than about increasing the desired emotions.

In this chapter, we focus on methods for controlling our four major emotions, primarily anxiety, depression, anger, and passive-dependency.

Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 explain how the major emotions are learned and developed. Of course, many basic emotional reactions may not be learned; they may be inborn physiological responses, like pain, fear, crying, hunger, sensual and sexual pleasure, frustration, pleasure, etc.

These and other emotions, like ecstasy, sadness, irritability, rebelliousness, fears, or sudden episodes of agoraphobia, may be genetic, physiological, hormonal or drug-induced (Adler, 1985) and responsive to medication (Sheehan, 1984).

As we grow out of early childhood, however, certain emotions become associated with certain situations and events; that is a learning process.

Many of these associations are not rational. We fear situations that are not dangerous (like meeting someone or speaking up in class). We get upset about things that couldn't be avoided.

We may briefly distrust the entire opposite male or female sex after we have been dumped by one of them.

Some emotional reactions, like anger or dependency, also seem to be operants (yield some payoff); other emotions seem classically conditioned to certain situations, like anger in response to a defiant, smart-mouthed teenager.

Most often, both operant and classical conditioning are involved in developing an emotion, e.g. the fear of public speaking increases (1) as fear is experienced while speaking (classical) and (2) as public speaking is avoided for fear of fear (operant).

Of course, telling ourselves how stupid we will look if we forget what to say also increases our speech anxiety.

Indeed, many emotional reactions seem to be largely generated by our thought processes, rather than by operant or classical conditioning.

Lazarus (1984) contends that cognition is always involved in our emotions because emotions reflect our cognitive evaluation of how well things are going for us, namely, if our situation is seen as getting better or worse.

The question is: What thoughts (meanings or inferences or expectations) arouse which emotions? For many years, Ellis & Harper (1975) have been reminding us of the 2000-year-old idea that our intensely sad or hostile feelings are a result of our own thinking, our irrational ideas.

For example, we assume that situations (failing an exam) and people (someone lied to you) cause our emotions, but Ellis says most emotions result from our insisting that the world and others should be unfolding differently.

And, like a child, we get upset--we "awfulize"--when things don't go the way we want them to go: "It was a stupid exam!" and "It's terrible that he/she lied to me!" Cognitive methods for reducing emotions are described in chapter 14.

Still other emotions may arise from unconscious forces within us. Suppose a part inside of us wants a very close relationship with one parent.

Our efforts to get attention from that parent, to be cute and clever, to excel, to be attentive to that parent may arouse some anxiety, but we are not aware of the source. We may even marry someone similar to the admired parent without realizing it.

Likewise, suppose your boss unconsciously reminds you of a cruel older brother; thus, the intensity of your fear and anger at the boss may surprise you and others.

In short, human feelings are complexly caused, i.e. the learned aspects of emotions may be (1) operantly conditioned, (2) classically conditioned, (3) socially learned, (4) a result of our thoughts, and (5) a result of unconscious processes.

This chapter deals mostly with (1) and (2). For (3) see chapters 13 and 14, for (4) see chapter 14 and for (5) see chapter 15.

However, in reality these five learning processes are often all mixed up together (along with reflexes, hormones, genetic predispositions) in the development of an emotion.

Understanding the way we acquired a certain complex emotional reaction might help us figure out how to change the feeling. On the other hand, knowing the etiology of each emotion may not be necessary. It seems quite likely that several treatment methods will work regardless of the causes.

Example: suppose you feel inadequate. Thus, you could take an "insight" approach (see chapter 15) in which you explore your childhood and eventually say to yourself, "It is silly to feel inadequate because my parents were critical and put me down; I'm OK, I don't have to be superior and I don't have to continue feeling inferior."

Or you could challenge the irrational (unproven) idea that you are inadequate and set about demonstrating that you are quite capable; thus, reducing the self-doubts. Or you could counter-condition or over-ride the anxiety you feel in threatening situations, using desensitization or relaxation.

All these methods might be effective, regardless of the origin of the feelings of inadequacy. When the self-help method you first selected doesn't work, however, then a re-analysis of the causes of the problem might help you select a more appropriate self-help method.

Emotional behavior, feelings, physiological responses, and attributions

Emotions involve (a) behavior, (b) subjective feelings, and (c) physiological responses. And, to make matters more complicated, each of these three aspects is often only slightly correlated with the other two, i.e. you may (subjectively) feel very tense but not show it overtly (behaviorally) and not respond internally (physiologically).

A person can feel quite relaxed but have an upset stomach or low back pain and appear to others as either very laid back or very nervous. All the combinations are possible.

Some clever experiments have shown that subjective feelings are often a function of both (1) the level of physiological arousal and (2) our interpretation of the causes of the arousal (Schachter & Singer, 1962).

The sequence is this: there is a physiological arousal which we notice, then we look at the situation for a reason for this internal reaction, and this cognitive process (attempting to understand the situation) enables us to label or identify the emotion we are feeling.

Thus, in some experiments exactly the same arousal (from a drug) has been interpreted as anger in some cases and as happiness in others, depending on the social situation.

Actual physiological arousal may not even be necessary; if you believe your heart is beating faster (but it isn't), that may be enough to cause you to believe you are angry or afraid or sexually aroused, depending on the circumstances (Valins, 1966).

The emotional labels we put on our feelings are partly a function of our interpretation of the situation. More recent research suggests our past experience and our current life situation (beyond the immediate circumstances) also play a role in how we label our feelings.

There are some interesting implications from all this. First, perhaps we shouldn't be so certain about what we are feeling (especially considering the closed-mindedness discussed above).

We can't sense physiological changes accurately. Moreover, the "feelings" I seem to be having are more like guesses about why I am upset (if I am) based on my past, my tendency to favor certain emotions, and on circumstantial evidence.

Secondly, given these conditions, if someone could offer me a different interpretation of the upsetting situation, I should be able to change my feelings rather easily.

But we know that often isn't true. Example: instead of feeling terrible about breaking up, one could see new opportunities for better relationships. But usually we can't see the situation differently, at least not easily, being dumped remains a crisis.

See chapter 14. Many therapists take such a "reframing" approach, however, and it seems to work, sometimes. Folk wisdom tells us to "look for the silver lining" or to "accentuate the positive."

Although drugs can be useful (witness the millions of tranquilizer and anti-depression prescriptions written), it is also possible that using drugs before or during therapy or self-help might hinder improvement. How?

If the person attributed all improvement to drugs, he/she might start relying entirely on drugs for help rather than on therapy or self-help.

Also, if the problems don't get better after taking drugs, the person might falsely conclude they are getting worse rather than that the drugs aren't working.

Naturally, false assumptions about therapy or self-help can be misleading too.

The consequences of certain attributions are not always easily understood. For instance, insomniacs given a placebo (a fake medicine that has no pharmacological effect) which they were told would produce alertness went to sleep faster than those given a placebo "relaxation" pill.

They presumably took some comfort in blaming the pill for their awakeness and then fell asleep (Storms & Nisbett, 1970). Storms and McCaul (1976) have proposed that concluding you are responsible for some unwanted behavior is anxiety arousing.

And, increased anxiety may increase the unwanted behavior. Example: thinking "I'm responsible for my speech problems" increased stammering; thinking "my speech problems are due to the experimental conditions" did not increase stammering.

Yet, concluding you are not responsible for unwanted behavior may very likely decrease your anxiety and decrease your self-improvement efforts. So, it's complex because the "I'm responsible" attribution is helpful in many circumstances but not all.

Are feelings good or bad?

A common saying is "you are responsible for your feelings." (For the moment, let's forget about reflexive and unconscious feelings.) Fortunately, all feelings can be viewed as natural, as neither good nor bad. This is how: many people believe that feelings and thoughts can not be bad because they hurt no one.

Acts can be bad (because they can hurt). From this viewpoint, there would be no need to hide our feelings (unless disclosing the feelings hurt someone) and no need to feel guilty about any thoughts or feelings.

However, it is easy to see how we come to believe that thoughts and feelings are bad. Suppose as a child you hit your little brother and were spanked and told, "don't do that."

As a 5-year-old you aren't likely to figure out that the parent who hit you meant "your hitting is bad but feeling angry is OK," so you grow up thinking "feeling angry is bad."

Many of our feelings are suppressed by being told "don't be a scaredy cat," "big kids don't cry," "touching yourself down there is naughty," etc. So, we learn to deny or dislike or feel guilty about many feelings. We even hide many positive feelings: "I don't want him/her to know I like him/her because he/she might not like me."

In the guilt section of chapter 6 we discuss further the question of whether thoughts (temptations to do something bad) are bad in the sense that they may increase the probability that we will actually do something bad.

Feelings usually leak out

Feelings usually find a way to express themselves, however. There are several ways subjective feelings get expressed:

You may act on feelings: shout at someone when angry, cry when sad, communicate (in body language) your interest when attracted to someone. (These same behaviors--shouting, crying and attracting--surely influence our feelings too.)

You may have physiological reactions when feeling something: you blush when embarrassed, have high blood pressure when anxious, sexual arousal when attracted.

Actually psychologists do not yet know whether arousal precedes, accompanies, or follows an emotional reaction (Weiner, 1980).

You may try to suppress the feelings and deny being upset or angry. Quite often people who deny their emotions think they are healthy and well adjusted, but they tend to have high blood pressure, high heart rate, an immune deficiency, high incidence of cancer (Temoshok, 1992), difficulty sleeping, and lots of aches and pains.

You may try to change the situation: shout out orders like a drill sergeant when things go wrong or become charming to attract and influence someone. Note: yelling "shut up" at someone implies but doesn't directly express your feeling, "I'm angry at you."

You may have one feeling to deny or conceal another: criticism may hide attraction, crying may occur when you are mad, love may hide scared dependency.

Or, you may have one feeling in response to another feeling: disgust to your own homosexual interests, frustration to your shyness.

You may blame others rather than assuming responsibility for your own feelings: "You are a selfish, mean person" instead of "I feel very hurt," "You are a lazy slob" instead of "I feel furious when you are so sloppy," "You are arrogant" instead of "I'm afraid you won't like me."

Remember: you are more responsible than anyone else for your feelings. In general, no one can make you feel any way; it is usually your choice (although some emotions are impossible to control--like a startle reaction or grief following the loss of a loved one). See the discussion of "I" statements in chapter 13 and "psychologizing" in chapter 7.

You may not be aware of the true nature of your emotions but they can still have an effect on your life.

Dramatic examples are people with multiple personalities; an unconscious personality may have feelings which are not known to the person until that personality becomes conscious and "in control" later. Another rare example is a woman who has spontaneous orgasms.

One possible explanation is that sexually arousing fantasies were occurring unconsciously.

More common examples that have been well documented recently are the "sleeper effects" in children of divorce. Example: children may be unaware of emotions (fears, anger) during their parents' divorce but suffer ill effects from the divorce years later, often when they become intimate with someone.

There are lots of things, especially feelings, going on inside of us that we don't know about.

Haven't you felt upset after talking to someone without knowing why? Don't you sometimes respond to events and behaviors very differently than others do, and can't see why you have such a different reaction?

You may openly share your feelings with others. This involves many skills: self-disclosure, "I" statements, social skills, assertiveness, self-confidence etc. Telling your story, as in therapy, self-help groups, or with friends, is usually healthy (as long as you share your emotions and don't just stick to the objective facts, and as long as the listeners are supportive).

You may use your feelings as a barometer of your relationships with others and your self-acceptance. Negative, unwanted feelings are a sign that something needs to be changed, that self-help is needed.

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This article is an excerpt from the online book by Clay Tucker-Ladd, PhD: Psychological Self-Help http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/

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