Emotion is different from cognition, which seems to be related to personal immediate needs and subjective attitudes. From this connection, two special forms of emotion can be derived, one is internal state or experience, and the other is explicit expression. This is a feature that the cognitive process does not have. Therefore, emotion and cognition are mutually causal and accompany each other. Emotion can start, interfere, organize or destroy cognitive processes and behaviors; Cognitive evaluation of things can trigger, transfer or change emotional reactions and experiences.
Relationship characteristics
Many schools' definitions of emotions reflect these characteristics and such relationships. For example, functionalism defines emotion as: emotion is a psychological phenomenon of the temporal relationship between individuals and the environment. (Campos, 1983). Arnold's definition is: "Emotion is an empirical tendency that is beneficial to tendency perception and harmful to leaving perception. This experience tendency is accompanied by the corresponding physiological change mode of approaching or retreating. " (Arnold, 1960). lazarus put forward a definition together with Arnold Reiss: "Emotion is the organization of physiological and psychological responses to good or bad information in an ongoing environment, which depends on short-term or continuous evaluation." (lazarus, 1984). These definitions show the relationship between emotions and people's needs and attitudes. Arnold and lazarus also pointed out the characteristics of emotions, such as experience, physiological model and evaluation.
In 1970s, another scholar, Yang (1973), defined emotion as: "Emotion comes from the violent disturbance of emotional process in psychological state, which is manifested as physical changes of smooth muscle, glands and overall behavior." He marked emotion as disorder of emotional process, implying the interest and connection between emotion and organism. But it emphasizes the "disturbing" nature of emotions. This theory is particularly useful for affective pathology. Contrary to Yang's theory, Robert? Lippert insisted: "Emotion is a positive force with motivation and perception, which organizes, maintains and guides behavior." (Li Bo, 1973). Importantly, it points out the viewpoint of the organizational function of emotions.
Emotional motivation
The viewpoint about the organizational function of emotion should come from the motivation of emotion. After tomkins (1970) emphasized that emotion is the basic motivation of organism, Ezard inherited Darwin's view and directly emphasized the adaptability of emotion. He pointed out that emotion is a kind of motivation, which is connected with perception, cognition and motor response one after another and is modeled. From the functional point of view, Ezard emphasized the explicit behavior of emotions-expression, an important variable; An inclusive emotional theory (Izard, 1977, 199 1) is established by linking innate emotions with social acquisition, adaptation and communication functions. According to this summary, emotions have the following characteristics:
1. Emotion is a multi-component compound process.
2. Emotion has multidimensional structure.
3. Emotion is the product of multi-level integration of physiology and psychology.
Cognitive direction
As analyzed above, let's go back to the definition of emotional psychology. In fact, any definition is not necessarily perfect. The function of definition should be convenience and research, and provide cognitive direction for researchers, but it will also change with new discoveries. We have tried to describe emotional psychology as: "Emotion is a psychological activity process and psychological motivation which is composed of multi-components, multi-dimensional structures and multi-levels, and interacts with cognition for the survival adaptation and interpersonal communication of organisms." (Meng, 1989, 1994) This description not only shows the function of emotion, but also includes the structure of emotion. This description is really for the purpose of research based on it. As long as the composition, dimension, integration level, adaptation, communication function and the relationship with cognition and personality of emotion are revealed, it is possible to explain the unique psychological phenomenon of emotional psychology. At least at the current scientific level, people can open a door to the mystery of emotions and pave a feasible way for further exploration.
The basic process of emotional regulation
1, situational choice Situational choice refers to an individual's choice to avoid or approach the people and things he will encounter, thus controlling the possible emotions to a certain extent. The choice of situation is not a random behavior, but often reflects the individual's choice of an appropriate environment, which may be intentional or unintentional. When an individual is already in an emotion-induced situation, the adjustment of situational response occurs after emotional activation. It refers to adjusting emotions through strategies such as strengthening, reducing, prolonging or shortening the response. Even if the mood is modified to some extent, it can still adjust the mood. 2. Situation correction is an effort and strategy to change emotions by changing and correcting some aspects and characteristics of situations that induce emotions. For example, in the face of a quarreling neighbor, there are three solutions: leave, endure and stop. If stop is adopted, noise reduction is the adjustment strategy of situation correction. The choice of situation and the correction of situation need individuals to change the environment. But it is also possible to adjust emotions without changing situations, because each situation has different aspects and different meanings, so that individuals can change the process of emotion generation by adjusting their attention and understanding. 3. Pay attention to the distribution of attention by diverting attention and selective attention. Paying attention to many aspects of the same situation, such as paying attention to only one aspect and ignoring other aspects, is the distribution of attention. Distraction is to focus on areas that have nothing to do with emotions, or to divert attention from the current situation. Concentration is the situation of focusing on one aspect for a long time, when individuals can create a self-sustaining state. For example, emotional concentration focuses on emotional experience and the results of these emotions. 4. Cognitive change Cognitive adjustment is an effort to adjust emotions by changing cognition. The emergence of emotions requires individuals to give meaning to the perceived situation and evaluate their ability to cope with and manage the situation. Each situational element can have multiple meanings, multiple understandings, and different meanings are determined and selected. It can change the process of emotional production to adjust emotions. The change from the choice of situation to cognition reflects the deepening of information processing caused by emotional adjustment. 5. Response regulation refers to the behavior of reducing or enhancing emotional response even if you are angry after emotional stimulation. However, if you try to control your anger, this is a reduced response adjustment. If your mood is aroused by a warm mass public welfare activity and your enthusiasm is enhanced, it is to enhance the response regulation.