Encourage Me: Children

“The basic premise that children must learn about emotions is that all feelings are okay to have; however, only some reactions are okay.” (Daniel Goleman)

Emotions play a critical role in how we live our lives from influencing how we engage with others in our day to day lives to affecting the decisions we make. By understanding some of the different types of emotions, you can gain a deeper understanding of how these emotions are expressed and the impact they have on your behavior.

At times, it may seem like you are ruled by your emotions. The perceptions you have of your life are influenced by the emotions you are experiencing at any given moment.

During the 1970s, Psychologist Paul Eckman identified the six basic emotions (below) that he suggests are universally experienced in all human cultures. Ten years later, Psychologist Robert Plutchik put forth a "wheel of emotions" that worked something like the color wheel. Emotions can be combined to form different feelings much like colors can be mixed to create other shades. Let's take a closer look at some of the basic types of emotions, and explore the impact they have on your behavior.

Anger: Anger can be a particularly powerful emotion characterized by feelings of hostility, agitation, frustration, and antagonism towards others. When a threat generates feelings of anger, you may be inclined to fend off the danger and protect yourself. Anger is often displayed through:

· Aggressive behaviors such as hitting, kicking, or throwing objects

· Body language such as taking a strong stance or turning away

· Facial expressions such as frowning or glaring

· Physiological responses such as sweating or turning red

· Tone of voice such as speaking gruffly or yelling

While anger is often thought of as a negative emotion, it can sometimes be a good thing. It can be constructive in helping clarify your needs in a relationship, and it can also motivate you to take action and find solutions to things that are bothering you. Anger can become a problem, however, when it is excessive or expressed in ways that are unhealthy, dangerous, or harmful to others. Uncontrolled anger can quickly turn to aggression, abuse, or violence.

This type of emotion can have both mental and physical consequences. Unchecked anger can make it difficult to make rational decisions and can even have an impact on your physical health. Anger has been linked to coronary heart diseases and diabetes. It has also been linked to behaviors that pose health risks such as aggressive driving, alcohol consumption, and smoking.

Disgust: Disgust can be displayed in a number of ways including:

· Body language: turning away from the object of disgust

· Facial expressions: such as wrinkling the nose and curling the upper lip

· Physical reactions: such as vomiting or retching

This sense of revulsion can originate from a number of things, including an unpleasant taste, sight, or smell to food that might be harmful or fatal. When people smell or taste foods that have gone bad, disgust is a typical reaction.

Poor hygiene, infection, blood, rot, and death can also trigger a disgust response. This may be the body's way of avoiding things that may carry transmittable diseases. People can also experience moral disgust when they observe others engaging in behaviors that they find distasteful, immoral, or evil.

Fear: Fear is a powerful emotion that can also play an important role in survival. When you face some sort of danger and experience fear, you go through what is known as the fight or flight response. Your muscles become tense, your heart rate and respiration increase, and your mind becomes more alert, priming your body to either run from the danger or stand and fight.

This response helps ensure that you are prepared to effectively deal with threats in your environment. Expressions of this type of emotion can include:

· Facial expressions such as widening the eyes and pulling back the chin

· Body language attempts to hide or flea from the threat

· Physiological reactions such as rapid breathing and heartbeat

Not everyone experiences fear in the same way. Some people may be more sensitive to fear and certain situations or objects may be more likely to trigger this emotion. Fear is the emotional response to an immediate threat. You can also develop a similar reaction to anticipated threats or thoughts about potential dangers. This is what you generally think of as anxiety. Social anxiety involves an anticipated fear of social situations.

Some people, on the other hand, actually seek out fear-provoking situations. Extreme sports and other thrills can be fear-inducing, but some people seem to thrive and even enjoy such feelings. Repeated exposure to a fear object or situation can lead to familiarity and acclimation, which can reduce feelings of fear and anxiety.

This is the idea behind exposure therapy in which people are gradually exposed to the things that frighten them in a controlled and safe manner. Eventually, feelings of fear begin to decrease.

Happiness: Happiness tends to be the one emotion that people strive for the most. Happiness is often defined as a pleasant emotional state that is characterized by feelings of contentment, joy, gratification, satisfaction, and well-being. Research on happiness has increased significantly since the 1960s within a number of disciplines, including the branch of psychology known as positive psychology. This type of emotion is sometimes expressed through:

· Body language: such as a relaxed stance

· Facial expressions: such as smiling

· Tone of voice: an upbeat, pleasant way of speaking

The things you think will create happiness tend to be heavily influenced by culture. For example, pop culture influences tend to emphasize that attaining certain things such as buying a home or having a high-paying job will result in happiness.

The realities of what actually contributes to happiness are often much more complex and more highly individualized. People have long believed that happiness and health are connected. Research has supported the idea that happiness can play a role in both physical and mental health.

Happiness has been linked to a variety of outcomes including increased longevity and increased marital satisfaction. On the other hand, unhappiness has been linked to a variety of poor health outcomes like

stress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness have been linked to things such as lowered immunity, increased inflammation, and decreased life expectancy.

Sadness: Sadness is often characterized by feelings of disappointment, grief, hopelessness, and disinterest. Like other emotions, sadness is something that all people experience occasionally. Sometimes, people can experience prolonged and severe periods of sadness that can turn into depression. Sadness can be expressed in a number of ways including:

· Crying

· Lethargy

· Quietness

· Unenthusiastic

· Withdrawal from others

The type and severity of sadness can vary depending upon the root cause, and how people cope with such feelings can also differ. Sadness can often lead people to engage in coping mechanisms such as self-medicating, and considering negative thoughts. Such behaviors can actually worsen feelings of sadness and prolong the duration of the emotion.

Surprise: Surprise is usually quite brief and is characterized by a physiological startle response following something unexpected. This type of emotion can be positive, negative, or neutral. An unpleasant surprise might involve someone jumping out from behind a tree and scaring you as you walk to your car at night.

An example of a pleasant surprise would be arriving home to find that your closest friends have gathered to celebrate your birthday. Surprise is often characterized by:

· Facial expressions such as raising the brows, widening the eyes, and opening the mouth

· Physical responses such as jumping back

· Verbal reactions such as yelling, screaming, or gasping

When startled, people may experience a burst of adrenaline that helps prepare the body to either fight or flee. Surprise can have important effects on human behavior. For example, people tend to excessively notice surprising events. This is why surprising and unusual events in the news tend to stand out in memory more than others. People tend to be more swayed by surprising arguments and learn more from surprising information.

“Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love, but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving. That kind of love requires effort and discipline.” (Gary Chapman) [i]

[i] Adapted from:

· "Robert Plutchik” from Wikipedia

· "The 6 Types of Basic Emotions and Their Effect on Human Behavior” by Kendra Cherry