?MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution
higher professional education
"SHUY STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY"

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

COURSE WORK ON THE DISCIPLINE "PSYCHOLOGY"

The role of emotions in human activity

Work completed:
Sedova M.V.,
3rd year student, 3rd group
full-time education
Faculty of History and Philology
specialty 031801.65 Russian language and literature
with a specialization in "Practical Journalism"

Content
Introduction…………………………………………………………………….…….3
Chapter 1. Emotions and human life……………………………………..…..... 7
1.1. Emergence of emotions………………………………………………………….. .7
1.2. Functions of emotions……………………………………………………….……… .8
1.3 Examples of emotions…………………………………………………………….… 13
Chapter 2. Human activity and the influence of emotions ……………………20
2.1 The effect of emotions on a healthier person……………………………...…….20
2.2 Human cognitive activity ………………………………...24
2.3 Emotions and activity as mental processes of a person……………………………………………………………………….…29
Chapter 3
3.1 Age features of the manifestation of emotions in the activities of younger students.33
3.2 Methods for studying the emotional-volitional sphere of younger students……………………………………………………………………….... 36
3.3 Studies of the features of the emotional-volitional sphere of younger students. ………………………………………………………………..….. 40
Conclusion …………………………………………………………....………… 44
Bibliographic list………………………………………………….….45

Introduction

The influence of emotions on human activity in its main features obeys the well-known rule of Jerkes Dodson, which postulates the optimal level of stress for each specific type of work. A decrease in emotional tone as a result of a small need or completeness of the subject's awareness leads to drowsiness, loss of vigilance, missing significant signals, and slow reactions. On the other hand, an excessively high level of emotional stress disorganizes activity, complicates it with a tendency to premature reactions, reactions to extraneous, insignificant signals (false alarms), to primitive actions such as blind search by trial and error.
It follows from this that if a person does not take care of his health, then he begins to lose the ability to carry out his plans.
Human emotions are manifested in all types of human activity and, especially, in artistic creation. Here, for example, the artist's own emotional sphere is reflected in the choice of subjects, in the manner of writing, in the way of developing selected themes and subjects. All this taken together constitutes an individual originality.
The object of our study is the features of the development of emotions in the activities of younger schoolchildren.
Life without emotions is just as impossible as life without sensations and feelings. Using the example of our course work, we would like to single out the volitional activity of younger students as the main feature of the educational activity of students.
Emotions in human activity perform the function of evaluating its course and results. They organize activity, stimulating and directing it. The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly reflect the relationship between motives and the implementation of activities that correspond to these motives. Facial expressions, gestures, are emotionally expressive movements of a person that perform the function of communication, i.e. communication to a person of information about the state of the speaker and his attitude to what is happening at the moment, as well as the function of influence - providing a certain action on the one who is the subject of perception of emotional and expressive functions.
Emotions and feelings are personal formations. They characterize a person socio-psychologically. Emphasizing the actual personal significance of emotional processes, V.K. Viliunas writes: “An emotional event can cause the formation of new emotional relationships to various circumstances... everything that is known by the subject as a cause of pleasure or displeasure becomes the subject of love-hate.”[ 7; 9] Feelings, on the other hand, are of an objective nature, they are associated with a representation or an idea about some object. Another feature of the senses is that they are improved and, developing, form a number of levels, ranging from direct feelings to the highest feelings related to spiritual values ​​and ideals.
A person's feelings, his emotional states affect his activity. Emotions not only cause activity, but are themselves conditioned by it. The nature of emotions, their basic properties and the structure of emotional processes depend on it. Here, the student's volitional activity occupies a special place in the process of personality formation.
Feelings are also historical. They are different for different peoples and can be expressed differently in different historical epochs among people belonging to the same nations and cultures. In the individual development of a person, emotions, feelings play an important socializing role. They act as a significant factor in the formation of personality, especially its motivational sphere.
In this paper, the following works were considered: Petr Kuzmich Anokhin (1898-1974), Soviet physiologist, creator of the theory of functional systems; Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) - one of the most authoritative scientists in Russia, a physiologist, psychologist, creator of the science of higher nervous activity and ideas about the processes of digestion regulation; Pavel Vasilyevich Simonov (1926-2002) - Soviet, Russian psychophysiologist, biophysicist and psychologist; Lazarus Arnold Allan (1932) - American psychologist of South African origin, specialist in psychological counseling, psychotherapy, experimental behavior analysis .; Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) - Soviet psychologist, founder of the cultural-historical school in psychology and leader of Vygotsky's circle; Vytis Kazisa Vilyunas (1944, died November 10, 2011) - Doctor of Psychology, Lecturer at Moscow State University, Professor at the Department of General Psychology.

The relevance of research
Emotions reflect the world around us and, in accordance with this, regulate our behavior and social status in society. They are not only an assessment of completed actions. In order to understand such concepts as value, purpose, courage, devotion, empathy, altruism, pity, pride, compassion and love, we must accept the existence and exceptional importance of the role of human emotions. This is the relevance of our study.
The object of the study is the features of the development of emotional activity in primary school age.
The subject is the factors influencing the development of the emotional activity of a child of primary school age.
The purpose of this work is to study the role of emotions in the life of primary school students.
The following tasks follow from this goal:

1. To reveal the essence of the appearance, development and functions of emotions in the life of a student. Also analyze theoretical views on understanding the action of emotions as mechanisms for regulating human behavior.
2. Investigate examples and evaluate the influence of emotions on human behavior by studying the age-related features of the development of the emotionally effective sphere in primary school age.
3. To identify the conditions for the relationship of emotions with the activity of the individual; to determine the methods for studying the volitional activity of younger schoolchildren.
4. Conduct a study of the characteristics of the emotional actions of children of primary school age.
Research methods:
1. Empirical research methods (diagnostic methods, tests).
2. Quantitative and qualitative methods for processing research results.

Chapter 1. Emotions and human life
1.1. Emergence of emotions
In the process of evolution, emotions arose as a means that allows living beings to determine the biological significance of the states of the body and external actions. The simplest form of emotion - emotional tone - direct experiences that accompany vital actions (taste, temperature) and encourage them to be preserved or eliminated. Emotions by origin are a form of species experience: focusing on them, the individual performs the necessary actions (to avoid danger, procreation), the expediency of which is hidden from him. Human emotions are a product of socio-historical development. They refer to the processes of internal regulation of behavior.
The simplest emotions (fear, rage) are of natural origin, because they are quite closely related to life processes. This connection can be seen even from the usual example, when any living being dies, no external, emotional manifestations are found in it.
In humans and animals, 2 categories of emotions can be distinguished:
? Positive emotions associated with the satisfaction of the needs of the individual or community;
They require a combination of two factors:
I. unmet need
II. increase in the probability of its satisfaction.
? Negative emotions associated with danger, harmfulness and even a threat to life.
Emotional sensations are biologically, in the process of evolution, fixed as a kind of way to maintain the life process within its optimal boundaries and warn of the destructive nature of a lack or excess of any factors. The more complex a living being is organized, the higher the step on the evolutionary ladder it occupies, the richer is the range of all kinds of emotional states that it is able to experience. Our subjective experiences are not a direct reflection of our own organic processes. The characteristics of the emotional states we experience are probably connected not so much with the organic changes that accompany them, but with the sensations that arise during this.

1.2. Functions of emotions
Functions in psychology are the most important issue affecting all aspects of human life and activity. Thanks to emotions, we understand each other better, we can, without using speech, judge each other's states and better prepare ourselves for joint activities and communication. Emotions play a role in determining the value of objects and phenomena in human life and activity. Functions are:
1) Expressive - the ability to accurately perceive and evaluate the expressions of a human face, to determine from it such emotional states as joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise is inherent in every person. Along with the general preparation of the body for action, individual emotional states are accompanied by specific changes in pantomime, facial expressions, and sound reactions. Whatever the original origin and purpose of these reactions, in evolution they developed and became fixed as a means of notifying the emotional state of the individual in intraspecific and interspecific communication. This function of emotions did not lose its significance even after a more perfect form of information exchange was formed in the historical development of man - articulate speech.
2) Reflective-evaluative. Emotions are quite unanimously recognized as performing the function of evaluation. It should be noted that the ability of emotions to make an assessment is in good agreement with their characteristics: their occurrence in significant situations, objectivity, dependence on needs, etc. Emotions are the language, the system of signals through which the subject learns about the need significance of what is happening. Those. animals always evaluate the significance of the situation for the needs of the organism. Dodonov wrote the following about the evaluative function: emotion is an activity that evaluates information about the external and internal world that enters the brain, which sensations and perceptions encode in the form of its subjective images. Emotion is a reflection by the human and animal brain of some actual need (its quality and magnitude) and the probability (possibility) of its satisfaction, which the brain evaluates on the basis of genetic and previously acquired individual experience. Price in the most general sense of this concept is always a function of two factors: demand (need) and supply (the ability to satisfy this need). This function determines the diverse regulatory functions of emotions. Emotions occupy a special place in a person's reflection of reality and the regulation of his behavior and represent a mechanism by which external stimuli are converted into motives for the body's activity, i.e. are a reflection of reality. The reflective nature of emotions lies in the self-regulation of body functions that are adequate to the nature of external and intraorganismal influences and create optimal conditions for the normal course of the body's reflex activity.
3) Encouragement. The complete removal of emotions from the function of motivation to a large extent renders meaningless the function of evaluation they produce. There is a fundamental difference between denying the emotional nature of motivating experiences and refusing to acknowledge any involvement of emotions in the development of these experiences. The latter signifies the recognition in nature of a significant and hardly explicable psychic imperfection.
Emotions make us strive for something and, in this regard, organize our behavior.
4) Trace formation. This function indicates the ability of emotions to leave traces in the experience of the individual, fixing in him those influences and successful - unsuccessful actions that aroused them. The trace-forming function is especially pronounced in cases of extreme emotional states. But the trace itself would not make sense if it were not possible to use it in the future, i.e. trace is fixed in memory.
5) Anticipatory heuristic. The anticipatory function emphasizes a significant role in the actualization of fixed experience, since the actualization of traces is ahead of the development of events and the emotions that arise in this case signal a possible pleasant or unpleasant outcome. Since the anticipation of events significantly reduces the search for the right way out of the situation, a heuristic function is distinguished. It is important to emphasize here that, stating a certain manifestation of emotions, they acutely set the task of finding out exactly how emotions do this, clarifying the psychological mechanism underlying these manifestations, i.e. we know the answer before we can say it.
6) Synthesizing. Our perception does not show separately a set of spots or sounds, not a set of introceptive impressions, but our own body, because the emotional tone of sensations perceived simultaneously or immediately after each other merges according to certain laws. Thus, emotional experiences act as a synthesizing basis of the image, providing the possibility of a holistic and structured reflection of the mosaic variety of actually acting stimuli, i.e. emotions help not only fix, but also organize and synthesize all other processes. Emotions begin in sensations. They permeate the entire mental life of a person. They are able to synthesize and integrate information in memory, various mental processes and some activities.
7) Organizing disorganization. Emotions, first of all, organize some activity, diverting strength and attention to it, which, naturally, can interfere with the normal flow of other activities being carried out at the same moment. By itself, emotion does not carry a disorganizing function, it all depends on the conditions in which it manifests itself. Even such a crude biological reaction as affect, which usually disorganizes a person's activity, can be useful under certain conditions, for example, when he has to escape from a serious danger, relying solely on physical strength and endurance. This means that disruption of activity is not a direct, but a side manifestation of emotions, in other words, that there is as much truth in the statement about the disorganizing function of emotions as, for example, in the statement that a festive demonstration serves as a delay for vehicles.
8) Direction of attention. At its core, a person is very curious. He is interested to see how another person expresses his emotions, how people solve conflict situations. Thus, emotions can rive our attention to an object or situation.
9) Stabilizing. This function and its deep connection with the processes of predicting the situation on the basis of memory traces are emphasized by the theoretical positions of P.K. Anokhin. He believed that emotional experiences were fixed in evolution as a mechanism that keeps life processes within optimal limits and prevents the destructive nature of a lack or excess of vital factors. Positive emotions appear when ideas about the future useful result, retrieved from memory, coincide with the result of a completed behavioral act. Mismatch leads to negative emotional states. Positive emotions that arise when a goal is achieved are remembered and, under the right circumstances, can be retrieved from memory to obtain the same useful result.
10) Compensatory (replacing). Being an active state of a system of specialized brain structures, emotions affect other cerebral systems that regulate behavior, the processes of perception of external signals, and the autonomic functions of the body. It is in the latter case that the compensatory significance of emotions is especially revealed. The role of emotions is to urgently replace, compensate for the lack of knowledge at the moment. An example of a compensatory function is imitative behavior, which is so characteristic of an emotionally excited population. Since the expediency of adaptive reactions is always relative, an imitative reaction (mass panic) can turn into a real disaster. It manifests itself in the transition to responding to a wide range of supposedly significant signals. The compensatory value of negative emotions lies in their substitutive role. As for positive emotions, their compensatory function is realized through the influence on the need that initiates behavior. This function is manifested in the ability to serve as an additional means of communication between members of the community.
11) Switching. From a physiological point of view, an emotion is an active state of a system of specialized brain structures that prompts a change in behavior in the direction of minimizing or maximizing this state. Since a positive emotion indicates the approach of satisfaction of a need, and a negative emotion indicates a distance from it, the subject seeks to maximize (strengthen, prolong, repeat) the first state and minimize (weaken, interrupt, prevent) the second. This function of emotions is found both in the sphere of innate forms of behavior and in the implementation of conditioned reflex activity. A striking example of unconscious forecasting is intuition.
12) Reinforcing. It is revealed not only at the individual, but also at the population level, where this function is realized through the brain mechanism of "emotional resonance", i.e. empathy. The formation, existence, extinction and features of any conditioned reflex depend on the fact of reinforcement. By reinforcement, "Pavlov meant the action of a biologically significant stimulus, which gives a signal value to another biologically insignificant stimulus combined with it." Sometimes the immediate reinforcer is not the satisfaction of some need, but the receipt of desirable (pleasant, emotionally positive) or the elimination of unwanted (unpleasant) stimuli.
13) The function of "emergency" resolution of the situation. It occurs in an emergency, critical situation, when the level of adrenaline in the blood rises. For example, the feeling of fear.
fourteen). The function of activation and mobilization of the body. Emotions that ensure the successful completion of a task bring the body into an excited state. Sometimes weak anxiety plays the role of a mobilizing factor, manifested by concern for the outcome of the case, it enhances the sense of responsibility.
The interaction of all functions is necessary, because the absence of any affects the development of personality. Together, they are interconnected and reflect the emotions of the action.

1.3 Examples of emotions
Behavior at first glance can be defined as an objective fact. But this indicator is not particularly reliable. When a person has tears in his eyes, it can be difficult for us to understand if we do not know their cause - they are from joy, from chagrin or from indignation. In addition, the expression of this emotion is very often associated with the culture to which a person belongs: for example, a frown or a smile is not necessarily perceived unambiguously in the East and West. As for physiological activation, it is only thanks to it and to the abrupt changes that it causes in nervous processes and throughout the body that a person is able to experience emotion.
Emotions and feelings of a person are accompanied by expressive movements: mimic (movements of the muscles of the face), pantomimes (movements of the muscles of the body, gestures). A sincerely rejoicing person has rounded and shining eyes, lips turn into a smile, arms open wide for hugs. Expressive movements represent the expressive side of emotions and feelings and perform a signal function. They complement experiences, make them more vivid and easily accessible to the perception of other people. Voice and facial alarms set up a certain style of communication with the interlocutor, create an atmosphere of mutual contacts. Speech intonations, voice reactions, facial expressions are the finest tool for communication. A smile, for example, can be restrained, forced, artificial, sad, sardonic, sincere, etc. It should be noted that if, comparing different people's emotions caused by the same object, you can find a certain similarity, and other emotional manifestations people are strictly individual. The variety of emotional manifestations is expressed, first of all, in the prevailing mood of people. Under the influence of life situations and depending on the attitude towards them, some people are dominated by an elevated, cheerful, cheerful mood; in others - low, depressed, sad; in still others, it is capricious, irritable, etc. Significant individual differences are also observed in the emotional excitability of people. There are people who are emotionally a little sensitive, in whom only some extraordinary events evoke pronounced emotions. Such people do not so much feel when they find themselves in a particular life situation, as they are aware of it with their minds. There is another category of people - emotionally excitable, in whom the slightest trifle can cause strong emotions. Even an unimportant event causes them to rise or fall in mood. Emotions regulate mental activity not specifically, but through the corresponding general mental states, influencing the course of all mental processes. They act as an internal language, as a system of signals through which the subject learns about the need significance of what is happening. The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly reflect the relationship between motives and the implementation of activities that correspond to these motives. Emotions in human activity perform the function of evaluating its course and results. They organize activity, stimulating and directing it. A person can experience a whole range of emotions, conditioned by various circumstances related to the conditions of his being. For example, emotions such as anger, disgust and contempt form a kind of emotional complex of hostility, which can develop into a feeling of hostility that underlies aggressive illegal behavior.
Interest (as an emotion) is a positive state that promotes the development of skills and abilities, the acquisition of knowledge, and motivates learning.
Joy is a positive emotional state associated with the ability to fully satisfy an urgent need, the probability of which up to this point was not great.
Surprise is an emotional response to unexpected circumstances. Surprise slows down everything. Irritation with anxiety - sleep disturbance, stomach problems, diarrhea, hypertension, heart pain, trembling, tension.
Jealousy - sleep disorder, digestive problems, migraines, back problems.
Fear of anything - hypertension, heart disease, asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases, digestive disorders, dental diseases, migraines, problems with posture, teeth, eyes, hearing, kidney disease.
Boredom - depression, circulatory problems, gallbladder dysfunction, skin and hair problems, reduced body resistance.
Feelings of inferiority - posture disorders, weakness of connective tissues, hypotension, liver, stomach disorders, diseases of the teeth and gums.
Rage - Stomach and gallbladder problems, dental problems, hemorrhoids, respiratory problems, heart problems, tension and cramps, cancer, kidney and bladder problems.
In addition to regulating the state of the body, emotions perform the function of regulating human behavior as a whole. They are essential in optimizing all body activities.
Emotions are essential for human survival and well-being. Without emotions, that is, without being able to experience joy and sadness, anger and guilt, we would not be fully human. Emotions have become one of the hallmarks of humanity. No less important is our ability to empathize with other people's emotions, the ability to empathize, as well as the ability to express an emotion in words, to talk about it. The evolutionary significance of emotions lies in the fact that they provided a new type of motivation, new behavioral tendencies, a greater variability of behavior, necessary for successful interaction of an individual with the environment and for successful adaptation.
Thus, we can conclude that emotion is the stimulus and regulator of human behavior as a whole, subordinating his activity to the main motives and needs of the individual, his interests and inclinations. Today, no one denies the connection of emotions with the characteristics of the body's vital functions and the development of diseases. Under the influence of emotions, the activity of the organs of blood circulation, respiration, digestion, glands of internal and external secretion and other organs changes. Excessive intensity and duration of experiences can cause disturbances in the body. The heart is more often affected by fear, the liver by anger, the stomach by apathy and depression. The emergence of these processes is based on changes occurring in the external world, but affects the activity of the whole organism. For example, during emotional experiences, blood circulation changes: the heartbeat quickens or slows down, the tone of blood vessels changes, blood pressure rises or falls, and so on. As a result, with some emotional experiences, a person blushes, with others, he turns pale. The heart is very sensitive to all changes in emotional life. Under the influence of prolonged negative emotions, a person can develop illnesses. And, conversely, under the influence of positive emotions, recovery is accelerated. This is evidenced by many examples.

Chapter 2
2.1 The effect of emotions on a healthier person
It has been experimentally shown that emotions always remain, even if all their physiological manifestations are excluded, i.e. there was always a subjective experience. Subsequently, it was found that these reactions are essential not for experiencing emotions, but for activating all the forces of the body for increased muscular activity (when fighting or running), usually following a strong emotional reaction. Based on this, we came to the conclusion that emotions carry out the energy organization of a person. Such a representation allows us to understand the biological value of innate emotions. In one of his lectures, I.P. Pavlov explained the reason for the close relationship between emotions and muscle movements as follows: “If we turn to our distant ancestors, we will see that everything was based on muscles. lying for hours and getting angry without any muscular manifestations of his anger. In our ancestors, every feeling passed into the work of muscles. For example, when a lion becomes angry, it takes the form of a fight, the fear of a hare turns into a run, etc. And among our ancestors everything poured out just as directly into any activity of the skeletal muscles: either they ran away from danger in fear, then they themselves attacked the enemy in anger, then they defended the life of their child.
P.V.Simonov proposed a concept according to which emotions are an apparatus that turns on when there is a mismatch between a vital need and the possibility of satisfying it, i.e. with a lack or significant excess of relevant information necessary to achieve the goal. At the same time, the degree of emotional stress is determined by the need and the lack of information necessary to satisfy this need. However, in special cases, in unclear situations, when a person does not have accurate information in order to organize his actions to satisfy an existing need, a different response tactic is needed, including an incentive to act in response to signals with a low probability of their reinforcement.
The parable of two frogs caught in a jar of sour cream is well known. One of the frogs stopped trying to get out and died. The other continued to jump and beat, and, in the end, the sour cream thickened under the blows of the frog's paws, turned into a lump of butter, the frog climbed on it and jumped out of the jar. This parable illustrates the role of emotions from this point of view: even seemingly useless actions can be salutary. The emotional tone brings together a reflection of the most common and frequently occurring signs of beneficial and harmful environmental factors that persist for a long time. An emotional tone allows a person to quickly respond to new signals, reducing them to a common biological denominator: useful - harmful. The purpose of the Lazarus experiment was to find out what the excitement of the audience depends on - on the content, i.e. from what is happening on the screen, or from a subjective assessment of what is shown. Four groups of healthy adult subjects were shown a film about the ritual custom of Australian Aborigines - initiation - the initiation of boys into men, while creating three different versions of the musical accompaniment. The first one (with disturbing music) suggested an interpretation: inflicting ritual wounds is a dangerous and harmful action, and the boys may die. The second (with major music) tuned in to the perception of what is happening as a long-awaited and joyful event: teenagers are looking forward to initiation into men; it is a day of joy and rejoicing. The third accompaniment was neutral-narrative, as if an anthropologist impartially told about the customs of the Australian tribes, which were not familiar to the viewer. And finally, another option - the control group watched a film without music - silent. During the demonstration of the film, all subjects were monitored. In the moments of difficult scenes depicting the ritual operation itself, the subjects of all groups showed signs of stress: changes in pulse, skin electrical conductivity, hormonal changes. The audience was calmer when they perceived the silent version, and it was most difficult for them with the first (disturbing) version of the musical accompaniment. Experiments have shown that the same movie may or may not cause a stress reaction: it all depends on how the viewer evaluates the situation on the screen. In this experiment, the score was imposed by the style of musical accompaniment. Emotional tone can be considered as a generalized cognitive assessment. So, a child, when he sees a person in a white coat, becomes alert, perceiving his white coat as a sign with which the emotion of pain is associated. He extended his attitude towards the doctor to everything that is connected with him and surrounds him.
Emotions are included in many psychologically complex states of a person, acting as their organic part. Such complex states, including thinking, attitude and emotions, are humor, irony, satire and sarcasm, which can also be interpreted as types of creativity if they take on an artistic form.
Emotions are often regarded as the sensory expression of instinctive activity. However, they are manifested not only in subjective experiences, the nature of which we can learn only from a person and, based on them, build analogies for higher animals, but also in objectively observed external manifestations, characteristic actions, facial expressions, vegetative reactions. These external manifestations are quite expressive. For example, seeing that a person is frowning, clenching his teeth and clenching his fists, you can understand without asking that he is angry.
In general, the definition of emotion is abstract - descriptive in nature or requires additional clarification. Let's look at some of these definitions. Soviet psychologists Lebedinsky and Myasishchev define emotion as an experience. Emotions affect both the psyche and physiology. The famous physiologist Anokhin considered the connection of emotions with the needs of the body. Anokhin wrote: “From the physiological point of view, we are faced with the task of revealing the mechanism of those specific processes that ultimately lead to the emergence of both a negative (need) and a positive (satisfaction of needs) emotional state. Emotions are positive and negative. From the definition it follows that negative emotions arise when a person feels a need, and positive emotions when satisfied.
Emotions are divided into asthenic, weakening the vital activity of the organism, and sthenic, increasing it, and most (fear, anger) can manifest themselves in both forms. In an adult, emotions usually appear as components of feelings.
The most important thing is that emotion is an experience. A person feels, so he experiences. Emotions are the impetus for achieving goals. Positive emotions contribute to a better assimilation of cognitive processes. With them, a person is open to communication with others. Negative emotions interfere with normal communication. They contribute to the development of diseases, affecting the brain, and those in turn on the nervous system. Emotions are associated with cognitive processes. For example, with the perception of emotions, the connection is direct, because. Emotions are expressions of the sensible. Depending on the mood, emotional state of a person, this is how he perceives the world around him, the situation. Emotions are also associated with sensation, only in this case sensations affect emotions. For example, touching a velvet surface, a person is pleased, he has a feeling of comfort, and touching a rough surface, a person is unpleasant.

2.2 Human cognitive activity
One of the most important characteristics of emotions is their connection with cognitive processes. The study of the relationship between emotional and cognitive processes goes back to the works of L.S. Vygotsky, who wrote: "He who has torn thinking from the very beginning from affect, has forever closed his way to explaining the causes of thinking itself."
Emotions determine, first of all, the dynamic side of cognitive functions, the tone, pace of activity, its "tuning" to one or another level of activation, the effect of emotions can be both sthenic, intensifying, and asthenic, lowering.
Moreover, if normally conscious cognitive intellectual activity inhibits emotional arousal, giving it direction and selectivity, then with affects, with superintense emotional arousal, the selective orientation of actions is violated and impulsive unpredictability of behavior is possible.
VK. Vilyunas substantiates the impossibility of the existence of emotions in isolation from cognitive processes as follows: emotions perform their functions, the most common of which are evaluation and motivation; depending on the cognitive content of the mental image, they single out the goals in the cognitive image and induce to the corresponding action.
A classification of emotions is proposed according to their cognitive component - the subject, which allows us to consider any subject of the traditionally distinguished cognitive process - perception, memory, thinking - as an object of emotional experience. Knowledge of the functions of emotions in relation to cognitive content allows us to approach the experimental study of emotions through the analysis of cognitive processes - cognitive processes accompanied by emotional experience will have a number of dynamic differences from those that are emotionally weakly experienced. These include the pace, speed, productivity of cognitive processes. Modern literature has accumulated a number of specific experimental data on the relationship of emotions with various cognitive processes: memory, perception and thinking.
Let us dwell in more detail on the analysis of the influence of emotions on the reception, processing and reproduction of information, in particular on such processes as perception and learning.
As you know, perception is a complex phenomenon. It includes such processes as highlighting a figure from the background, assessing the size, brightness and distance of the perceived object, highlighting the details that make up the object. So, each of these processes can undergo changes under the influence of emotional factors.
Perception and emotional state. Regardless of whether a person perceives an object that is meaningful to him or a relatively neutral object, the content of perception can be influenced by emotions caused by previously acting factors. This influence is manifested primarily in a change in the meaning of the perceived content.
One of the first attempts to experimentally study this influence, undertaken as early as the 1930s, was Murray's study of five eleven-year-old girls. The subjects had to rate photographs of strangers on a nine-point scale. Two series (A and B) of photographs were offered, 15 in each. Evaluations were made three times: on Saturday afternoon, after returning from a trip (Series A), on Saturday evening, after a "terrible game of killer" that caused great excitement and fear (Series A and B), and on Sunday afternoon, after returning from walks (series B). The girls had to rate how good or bad the presented faces seemed to them. Comparing the scores that were given to individuals from series A and B in two situations (neutral and exciting), it was possible to assess the effect of emotional arousal, while excluding the effect of the presentation order factor. The results of the study showed that the state of arousal caused changes in assessments; in 70% of cases, these changes were negative, that is, under the influence of exciting games, the girls rated faces as “worse”.
For the subjects who were in a state of strong emotional arousal, the assessed person seemed ugly, less interesting, not dexterous enough, and also less likeable, less affable.
The presented results indicate that the changes that occur in perception are to some extent related to the content of emotions: a negative emotional state (fear, anxiety, tension, pre-exam excitement) caused a negative shift in assessments.
However, not only temporary emotional states, but also stable emotional attitudes lead to a directed change in perception. Thus, in a series of studies in which projective tests were used, it was found that subjects with a high level of anxiety exhibit an increased tendency to perceive threat elements in presented situations. In other words, under the influence of the emotional set, there was a tendency to perceive a larger number of stimuli as stimuli that cause a negative reaction (a tendency to broader generalization).
These data indicate that the emotional process is one of the factors that influences the formation of a perceptual image. And it is a necessary part of human life and activity.
Emotions influence what a person perceives, but this influence does not, in essence, lead to a fundamental change in the perceived material. As emphasized by many authors, the main determinant of perception remains objective reality. On the other hand, there are reasons to conclude that the process of memorization, as well as reproduction, is influenced by emotions to a much greater extent.
Emotions have a selective effect on the learning process, contributing to the establishment of those connections that somehow correspond to the content of the experienced emotion. This is evidenced, in particular, by the experiment conducted by Beam. The subjects in his experiments performed two types of tasks: they memorized a number of meaningless syllables, and, in addition, they developed a conditioned emotional reaction to a light stimulus that anticipated a painful effect (the development of a conditioned galvanic skin reaction); the conditioned stimulus was the lighting of a light bulb, and the unconditioned (reinforcement) was an electric shock. The second task, which consisted in learning that a light signal anticipates danger, differed from the first in that its assimilation was mediated by anxiety (a person learned to be afraid of light).
The study was conducted in two different conditions: in neutral, and also in conditions that caused anxiety. The source of anxiety was a university exam or participation in a performance in front of a large audience (the study was conducted immediately before the exam or speech).
The main result obtained in these studies was that syllable learning was worse under anxiety conditions than under neutral conditions (more errors, more repetitions), while the assimilation of the danger signal was better than under central conditions.
Thus, it can be assumed that an increase in the level of anxiety facilitates the memorization of such reactions, the development of which is mediated by anxiety.
The conclusion that the state of anxiety facilitates the learning of "anxiety" (anxiety-mediated) responses, which follows from Beam's research, can be considered as a special case of the more general assertion that emotions facilitate the learning of responses that are related in content. In favor of such a broader understanding of the established dependence is evidenced by the results obtained in the study of other emotions.
Smith's research can serve as an example. Smith found that under conditions of failure, some subjects tend to more quickly memorize pairs of words that have aggressive content. Smith also found that this applies primarily to those who, on a questionnaire designed to identify personality traits, scored high on feelings (or attitudes) of hostility.
It is known that the encounter with failure, or frustration, usually leads to an increase in aggressive emotions. These emotions are likely to be stronger in individuals characterized by a high level of feelings (or attitudes) of hostility. Therefore, it is likely that their emotions reach a level that leads to a change in the effectiveness of learning.
Not only learning, but also remembering depends to a certain extent on emotional processes. This is evidenced by the results obtained in the study of the influence of emotions on memories. Such studies have been carried out for a long time.
It can also be argued that emotions contribute to the retention of material associated with it, and positive emotions may facilitate memorization to a greater extent than negative ones, and strong ones more than weak ones.
In conclusion, we can formulate the conclusion that emotions have a selective effect on memory processes. This influence may consist of both facilitating and hindering certain acts of recall in human activity.
Thus, we come to the conclusion that the connection with the emotional sphere, the sign and intensity of emotions is manifested in various cognitive processes of the personality - mnestic, gnostic, intellectual, affecting the efficiency, semantic structure of cognitive activity and the nature of its course.

2.3 Emotions and activity as mental processes of a person
The study of the assessment of one's own emotional state is an independent aspect of the study of emotions. As you know, self-esteem is studied in psychology in various aspects: its formation, dynamics, role in the regulation of behavior.
A special form of self-esteem is the self-assessment of the emotional state. It is known that it can be carried out at two levels: affective and cognitive (conscious). The possibility of realizing one's own emotional state presupposes, in addition to the preservation of the very ability to realize oneself, also knowledge of social norms and standards.
The methodological arsenal of studying the emotional state mainly includes methods of direct questioning of the subjects regarding their emotional experiences. This includes the free
etc.................

Social cognition is traditionally viewed as a purely cognitive process, during which a person appeals to categories, values, social beliefs, attitudes and thus makes a judgment about people. However, psychological research suggests that the choice of social information and the strategy of e-analysis are influenced by human emotions.

Emotions and choice of information.

The emotional state of a person affects attention to various aspects of information, its interpretation, memorization and reproduction. In particular, emotions:

• - determine a person's attribution of their successes and failures. A person experiencing positive emotions is more likely to use internal and controllable reasons in explaining their successes and less often -B in explaining their failures than a person experiencing negative emotions. However, this happens when successes and failures affect the peripheral, and not the central elements of the self-concept;
• - direct a person's attention to one information about a partner to the detriment of another. People experiencing positive emotions study information that speaks in favor of a partner for a longer time, and those who experience negative emotions - information against him;
• - update in the mind of a person one information about a partner and suppress another. For example, people experiencing positive emotions more easily recall the socially desirable behavior of a partner, and those experiencing negative emotions recall socially undesirable behavior;
• - influence the interpretation of incoming information. Receiving conflicting information about a partner, a person experiencing positive emotions interprets them in favor of a partner, and experiencing negative emotions - against him. In the first case, the accumulation of money and the unwillingness to spend it is interpreted as thrift, and in the second - as stinginess and greed;
• - have an impact on the assessment of the partner. People who experience positive emotions give it a more positive assessment, and those who experience negative emotions give it a more negative assessment. As a result, the former are more prone to cooperation and helping behavior, and the latter to aggression and competition (see chapters 9 and 10).

Thus, when making judgments, the effect of congruence of emotions is observed: people prefer the information, the assessment of which corresponds to the valency of the emotional state.

When does it happen? The answer to this question is contained in emotion infusion patterns(affect infusion model) J. Forgas. In his opinion, the influence of emotions on the preference for information depends on the analysis strategy that a person uses at the moment. He singles out four strategies that differ in the breadth of analysis and the amount of effort expended on information processing.

• 1. Direct access strategy (direct access) is characterized by a narrowly focused analysis of information and a small amount of cognitive effort. As a rule, this strategy is used when solving simple, well-known problems. A person's judgments do not depend on his emotional state.
• 2. Motivated processing strategy (motivated processing)B is distinguished by a narrowly focused analysis of information and a large amount of cognitive effort. As a rule, this strategy is used in solving problems that are extremely important for a person, when he considers only that information that is closely related to the achievement of the goal. The judgments of people using this strategy either do not depend on the emotional state, or correspond to the effect of incongruence, in which a person gives preference to information that contradicts his emotions.
• 3. Heuristic Processing Strategy (heuristic processing) involves a broad analysis of information and a small amount of cognitive effort. This strategy is used by people who have little interest in analyzing information, are under time pressure or have a high cognitive load. They mistakenly view their emotional state as the result of a response to a particular stimulus. In this case, the effect of congruence of emotions is observed: In we attach more importance to those characteristics of the partner that correspond to the valency of our emotional state.
• 4. When using independent processing strategies (substantive pocessing) a person makes a broad search for information and makes great efforts to analyze it. As a rule, this happens when he makes a judgment in the absence of a time limit, free cognitive resources and the presence of motivation to make an accurate judgment. In this case, the effect of congruence is also observed: emotions play the role of priming - they activate m elements of the associative network, the assessment of which corresponds to the current emotional state (see Chapter 1).

Emotions and the choice of information analysis strategies. In addition to the preference for information, the emotional state influences the person's choice of strategy for its analysis. As a result, people experiencing positive (joy) and negative (sad) emotions have effects associated with the thoroughness and way of processing information, for example:

• - people who feel joy trust others more than those who feel sad; more believe in the authenticity of the emotions that the partner demonstrates; more trust in suspects who deny their guilt in committing a crime;
• - joyful people pay less attention to individual information about a partner than sad people; more often they use stereotypes when evaluating people - simple ideas about the characteristics inherent in members of a particular social group (see Chapter 16); More often they demonstrate the effect of primacy (see Chapter 1);
• - people who feel joy analyze incoming information more superficially than sad ones; less attentive to the details of the message; argue their position worse; make less distinction between serious and frivolous arguments;
• - joyful people pay less attention to the characteristics of the situation than sad ones; are more likely to make the fundamental attribution error (see Chapter 2); are less responsive to the fairness of the interaction (see Chapter 8).

Two groups of models were created to explain these differences.

In models of the first type, the distinction between strategies is based on the amount of effort that a person puts into processing information. For example, according to models of cognitive adjustment(cognitive tuning model) emotions are a signal for a person about what is happening around him. A person experiencing positive emotions considers the current situation favorable and safe. As a consequence, he trusts the judgments made on the basis of a superficial analysis of information, and does not make efforts to further process it. At the same time, a person experiencing negative emotions perceives the situation as dangerous for himself and tries to find the source of danger. To do this, he conducts a thorough analysis of information about what is happening. The depth of analysis affects the amount of information that a person uses to form an idea about a partner, as well as the strategy for analyzing a persuasive message, which will be discussed in Chapter 7 (see heuristic-systematic model of information analysis). People experiencing negative emotions are more likely to look for additional information about a partner and take it into account when making a judgment, and also analyze the argumentation of the message more often and less often its form than people experiencing positive emotions.

In models of the second type, the criterion for different strategies is the correlation of new information and existing cognitive structures. According to models of assimilation - accommodation(assimilation-accommodation model) G. Bless and K. Fiedler, emotions do not so much regulate the efforts that a person spends on analyzing information as they launch equally labor-intensive, but qualitatively different information processing strategies - assimilation and accommodation In the assimilation strategy, external information is adjusted according to the content of attitudes and categories. At the same time, when using the accommodation strategy, attitudes and categories change under the influence of new information. People experiencing positive emotions more often use the assimilation strategy, and people experiencing negative emotions use the accommodation strategy. This happens because positive emotions tell a person about the safety of the situation, and therefore, about the correspondence of reality to the already existing elements of the cognitive system. At the same time, negative emotions are a signal for a person about the danger of what is happening and indicate the need to reconsider existing views.

Thus, there is a two-way relationship between emotions and social cognition. On the one hand, emotions influence the analysis of information about oneself and other people, and on the other hand, they arise as a result of this analysis. In both cases, they become one of the factors influencing human behavior.

Emotions accompany us from birth to death, but few people realize how important emotions are. What are emotions? Emotions are the attitude of a person to various events taking place in his life. It should be noted that emotions have been studied by scientists very poorly. Therefore, the opinions of the authors regarding such a concept as human emotions are very different.

In order to understand what emotions are, it is necessary to draw a general conclusion based on all opinions. Emotions are a person's reaction to ongoing events. They have a great influence on human activities, and in most cases are responsible for his actions.

This means that thanks to emotions, a person is able to experience such feelings as fear, joy, anger, pleasure, hatred and others.

Emotions are not the cause of feelings. They only regulate human activity.

Emotions have accompanied mankind since ancient times. They have gone through a long period of evolution, and have changed a lot since the dawn of life. At first, emotions could be called the primitive instincts of a person, for example, movement and other actions inherent in man by nature. In the process of evolution, they developed, acquiring an emotional character and lost the instinctive one. Thus, the instincts acquired individuality, and allowed a person to assess the current situation, as well as take part in it at his own discretion.

The role of emotions in life

The role of emotions is very great. They are the basis of human existence. For example, thanks to various emotions, such as joy, hatred or fear, people are able to communicate their feelings and experiences to each other. Emotional outbursts are usually accompanied by active gestures, changes in intonation or even skin color, such as redness.

It is difficult to imagine a person without emotion. In some situations, people are able to restrain their impulses, but in most cases this is very difficult for them. A person who looks at life with an empty look ceases to see any interest in it and completely loses his further goal. Any actions do not bring him the desired satisfaction. An apathetic state can cause deep depression. However, often a person finds a way to return to his former life again.

Emotions can be perceived as signals sent to a person by the body. For example, if a person's emotions are positive, it means that he is happy with everything and is in harmony with the world around him. If a person shows negative emotions, then something bothers him a lot.

Emotions have a significant impact on a person's life. They have a direct bearing on how people perceive the world around them. A person who experiences positive emotions, such as joy and happiness, looks at the world and the people around him in a positive way. A person suffering from difficult experiences and negative emotions, evaluates the environment only in dark colors.

It is also worth noting that emotions have a strong influence on mental processes and human performance. Being in a negative state, a person almost never can do hard work. His brain cannot concentrate on a specific task.

In some cases, the reasons for poor and low-quality work may depend on personal perception, which is responsible for emotions. If a person absolutely does not like the work that he is forced to do, then in most cases he will not be able to do the work quickly and efficiently.

Strong emotional impulses can lead to unexpected consequences. For example, being in a person is capable of a terrible act, for which he will not be able to answer later if he is in a state of strong emotional shock. Being in a state of passion, people often commit monstrous acts.

Classification

People can be very different from each other. They can live in different countries, brought up according to different customs, but in most cases their emotions are similar to each other. Animals have a unique ability to understand human emotions. For example, a cat or dog perfectly feel the mood of the owner. If a person is in a good mood, the animal will definitely come to him. Feeling the slightest sign of anger and aggression, the pet will try to stay away from the person.

Scientists are not yet able to fully formulate the definition of this phenomenon. It is not clear exactly how animals feel the hatred or joy emanating from a person. However, almost everyone can confirm this phenomenon.

Emotions are different and are divided into several types. They have the ability to quickly replace each other. A person can be depressed, and suddenly gain vitality. An unusual surge of strength can also be replaced by apathy, and a desire to hide from the world. Being sad and sad, a person can suddenly become cheerful and joyful.

It's hard for people to hide their emotions. Often they are immediately reflected on the face of a person, and in order to avoid this, you need to have incredible control over yourself.

Trying to hide their true feelings, they can give themselves away with gestures, facial expressions, or even voice.

In general, emotions can be divided into three main groups.

• positive;
• Negative;
• Neutral;

Positive emotions include joy, laughter, happiness, pleasure, love, sympathy, admiration, bliss and others. They bring a person only positive feelings, and make his life much better.

Negative emotions usually include envy, anger, hatred, resentment, fear, disgust, regret, and others. Such emotions drive a person into a depressive state and significantly worsen his life.

Neutral emotions include amazement, curiosity, and indifference. Often such emotions do not carry a special subtext, and are not of significant interest to a person.

Influence

As mentioned above, emotions have a great influence on a person's life. Some people don't tend to get emotional. They experience them, but they cannot fully feel them. Such people can be called impassive and cold. They are unable to properly assess their own feelings.

Human emotions really have not only a moral, but also a physical impact on a person. For example, if a person experiences severe fear, he is unable to think or make sudden movements. The body of a person experiencing fear can become numb, and in some cases he wants to run without looking back.

Being sad, a person is not able to take an active part in society. He wants to quickly hide from the outside world, does not want to keep up the conversation and prefers loneliness.

Joy also changes a person's life. Positive emotions contribute to the production of the hormone of happiness. A person feels an unexpected surge of strength, and readily embarks on new achievements.

Prolonged stress can have a serious impact on human health. Negative emotions contribute to the deterioration of the cardiovascular system. Violation of the heart, can lead to serious consequences. Incessant negative emotions have a detrimental effect on the human body.

It is also worth noting a separate group of human emotions. Affects are very strong human emotions. In this state, a person can commit an unexpected, unusual act. In some cases, it is hatred, fear, or a desire to protect oneself.

human feelings

Emotions and feelings of a person are closely related to his personality. They point to the inner experiences of a person, his desires and secret fears. Most people cannot fully express their emotions, are afraid of it and try to hide their true feelings. In this case, you should seriously think about the reason for this behavior. People who are unable to express their feelings can face serious problems. In the future, they will not be able to correctly assess the life situation and cope with difficulties. Many people never find the strength to confess their true feelings and experiences.

If a person is absolutely healthy, he will definitely experience feelings and emotions. The world around him has a constant impact on him. Emotions and feelings are a direct response to such influences. Alexithymia is a disease in which a person is unable to experience feelings.

Such people do not really know what feelings and emotions are. Often their problems come from early childhood. The blame for this behavior is adults who failed to give children proper attention. Alexithymics prefer to search for the meaning of life, develop as a person and consider emotions to be a waste of time. They claim they don't feel anything. In fact, such people are simply not able to cope with feelings. It is easier for them not to pay attention to them than to admit their presence.

There is a type of people who are able to consciously erase emotions from life. They prefer not to feel anything, and not to burden themselves with unnecessary experiences. Having experienced many life upheavals, they come to the conclusion that feelings and emotions do not lead to good things. However, it should be remembered that it is very difficult to live without emotions. Such an existence will not bring joy to a person. It is important to understand that even negative emotions can become a certain lesson in life for a person. You should not turn off your emotions, and harden against the whole world.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1. EMOTIONS AS A SPECIAL CLASS OF MENTAL PROCESSES

1.1 General characteristics of emotions

1.2 Functions of emotions

CHAPTER 2

2.1 The relationship of emotions and activities

2.3 Assessment of one's own emotional state as an important aspect in the study of the emotions of a person as a whole

CONCLUSION

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

Introduction

In our age of scientific and technological progress, when a modern person spends more and more time in front of a computer monitor, when the proportion of live communication is getting lower, and the quality of communication is undergoing significant changes due to the substitution of people in various fields of activity by "smart machines", emotional experiences for a person, they retain their necessity and priority, as one of the sources of enrichment of the inner world of the individual, as one of the sources of knowledge of the surrounding reality.

Psychologists, like philosophers and educators, do not have a single point of view regarding the role that emotions play in human life. So, some of them, despite the fact that the intellect has become a tool of production, and science - fate, still tend to classify a person as an emotional being or, perhaps, emotional-social. In their opinion, the very meaning of our existence has an affective, emotional nature: we surround ourselves with those people and things to which we are emotionally attached. They argue that learning through experience (both personally and socially) is as important, if not more so, than the accumulation of information.

One of the first to speak about the important role of emotions in human behavior was Leeper, a leading personality theorist, and Maurer, an eminent specialist in the psychology of learning. Maurer argued that "emotions are one of the key, virtually indispensable factors in those changes in behavior or its results that we call" learning ".

Emotions, or emotional experiences, usually mean a wide variety of human reactions - from violent outbursts of passion to subtle shades of mood. In psychology, emotions are called processes that reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations for human life in the form of experiences.

Most people know what kinds of situations interest them, disgust them, make them feel angry or guilty. Almost every person experiences interest in watching an astronaut walk in space, disgust in seeing dirt, anger in being offended and guilt in avoiding responsibility for loved ones.

So the lack of emotional communication, intimate contact of the infant with the mother leads to poor development of the infant, to frequent illnesses, defective emotionality, coldness, low ability for empathy and sympathy. And without all this, the child, having matured, will not be able to become a full-fledged member of society.

From this we can conclude that human behavior is determined not only by the action of elementary needs and instincts. Emotions reflect the world around us and regulate our behavior accordingly. They are not only an assessment of completed actions. In order to understand such concepts as value, purpose, courage, devotion, empathy, altruism, pity, pride, compassion and love, we must accept the existence and exceptional importance of the role of human emotions. This explains the relevance of our study.

The purpose of the study: to study the role of emotions in human life.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks were formulated:

1. To study emotions as a special class of mental processes.

2. Consider the functions of emotions in human life.

3. Determine the nature of the interaction of emotions and personality activities.

4. Reveal the influence of emotions on human cognitive activity.

Object of study: emotions as a mental process.

Subject of research: the influence of emotions on cognitive processes and human activity.

Research methods: theoretical analysis of scientific psychological and pedagogical literature on this aspect.

Despite the fact that scientists have not yet reached a consensus on the nature of emotions and their meaning, the theoretical and practical achievements of recent decades allow us to consider emotions in all the variety of approaches to the study of this problem, in its most diverse aspects.

Chapter 1. Emotions as a special class of mental processes

1.1 General characteristics of emotions

Currently, most psychologists believe that emotions are not a simple phenomenon. And therefore, there are many approaches to the definition of "emotion". Some researchers consider emotions as short-term phenomena. Others are convinced that people are constantly under the influence of one emotion or another. Some scientists believe that emotions destroy and disorganize human behavior. Others, on the contrary, say that emotions play a positive role in organizing, motivating and reinforcing behavior. However, they all agree on one thing - any definition of emotion must take into account three aspects that characterize it:

1) experienced or perceived sensation of emotion (impressive);

2) processes occurring in the nervous, endocrine, respiratory, digestive and other systems of the body (physiological);

3) observable expressive complexes of emotions, in particular those that are reflected on the face (expressive).

It should be noted that the emotional world of the individual remained unexplored for quite a long time, it was simply not given due attention. Researchers in this area of ​​psychology express many theories of the origin and essence of emotions. But this set has its drawback - there is no single and precise definition of emotions. Each researcher proposes his own definition of emotions due to his views.

Let's take a closer look at them.

1. Lebedinsky says that emotions are one of the most important aspects of mental processes that characterize a person's experience of reality.

2. Emotions in the understanding of P.K. Anokhin are physiological states of the body that have a pronounced subjective coloring and cover all types of feelings and experiences of a person - from deeply traumatic suffering to high forms of joy and social life.

3. Emotional processes, according to Reikovsky, are a specific class of mental regulation processes driven by factors that are significant for the individual.

4. Emotions - subjective reactions of humans and animals to the impact of internal and external stimuli, manifested in the form of pleasure or displeasure, joy, fear, etc.

5. Accompanying almost any manifestation of the organism's vital activity, emotions reflect the significance (meaning) of phenomena and situations in the form of direct experience and serve as one of the main mechanisms for the internal regulation of mental activity and behavior aimed at meeting urgent needs (Leontiev, Sudakov).

Wecker in his book “Mental Processes” says that the definitions of emotions include the concept of “relationship”, since emotions are most closely related to the relationship of the subject to the objects that surround him and are included in the context of the main life events.

If we consider emotions as experiences of events and relationships, as opposed to cognitive processes as knowledge of these events and relationships, then this definition will not be enough, if only because it describes emotions in terms of specific characteristics and does not contain a generic attribute.

Wecker leads us to the conclusion that “there is no reason to build a definition of emotions by taking this concept beyond the scope of the concept “reflection” or by opposing and including in one species series the concepts of “reflection”, “experience”, “expression”. “Emotion” as a species, being within its closest genus (mental processes), remains at the same time within the wider scope of the concept “reflection”.

Let us dwell on the following definition of this mental process, which, in our opinion, more fully complements the essence of the concept under study.

So, emotions are a special class of mental processes and states associated with the instincts, needs and motives of the individual. Emotions perform the function of regulating the activity of the subject, by reflecting the significance of external and internal situations for the implementation of his life.

Emotions play a very important role in human life. Although they differ from other mental processes, it is still difficult to separate them, since they merge into a single human experience.

In the works of V. V. Davydov, devoted to developmental education, it is shown that emotional processes play the role of “mechanisms of emotional consolidation”, the formation of affective complexes.

The most essential feature of emotions is their subjectivity. If such mental processes as perception and thinking allow a person to more or less objectively reflect the world around him and not dependent on him, then emotions serve to reflect a person’s subjective attitude to himself and to the world around him. No less important is the fact that emotions are not only recognized and comprehended, but also experienced. A person takes a certain position to the event. And this position is always biased, since it does not produce a purely rational assessment, but includes an emotional experience.

Important features of emotions are their intensity and depth. Under the intensity of emotion understand the degree of activation of the central nervous system. According to D. B. Linsley, who conducted electrophysiological studies, there are two polar meanings for the activation of a person’s emotional state: a state of coma or deep sleep, in which reflexes disappear and which even strong stimuli cannot disturb, and a state of extreme excitement (ecstasy, attacks of rage , panic, rage). Between these poles there are a number of intermediate states: apathy, indifference, interest, cheerfulness, excitement. These states, as a rule, are reversible and are able to pass, depending on the external or internal stimulus, into each other.

However, the intensity of an emotion is not always an indicator of its personal importance for a person. Therefore, the indicator “depth of emotions” is used, which reflects the personal significance of emerging experiences. After all, it is no secret that the same event can be perceived differently by different people, which indicates the personal significance of this event. We can assume that remembering an event depends on the depth of emotion, that is, on personal significance. And those events that have a bright emotional coloring, both positive and negative, persist longer and more firmly. However, some scientists believe that we remember events with a negative connotation better, since negative emotions are more important for the survival of the organism, they signal a person about danger and help him avoid such situations.

As you can see, the role of emotions is great. Emotions perform the function of regulating the activity of the subject, by reflecting the significance of external and internal situations for the implementation of his life. Without emotions, life would be boring and monotonous.

C. Darwin was interested in the vital meaning of those changes in the body that accompany the corresponding emotions. Comparing the facts, Darwin came to the following conclusions about the nature and role of emotions in human life:

1. Internal (organic) and external (motor) manifestations of emotions play an important adaptive role in human life. They set him up for certain actions and, in addition, this is a signal for him about how the other living being is set up and what he intends to do.

2. Sometime in the process of evolution of living beings, those organic and motor reactions that they currently have were components of full-fledged, detailed practical adaptive actions. Subsequently, their external components were reduced, but the vital function remained the same. For example, a person or animal bares his teeth in anger, tense his muscles, as if preparing for an attack, their breathing and pulse quicken. This is a signal: a living being is ready to commit an act of aggression.

The American psychologist W. James, the creator of one of the first theories in which subjective emotional experience is correlated with functions, described the huge role of emotions in human life in the following words: “Imagine, if possible, that you suddenly lost all the emotions that fill you with surrounding world, and try to imagine this world as it is in itself, without your favorable or unfavorable assessment, without the hopes or fears it inspires. should be of greater importance than any other, and the totality of things and events will have no meaning, character, expression, or perspective.Everything of value, interest, and importance that each of us finds in his world is all a pure product of the contemplative personalities".

Nowhere is the relationship between physiological and mental phenomena, body and soul, so clearly revealed, as in the psychology of emotions. Emotional experiences are always accompanied by more or less profound changes in the activity of the nervous system, heart, respiration, endocrine glands, muscular system, etc. Under the influence of emotions, the voice, expression of the eyes, and skin color change. Emotions are able to cover the entire human body with their influence, disorganize or, on the contrary, improve its activity.

1.2 Functions of emotions

In order to understand what role emotions play in our lives, we must first consider the basic functions of emotions. Researchers, answering the question of what role emotions play in the life of living beings, identify several regulatory functions of emotions: reflective (evaluative), motivating, reinforcing, switching and communicative.

The reflective function of emotions is expressed in a generalized assessment of events. Emotions cover the entire organism and represent an almost instantaneous and integral assessment of behavior as a whole, which makes it possible to determine the usefulness and harmfulness of the factors affecting a person even before the localization of the harmful effect is determined. An example is the behavior of a person who has received a limb injury. Focusing on pain, he immediately finds a position that reduces pain.

Emotion as a special internal state and subjective experience performs the function of assessing the circumstances of the situation. Based on the need that has arisen and an intuitive idea of ​​​​the possibilities of satisfying it. Emotional appraisal differs from the conscious cognitive appraisal operations of the mind in that it is performed on a sensory level.

P.V. Simonov identifies a reinforcing function in emotions. It is known that emotions are directly involved in the processes of learning and memory. Significant events that cause emotional reactions are quickly and permanently imprinted in memory.

The switching function of emotions is that they often induce a person to change his behavior. This function of emotions is most clearly revealed in extreme situations, when a struggle arises between the instinct of self-preservation, natural for a person, and the social need to follow a certain ethical norm. The conflict of needs is experienced in the form of a struggle between fear and a sense of duty, fear and shame. The outcome depends on the strength of the motives and personal attitudes of the subject.

Let us reveal the essence of the motivational function of emotions. Their participation in the management of our behavior and activities has been discussed for a long time, even by the thinkers of ancient Greece.

Rene Descartes spoke about the emotion of interest in managing human behavior and activities, namely the role of passion in remembering: “No matter how many times an object unknown to us appears in our field of vision, we do not keep it in our memory at all, unless the idea of ​​​​it has been strengthened. some passion in our brain."

The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly reflect the relationship between motives and the implementation of activities that meet these motives. Although emotions in themselves are not motives, they can act in the motivational process as not only an energy amplifier of motives, but also the motivator itself, but not actions to satisfy a need, but a motivational process. They represent only the first step towards regulating the processes of the body, that is, they provide the consciousness with the grounds for such regulation and give it the first impetus. The motivational function of emotion includes aspiration, desire, attraction directed towards or away from an object. Emotion highlights the search area, where the solution to the problem, satisfaction of the need will be found. Thus, emotion is the stimulus and regulator of human behavior.

Emotions play a huge role at all stages of the motivational process. When assessing the significance of an external stimulus, the main purpose of emotions is to give the body a signal about the benefits or harms of a phenomenon. Emotions reflect not only the biological significance of external stimuli, but also the personal one. Emotions are ahead of a person's awareness of the situation and signals a possible pleasant / unpleasant outcome of an event. They determine what is significant for a person and what is not, and thus contribute to his orientation in various situations.

When making a decision, emotions usually point to objects and actions that can lead to the satisfaction of a need and thereby contribute to the decision. However, often, there is not enough information necessary to make a decision. Then emotions perform a compensatory function, that is, they replace this missing information. For example, when confronted with an unfamiliar object, emotion gives this object an appropriate color (good or bad, like it or not), usually this happens in comparison with previously encountered objects. Although with the help of emotion a person more often makes a generalized and not always justified assessment of the object and situation, it nevertheless helps him get out of the impasse when he does not know what to do in this situation. In such cases, the role of emotions consists in emergency substitution, compensation for the knowledge that is missing at the moment.

An important function of emotions is the communicative function. Facial expressions, gestures, postures, expressive sighs, changes in intonation are the “language of human feelings” and allow a person to convey his experiences to other people, to inform them about his attitude to phenomena and objects.

Thanks to emotions, we can better understand each other, we can, without using speech, signal dangers, inform each other about our states (using facial expressions and gestures). This is evidenced by the fact that people belonging to different cultures are able to almost unmistakably understand and evaluate each other's state by facial expression, what emotion he is currently experiencing: anger, joy, disgust or fear. This helps understanding when communicating between two individuals.

Emotions are also an additional means of communication. This can be seen from the fact that when a person, for example, cannot convince his interlocutor with logical arguments, he raises his voice, that is, enhances the expressive effect. Undoubtedly, raising the voice increases the impact on a person, however, one must also take into account the fact that this can be a kind of discharge, relieving emotional stress, which can be the result of annoyance, anger, irritation of a person. It is mimic and pantomimic movements that are a means of transmitting information about the attitude to the phenomena of the surrounding reality.

Studies have shown that not all manifestations of feelings are equally easy to recognize. Horror is the easiest to recognize (57% of the subjects), then disgust (48%) and surprise (34%). If we compare the emotions caused by the same object in different people, we can find a certain similarity, while other emotional manifestations in people are strictly individual. The variety of emotional manifestations is expressed, first of all, in the prevailing mood. Under the influence of living conditions and depending on the attitude towards them, some people are dominated by an increased, cheerful, cheerful mood, while others are depressed, depressed, sad. The third is capricious, irritable. Significant individual differences are also observed in the emotional excitability of people. There are people who are emotionally a little sensitive, in whom only some extraordinary events evoke pronounced emotions. Such people, having found themselves in a particular life situation, do not so much feel as they are aware of it with their minds. Despite the evolutionary appearance of speech, the communicative function of emotion has not lost its relevance and significance. Emotional expression remains one of the main factors that ensure non-verbal communication. The importance of this function of emotion is evident from the fact that in the West, many managers hire employees based on the IQ, and promote them based on the emotional coefficient, which characterizes a person’s ability to communicate emotionally.

For a more complete acquaintance with the functional purpose of emotions, along with their relatively general manifestations, one should also get acquainted with the specific functional characteristics of individual emotional states. However, this would greatly expand our discussion of this problem. The specific features of such emotional states as laughter, fear of action, sadness, grief are highlighted in the works of L. Bergson, P. Janet, Z. Freud, E. Lindemann.

Thus, the works of the last two authors reveal another general characteristic of emotions, a certain aspect of which was designated by A. N. Leontiev as the ability of emotions to "set a task for meaning." Emotions, especially when they signal something exceptional, cannot leave a person indifferent, sometimes causing a complex and detailed “work of consciousness” to explain it, approve it, reconcile with it or condemn it, and even repress it. However, putting this manifestation of emotions next to others does not allow the fact that they act in it not as a directly acting force, but as an occasion in connection with which the whole complex system of forces of personality and consciousness comes into motion.

Summing up the writing of the first chapter of the course work, we come to the following conclusions.

Emotions are a special class of mental processes and states associated with the instincts, needs and motives of the individual. Emotions perform the function of regulating the activity of the subject, by reflecting the significance of external and internal situations for the implementation of his life.

It is emotions that determine what is significant for a person and what is not at the moment, and thereby contribute to his orientation in various situations. Emotions can cover the entire human body with their influence, disorganize or, on the contrary, improve its activity.

Thus, we can conclude that emotion is the stimulus and regulator of human behavior as a whole, subordinating his activity to the main motives and needs of the individual, his interests and inclinations.

CHAPTER 2. Emotions and activity as two interrelated and interdependent mental processes of a person

2.1 The relationship of emotions and activities

If everything that happens can cause certain emotions in a person, then the connection between a person’s emotions and his own activity is especially close. Today, no one denies the connection of emotions with the characteristics of the vital activity of the body. Under the influence of emotions, the activity of the organs of blood circulation, respiration, digestion, glands of internal and external secretion and other organs changes. Excessive intensity and duration of experiences can cause disturbances in the body.

M.I. Astvatsaturov wrote that the heart is more often affected by fear, the liver by anger, and the stomach by apathy and depression. The emergence of these processes is based on changes occurring in the external world, but affects the activity of the whole organism. For example, during emotional experiences, blood circulation changes: the heartbeat quickens or slows down, the tone of blood vessels changes, blood pressure rises or falls, and so on. As a result, with some emotional experiences, a person blushes, with others, he turns pale. The heart is very sensitive to all changes in emotional life. Under the influence of prolonged negative emotions, a person can develop illnesses. And, conversely, under the influence of positive emotions, recovery is accelerated. This is evidenced by many examples.

In addition to regulating the state of the body, emotions perform the function of regulating human behavior as a whole. They are essential in optimizing all body activities. Negative emotions act as a signal of a violation of the constancy of the internal environment of the body and thereby contribute to the harmonious flow of life processes. And positive emotions are a kind of reward to a person for the work he expended in the process of achieving a useful result. It follows that positive emotions are the strongest means of fixing reactions that are beneficial for the body. Indeed, in a person, positive emotions are always caused by success in his activities, for example, a scientific discovery made, an excellent mark in an exam.

Emotions contribute to the concentration of all the forces of the body necessary to achieve a result. And this helps us to successfully cope with difficulties. This is especially important in stressful situations, for example, when there is danger to life or physical and mental stress. They are directly involved in learning, that is, they play a reinforcing role.

Emotions of success - failure have the ability to instill love or extinguish it forever in relation to the type of activity that a person is engaged in. In other words, emotions affect the nature of a person's motivation in relation to the activity he performs. On the one hand, the course and outcome of human activity usually evoke certain emotions in a person, on the other hand, the emotional states of a person affect his activity. Emotions not only cause activity, but are themselves conditioned by it.

The influence of emotions on activity is subject to the well-known Jerkes-Dodson rule, which postulates the optimal level of stress for each specific type of work. A decrease in emotional tone as a result of a small need or completeness of the subject's awareness leads to drowsiness, loss of vigilance, missing significant signals, and slow reactions. On the other hand, an excessively high level of emotional stress disorganizes activity, complicates it, increases responses to extraneous, insignificant signals, and leads to primitive actions such as blind search by trial and error.

Human emotions are manifested in all types of human activity, and this is especially noticeable in artistic creativity. Emotions can stimulate the creative process. The emotional sphere of the artist is reflected in the choice of subjects, in the manner of writing, in the way of developing selected themes and subjects. All this taken together makes up the individual originality of the artist. Genuine insight is by no means an intellectual process. The incentive to start activity is a kind of self-adjustment of the intensity of emotions, which can be both involuntary and arbitrary. It is no coincidence that many quirks, magical actions are known, with the help of which creative individuals set themselves up for creativity, creating a certain emotional state. The initial stage of creativity, as a rule, is associated with an increase in internal mental stress.

In a person, emotions associated with activity occupy a special place, since it is it that gives a positive or negative result. They are different from physical pleasure/displeasure. For example, the feeling of satisfaction / dissatisfaction (sense of success, luck, glee, failure, collapse) is associated primarily with the course and outcome of a particular activity. In some cases, people experience satisfaction when evaluating the result of an activity and its achievements, in others, satisfaction is associated with the course of this activity. However, even when this feeling is associated primarily with the result of the activity, the result is experienced emotionally, since it is recognized as an achievement in relation to the activity that led to them. When this achievement has already been consolidated and has become a normal state, a level that does not require tension, labor, struggle to maintain it, the feeling of satisfaction begins to fade relatively quickly. What is emotionally experienced is not a stop at some level, but a transition, a movement to a higher level. This can be observed in the activities of any worker who has achieved a sharp increase in labor productivity, in the activities of a scientist who has made this or that discovery. The feeling of success quickly fades, and therefore the desire for new achievements flares up again, for the sake of which you need to fight and work.

That is, we can say that the pleasure that the labor process gives us is mainly pleasure associated with overcoming difficulties, with achieving partial results, with approaching the result, which is the ultimate goal of activity. In the course of activity, there are usually critical points at which a favorable or unfavorable result is determined for a person. Man, as a conscious being, more or less adequately foresees the approach of such critical points. As he approaches them, tension builds. After the critical point is passed, discharge occurs. Thus, the emotions associated primarily with the course of activity, although different, are inseparable from the emotions associated with its outcome.

Thus, emotions significantly influence the course of activity. As a form of manifestation of the needs of the individual, emotions act as internal motivations for activity. These inner impulses, expressed in feelings, are determined by the individual's real relationship to the world around him.

2.2 The influence of emotions on human cognitive activity

One of the most important characteristics of emotions is their connection with cognitive processes. The study of the relationship between emotional and cognitive processes goes back to the works of L.S. Vygotsky and other classics of psychology. So L.S. Vygotsky wrote: "Whoever has torn thinking from affect from the very beginning, has forever closed his way to explaining the causes of thinking itself."

S.L. wrote about the unity of the affective and the intellectual as an essential characteristic of the emotions themselves. Rubinstein, who believed that emotions as such determine primarily the dynamic side of cognitive functions, the tone, pace of activity, its "tuning" to one or another level of activation, drew attention to the fact that the action of emotions can be both sthenic, reinforcing, and asthenic. , lowering.

Moreover, if normally conscious cognitive intellectual activity inhibits emotional arousal, giving it direction and selectivity, then with affects, with superintense emotional arousal, the selective orientation of actions is violated and impulsive unpredictability of behavior is possible.

VK. Vilyunas substantiates the impossibility of the existence of emotions in isolation from cognitive processes as follows: emotions perform their functions, the most common of which are evaluation and motivation; depending on the cognitive content of the mental image, they single out goals in the cognitive image and induce them to take appropriate action.

A classification of emotions is proposed according to their cognitive component - the subject, which allows us to consider any subject of the traditionally distinguished cognitive process - perception, memory, thinking - as an object of emotional experience. The author believes that knowledge of the functions of emotions in relation to cognitive content makes it possible to approach the experimental study of emotions through the analysis of cognitive processes - cognitive processes accompanied by emotional experience will have a number of dynamic differences from those that are emotionally weakly experienced. These include the pace, speed, productivity of cognitive processes. Modern literature has accumulated a number of specific experimental data on the relationship of emotions with various cognitive processes: memory, perception and thinking.

I would like to dwell in more detail on the analysis of the influence of emotions on the reception, processing and reproduction of information, in particular on such processes as perception and learning.

As you know, perception is a complex phenomenon. It includes such processes as highlighting a figure from the background, assessing the size, brightness and distance of the perceived object, highlighting the details that make up the object. So, each of these processes can undergo changes under the influence of emotional factors.

Consider the influence of emotional experience on the selection of a figure from the background. The process of selecting a figure from the background plays an essential role in perception. Among the factors that determine this process, the organization of perceptual material is usually indicated in the first place. However, it turned out that emotional factors also influence the course and result of this process.
This is indicated, in particular, by the studies of Schafer and Murphy. The subjects were shown the contour of the face for about 1/3 sec and were asked to remember the names presented at the same time. The faces were presented repeatedly, and two of them were constantly reinforced by a reward - after their exposure, the subject received 2 or 4 cents, the exposure of the rest of the faces was regularly followed by punishment - the subject himself must was paying 2-4 cents. Each face was exposed 25 times; rewards and punishments were distributed in such a way that at the end of the experiment, the subjects could earn some money (about 15 cents). The critical moment of the experiment was the presentation of a dual figure obtained by combining two profiles.

The subjects had to say what kind of face they see in this dual picture. It turned out that out of a total of 67 presentations, in 54 cases, the subjects perceived a face that was accompanied by positive reinforcement. In other words, the configuration of stimuli with which the positive emotional experience was associated stood out from the background.

It should be emphasized that the subjects were not told what they were rewarded or punished for. The tendency to perceive what received positive reinforcement appeared as if automatically.

From a common sense point of view, the result of this study may seem quite obvious; Isn't it natural that we tend to perceive what a reward or promotion entails? However, the matter is by no means so simple. A perfectly legitimate question arises: why should the receipt of 15 cents have any effect on the organization of the perceptual field? Why do our eyes see better what promises such a small reward? Are the results of the experiment credible?

In favor of the data obtained is the fact that two other researchers who repeated the experiment, namely Smith and Hochberg, obtained similar results.

Research by Barbara Cohn paints a somewhat different picture. Instead of contours of faces, Kohn presented the subjects with meaningless syllables with different frequencies - from 1 to 25 times. As in the experiment of Schafer and Murphy, the presentation of some syllables was accompanied by a monetary reward, while others were accompanied by a monetary punishment. But there were also syllables that were not followed by either positive or negative reinforcement. Then the subjects were offered several perceptual tests, which allowed them to assess the correctness of the perception of syllables. What were the results of this experiment?

First of all, it was found that the quality of perception depends on the degree of familiarity with the syllable, that is, on the number of presentations: the more familiar the syllable was, the easier it was perceived. This result is in full agreement with what is known about perception. In addition, emotional experiences associated with positive or negative reinforcement have also been found to influence perception. Compared to neutral syllables, rewarded and punished syllables were perceived better.

This result does not contradict the data discussed above, because it does not diminish the significance of the reward, but only indicates that not only the reward, but also the punishment facilitates perception.

Thus, as Kohn's research shows, the factor that contributes to the selection of a figure from the background is not only and not so much a positive reinforcement, but some kind of emotional state associated with the perceived object (regardless of whether it is positive or negative).

Now consider the influence of emotional experience on the perception of the properties of an object. The selection of an object and an accurate assessment of its properties are associated with the emotional experience of a person. This is evidenced, in particular, by the experiments of Proshansky and Murphy on pairwise comparison of the line and loads. The experiment was carried out as follows.

The first part: the subjects compared lines and loads in pairs. The experimenter determined the accuracy of the estimates. The second part: the subjects were divided into three groups - A, B and C. The subjects of group C (control) were neither rewarded nor punished. The third part: the subjects compared lines and weights in pairs (as in the first part).

It turned out that in the third part of the experiment, the number of errors increased, the nature of which depended on what received positive reinforcement. Thus, those subjects who were rewarded for indicating longer lines and lighter weights (Group B) found a tendency to overestimate the length and underestimate the weight. Group A subjects, who were rewarded for pointing shorter lines and heavier weights, showed the opposite trend. In the control group, which received neither positive nor negative reinforcement, no change was found.

Thus, as in previous experiments, in this case the emotional experience led to a change in perceptual actions: the accuracy of perception of the difference between stimuli changed.
In the experiments considered, the emotional significance of the stimulus was determined by the experimenter, who applied rewards or punishments according to a predetermined plan. It is known, however, that many stimuli have a natural emotional significance due to the fact that in the experience of a person a connection has been established between them and vital events. This was used in their research by Bruner and Goodman. They asked the children under study, by manipulating the controller of the projector, to highlight on the screen a circle corresponding in size to the sample (one time decreasing, the other increasing the circle on the screen). Coins and cardboard mugs of equal size were used as samples.

As might be foreseen, children made mistakes in estimating the size of objects, but these errors in reproducing the sizes of cardboard circles and coins were not identical; the size of the coin seemed to the children larger than the size of the corresponding circles. Thus, a tendency was revealed to overestimate the size of objects that have a certain value for the child. The degree of revaluation was the greater, the greater the denomination of the coin, in other words, children overestimated twenty cents more than five cents.

Thus, a number of data indicate that objects with emotional significance are perceived somewhat differently than neutral objects, and that they (in the terminology of Bruner and Postman) are accentuated, which leads to overestimation of their size, better separation from the background, etc. . P.

Perception and emotional state. Regardless of whether a person perceives an object that is meaningful to him or a relatively neutral object, the content of perception can be influenced by emotions caused by previously acting factors. This influence is manifested primarily in a change in the meaning of the perceived content.

One of the first attempts to experimentally study this influence, undertaken as early as the 1930s, was Murray's study of five eleven-year-old girls. The subjects had to rate photographs of strangers on a nine-point scale. Two series (A and B) of photographs were offered, 15 in each. Evaluations were made three times: on Saturday afternoon, after returning from a trip (Series A), on Saturday evening, after a "terrible game of killer" that caused great excitement and fear (Series A and B), and on Sunday afternoon, after returning from walks (series B). The girls had to rate how good or bad the presented faces seemed to them. Comparing the scores that were given to individuals from series A and B in two situations (neutral and exciting), it was possible to assess the effect of emotional arousal, while excluding the effect of the presentation order factor. The results of the study showed that the state of arousal caused changes in assessments; in 70% of cases, these changes were negative, that is, under the influence of exciting games, the girls rated faces as “worse”.

A similar result was obtained in studies conducted with students of the University of Warsaw, who before the exam (it was their first exam in higher education) met with an unknown person, allegedly to perform some pre-examination formalities. After the exam, they filled out a special sheet on which they had to rate this person using a seven-point scale.

A few days later, the same students performed a light test, after which they had to evaluate the person (previously unknown to them) who conducted this study using the same sheet. In both situations - examination (causing strong emotional arousal) and test (causing, as expected, much weaker arousal) - two young women A and B were the object of observation.

Half of the subjects (group I) saw A in a situation of strong arousal, and B - in a situation of weak arousal, the other half (group II) - vice versa.

Such an organization of the experiment made it possible to compare the scores that person A received in the group of strong emotional arousal (I) and the group of weak arousal (II). In the same way, the scores that person B received were compared.

A positive value of the indicator meant a higher assessment of the person with whom the subjects met in a situation of weak arousal. Subsequently, the subjects were divided into three groups: the group in which negative indicators prevailed (the person with whom the subjects met before the exam was rated higher); a group in which positive indicators prevailed (the person who conducted the test study was rated higher), and a group in which the number of both indicators was the same (on one half of the scales, the subjects gave preference to person A, on the other - to person B).

It was found that 2/3 of the subjects showed a tendency to a higher assessment of the person they met in a situation that caused a lower level of emotional arousal. In other words, group I liked face A less than group II, and group II liked face B less than group I.

For the subjects who were in a state of strong emotional arousal, the assessed person seemed ugly, less interesting, not dexterous enough, and also less likeable, less affable.

The presented results indicate that the changes that occur in perception are to some extent related to the content of emotions: a negative emotional state (fear, anxiety, tension, pre-exam excitement) caused a negative shift in assessments.

However, not only temporary emotional states, but also stable emotional attitudes lead to a directed change in perception. Thus, in a series of studies in which projective tests were used, it was found that subjects with a high level of anxiety exhibit an increased tendency to perceive threat elements in presented situations. In other words, under the influence of the emotional set, there was a tendency to perceive a larger number of stimuli as stimuli that cause a negative reaction (a tendency to broader generalization).

These data indicate that the emotional process is one of the factors that influences the formation of a perceptual image.

Let us dwell in more detail on the process of learning and reproduction of mnemonic material, and their dependence on emotions. Emotions influence what a person perceives, but this influence does not, in essence, lead to a fundamental change in the perceived material. As emphasized by many authors, the main determinant of perception remains objective reality. On the other hand, there are reasons to conclude that the process of memorization, as well as reproduction, is influenced by emotions to a much greater extent.

Emotions have a selective effect on the learning process, contributing to the establishment of those connections that somehow correspond to the content of the experienced emotion. This is evidenced, in particular, by the experiment conducted by Beam. The subjects in his experiments performed two types of tasks: they memorized a number of meaningless syllables, and, in addition, they developed a conditioned emotional reaction to a light stimulus that anticipated a painful effect (the development of a conditioned galvanic skin reaction); the conditioned stimulus was the lighting of a light bulb, and the unconditioned (reinforcement) was an electric shock. The second task, which consisted in learning that a light signal anticipates danger, differed from the first in that its assimilation was mediated by anxiety (a person learned to be afraid of light).

The study was conducted in two different conditions: in neutral, and in conditions that caused anxiety. The source of anxiety was a university exam or participation in a performance in front of a large audience (the study was conducted immediately before the exam or speech).

The main result obtained in these studies was that syllable learning was worse under anxiety conditions than under neutral conditions (more errors, more repetitions), while the assimilation of the danger signal was better than under central conditions.

Thus, it can be assumed that an increase in the level of anxiety facilitates the memorization of such reactions, the development of which is mediated by anxiety.

The conclusion that the state of anxiety facilitates the learning of "anxiety" (anxiety-mediated) responses, which follows from Beam's research, can be considered as a special case of the more general assertion that emotions facilitate the learning of responses that are related in content. In favor of such a broader understanding of the established dependence is evidenced by the results obtained in the study of other emotions.

An example is Smith's research. Smith found that under conditions of failure (frustration), some subjects tend to more quickly memorize pairs of words that have aggressive content. Smith also found that this applies primarily to those who, on a questionnaire designed to identify personality traits, scored high on feelings (or attitudes) of hostility.

How can this result be explained? It is known that the encounter with failure, or frustration, usually leads to an increase in aggressive emotions. These emotions are likely to be stronger in individuals characterized by a high level of feelings (or attitudes) of hostility. Therefore, it is likely that their emotions reach a level that leads to a change in the effectiveness of learning.
Not only learning, but also remembering depends to a certain extent on emotional processes. This is evidenced by the results obtained in the study of the influence of emotions on memories. Such studies have been carried out for a long time. An example is the studies of Jerseyld.

Jerseysild asked a group of subjects to write down for 7 minutes all the pleasant events of the last three weeks. Then the same subjects were asked to list all the unpleasant events that happened in the same period for the next 7 minutes. No information about the purpose of the experiment was given to the subjects. After 21 days, all subjects were asked to once again recall all the pleasant and unpleasant events of the same period.

After analyzing the results, we can conclude that already at the first attempt, the subjects recalled more pleasant events than unpleasant ones; this is, however, a common occurrence, as evidenced by the results of many other studies. Why is this happening? Various suggestions have been made: perhaps there are more pleasant events in people's experience than unpleasant ones? Or maybe unpleasant memories gradually turn into pleasant or unpleasant experiences are more easily forgotten? Analysis of the results of the second recall shows that the last assumption is the most likely: the subjects recalled 43% of the previously indicated pleasant events and only 28% of the unpleasant ones. The above experiment shows that emotions have an influence on the process of memorization and that the influence of positive and negative emotions is different.

It can also be argued that emotions contribute to the retention of related material in memory, and positive emotions may facilitate memorization to a greater extent than negative ones, and strong emotions more than weak ones.

In conclusion, we can formulate a general conclusion that emotions have a selective effect on memory processes. This influence may consist of both facilitating and hindering one or another act of remembering.

Thus, we come to the conclusion that the connection with the emotional sphere, the sign and intensity of emotions is manifested in various cognitive processes of the personality - mnestic, gnostic, intellectual, affecting the efficiency, semantic structure of cognitive activity and the nature of its course.

2.3 Evaluation of one's own emotional state as an important aspect in the study of the emotions of a person as a whole

The study of the assessment of one's own emotional state is an independent aspect of the study of emotions. As you know, self-esteem is studied in psychology in various aspects: its formation, dynamics, role in the regulation of behavior.

A special form of self-esteem is the self-assessment of the emotional state. It is known that it can be carried out at two levels: affective and cognitive (conscious). The possibility of realizing one's own emotional state presupposes, in addition to the preservation of the very ability to realize oneself, also knowledge of social norms and standards.

The methodological arsenal of studying the emotional state mainly includes methods of direct questioning of the subjects regarding their emotional experiences. This includes the method of free self-description of well-being, a test questionnaire with a list of experiences, from which the subject must choose the appropriate ones, the modified Dembo-Rubinstein scale and various versions of this method, scales such as those developed by A. Wesman and D. Ricks, including a set of 10 verbal descriptions gradations of emotional state, from which the subject must choose one.

The most common questionnaire tests, for example, a questionnaire by C. Spielberger, aimed at assessing situational anxiety, a questionnaire for personal anxiety by J. Taylor, to assess asthenic or euphoric mood.

A number of questionnaires addressing the assessment of one's own positive and negative emotions (of various modality and intensity) were developed under the guidance of L.E. Olshannikova: L.A. Rabinovich, diary methods of I.S. Patsyavichus and A.I. Paley, aimed at long-term registration (within 25-30 days) of their own emotions of joy, anger, fear and sadness. Indirect methods for assessing the emotional state are based on the assumption that the sign and intensity of emotions is manifested in various objective indicators of a particular activity, for example, in the preference of subjects for a certain color (Luscher test and its variants), in changes in graphic activity (lineograms, pictograms, handwriting, etc.). .p.), vocal speech, evaluation of tones of different heights.

The connection between the assessment of one's own emotional state and the physiological indicators of emotions was specially studied. So, V.S. Magun of students before and after the exam compared the self-assessment of well-being and pulse rates. A certain correlation was found between self-esteem and objective measures of emotion; moreover, self-reported levels of anxiety correlated with exam success. According to W. Vers and W. Schuppe, the change in the self-assessment of emotional experience in 65% of cases coincided with the change in the GSR amplitude.

However, the following should be noted: A.M. Etkind suggested that self-esteem is not so much a reflection of the real state of the emotional sphere as an assessment of the "social desirability" of a given property. This is shown in the work of V.A. Pinchuk, who found that subjects with a pronounced emotion of joy in the structure of emotionality are prone to high self-esteem, and with the dominance of fear - to low self-esteem.
In general, psychological experimental studies of the emotional sphere have shown that indirectly, through indicators of the implementation of various cognitive processes (productivity, speed, etc.), it is possible to investigate the state of the emotional sphere ("emotional factor"), evaluate the sign and intensity of emotions, as well as the characteristics of emotions that manifest in self-esteem of the individual.

Summing up the results of the second chapter of this course work, we come to the following conclusions:

Under the influence of emotions in a person, the activity of the organs of blood circulation, respiration, digestion, glands of internal and external secretion and other organs changes. In addition to regulating the state of the body, emotions perform the function of regulating human behavior as a whole. They are essential in optimizing all body activities.

Negative emotions act as a signal of a violation of the constancy of the internal environment of the body and thereby contribute to the harmonious flow of life processes. And positive emotions are a kind of reward to a person for the work he expended in the process of achieving a useful result. It follows that positive emotions are the strongest means of fixing reactions that are beneficial for the body.

One of the most important characteristics of emotions is their connection with cognitive processes. Modern literature has accumulated a number of specific experimental data on the relationship of emotions with memory, perception and thinking. We come to the conclusion that the connection with the emotional sphere, the sign and intensity of emotions is manifested in various cognitive processes of the personality - mnestic, gnostic, intellectual, affecting the efficiency, semantic structure of cognitive activity and the nature of its course.

CONCLUSION

As a result of the study and analysis of scientific literature on the problem under consideration, it is necessary to draw the following conclusions.

1. In psychology, emotions are called processes that reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations for human life in the form of experiences. Emotions are a special class of mental processes and states associated with the instincts, needs and motives of the individual.

2. Emotions perform the function of regulating the activity of the subject, by reflecting the significance of external and internal situations for the implementation of his life, thereby contributing to the orientation of a person in various situations.

3. Emotions reflect the world around us and regulate our behavior accordingly. Under the influence of emotions in a person, the activity of the organs of blood circulation, respiration, digestion, glands of internal and external secretion and other organs changes. In addition to regulating the state of the body, emotions perform the function of regulating human behavior as a whole. They are essential in optimizing all body activities.

4. One of the most important characteristics of emotions is their connection with cognitive processes. Modern literature has accumulated a number of specific experimental data on the relationship of emotions with memory, perception and thinking.

Thus, we can conclude that emotion is the stimulus and regulator of human behavior as a whole, subordinating his activity to the main motives and needs of the individual, his inclinations and interests.

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One of the most important characteristics of emotions is their connection with cognitive processes. The study of the relationship between emotional and cognitive processes goes back to the works of L.S. Vygotsky and other classics of psychology. So L.S. Vygotsky wrote: "Whoever has torn thinking from affect from the very beginning, has forever closed his way to explaining the causes of thinking itself."

S.L. wrote about the unity of the affective and the intellectual as an essential characteristic of the emotions themselves. Rubinstein, who believed that emotions as such determine primarily the dynamic side of cognitive functions, the tone, pace of activity, its "tuning" to one or another level of activation, drew attention to the fact that the action of emotions can be both sthenic, reinforcing, and asthenic. , lowering.

Moreover, if normally conscious cognitive intellectual activity inhibits emotional arousal, giving it direction and selectivity, then with affects, with superintense emotional arousal, the selective orientation of actions is violated and impulsive unpredictability of behavior is possible.

VK. Vilyunas substantiates the impossibility of the existence of emotions in isolation from cognitive processes as follows: emotions perform their functions, the most common of which are evaluation and motivation; depending on the cognitive content of the mental image, they single out goals in the cognitive image and induce them to take appropriate action.

A classification of emotions is proposed according to their cognitive component - the subject, which allows us to consider any subject of the traditionally distinguished cognitive process - perception, memory, thinking - as an object of emotional experience. The author believes that knowledge of the functions of emotions in relation to cognitive content makes it possible to approach the experimental study of emotions through the analysis of cognitive processes - cognitive processes accompanied by emotional experience will have a number of dynamic differences from those that are emotionally weakly experienced. These include the pace, speed, productivity of cognitive processes. Modern literature has accumulated a number of specific experimental data on the relationship of emotions with various cognitive processes: memory, perception and thinking.

I would like to dwell in more detail on the analysis of the influence of emotions on the reception, processing and reproduction of information, in particular on such processes as perception and learning.

As you know, perception is a complex phenomenon. It includes such processes as highlighting a figure from the background, assessing the size, brightness and distance of the perceived object, highlighting the details that make up the object. So, each of these processes can undergo changes under the influence of emotional factors.

Consider the influence of emotional experience on the selection of a figure from the background. The process of selecting a figure from the background plays an essential role in perception. Among the factors that determine this process, the organization of perceptual material is usually indicated in the first place. However, it turned out that emotional factors also influence the course and result of this process. This is indicated, in particular, by the studies of Schafer and Murphy. The subjects were shown the contour of the face for about 1/3 second and were asked to remember the names presented simultaneously. The faces were repeatedly presented, and two of them were constantly reinforced by a reward - after their exposure, the subject received 2 or 4 cents, the exposure of the rest of the faces was regularly followed by punishment - the subject himself had to pay 2-4 cents. Each face was exposed 25 times; rewards and punishments were distributed in such a way that at the end of the experiment, the subjects could earn some money (about 15 cents). The critical moment of the experiment was the presentation of a dual figure obtained by combining two profiles.

The subjects had to say what kind of face they see in this dual picture. It turned out that out of a total of 67 presentations, in 54 cases, the subjects perceived a face that was accompanied by positive reinforcement. In other words, the configuration of stimuli with which the positive emotional experience was associated stood out from the background.

It should be emphasized that the subjects were not told what they were rewarded or punished for. The tendency to perceive what received positive reinforcement appeared as if automatically.

From a common sense point of view, the result of this study may seem quite obvious; Isn't it natural that we tend to perceive what a reward or promotion entails? However, the matter is by no means so simple. A perfectly legitimate question arises: why should the receipt of 15 cents have any effect on the organization of the perceptual field? Why do our eyes see better what promises such a small reward? Are the results of the experiment credible?

In favor of the data obtained is the fact that two other researchers who repeated the experiment, namely Smith and Hochberg, obtained similar results.

Research by Barbara Cohn paints a somewhat different picture. Instead of contours of faces, Kohn presented the subjects with meaningless syllables at different frequencies - from 1 to 25 times. As in the experiment of Schafer and Murphy, the presentation of some syllables was accompanied by a monetary reward, while others were accompanied by a monetary punishment. But there were also syllables that were not followed by either positive or negative reinforcement. Then the subjects were offered several perceptual tests, which allowed them to assess the correctness of the perception of syllables. What were the results of this experiment?

First of all, it was found that the quality of perception depends on the degree of familiarity with the syllable, that is, on the number of presentations: the more familiar the syllable was, the easier it was perceived. This result is in full agreement with what is known about perception. In addition, emotional experiences associated with positive or negative reinforcement have also been found to influence perception. Compared to neutral syllables, rewarded and punished syllables were perceived better.

This result does not contradict the data discussed above, because it does not diminish the significance of the reward, but only indicates that not only the reward, but also the punishment facilitates perception.

Thus, as Kohn's research shows, the factor contributing to the selection of a figure from the background is not only and not so much positive reinforcement, but some kind of emotional state associated with the perceived object (regardless of whether it is positive or negative).

Now consider the influence of emotional experience on the perception of the properties of an object. The selection of an object and an accurate assessment of its properties are associated with the emotional experience of a person. This is evidenced, in particular, by the experiments of Proshansky and Murphy on pairwise comparison of the line and loads. The experiment was carried out as follows.

The first part: the subjects compared lines and loads in pairs. The experimenter determined the accuracy of the estimates. The second part: the subjects were divided into three groups - A, B and C. The subjects of group C (control) were neither rewarded nor punished. The third part: the subjects compared lines and weights in pairs (as in the first part).

It turned out that in the third part of the experiment, the number of errors increased, the nature of which depended on what received positive reinforcement. Thus, those subjects who were rewarded for indicating longer lines and lighter weights (Group B) found a tendency to overestimate the length and underestimate the weight. Group A subjects, who were rewarded for pointing shorter lines and heavier weights, showed the opposite trend. In the control group, which received neither positive nor negative reinforcement, no change was found.

Thus, as in previous experiments, in this case the emotional experience led to a change in perceptual actions: the accuracy of perception of the difference between stimuli changed. In the experiments considered, the emotional significance of the stimulus was determined by the experimenter, who applied rewards or punishments according to a predetermined plan. It is known, however, that many stimuli have a natural emotional significance due to the fact that in the experience of a person a connection has been established between them and vital events. This was used in their research by Bruner and Goodman. They asked the children under study, by manipulating the controller of the projector, to highlight on the screen a circle corresponding in size to the sample (one time decreasing, the other increasing the circle on the screen). Coins and cardboard mugs of equal size were used as samples.

As might be foreseen, children made mistakes in estimating the size of objects, but these errors in reproducing the sizes of cardboard circles and coins were not identical; the size of the coin seemed to the children larger than the size of the corresponding circles. Thus, a tendency was revealed to overestimate the size of objects that have a certain value for the child. The degree of revaluation was the greater, the greater the denomination of the coin, in other words, children overestimated twenty cents more than five cents.

Thus, a number of data indicate that objects with emotional significance are perceived somewhat differently than neutral objects, and that they (in the terminology of Bruner and Postman) are accentuated, which leads to overestimation of their size, better separation from the background, etc. . P.

Perception and emotional state. Regardless of whether a person perceives an object that is meaningful to him or a relatively neutral object, the content of perception can be influenced by emotions caused by previously acting factors. This influence is manifested primarily in a change in the meaning of the perceived content.

One of the first attempts to experimentally study this influence, undertaken as early as the 1930s, was Murray's study of five eleven-year-old girls. The subjects had to rate photographs of strangers on a nine-point scale. Two series (A and B) of photographs were offered, 15 in each. Evaluations were made three times: on Saturday afternoon, after returning from a trip (Series A), on Saturday evening, after a "terrible game of killer" that caused great excitement and fear (Series A and B), and on Sunday afternoon, after returning from walks (series B). The girls had to rate how good or bad the presented faces seemed to them. Comparing the scores that were given to individuals from series A and B in two situations (neutral and exciting), it was possible to assess the effect of emotional arousal, while excluding the effect of the presentation order factor. The results of the study showed that the state of arousal caused changes in assessments; in 70% of cases, these changes were negative, that is, under the influence of exciting games, the girls rated faces as “worse”.

A similar result was obtained in studies conducted with students of the University of Warsaw, who before the exam (it was their first exam in higher education) met with an unknown person, allegedly to perform some pre-examination formalities. After the exam, they filled out a special sheet on which they had to rate this person using a seven-point scale.

A few days later, the same students performed a light test, after which they had to evaluate the person (previously unknown to them) who conducted this study using the same sheet. In both situations - examination (caused strong emotional arousal) and test (caused, as expected, much weaker arousal) - the object of observation were two young women A and B.

Half of the subjects (group I) saw A in a situation of strong arousal, and B - in a situation of weak arousal, the other half (group II) - vice versa.

Such an organization of the experiment made it possible to compare the scores that person A received in the group of strong emotional arousal (I) and the group of weak arousal (II). In the same way, the scores that person B received were compared.

A positive value of the indicator meant a higher assessment of the person with whom the subjects met in a situation of weak arousal. Subsequently, the subjects were divided into three groups: the group in which negative indicators prevailed (the person with whom the subjects met before the exam was rated higher); a group in which positive indicators prevailed (the person who conducted the test study was rated higher), and a group in which the number of both indicators was the same (on one half of the scales, the subjects gave preference to person A, on the other - to person B).

It was found that 2/3 of the subjects showed a tendency to a higher assessment of the person they met in a situation that caused a lower level of emotional arousal. In other words, group I liked face A less than group II, and group II liked face B less than group I.

For the subjects who were in a state of strong emotional arousal, the assessed person seemed ugly, less interesting, not dexterous enough, and also less likeable, less affable.

The presented results indicate that the changes that occur in perception are to some extent related to the content of emotions: a negative emotional state (fear, anxiety, tension, pre-exam excitement) caused a negative shift in assessments.

However, not only temporary emotional states, but also stable emotional attitudes lead to a directed change in perception. Thus, in a series of studies in which projective tests were used, it was found that subjects with a high level of anxiety exhibit an increased tendency to perceive threat elements in presented situations. In other words, under the influence of the emotional set, there was a tendency to perceive a larger number of stimuli as stimuli that cause a negative reaction (a tendency to broader generalization).

These data indicate that the emotional process is one of the factors that influences the formation of a perceptual image.

Let us dwell in more detail on the process of learning and reproduction of mnemonic material, and their dependence on emotions. Emotions influence what a person perceives, but this influence does not, in essence, lead to a fundamental change in the perceived material. As emphasized by many authors, the main determinant of perception remains objective reality. On the other hand, there are reasons to conclude that the process of memorization, as well as reproduction, is influenced by emotions to a much greater extent.

Emotions have a selective effect on the learning process, contributing to the establishment of those connections that somehow correspond to the content of the experienced emotion. This is evidenced, in particular, by the experiment conducted by Beam. The subjects in his experiments performed two types of tasks: they memorized a number of meaningless syllables, and, in addition, they developed a conditioned emotional reaction to a light stimulus that anticipated a painful effect (the development of a conditioned galvanic skin reaction); the conditioned stimulus was the lighting of a light bulb, and the unconditioned (reinforcement) was an electric shock. The second task, which consisted in learning that a light signal anticipates danger, differed from the first in that its assimilation was mediated by anxiety (a person learned to be afraid of light).

The study was conducted in two different conditions: in neutral, and also in conditions that caused anxiety. The source of anxiety was a university exam or participation in a performance in front of a large audience (the study was conducted immediately before the exam or speech).

The main result obtained in these studies was that, under anxiety conditions, syllable learning was worse than under neutral conditions (more errors, more repetitions), while the assimilation of the danger signal was better than under central conditions.

Thus, it can be assumed that an increase in the level of anxiety facilitates the memorization of such reactions, the development of which is mediated by anxiety.

The conclusion that the state of anxiety facilitates the learning of "anxiety" (anxiety-mediated) responses, which follows from Beam's research, can be considered as a special case of the more general assertion that emotions facilitate the learning of responses that are related in content. In favor of such a broader understanding of the established dependence is evidenced by the results obtained in the study of other emotions.

An example is Smith's research. Smith found that under conditions of failure (frustration), some subjects tend to more quickly memorize pairs of words that have aggressive content. Smith also found that this applies primarily to those who, on a questionnaire designed to identify personality traits, scored high on feelings (or attitudes) of hostility.

How can this result be explained? It is known that the encounter with failure, or frustration, usually leads to an increase in aggressive emotions. These emotions are likely to be stronger in individuals characterized by a high level of feelings (or attitudes) of hostility. Therefore, it is likely that their emotions reach a level that leads to a change in the effectiveness of learning. Not only learning, but also remembering depends to a certain extent on emotional processes. This is evidenced by the results obtained in the study of the influence of emotions on memories. Such studies have been carried out for a long time. An example is the studies of Jerseyld.

Jerseysild asked a group of subjects to write down for 7 minutes all the pleasant events of the last three weeks. Then the same subjects were asked to list all the unpleasant events that happened in the same period for the next 7 minutes. No information about the purpose of the experiment was given to the subjects. After 21 days, all subjects were asked to once again recall all the pleasant and unpleasant events of the same period.

After analyzing the results, we can conclude that already at the first attempt, the subjects recalled more pleasant events than unpleasant ones; this is, however, a common occurrence, as evidenced by the results of many other studies. Why is this happening? Various suggestions have been made: perhaps there are more pleasant events in people's experience than unpleasant ones? Or maybe unpleasant memories gradually turn into pleasant ones or unpleasant experiences are easier to forget? An analysis of the results of the second recall shows that the last assumption is the most probable: the subjects recalled 43% of the previously indicated pleasant events and only 28% of the unpleasant ones. The above experiment shows that emotions have an influence on the process of memorization and that the influence of positive and negative emotions is different.

It can also be argued that emotions contribute to the retention of material associated with it, and positive emotions, perhaps, facilitate memorization to a greater extent than negative ones, and strong ones more than weak ones.

In conclusion, we can formulate a general conclusion that emotions have a selective effect on memory processes. This influence may consist of both facilitating and hindering one or another act of remembering.

Thus, we come to the conclusion that the connection with the emotional sphere, the sign and intensity of emotions is manifested in various cognitive processes of the personality - mnestic, gnostic, intellectual, affecting the efficiency, semantic structure of cognitive activity and the nature of its course.