The Universal Key to Humanity: Accepting, Learning, and Understanding our Emotions
by: mike morse, 03/08/2021
Two summers ago I took a class called “Affective Neuroscience”, during which my classmates and I spent three weeks exploring the relationship between the biological, psychological, and social aspects of emotions and their neural coordinates. Throughout the course, we were challenged to define, categorize, and differentiate emotional responses in order to process the neurological roots and pathways that coordinate with each emotion. By the end of the course, my peers and I broadly defined an emotion biologically as a “short-term neural response to a stimuli”; most psychological experts consider emotions unconscious experiences. Comparatively, a feeling is the conscious manifestation of this neural emotional response and tends to be understood as being a more subjective experience, a mood can be understood as a more sustained state of mind, and a thought is understood as a conscious, active process of the mind. For example, let’s say you just received news that your pet passed away. You will likely experience immediate emotions such as surprise and sadness, you may develop feelings of anger or confusion, and you may have thoughts of despair that, should they remain in your conscious mind for long enough, can lead to a depressive mood. It’s important to understand the differences between emotions, feelings, thoughts, and moods in order to comprehend the ways in which we, as people, are connected to one another.
During this summer class, we learned many ways to describe and categorize emotions; we also discussed the ways in which the same emotional biological processes can result in completely different conscious feelings in two people. Ultimately, we were looking to understand ways in which we, as humans, are emotionally similar to each other. We underwent a variety of experiences to isolate our sensory inputs, such as sensory deprivation tanks, tactile art galleries, and dinner in pure darkness; each activity aimed to help us personally understand the relationships between our physical sensations and experiences and our mental ones. We also learned common emotional labels that are currently used in Western psychological and neuroscience fields: basic emotions, complex emotions, positive vs negative emotions, valence (or approach/avoidant) emotions, self-reflexive emotions, aesthetic emotions, counterfactual emotions, social emotions, moral emotions, epistemic emotions, and make-believe emotions. We were taught eleven categories of possible emotional responses that could be reached through unique situations; for example, epistemic emotions are specific responses to knowledge and learning, and aesthetic emotions are responses to expertise and art. I was incredulous at first that such extensive labels were necessary; however, I have come to appreciate some of the self-awareness that I was afforded through the course.
During the past few years I have been interested in uncovering what, if any, universal human emotions exist; are there any experiences that all people at some time in their life will have? Recently, I have begun to realize this is a more complex question than I had originally understood. As I began to think about the relationship that people have with each other, I realized that as long as any humans maintain oppressive power over others, there will never be a universal human experience. However, all people do experience emotions, just not always the same ones. Being able to recognize and regulate emotions is an experience that all humans share as well, and thinking about the emotions of others is a key component of empathy. The other universal component of emotions is that they communicate unconscious and physiological processing of stimuli to conscious comprehension and expression. Additionally, it’s important to note that no emotion serves a unique purpose; rather, they can be used as a tool for balancing and centering oneself (think of it as mental homeostasis). What I mean is that our emotions are meant to help us move about in a social and interconnected world, and every emotional experience we have is just a reflection of our external associations. For example, the emotions of sadness and fear are often viewed negatively, as debilitating emotions most people want to avoid experiencing long-term; however, when handled appropriately, fear and sadness can also be tools to rebuild, organize, and connect with others who have had similar emotional experiences.
When thinking about emotional processing, it’s important to understand the steps one undergoes: a stimulus elicits a neural response in a brain region associated with processing emotions; electrochemical communication molecules (mostly neurotransmitters) spread the processed emotional input to other neural coordinates in brain areas to initiate a response, whether physiological or mental; finally, we consciously experience this emotional response either as a psychological feeling or a conscious thought, through which we can understand the original stimulus that initiated this response. More simply put, our emotions can be understood as our brain and body’s way to respond to sensory and extrasensory inputs, eventually leading to the conscious processing of these feelings. As I have previously written about, issues with neurotransmitter regulation can lead to various degrees of psychological dysfunction, and emotional regulation is just another layer. Problems with emotional regulation can result in issues maintaining relationships, aggression, depression, sensory overload, and more. As I mentioned before, emotions can help mold the social human experience as processing patterns we all encounter. Understanding the importance of consciously recognizing our emotions can be a helpful step in practicing self-reflection and awareness, as well as improving both our interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.
Discerning and naming our emotions can help us at an individual level understand the ways in which our unique brain and mind takes in and processes the information we receive from the world around us. Two different people may experience different emotional responses to the same stimulus, and recognizing these differences can help us to understand more about ourselves and our place in a social society, as well as encouraging us to practice theory of mind, or rather actively understanding others’ mental states. We can take the information we learn about ourselves and the ways in which we consciously and unconsciously process emotions to work towards better regulating and reacting to these inputs, and in turn influence our interactions with others. Oftentimes unprocessed feelings can result in behaviors that can harm both ourselves and others, such as unprompted aggression, blaming others for our actions, or becoming too self-absorbed, to name a few examples. Actively processing and becoming aware of our emotional responses, however, can create new ways for us to be in tune with our own needs, as well as to better understand the needs of others. By allowing ourselves to be consciously in connection with our emotions, we can become closer to fulfilling not only our own wellness needs, but also those of the greater humanity.
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