Emotions

Colloquially speaking we talk about emotions as something we feel at a certain moment. Generally, at a conscious level, we think of emotions as variant and changing depending on a situation or on our interpretation of the situation. I found Frederickson’s (2001) review on positive emotions very interesting given the fact that I hadn’t really thought or read about the long-lasting effects these can have on your psychological resources. I knew positive emotions have a positive effect on you but I thought that the effects were relatively short term while the emotion lasts. In her review, she states that the person resources acquired during states of positive emotions are durable and therefore they broaden personal resources that can be accessed during other emotional states. I believe that understanding this mechanism can further broaden this effect by being aware that psychologically one has the resources to face and regulate negative emotions.

Moving from individual emotions to emotions in a relationship, it can be seen that the dynamics are similar in the sense that you adopt an emotional capacity but instead of being from one’s own resources or circumstances, is from a partner. Anderson (2003) presents research that suggests that dating couples do converge emotionally and that the partner with the less power is the one that has to more broadly change. They also tested that this emotional convergence also happens in roommates. I think that a question that remains after this study is whether that emotional similarity is internalized as part of oneself and remains even after the relationship ends or if it only exists while the relationship stands. Relating this to Frederickson’s (2001) theory, it might be possible that that emotional similarity remains or at least some aspects of it.

Barrett (2006) in her article presents evidence to her proposal of changing the view in which emotions are understood by laypeople and by scientists. Even when a basic emotion like anger is experienced, there can’t be a causal or even correlational relationship drawn into that person showing the anger in the face. Barret mentions that some papers that claim to have found a strong correlation between the face and the subjective experience fail to rule out the possibility that differences can be due to arousal. I would say that also the fact that humans have the ability to deceive and regulate and express emotions makes it difficult to conceive emotions as natural and their expression as straightforward. Another possible evidence to Barrett’s review can be Kross’s (2011) research.

Self-distancing, as proposed by Kross (2011), is a way of analyzing one’s feeling from an outsider perspective instead of from one’s own introspection. The results suggest that this strategy evoke less feelings of distress on people compared to those that adopt a self-immerse perspective. By adopting a self-distancing perspective people are clearer about the situation and are able to reconstruct the situation and come to closure. These findings can easily be applied in the real-world by having people think about the ways in which they construct and interpret situations. I can speak for myself that adopting this perspective does help reduce distress. Emotions and everything that comes with feeling and expressing emotions is a big part of what makes us humans.