Rethinking Emotions And The Emotion Paradox

Children are very complex, unique and varied individuals whose genetics, connections and backgrounds all perform significant roles in their emotional development (Wilson, 2003). The genetic blueprint a child inherits from its parents may plot a course for development but the environment and the influences within can affect how the child is shaped, how they connect with and are perceived by others and how their emotions are or are not expressed. Wilson (2003) points out emotions as an experience that is linked to cognitive interpretation, context, subjective feeling, physical reaction and behavioural expression. Campos, Campos, and Barrett (1989) suggest emotions are processes of establishing, maintaining, or disrupting the relations between the person and the internal or external environment, when such relations are significant to the individual.

Pixar’s film, Inside Out, addresses our relationship to our feelings in a sophisticated way for adults and kids to understand and enjoy. Joy, Anger, Disgust, Sadness, and Fear, the five emotions that dwell in the inner world of a young girl named Riley. Joy is the team leader and she displays compassion and demonstrates the aspect of her that permits her to be happy. Anger is very passionate about making sure things work out fairly for Riley. Disgust is highly opinionated and tries to protect her from poisonous situations whether physically or socially. Sadness was used to signal when Riley needed comfort and support. Finally, Fear, he is always on the lookout and I used to protect her. All five of the emotions contribute to build up Riley’s personality. She is upbeat, honest, cheerful, somewhat neurotic, etc.

Attempts to define “emotion” have proved to be rather difficult. Instead of searching for a comprehensive definition, Gross (2011) describes the three core features of emotions. First, emotions occur when an individual decides that a situation is relevant to his or her goals. Second, emotions are multi-faceted, and involve both subjective and physiological experiences, as well as behaviors. The third feature involves the authoritative nature of emotions. They have the powerful ability to interrupt ongoing processes, assert their priority over other activities, and force their way into awareness. For example, some traditions describe emotions as “disorganized interruptions of mental activity” (Salovey & Mayer, 1989). Emotions are such an

Our parents raise us hoping for us to develop certain character traits, but there comes to a point when we start to become our own person based on the experiences we go through, any situation, good or bad, can influence our personality mentally and emotionally. Emotion is what makes us human, it's how we cope and how we manage our crazy lives’. When our feelings get damaged or even nourished, it will change how we react

Emotions are often thought to be personal. One may say “I am sad.” or “I am mad.” or I am scared.” and frequently we believe those emotions are inhabiting just the body in which they were created.

Our emotions in many cases affect our perception of events as well as the actions that we take ourselves by permeating our way of thinking, and therefore affecting each thing that we do in that moment. In particular, emotions about the perception of ourselves have been shown to have both the ability to positively and negatively affect our actions and performances in life. This is what can be

The human brain contains specific neurochemical systems that create feelings in us. Over many studies, scientists

If you’re not paying attention, the mind can be a tricky labyrinth. The less you know about it, the more inexplicable and frightening it becomes. For example, why do seemingly benign elephants wreak havoc upon villages? In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert explores the aberrant nature of these elephants and correlates them to their traumatizing upbringing, deprived of community and kinship. The biochemistry of the human mind, analyzed in “Love2.0” by Barbara Frederickson, serves as a worthy addendum to Siebert’s conjecture. “Love2.0” explains that the brain, hormones, and nerves work in unison to build emotional fortitude, stimulate oneself, and express positivity resonance. Siebert’s ideas of elephant culture and trans-species psyche can put Frederickson’s theory of emotions into practice. The absence of certain hormones within elephants, provided their fragmented community, can explain their volatile outbreaks. Alternatively, the reinstitution of human parental roles into elephant culture can help reconstruct their broken emotional states of elephants and rebuild their resilience; this healing process can also extend to humans.

In 2015, Disney Pixar released Pete Docter’s movie, Inside Out. The initial release of the movie was a hit in the box office and made a lot of young children and even their parents, thrilled to see. I went to see this movie with my family and I was actually excited about it because the previews were very entertaining. I am not one that typically wastes money to go see an animated film in the movie theater, but this one the one exception. The movie is about an 11-year-old girl, Riley, who moves to San Francisco with her parents from Minnesota, due to her father’s job. The main characters of the movie, however, are not Riley and her parents, but Riley’s primary emotions – Happiness (Joy), Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust. These emotions give us a glimpse into the mindset of a young adolescent girl who is having trouble adjusting to her new surroundings and faking her happiness for her parents. This movie appealed to me because it was so relatable and it had such a deeper messages that takes knowledge and life experience to understand. The emotions that Riley is feeling throughout the movie really made the audience feel connected to her character. The movie exceeded my expectations and made it completely worth going to see. The emotions in the movie were more than just characters; they were a part of the person watching. This movie had the potential to make viewers think about their actions and reactions towards situations in their everyday life. Riley’s

Amygdala, prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and hypothalamus are the main four brain regions involved in how we experience emotions (Feist et al., 2015). One way to explain emotions is to describe them as adaptations to the problems that our ancestors experienced. This model explains emotions as evolutionary adaptations (Feist et al., 2015). In this model, emotions affect physiological systems in ways to help us “deal efficiently with critical situations” (Feist et al., 2015). For example, when we sense danger, our circulatory system, respiratory system, and muscles work harder to help us escape from the danger. In this case, a set of adaptations is associated with a certain emotion (i.e. fear) and thus, emotions can be explained as evolutionary adaptations, allowing us to cope with the

Researchers have debated about the phenomenon with emotions. Debates on this topic have and will continue to for many more years. Researchers have attempted to understand why one has emotions and came up with the five different theories. The first theory is the James-Lange theory, which argues that an event can cause physiological arousal first and, it can be interpret this as an arousal. Second theory is the Cannon-Bard theory that argues that all humans experience a physiological arousal and an emotional one at the same time. It still does not give any attention to the role of the thoughts or an outward

Sadness, Joy, Fear, Disgust and Anger. Five emotions felt by human beings on a regular basis. These five emotions are personified as characters in the movie “Inside Out”. The movie Inside Out is about an 11-year-old girl named Riley who is living a happy life until she moves with her family to San Francisco (Rivera, Docter, del Carmen, 2015). Cognitive, social and linguistic development are all essential parts that contribute to the development of a growing child, such as Riley. The movie displays these types of development in terms of memories, emotions, attention, humor and many other aspects. The purpose of this paper will be to explain why the movie Inside Out (2015) is appropriate for children ages 6 to 12 years of age in terms of their cognitive, social and linguistic development.

Chapter 2 is centered on the early attempts to identify the brain’s components of emotions. Key researchers that are discussed are a Cornell neuroanatomist, James Papez, and aforementioned physician and neuroscientist Paul MacLean, who worked at Yale and the National Institutes of Mental Health. Together, this pair of researchers conducted seminal medial temporal lobe lesion experiments. The resulting idea was that the emotional brain is composed of a set of interconnected structures in the core of the brain. MacLean dubbed these structures as the “limbic system”. The function of the limbic system and it relationship to emotion was widely debated by many researchers.

The film Inside Out (2015) produced and directed by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures, is a movie based on the emotions of a 11-year-old girl called Riley. The film’s principal characters are five emotions located in Riley’s brain. These emotions are Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger. All of them work together inside Riley’s mind to accomplish one goal: Her Happiness. Everything revolves around Riley because she is facing a hard move with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco, leading to big changes around his life, attitude, and behavior. Most of the movie is set inside Riley’s mind, where the emotions operate her brain’s control center. The film explains that our brain has functions that control our responses to certain situations, and the ways that we handle these situations are controlled by our emotions. Also, it explains that our personalities and identities are defined by certain emotions, which shape how we handle and express to specific situations. The decisions and actions that the emotions choose to do in Riley’s life will drive the plot. Inside Out (2015) will not only explain through its colors, lighting, and camera shots the storyline of the movie, but also the importance of emotions and how they play a big role in our lives.

For many people, they live their lives based on emotions. Emotions of happiness, love, success, and many more, could possibly be the most satisfying feelings. Except we commonly experience unpleasant emotions. There are emotions of anger, hatred, sadness, and disgrace. A very important question in the understanding of the human mind and highly related to cognitive science, is how do these emotions affect human cognition and the impact on our abilities to be rational? To tackle this question, we need to understand what emotions are, but not solely in the manner we are all familiar with, we need to understand them from a cognitive nature involving our physiology, psychology, and environment. Cognition, according to the Oxford definition