Here is the first article dedicated to emotions.
We feel emotions daily, but often we don’t stop to think about how emotions work. If we were to describe how emotions work, the first thing we should do is define emotion: what is emotion? Answering this simple question is not that simple. There are many theories of emotions, and they differ from each other in various aspects, including the definition of what an emotion is.
What scientists agree on is that emotions: 1) have a “multi-system” structure, that is, they involve different structures of our body and brain; and 2) play an important role in the decisions we make, in the judgments we formulate and in the logical reasoning we implement.
In general, we can define emotion as an intense and short-lived response to a stimulus. The stimulus can be either an external situation or an internal stimulus, such as a thought or a memory.
The intense response concerns both physical activation and the experience that accompanies physical activation. When we get excited, whatever the type of emotion, our body activates and transforms, such as heartbeat, breathing, sweating, vascularization, salivation, pupillary movements and musculature (mimic).
Emotions are an automatic response to a stimulus and each person can experience different emotions in front of the same stimulus. When a response is automatic, it means that it is independent of our will, when we feel an emotion.
It should follow that since emotions are automatic and independent of our will, we are at the mercy of what we feel … But is this so?
The physical activation and the emotional experience that accompanies it, in reality, are quite conscious reactions. Think about the last time you felt embarrassed, and your cheeks turned red, making your mood clear to everyone, or about the last time you felt joy and a smile appeared on your face!
What is automatic, or unconscious, is everything that happens before the emotions manifest. Emotions are strictly connected to the cognitive evaluation we make, unconsciously, of what is happening around us.
In a famous study by Schachter and Singer in 1962, they devised a very ingenious experiment. People who participated in the study were told that the researchers needed to experiment with a mix of vitamins, called suproxin, for vision. For this reason, they were given an injection and would have to wait in the waiting room. In reality, they were given epinephrine, which gave them a physiological activation of arousal. The researchers divided the participants into four groups. The first group, epinephrine-informed, were injected with epinephrine and were told that vitamins could cause physiological activation (such as, for example, increased heart rate, heavy breathing, sweating). The second group, called epinephrine-not-informed, was given epinephrine and told that the vitamins were harmless. The third group, epinephrine-misinformed, was given epinephrine and told that the vitamins could give headaches, drowsiness, or other similar symptoms. Finally, the last group, placebo-uninformed, was injected with a saline solution and told that the substance was harmless. Half of the participants of all four groups were exposed to a cheerful situation. In the waiting room (where an accomplice and a participant in the experiment were present) the accomplice of the experimenters played with the objects in the room, laughed and was visibly in a good mood. The other half of the participants were given a questionnaire with irritating questions, and the accomplice inside the room was altered, up to snatching the questionnaire, railing against the researchers and leaving the room.
From this experiment, it emerged that the two groups, epinephrine-not-informed and epinephrine-misinformed, showed a strong emotional reaction congruent with the situation in which they were assigned. While the other two groups, informed epinephrine and placebo, experienced an attenuated emotional response.
This means that, unconsciously, when we feel an emotion we give an evaluation and a judgment on the situation we are experiencing. The two groups, epinephrine-not-informed and epinephrine-misinformed, attributed the physiological reaction to a wave of strong anger or a strong joy, depending on the situation they were experiencing. The epinephrine-informed group, on the other hand, attributed the strong physical activation to the administration of the vitamin and not to emotion.
There are no specific physiological activations for an emotion. For example, if we have a heart-pounding for a run, we don’t associate any emotion with it. But if noticing the heartbeat, we see the person we like in front of us, we could feel joy, and if the same heartbeat occurs when there is a sudden noise, we could feel fright or surprise. Even in a fraction of a few seconds, we assess the situation or predict events based on the clues available.
Our unconscious evaluations are strongly influenced by our way of seeing life, of approaching the world, of our reference culture and of the system of values that guides us.
Returning, therefore, to our question, we can say that we are not totally at the mercy of our emotions, because they are guided by our values, our culture and the unconscious assumptions and representations we have of the world.
From this, it follows that emotions tell us something about ourselves and at the same time, by acting on our way of thinking and seeing the world we can slowly change our way of feeling. We, therefore, can change how we feel. It is certainly not an instant process, but a journey into our way of seeing and feeling, and in our unconscious.
This year is dedicated to the journey into emotions, to the different nuances and implications.
You are ready?
To start, I invite you to watch this video You aren’t at the mercy of your emotions — your brain creates them | Lisa Feldman Barrett
Bibliography
Schachter, S .; Singer, J. (1962). “Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State”
Dr Vanessa Pozzali 
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