Emotion

EMOTION. - I. PSYCHOLOGY. - It is the reaction to a sensation, or image, that comes to disturb our organic or psychic equilibrium, a reaction constituted, as a single whole, by a particular affective state corresponding to the awakening of specific instincts and by organic modifications.

Animal beings tend naturally toward what their senses reveal to be necessary or useful for the preservation of individual life and of the species. This tendency manifests itself through various impulses of approach or repulsion toward actions and things that, near or far, more or less easily pursued or avoided, can satisfy or can instead hinder these natural needs. These impulses of the sensory appetite, founded on natural instincts, create a particular affective resonance generally joined to an organic resonance: when this is present one can speak of an e. Here, however, we set aside the question — rejecting it insofar as it claims to exhaust the essential constitutive element of the e. in an isolated element of it — of the precedence of the physical reaction (peripheral theory of feeling, W. James, K. Lange) or of the affective one (classical intellectualist theory) and of their reciprocal causality, and we carefully distinguish the psychic fact from any eventual consciousness of it, which is logically posterior.

There appears clearly then the distinction — more of degree than of kind — between the so-called lower e., produced directly by an organic stimulus, which could be called affective sensations (of hunger, sensory pleasure, etc.) and the higher ones, provoked only indirectly by an external stimulus, which awakens a particular situation of consciousness and is accompanied by a significant organic resonance (of fear, of antipathy, aesthetic, religious, etc.) which are true human e.

The e. is therefore a natural and necessary factor of human life, and has a directive function with respect to the actions of the subject, tending to realize his good, ordering them to obtain a state of equilibrium in the face of the environmental world and thus guiding them in the continuous movement of adaptation to the perpetual changing and renewing of external stimuli. In this complex automatic mechanism that is formed, consolidated and multiplied with the growth of years, culture and experiences, in relation also to the character of the subject, it is enough to provoke one of the elements to arouse the e.; and just as the external sensation sets the mechanism in motion, so an intervention in the endotimic life, the physiological substrate of instinct, can influence it. Reason and will can intervene both in the composition of the complex and, all the more once it has been consolidated, in its self-provocation by means of an adequate idea or representation.

When the stimuli appear sudden, or excessive, the reaction too will acquire a significant tone and one can then speak of a violent e. (which some call e. "sho", while others, such as A. Gemelli, propose that the name e. be reserved for it, for the sake of clarity, leaving to the former the simple appellation of sensation and feeling), characterized both by a more violent organic resonance, capable at times of causing damage, even irremediable, to physical health, and by an action generally deleterious on the psyche, being suited more to upsetting the affective equilibrium than to directing the action of the subject toward its end. Normally one will seek to avoid this violent form of e., suited to creating abnormal situations, often harmful to man's life, removing its causes, as far as possible, from one's own and others' existence; particularly from that of children, in whose psyche it could leave indelible traces, and, in general, of persons weaker in age and health. At times it may accidentally play a providential role, whether for the organism, by stimulating sluggish functions, correcting unruly activities, usefully influencing abnormal psychic complexes, or for the spiritual life, as a spur to greater reflection and seriousness, to conversion and to greater fervor (the episode that drove Luther to the monastic life is well known). Note, however, that if in the first case the e. presents itself as suited to being cautiously provoked artificially for curative purposes, particularly in illness with a nervous basis, in the second it is limited — or at least should be limited — to being a point of departure, the excitation of an ethical or religious activity, to be founded afterward on more solid and rational bases.

It should be noted that, strictly speaking, passion cannot be said so simply to be a prolonged e.; although being in the same order, the sudden origin gives the e. a character of greater violence, while from its permanence there comes to passion the infused element and a more or less conscious approval on the part of man's intellectual faculty. While the Scholastics (e.g., St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 18-2ᵃp. q. 22, a. 1-3 and Cajetan's Commentary, on art. 1) called "passio" our e. and "passio habitualis" our passion, not a few moderns give the generic name of e. to every affective state (v. PASSION), for the terminology, a further psychological deepening, the classical division and the medical treatment).

With regard to the e. pedagogy establishes certain principles, whose application is of the greatest utility for education.

They, in fact, even the most reprehensible, have, like pleasure and pain, their own purpose and can serve as a guide, an aid, a sanction of our actions.

Fear, for example, preserves one from exposing oneself to dangers; audacity and strength gather and concentrate energies to overcome them, when they are inevitable; anxiety can be a warning signal against them; shame can serve to restrain dishonorable acts. The e., however, are not always proportionate to the needs of the moment, they do not always keep to the golden mean, they tend rather to run to excess and therefore to become more harmful than useful: fear can give strength to the legs, but also paralyze them; audacity can reach temerity; anger degenerate into madness; anxiety and sadness crush every activity; shame makes one lose the courage to rise again and change course. This is noted not only in different individuals, but also in the same individual, depending on the instinct predominant at that particular moment, of which one does not always have a clear awareness. One is accustomed, in fact, with regard to bad news to be communicated, to say: "who knows what impression it will make on him"; or, with regard to a reprimand: "who knows how he will take it"; a teasing can leave one indifferent, or arouse indignation, and even satisfaction at having given a little joy to others.

One deduces therefore that the e. possess a certain dynamogeny, which is reflected on our organic forces, exciting them (tonic or sthenic e.) or paralyzing them (asthenic or depressing e.). A sthenic state (confidence, optimism, serenity) animates work; an asthenic state (diffidence, doubt, hesitation, discouragement) compromises it. It will therefore be necessary to seek to reach the ideal in the exploitation of the e., which consists in acquiring mastery and free use of them; this is the task of education.

2. Emotions can be educated

The educator (parents, teachers, directors) must first of all gain an exact understanding, through attentive and vigilant observation, of the various emotional reactions and the various intellectual and volitional nuances of the pupil. Only with this rich store of observations and cross-checks will he be able to master the pupil's psychic life and direct it in its ever-changing attitudes.

For a different treatment is required in education: a) according to the different individuals: an emotional or sthenic character tends toward the exaltation of its euphoric state and therefore toward presumption, vanity, and exhibitionism, and so must be restrained; an asthenic character, on the other hand, tends toward pessimism and distrust of its own powers, and therefore needs stimulation. The physician does this with depressed patients, inspiring, along with confidence in his assistance, also confidence in recovery; the educator must therefore do the same. To tell a pupil who is slow to learn, or who seems incorrigible: "it is useless, you will not succeed," is equivalent to dealing a death blow to the energies which, if suitably stimulated, could instead have aroused a salutary reaction against the slowness or incorrigibility. Likewise, one must never exploit the pupil's emotivity, because, even if some easy success can be obtained, in the long run one runs into grave dangers. Whoever abuses authority, or goes too far in making the pupil feel that he is being followed in all his actions, or in wanting to be a guide in every even minimal act, ends up extinguishing all self-activity and forming a weak, uncertain, irresolute character; "also shut up within himself, waiting to rebel and to act according to his own inclinations in secret"; b) in the same individual according to age. In infancy and adolescence the emotional life predominates over the intellectual and volitional life; in youth this predominance diminishes until in maturity the due equilibrium and the supremacy of reason and will are reached; which then again yield, in old age, to a recurrence of emotivity. Therefore certain feelings that can be aroused in infancy (for example, horror at the consequences of certain actions) must not instead be provoked in adolescence and youth, when they could generate despair or dejection or stubborn rebellion. On the contrary, an attitude that in childhood can arouse confusion or timidity, in youth generates reflection, compliance, and ardor. A depressive emotion due to a failure, for example, to an injustice, can in youth provoke a salutary reaction, impel one toward new paths, toward the search for new means of succeeding, and thus bring into play energies that otherwise would perhaps have remained latent and fruitless; c) according to the quality of the emotion. Too common and deplorable is the prejudice that aesthetic emotions (that is, those provoked by painting, sculpture, literature, and music) are in themselves good and harmless, because the beautiful and the good cannot stand in opposition. But this, if it is true in theory, when the beautiful and the good are considered in the abstract and apart from the subject who undergoes their influence, is no longer true in practice, when the influenced subject is considered. Common sense, in fact, knows how to distinguish between warlike music, exciting to valor, and soft and enervating music; between an art that elevates and an art that titillates the depths of corrupt nature; between a literature that uplifts and a literature that crawls and makes one crawl along the ground and causes every barrier of modesty and horror to fall.

3. Emotions can be aroused in us or suspended by the will

This observation offers the best key for resolving the question of the educability of emotions. It is observed, in fact, that it suffices to bring about a suitable physiological state in order to provide the suitable ground for the emotions corresponding to this state. An actor, for example, by reproducing the external reactions of a particular feeling, immerses himself in it and identifies with it so deeply that he ends up really experiencing it; likewise one who reads a canto of Dante or plays the notes of a Dies irae. Conversely, one can prevent the arising of a particular emotion or put it to flight and make it vanish by means of opposite emotions, by preventing the reaction that should arouse it or make it produce its effect. Whoever manages not to tremble before a specter means that he has prevented the emotion of fear. And this holds both for external emotions and for internal ones. This is the reason why, to pluck up courage, one perhaps talks to oneself; to overcome the trembling of the dark, one hums; to stifle the terror of a vision, one assails it. That is, one physiological activity is substituted for that other one which would have provoked the emotion that was feared.

Hence derives the insistence on which pedagogy stakes its claim, that the mind be enriched with high, noble ideals, which embrace, so to speak, the whole soul; thus more easily will one have recourse to them to arouse stimulating emotions or to put to flight and extinguish divergent ones that have suddenly appeared on the horizon.

It is also customary to say, with regard to emotions, that they must be allowed to "vent," to "run their course," to "let free rein be given to the physiological reactions that derive from them." This principle, if in theory it can perhaps be considered more scientific, in practice must be accepted with great caution. It is true that weeping soothes pain; that shouting and stamping one's feet or breaking some object calms anger; that laughter, so contagious in groups, smooths out merits; but good sense also says that tears can be held back, that anger can be extinguished, that laughter can be made light; in a word, education and self-mastery, the pride of commanding oneself, the satisfaction of surpassing oneself can impose themselves and divert or even suppress the course of physiological reactions. In some cases it will indeed be advisable to let the emotion run its course: in others, and they are the majority, it is not educational, but can be counterproductive. Hence the importance in Christian ascetics of small daily ascetic practices and of their highly pedagogical value, because to the value of a practice founded on natural and human motives is added another value of a higher order, which makes them more useful to oneself and to others, increasing their merit and efficacy. Only thus does one conquer one's own personality.

Celestino Tostori