The Science of Emotions - Essay Example

SCIENCE OF EMOTIONS As a human being we express our feelings through emotions, when we feel happy we express it through smile, when we are angry we show it by shouting at someone or by through force, when we feel sad we cry, like that human beings emotions are a way to express themselves. Emotions are complex that don't have a single universally accepted definition. These are termed as mental states that arise spontaneously without any conscious effort. Some experts feel emotions are a cognitive process and are physical expressions that are related to feelings, perceptions or belief about objects and relations between them. When it comes to scientific research emotions are divided into multiple dimensions such as behavioral, physiological, subjective and cognitive. According experts deeds, ideas, emotions and physiological states are the four components of human behavior. Idea and deed can be chosen independently but emotions and physiological states cannot be chosen independently. Limbic system is a part of the brain that controls the behavior of human beings that are essential in our lives, like smelling, laughter, hunger, anger, finding food, etc. Limbic system is located beneath the cerebral cortex and is constituted of network of structures. Some scientific research has provided proof that some of the evolutionary structures found in the limbic systems can be traced some ancient animals such as the alligator. It has been found that the limbic system in alligator plays an important role in smelling, defending territory, hunting and eating prey. Fig 1 Fig 2 A- Corpus callosum, B- Olfactory tract, C- Mammillary bodies, D- Fornix, E- Anterior thalamic nuclei, F- Amygdala, G- Hippocampus, H- Parahippocampal gyrus, I- Cingulate gyrus and J- Hypothalamic nuclei constitute the parts of the limbic system. Based on discoveries made through neural mapping of the limbic system, the neurobiological explanation of human emotion is that emotion is a pleasant or unpleasant mental state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain (Wikipedia). Modules of the cingulated gyrus are main reason behind human emotion of love that had evolved from paleocircuits of the mammalian brain. These help in expressing emotions like care, feeding and grooming of offspring. Cortical circuits help in speech, which were evolved millions of years after paleocircuits for bodily expressions was configured. Amygdala is of small almond shaped structure that is located deep inside the brain and hippocampus which is tiny, sea horse shaped structure are found to be the main areas that are involved with emotional actions and reactions. The medial dorsal nucleus of the thalamus is connected to amygdala, which in turn is connected to hippocampus. These connections are very important for expressing emotional feelings and have an important role to play to in mediating and controlling the major activities like friendship, love, affection, caring and expressions on different moods. The median of hypothalamus plays an important role and has been a major contributor in producing a loud and uncontrollable laughter. 2. The present world is full of energy and moving ahead with an incredible pace. Due to the developments in every sector for example in communications, marketing, construction, etc., human standards of living have reached a new high. Due to emotional development and having a balanced control over our feelings we are able to fight against all the odds and are succeeding in most of the departments. Human expression plays an important role in dealing with business activities and public relations. A candidate attending an interview will be analyzed more on non-verbal reactions i.e. 90% marks are categorized for non verbal reactions and remaining 10% for verbal answers. Thus emotional expression plays an important role in getting a job for the candidate. The same way if two strangers traveling in a bus or in a train converse using a common language that both of them understands better. This enables them communicating with each other very easily and helps in building friendly relationships. Thus we can say that human emotions play an important role in our day-to-day life. Just imagine how difficult it would if these emotional expressions wouldn't have evolved, developed or reached this stage where we can express it freely. The evolvement of human emotions has taken a long path and traveled thousands of years to reach the present stage where we use it more for making lifestyle decisions than simply staying alive. Our ancestors used these emotions to stay alive by hunting for food, protecting themselves from dangerous animals and natural disasters. Emotion, in its most general definition, is a neural impulse that moves an organism to action (Wikipedia). It is difficult to tell whether a emotion is a purely human phenomenon or not because animals also tend to show emotional behavior such as anger, hunger, fear or sadness, etc. Human emotions have evolved from centuries and changed in different ways. As the time passed human emotions has reached a high degree compared to that of animals where evolution tends to be paused at some stage. According to researchers human behaviors such as sexual behavior, consuming food, reacting accordingly to physiological changes and responses to environmental conditions were based on social surroundings and human environmental factors. Thus it can be said that human emotions are dependent on social phenomena, norms and conditional behavior of a community or a group in which a human lives. Researchers argue that humans developed a wide array of emotions long before spoken language or speech and culture are evolved. Both language and culture are two unique characteristics of human beings, through which communication becomes much easier and helps in building relationships and which in turn helps in further evolving. Before humans were able to speak that used their body language to express their emotions and able communicate with each other. According to researchers a neurological wiring of the brain has triggered these emotional languages that were the key evolutionary development of our species. Here a question arises, how the natural selection work has played a part on ape anatomy and neuroanatomy to create the hominid line The important factor that distinguished our ancestors with other animals was the curiosity to know new things, socializing and organization that were crucial to survive in the African savanna. Whenever we compare our ancestors with apes, apes tend to have weak ties, individualism, mobility and most importantly autonomy, which today we exercise it to our maximum benefit. The main challenge in front of natural selection was to develop the quality in the species that would help in building stronger social ties necessary for survival in the new environment. As per Darwin's theory, survival of the fittest has played an important in natural selection. To counter the problem of extinction humans were able to develop spoken language and development in certain areas of brain helped them in having stronger ties with fellow humans, which allowed them to develop higher levels of social solidarity. 3. According to evolutionary psychologists it has been found out that human behavior is not adaptive. History shows that entire much of the human evolution was spent as hunters - gathers. Development in speech, engineering skills, scriptures, modern agricultural methods and social societies came into the picture just about 10,000 years ago. Thus it is appropriate to say that human's evolved psychology is more of adapted to a hunter-gather way of life and not in a modern or industrial way of life. In contrast human behavioral ecologists believe that human behavior is adaptive and are designed by natural selection to be able to easily adapt to the environmental and social surrounding changes. In some ways human behavior is adaptive in a wide range of environments such as sex drive, hunger drive, jealousy, love and affection. Other human behaviors are sometimes may be maladaptive such as status striving. This status striving makes males to be aggressive and makes them to be dominative in nature. Evolving of human emotions at an early stage in every human being's life is very important as it helps in overall development of his or her behavior and uses it to maximum benefit. Leaving researchers views aside it is true that humans used to adept to the social surroundings and new environments. Humans who were not able to develop emotions face many disorders. Due to partial development in limbic system of the brain human emotions are under developed and they behavior would be like of a primate. Due to the under development of medial dorsal nucleus of the thalamus that is connected to amygdala, which in turn is connected to hippocampus human behavior disorders occurs. Psychological disorders are frequent among these patients, which makes them behave in a disturbing manner. The under development in some of the humans makes them behave as a child i.e. though the patient has physically grown his behavior is of a child. It means his brain has stopped developing or the development is too slow compare to normal human beings. The other disorder is development in only one side of the brain that results in anesthesia or memory loss. Memory loss is classified as short-term memory loss or long-term memory loss. Memory loss occurs due to the under development of the brain or due to a fatal accident. With proper medication and consultation this disorder is curable. Development of emotions is important, because it helps in socializing, organizational development and adaptive. In this world only those can survive who are able to fight i.e. the applicability of Darwin's theory, survival of the fittest. Reference Wikipedia. Emotion. 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