Psychological mechanisms of perception. The influence of image on human perception

Getting to know one person about another is always accompanied by an emotional assessment of the partner, an attempt to understand his actions, forecasting changes in his behavior and modeling his own behavior. Since at least two people participate in this process and each of them is an active subject, in building an interaction strategy, each must take into account not only the motives and needs of the other, but also his understanding of the partner’s motives and needs. The process of interpersonal perception is also called social perception.

The mechanism of interpersonal perception is the way in which a person interprets and evaluates another. There can be quite a lot of such methods. Today we will look at the basic mechanisms of interpersonal perception: identification, empathy, egocentrism, attraction, reflection, stereotype and causal attribution.

Identification

The first and main mechanism of interpersonal perception is the identification of a person by a person. From the point of view of social psychology, it confirms the fact that the simplest way to understand a partner is to liken yourself to him.

In general, identification has several implications:

1. Identification of oneself with another individual based on an emotional connection.
2. Assimilation of values, roles and moral qualities another man.
3. Copying another person's thoughts, feelings or actions.

The most comprehensive definition of identification is in the following way. Identification is an understanding of a partner through his conscious or unconscious identification with himself, an attempt to feel his state, mood and attitude to the world, putting himself in his place.

Empathy

The second mechanism of interpersonal perception is closely related to the first. Empathy is the emotional desire to respond to the problems tormenting another person, to sympathize with him and empathize.

Empathy is also interpreted as:

1. Comprehension of the states of another individual.
2. A mental process aimed at identifying the experiences of others.
3. An action that helps an individual build communication in a special way.
4. The ability to penetrate the mental state of another person.

The ability for empathy increases when the interlocutors are similar, as well as when the individual gains life experience. The higher the empathy, the more colorful a person imagines the impact of the same event on life different people, and the more he realizes the fact that there are different views on life.

An individual prone to empathy can be recognized by the following characteristics:

1. Tolerance for other people's emotions.
2. The ability to delve into the inner world of your interlocutor without revealing your worldview.
3. Adapting your worldview to the worldview of another person in order to achieve mutual understanding.

How empathy is similar to identification

The empathy mechanism has some similarities with the identification mechanism. In both cases, there is a person's ability to see things from another person's point of view. However, empathy, unlike identification, does not involve identifying oneself with the interlocutor. By identifying with a partner, a person accepts his behavior model and builds a similar one. By showing empathy, an individual simply takes into account the interlocutor’s line of behavior, while continuing to build his own behavior independently of him.

Empathy is considered one of the most important professional skills of a psychologist, doctor, teacher and leader. Empathic attention (listening), according to K. Rogers, is a special attitude towards a partner, based on the synthesis of identification and empathy. Inclusion in another person, allowing to achieve openness of contact, is an identification function. This “immersion in the interlocutor” in pure form It has Negative consequences- the psychologist “gets involved” with the client’s difficulties and begins to suffer from his problems himself. This is where the empathic component comes to the rescue - the ability to distance oneself from the partner’s state. Thus, the combination of such mechanisms as identification of a person by a person and empathy allows the psychologist to provide real help clients.

Types of empathy

Empathic experiences can be adequate and inadequate. For example, for one person someone else’s grief causes sadness, and for another it causes joy.

In addition, empathy can be:

1. Emotional. It is based on the mechanism of projection and imitation of the effective and motor reactions of the interlocutor.
2. Cognitive. Based on intellectual processes.
3. Predicative. Expresses a person’s ability to predict the reactions of an interlocutor in a given situation.

An important form of empathy is empathy - the experience by one individual of feelings, emotions and states experienced by another. This happens through identification with the interlocutor and sympathy for him.

Egocentrism

The third mechanism of interpersonal perception, unlike the previous two, complicates the knowledge of each other by individuals, and does not facilitate it. Egocentrism is a person’s concentration on his personal experiences and interests, which leads to the fact that he loses the ability to understand people with a different worldview.

Egocentrism happens:

1. Cognitive. Manifests itself in the process of thinking and perception.
2. Moral. Illustrates a person’s inability to understand the reasons for the behavior of others.
3. Communicative. Expresses disrespect for the semantic concepts of the interlocutor.

Attraction is the attraction or attraction of one person to another, due to mutual interest. In psychology, interpersonal attraction means friendly relations between people and expressions of sympathy for each other. The development of attachment of one subject to another arises as a consequence of an emotional relationship, the assessment of which evokes a number of feelings and is expressed as a social attitude towards another person.

Reflection

When considering the psychological mechanisms of interpersonal perception, one cannot fail to mention reflection. Reflection is a person’s awareness of how he is evaluated and perceived by other individuals. That is, this is a person’s idea of ​​what his interlocutor thinks of him. This element of social cognition, on the one hand, means a person’s knowledge of his interlocutor through what he thinks about him, and on the other, knowledge of himself through this. Thus, the broader an individual is, the more ideas about how others perceive him, and the more a person knows about himself and others.

Stereotype

This is a very important and quite capacious mechanism of interpersonal perception. A stereotype in the context of interpersonal attraction is the process of forming an opinion about a person based on personal prejudices (stereotypes).

In 1922, to denote ideas associated with inaccuracy and lies, V. Limpan introduced the term “social stereotype.” As a rule, the formation of stable patterns of any social object occurs unnoticed even by the individual himself.

There is an opinion that it is precisely because of poor meaningfulness that stereotypes are firmly entrenched in the form of stable standards and gain power over people. A stereotype arises in conditions of lack of information or is the fruit of a generalization own experience individual. The experience is often supplemented by information obtained from cinema, literature and other sources.

Thanks to a stereotype, a person can quickly and, as a rule, reliably, simplify the social environment, organize it into certain standards and categories, make it more understandable and predictable. The cognitive basis of stereotyping is formed by processes such as limitation, selection, and categorization of a large flow of social information. As for the motivational basis of this mechanism, it is formed by processes of evaluative popularization in favor of one or another group, which give a person a sense of belonging and security.

Stereotype functions:

1. Selection of information.
2. Formation and support of a positive self-image.
3. Creation and support of a group ideology that justifies and explains the behavior of the group.
4. Formation and support of a positive image of “We”.

Thus, stereotypes are regulators of social relations. Their main features are: economy of thinking, justification of one’s own behavior, satisfaction of aggressive tendencies, stability and release of group tension.

Classification of stereotypes

There are several existing classifications of stereotypes. According to V. Panferov’s classification, stereotypes are: social, anthropological, and ethnonational.

Let us dwell in more detail on A. Rean’s classification, according to which there are stereotypes:

1. Anthropological. Appear when the assessment psychological qualities a person and his personality depends on the characteristics of his appearance, that is, anthropological characteristics.
2. Ethnonational. They are relevant when a person’s psychological assessment is influenced by his belonging to a particular ethnic group, race or nation.
3. Social status. Take place if the assessment personal qualities individual occurs depending on his social status.
4. Social-role. In this case, personality assessment is subordinated to the social role and role functions of the individual.
5. Expressive and aesthetic. Psychological assessment of personality is mediated by a person’s external attractiveness.
6. Verbal-behavioural. The criterion for assessing a personality is its external features: facial expressions, pantomime, language, etc.

There are other classifications. In them, in addition to the previous ones, the following stereotypes are considered: professional (a generalized image of a representative of a particular profession), physiognomic (appearance traits are associated with personality), ethnic and others.

National stereotypes are considered the most studied. They illustrate people's attitudes towards certain ethnic groups. Such stereotypes often serve as part of a nation's mentality and identity, and also have a clear connection with national character.

Stereotyping, which arises in conditions of lack of information, as a mechanism of interpersonal perception, can play a conservative and even reactionary role, forming in people an incorrect idea of ​​others and deforming the processes of interpersonal interaction and mutual understanding. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the truth or fallacy of social stereotypes purely on the basis of an analysis of specific situations.

Causal attribution

When considering the mechanisms of social perception, one should not ignore such a fascinating phenomenon as causal attribution. Without knowing or insufficiently understanding the true motives of another individual’s behavior, people, finding themselves in conditions of information deficiency, may attribute unreliable reasons for their behavior to him. In social psychology, this phenomenon is called “causal attribution.”

By looking at how people interpret the behavior of others, scientists have discovered something called the fundamental attribution error. It occurs because people overestimate the importance of others' personality traits and underestimate the impact of the situation. Other researchers have discovered the phenomenon of “egocentric attribution.” It is based on the tendency of people to attribute success to themselves and failure to other people.

G. Kelly identified three types of attribution:

1. Personal. The reason is attributed to the one who performed the action.
2. Objective. A cause is attributed to the object upon which the action is directed.
3. Attribution related to circumstances. The cause of what happens is attributed to circumstances.

The observer usually resorts to personal attribution, and the participant, as a rule, attributes everything to circumstances. This feature is clearly visible in the attribution of success and failure.

An important issue to consider causal attribution is the question of the attitude that accompanies the process of perceiving a person by a person, especially in the formation of an impression of an unknown person. This was revealed by A. Bodylev through experiments in which different groups people were shown a photo of the same person, accompanied by characteristics such as “writer”, “hero”, “criminal” and so on. When the installation is triggered verbal portraits of the same person were different. It was revealed that there are people who do not lend themselves to stereotypical perception. They are called selectively stereotypical. Having examined the mechanisms of social perception, let us now briefly talk about its effects.

Effects of Interpersonal Perception

The effect of interpersonal perception is always formed on the basis of stereotypes.

There are three effects in total:

1. Halo effect. It is expressed when one person exaggerates the homogeneity of another's personality, transferring an impression (favorable or not) of one quality onto all other qualities. During first impression formation, the halo effect occurs when an overall positive impression of a person leads to a positive evaluation of all his qualities, and vice versa.
2. Appears when assessing a stranger. The role of the installation in this case is played by the information that was presented earlier.
3. The effect of novelty. This effect of interpersonal perception operates when evaluating a familiar person, when the latest information about him becomes most significant.

Forming an idea about an interlocutor always begins with assessing and perceiving his physical appearance, appearance and demeanor. In the future, this information forms the basis for the perception and understanding of this person. It may depend on a number of factors: the individual characteristics of a person, his level of culture, his social experience, aesthetic preferences, and so on. An important issue is also the age characteristics of the person who perceives.

For example, a child who has just started going to school kindergarten, in communicating with people, relies on primary ideas about them, which he formed while communicating with his parents. Depending on how the child’s relationship was previously, he shows irritability, distrust, obedience, compliance or stubbornness.

Conclusion

Summarizing the above, it is worth noting that the mechanisms of interpersonal perception include ways of interpreting and evaluating one person by another. The main ones are: identification, empathy, egocentrism, attraction, reflection, stereotype, and causal attribution. Different mechanisms and types of interpersonal perception, as a rule, work in tandem, complementing each other.

There is a wide range of hypotheses affecting the probable causes of emotional phenomena.

Emotion as biofeedback from organs involved in expression. One of the first concepts describing the causes of emotional experience, which has retained its significance to this day, is the concept proposed by W. James and S. Lange (James, 1884; Lange, 1895). These researchers lived in different countries and at the same time independently put forward similar ideas. They explained the occurrence of emotional experience by the functioning of the feedback mechanism from the effector organs involved in the expression of emotion. According to this idea, we are sad because we cry, angry because we hit, afraid because we tremble, and happy because we laugh. Thus, in this concept, the relationship between awareness of emotion and behavior

Its actual expression is the opposite of what is obviously observed: awareness of the emotional state occurs after a physiological reaction.

This hypothesis was initially rejected due to the existence of a significant number of facts contradicting it. However, at present, many researchers are beginning to return to it again. This is because psychotherapeutic practice relies heavily on the existence of such feedback and includes techniques such as smiling to change mood or relaxing muscles to calm down.

The importance of feedback from effectors is also confirmed by neurological practice (Hohman, 1966). Thus, when examining patients with spinal cord injuries, a clear pattern is revealed, according to which the higher the level of damage, the lower the intensity of the emotions experienced by these patients.

Experiments also support the importance of feedback stimulation from effectors. In one study, subjects were asked to change the tension of those facial muscles that corresponded to a certain emotion, but nothing was said about the emotion itself (Ekman et al., 1983; Levenson et al., 1990). This is how they mimicked the expression of fear, anger, surprise, disgust, grief, and happiness. At the moment of muscle tension, autonomic functions were recorded. The results indicated that the simulated expression did change the state of the vegetative nervous system. When simulating anger, the heart rate increased and the body temperature rose; when simulating fear, the heart rate increased, but the body temperature dropped; when simulating a state of happiness, only a slowdown in the heart rate was noted.

The physiological basis for the possibility of the participation of feedback stimulation in the formation of psychological experience may be the following sequence of events. During a person’s life, classical conditioned reflexes are formed that associatively link changes in the facial muscles with one or another state of the autonomic nervous system. This is why feedback from the facial muscles can be accompanied by autonomic changes.

There is no reason yet to reject the possibility that these connections may also be innate. Evidence of the possibility of such an assumption may be the fact that when observing other people's emotions, people involuntarily repeat them. Anyone reading these lines, looking at the drawing (Fig. 13.6), cannot intuitively help but follow the emotion depicted on it.

It is possible that the conditioned reflex connection connecting emotional manifestation and mental experiences arises at very early stages of ontogenesis during the corresponding critical period. It can be so close to the moment of birth and be so brief that it leads to an illusory idea that this kind of connection is innate.

Emotion as activity of brain structures. W. Cannon (1927) and P. Bard (Bard, 1929) proposed a concept, the essence of which is

that psychological awareness and physiological response in the process of emotional response occur almost at the same time. Information about the emotional signal enters the thalamus, and from it simultaneously to the cortex cerebral hemispheres brain, which leads to awareness, and to the hypothalamus, which leads to changes in the vegetative status of the body (Fig. 13.8). Further research revealed a significant number of brain structures involved in the formation of emotion.

Hypothalamus. WITH Using the self-stimulation technique, the pleasure center was discovered (Olds, Fobes, 1981). In such an experiment, electrodes implanted in the rat’s brain, a pedal contact, and a source of electric current are included in one circuit. While moving, the rat could press the pedal. If the electrodes were implanted in the area of ​​the lateral hypothalamus, then after pressing once the rat did not stop doing this. Some of them pressed the pedal up to 1,000 times per hour and died because they could no longer perform the actions necessary to survive.

It is possible to change the emotional state of an animal by introducing certain biologically active substances into certain areas of the hypothalamus (Iktmoto, Panksepp, 1996). The role of this brain structure in emotional response has been demonstrated many times. In the lateral hypothalamus

Rice. 13.8. The Cannon-Bard model assumes the simultaneous flow of information from the thalamus to the cortex and subcortical structures.

Doucet identified two types of neurons that react differently to emotional situations. One type of neuron was called motivational because it showed maximum activity in motivational behavior, and the other was called reinforcing because these cells were activated when the animal was satiated (Zaichenko et al., 1995).

Amygdala (amygdala). X. Kluver and P. Bucy (Kluver, Bucy, 1939) removed the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex in monkeys and described the syndrome that was later named after them. In the monkey, which was an aggressive alpha male before the operation, after extirpation of the temporal lobe, the former aggressiveness and fear disappeared, but hypersexuality was discovered. On the one hand, these data indicate the importance of the temporal lobes for the development of aggression, on the other hand, they demonstrate the presence of reciprocal relationships between sexuality and aggression. This contradicts the idea of ​​K. Lorenz (Lorenz, 1969), who asserted the identity of aggressiveness and male sexuality, since, from his point of view, sexual behavior is an integral part of aggressive behavior.

It has been established that Klüver-Bucy syndrome is caused by the absence of the tonsil. It has now been proven that this structure forms the body’s response to an aversive stimulus (causing an avoidance reaction). Any emotional response is associated with the circumstances in which it occurs. This is how a classic conditioned reflex is developed, where the reinforcement is one or another emotional state of the body. This type of training is called conditioned emotional response.

The amygdala plays a role in several types of emotional behavior: aggression, fear, disgust, maternal behavior. This structure is the focus of the sensory and effector systems, responsible for the behavioral, autonomic and hormonal components of the conditioned emotional response, activating the corresponding nerve circuits located in the hypothalamus and brain stem.

J.E. LeDoux (1987) showed the need for the central nucleus of the amygdala for the development of a conditioned emotional response, since in its absence it was not possible to develop a reflex (Fig. 13.9). As can be seen from the figure, the amygdala is connected to the lateral hypothalamus, which is responsible for the autonomic component of the emotional response, and to the periaqueductal gray matter, which organizes the behavioral response. The amygdala also has projections to the hypothalamus, which are involved in the release of stress hormones. That is why irritation of the central nucleus of the tonsil leads to ulceration of the gastrointestinal tract. However, when the tonsil is surgically removed, stress ulcers do not form. Apparently, it realizes this function through the caudate nucleus.

Sensory association cortex analyzes complex stimuli of sufficient complexity. Although some emotional reactions in humans are caused by simple stimuli, most of them are quite complex, for example, the appearance of a particular person in the field of vision. The amygdala receives information from the inferior temporal cortex and the temporal colliculus cortex. The latter includes projections from the visual, auditory and

Rice. 13.9. Involvement of the amygdala in the formation of conditioned emotional responses (Carlson, 1992).

somatosensory association cortex. Thus, the amygdala has information from any modality.

D and. In an experiment, L. Downer destroyed the left amygdala in monkeys, while simultaneously performing a commissurotomy (Downer, 1961). Thus, the left half of the brain was deprived of a structure that synthesizes information from all sensory inputs, and could not compensate for this deficiency with information from the right hemisphere. Before the operation, touching the monkey caused an aggressive reaction. After the operation, such behavior was induced only when the animal looked with its right eye. When viewed with the left eye, there was no aggressiveness. This suggests, in particular, that the right hemisphere of the brain is of particular importance for emotional reactions.

The role of the thalamus in the implementation of a conditioned emotional response. Most emotional reactions are quite primitive, since they arose quite early on the path of evolutionary development. The destruction of the auditory cortex does not entail the absence of an emotional conditioned response, while the destruction of the thalamus inevitably leads to the impossibility of its production.

For the formation of a conditioned emotional response to sound, the medial part of the medial geniculate body must be preserved, which sends auditory information to the primary auditory cortex of the cerebral hemispheres (Fig. 13.10). In addition, neurons in the medial geniculate body project to the amygdala. The destruction of these connections leads to the impossibility of developing an emotional conditioned response to a sound signal. In the same way, in order to develop a conditioned emotional response to a visual signal, the lateral geniculate bodies, which carry visual information to the brain, need to be preserved.

Orbitofrontal cortex located at the base of the frontal lobes (Fig. 13.11). It has direct inputs from the dorsomedial thalamus, temporal cortex, and ventromedial tegmental area. Indirect connections come to it from the amygdala and olfactory cortex, projected into the singular cortex, hippocampal system, temporal cortex, lateral hypothalamus, and amygdala. It is connected in multiple ways to other areas of the frontal lobes of the brain.

Rice. 13.10. Medial section of the brain through the medial geniculate body, which receives information from the auditory systems and projects to subcortical structures (Carlson, 1992)

The role of the orbitofrontal cortex first began to be defined in the mid-19th century. Important information about the function of this region in emotional behavior was provided by the case of bomber Phineas Gage. A metal rod thrown out by the explosion pierced the frontal part of his brain. Gage survived, but his behavior changed significantly. If before the injury he was serious and thorough, then after this incident he turned into a frivolous and irresponsible person. His behavior was characterized by childishness and carelessness; it was difficult for him to draw up a plan for future actions, and his actions themselves were capricious and random.

Rice. 13.11. Orbitofrontal cortex.

Such damage reduces the processes of inhibition and self-concentration and changes personal interests. Back in the 40s of the 20th century, quite a lot of material was collected about the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in emotional behavior. Most of The data indicated that damage to it, while changing the emotional sphere of a person, does not affect the intellectual level.

For example, in one curious case, a person suffered from compulsion syndrome, which manifested itself in constant hand washing. This anomaly prevented him from leading a normal life and ultimately led to a suicide attempt. The patient shot himself in the head through the mouth, but survived, although he damaged the frontal cortex. At the same time, the obsession disappeared, but the intellectual level remained the same.

Numerous studies on the destruction of the orbitofrontal cortex,

conducted on animals, indicated a significant change in their behavior: the disappearance of aggressiveness and the absence of visible intellectual deviations. This gave the Portuguese scientist Egas Moniz the idea of ​​convincing neurosurgeons to perform a similar operation on humans. He believed that such an operation could remove the pathological emotional state of aggressive psychopaths, while keeping their intellect intact. Several such operations were actually carried out, and their results confirmed the author's original idea. For this, E. Monitz received the Nobel Prize in 1949.

Later this operation, called lobotomy, was carried out on thousands of patients. Especially many such surgical interventions were performed on American soldiers who returned after World War II with a syndrome that later began to be called after the place of hostilities - “Vietnamese”, “Afghan”, etc. People who have been involved in hostilities for a long time are characterized by any in an alarming situation, launching a physical attack without having time to consider whether such a reaction is justified. In all other respects, they do not differ from the norm, being, moreover, physically healthy and efficient. It is now obvious that E. Monitz was wrong, since a lobotomy leads not only to a decrease in intellectual level, but, no less important, to irresponsible behavior. Such patients cease to plan their actions and take responsibility for them and, as a result, lose their ability to work and the ability to live independently. Lobotomy as an operation was quite well developed and was carried out not even in the operating room, but in an ordinary doctor’s office. It was carried out using special knife, called transorbital leisotome. The surgeon, using a wooden hammer, inserted a knife into the brain through an opening made just below the upper eyelid, and then turned it right and left to the orbital bone near the eye. Essentially, the operation was done in the dark because it was not clear where the knife was or what structures it was cutting, so there was more damage than necessary, although its main effect was to disconnect the prefrontal region from the rest of the brain (Carlson, 1992).

The results of NMR imaging indicate that the more the prefrontal cortex, left temporal region (amygdala), and pons are captured by activity, the greater the amplitude of the indicative GSR (Raine et al., 1991). It is currently believed that the orbitofrontal cortex is involved in the evaluation of action sequences. If this area is damaged by the disease, then the subject can evaluate the emotional significance of the stimulus theoretically, that is, he can easily analyze situations in pictures and diagrams. However, he will not be able to apply this knowledge in life. Likewise, Gage, mentioned earlier, lost one job after another, spent all his savings and eventually lost his family.

It can be assumed that the orbitofrontal cortex is not directly involved in the decision-making process, but ensures the translation of these decisions into life, into specific feelings and behavior. The ventral connections of this area of ​​the cortex with the diencephalon and temporal region bring it information about the emotional significance of the signal. Dorsal connections with the singular cortex allow it to influence both behavior and autonomics.

Rice. 13.12. Singular cortex (Carlson, 1992).

Singular cortex plays an important role in the formation of emotional experience (Fig. 13.12). J.W. Papez (1937) proposed that the singular cortex, entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus form a circle directly related to motivation and emotion. Psychologist P.D. MacLean (1949) also included the amygdala in this system and called it limbic. The singular cortex mediates interactions between decision-making structures in the frontal cortex, emotional structures in the limbic system, and brain mechanisms that control movement. It interacts back and forth with the rest of the limbic system and other areas of the frontal cortex. Electrical stimulation of the singular gyrus can cause the experience of positive or negative emotions (Talairach et al., 1973).

Damage to the singular cortex is associated with akinetic mutism, in which patients refuse to speak or move. Significant injury to this area is incompatible with life. There is reason to believe that it plays an initiating role in emotional behavior.

Understanding the emotions of another person is important for the process of communication between people both in everyday life and in “person-to-person” professions. In addition, visual monitoring of a person’s emotional state in the process of his professional activity allows him to take timely measures to regulate his condition, which reduces injuries at work and increases labor productivity (Zinchenko, 1983).

9.1. Understanding another's emotions and emotional abilities

The question of the genesis of the ability (or a whole series of abilities) to understand the emotions of another is largely debatable. There is evidence that within nine minutes after birth, a child can recognize stimuli that schematically resemble a face (Freedman, 1974). On the other hand, it has been shown that the more mothers discuss their emotional states with their three-year-old children, the better they are at achieving six years of age, recognize the emotional displays of unfamiliar adults (Dunn et al., 1991).

As N. N. Danilova (2000) notes, from an evolutionary point of view, external expression of emotions would be useless if people could not decode these signals and, therefore, understand and adequately respond to them. Therefore, a person must have a special mechanism for decoding them. The mechanism for decoding expressive information must be able to differentiate patterns of facial expression, as well as identify them as signals of certain emotional states.

This mechanism was studied by the Swedish scientist U. Dimberg (Dimberg, 1988). He found that facial expression, depending on the sign of emotion, has different effects on the emotional state and conditioned reflex reactions of fear in partners. It is important that facial expression can influence at the subconscious level, when a person is not aware of the event and the fact of its impact.

Dimberg proved that the influence of facial expression on the magnitude of the conditioned vegetative defensive reaction is carried out automatically and does not depend on the processes of consciousness.

Facial patterns have a particularly strong effect on people who exhibit social anxiety. When viewing photographs, they enhance signs of negative emotions and weaken signs of positive emotions.

Obviously, the understanding of facial patterns of various emotions is facilitated by the fact that the reaction to a partner’s facial expression is associated with the reproduction of his facial expressions, i.e., in an involuntary change in the activity of the muscles of his face. This process is similar to “emotional contagion, or resonance.” Thus, to recognize and identify patterns of facial expression, a person uses two channels - the visual, which makes recognition with the help of gnostic neurons of the inferotemporal cortex, and the proprioceptive, which evaluates the patterns of one’s own facial expression and serves as feedback (reinforcement) for the reaction to information from the visual channel.

Since it is often difficult to prove the presence of innate mechanisms for recognizing emotions in humans, scientists are turning to studying this ability in animals. A number of studies have shown that animals recognize the emotional state of their relatives instinctively. When a female mammal gives birth for the first time, she “knows” the meaning of the cries that express some kind of suffering in her offspring. N. Tinbergen (1951) studied the reactions of several species of birds raised in isolation to the silhouette shown in the figure. When the silhouette moved to the left so that it resembled a hawk with a short neck and long tail, it stimulated a fear response and flight in the experimental birds. When driving in right side the silhouette looked like a goose with a long neck, harmless to birds, and did not cause any fear. In a state of immobility, this silhouette did not cause any reaction in the birds. The fact that the experimental birds never encountered either a hawk or a goose indicates an innate mechanism for recognizing a visual stimulus that is emotionally significant for them.

Despite these data, some scientists believe that the ability to recognize emotions even by facial expression is not given to a person from birth. It is known that young children do not perceive the emotions of others adequately. This ability develops in the process of personality formation, but not equally in relation to different emotions. Horror is most easily recognized, followed by disgust and surprise in descending order. Therefore, understanding emotions must be learned. This leads a number of scientists to believe that there is special type intelligence - emotional.

Emotional intellect

G. G. Garskova (1999) writes that the concept of “emotional intelligence” was introduced into scientific use recently by Mayer and P. Salovey (Mayer, Salovey, 1990) and became widespread in the English-language literature thanks to the works of D. Goleman. To introduce this concept, two reasons were used: the heterogeneity of the concept of “intelligence” and the performance of intellectual operations with emotions.

According to P. Salovey, “emotional intelligence” includes a number of abilities: recognizing one’s own emotions, mastering emotions, understanding the emotions of other people, and even self-motivation.

Criticism of this concept is based on the fact that in ideas about emotional intelligence, emotions are replaced by intelligence. As G.G. Gorskova (1999) believes, this criticism is not justified. She refers to the fact that emotions reflect a person's attitude towards various areas life and to oneself, and the intellect serves precisely to understand these relationships. Consequently, emotions can be the object of intellectual operations. These operations are carried out in the form of verbalization of emotions, based on their awareness and differentiation. Thus, according to Gorskova, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand personality relationships, represented in emotions, and manage the emotional sphere on the basis of intellectual analysis and synthesis.

A necessary condition for emotional intelligence, as the author further writes, is the subject’s understanding of emotions. The end product of emotional intelligence is decision-making based on the reflection and comprehension of emotions, which are a differentiated assessment of events that have personal meaning. Emotional intelligence produces non-obvious ways of being active to achieve goals and satisfy needs. Unlike abstract and concrete intelligence, which reflect the patterns of the external world, emotional intelligence reflects the internal world and its connections with personal behavior and interaction with reality.

It seems to me that by emotional intelligence the authors mean emotional-intellectual activity.

T. Ribot dedicated a special work to emotional (affective) memory (1895), in which he defended its existence, using the most different arguments: psychological, physiological, pathological, etc. I will present these arguments as they were retold by P. P. Blonsky.

“The only criterion that allows one to legitimately assert the existence of an affective memory is that it can be recognized, that it bears the mark of something already experienced, already felt, and that, therefore, it can be localized in a past time.” But don't we compare our present feelings with our past ones? They say that love is not experienced twice in the same way, but “how could they know this if there were no affective traces left in the memory.” “There is no regret without comparison,” but “the law of contrast, which dominates the life of feelings, presupposes affective memory.”

“In every complex that makes up a memory, the affective element is the first, at first vague, vague, only with some general mark: sad or joyful, terrifying or aggressive. Little by little it is determined by the appearance of intellectual images and reaches a complete form.” In these memories, “the affective past is resurrected and recognized before the objective past, which is an additional one.”

From a physiological point of view, it is implausible that reproduction concerns only images, that is, that only those nervous processes that correspond to the reproduction of images participate in it, and the rest, in particular those related to feelings, do not participate: memory strives to restore the entire complex of the past , in the field of memory the law of reintegration reigns, and the denial of affective memory contradicts this law. “Nervous processes that once took part in the now reviving physiological complex and correspond to affective states ... also tend to be involved in the revival, and therefore excite affective memory.” Of course, we must be aware that “an affective image is not the same as, for example, a visual image” (1979, pp. 160–161).

Emotional memory

The question of the presence of emotional memory is also debated. Its discussion was started by T. Ribot, who showed two ways of reproducing emotions: an affective state is caused either through intellectual states (remembering a situation, an object with which the emotion was associated in the past), or when direct impact stimulus, after which situations associated with the emotion are updated in memory. Theoretically, this could be the case. However, as V. K. Vilyunas (1990) notes, which of these options occurs in each specific case is difficult to determine, and in a real stream of consciousness it is apparently impossible.

In addition, Ribot identified “false” affective memory, when a subject purely intellectually remembers that in a given situation he experienced some kind of emotion, but does not experience this emotion itself. This is observed, for example, when remembering long-past hobbies.

After the appearance of Ribot's work, numerous controversies arose, to the point where the existence of emotional memory was generally questioned. Those who denied it pointed out that when we remember a pleasant, interesting, terrible, etc. event, the memory is an image or thought, and not a feeling (emotion), i.e., an intellectual process. And it is precisely this intellectual memory of the past that evokes in us this or that emotion, which, thus, is not a reproduction of the former emotion, but a completely new emotion. The old emotion is not reproduced. At the same time, supporters last point vision narrowed the problem to the voluntary reproduction of emotional experiences, although it is obvious that not only involuntary memorization of emotions is possible, but also their involuntary reproduction (Blonsky, 1935; Gromova, 1980). P. P. Blonsky, for example, writes that in his life he twice experienced what he had already seen (this effect was called “déjà vu”). Moreover, the second experience was not his intellectual knowledge that he had already seen this situation. For him it was a deep, sad and pleasant feeling of something well known for a long time, which he could not remember, but which felt familiar.

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FEDERAL RAILWAY TRANSPORT AGENCY

State educational institution

Higher professional education

PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY OF COMMUNICATIONS

Department of Applied Psychology

Abstract on general psychology

Understanding another person's emotions and managing emotions

Completed by a student

Groups PSI-910

Guseva N.Yu.

St. Petersburg 2010

Introduction

Chapter II. Managing Emotions

Introduction

Emotion (from the Greek motio - movement of the Latin emoveo - shocking, exciting) is an emotional process of medium duration, reflecting a subjective evaluative attitude towards existing or possible situations. Emotions are distinguished from affects, feelings and moods.

Emotions are understood as time-extended processes of internal regulation of the activity of a person or animal, reflecting the meaning (meaning for the process of his life) that existing or possible situations in his life have. In humans, emotions give rise to experiences of pleasure, displeasure, fear, timidity, and the like, which play the role of orienting subjective signals. A way to assess the presence of subjective experiences (since they are subjective) in animals scientific methods not found yet. In this context, it is important to understand that emotion itself can, but does not have to, give rise to such an experience, and comes down precisely to the process of internal regulation of activity.

Emotions have evolved evolutionarily from the simplest innate emotional processes, reduced to organic, motor and secretory changes, to much more complex processes that have lost their instinctive basis, having a clear connection to the situation as a whole, that is, expressing a personal evaluative attitude to existing or possible situations, to one’s own participation in them.

The expression of emotions has the features of a socially formed language that changes over the course of the history of a language, which can be seen from various ethnographic descriptions. This view is also supported, for example, by the peculiar poverty of facial expressions in people blind from birth

emotion expression pattern

Chapter I. Understanding Another Person's Emotions

The issue of understanding the emotions of other people is largely debatable. From an evolutionary perspective, external expression of emotions would be useless if humans could not decode these signals and therefore understand and respond appropriately to them. Therefore, a person must have a special mechanism for decoding them. This mechanism was studied by the Swedish scientist U. Dimberg, who found that facial expression, depending on the sign of emotion, has different effects on the emotional state and conditioned reflex reactions of fear in partners. It is important that facial expression can influence at the subconscious level, when a person is not aware of the event and the fact of its impact.

Obviously, the understanding of facial patterns of various emotions is facilitated by the fact that the reaction to a partner’s facial expression is associated with the reproduction of his facial expressions. This process is similar to "emotional contagion, or resonance." Thus, to recognize and identify facial expression patterns, a person uses two channels:

Visual

Proprioceptive, (evaluating patterns of one’s own facial expression)

Since it is often difficult to prove the presence of innate mechanisms for recognizing emotions in humans, scientists are turning to studying this ability in animals. A number of studies have shown that animals recognize the emotional state of their relatives instinctively. When a female mammal gives birth for the first time, she “knows” the meaning of the cries that express some kind of suffering in her offspring.

But some scientists believe that the ability to recognize emotions even by facial expression is not given to a person from birth. It is known that young children do not perceive the emotions of others adequately. This ability develops in the process of personality formation, but not equally in relation to different emotions. Horror is most easily recognized, followed by disgust and surprise in descending order. Therefore, understanding emotions must be learned. This leads a number of scientists to believe that there is a special type of intelligence - emotional.

1.1 Information used by a person when recognizing the emotions of other people

Recognition of the emotions of other people is carried out mainly by external manifestations of emotions: facial expressions and posture, changes in speech and voice, behavior, vegetative reactions. Antecedents are also taken into account, i.e., what precedes and is the cause of emotions: the situation in its interaction with the person’s goal. Zolotnyakova showed that for a five-year-old child, means of expression become signaling only in the context of actions and situations. In the perception of the emotions of others, conditioned reflex connections formed in ontogenesis between the situation and the accompanying emotion and the effect of causal attribution are of great importance. People give different emotional reactions to the same situations, even if their goals are the same. There are no clear connections between emotion and its external expression. Therefore, to identify the emotions of other people, it is necessary to take into account additional information about some intermediate variables, such as the individual characteristics of a person, the cultural characteristics of the community to which he belongs, and the current physical and mental state of the observed person. The authors call these intermediate variables mediators.

Understanding another person's emotions is determined by many factors, in particular, individual characteristics both the one being assessed and the one identifying. It was found that emotions are better recognized by people with developed non-verbal intelligence, emotionally mobile, more focused on the environment than on themselves. She also found that people who are uncommunicative, emotionally unstable, with developed imaginative thinking, and older people are more successful in identifying negative emotional states.

It is more difficult for an observer to recognize emotions in individuals with a tendency toward negative emotional experiences, since they tend to hide the expression of their emotions. The more a person tends to control the expression of his emotions, the more difficult it is for another person to recognize them. Since a person prone to positive emotional experiences has less control over his emotions, they are easier to recognize by the observer.

People have different psychological insight. It has been established that the “undiscerning” are:

a) “hypoemotive” (people who have low scores for all three main modalities: joy, anger, fear);

b) fearful, having a high score of fear emotions;

c) subjects with dominance of emotions of two modalities, one of which is the emotion of fear;

d) “angry”, having a high score of the emotion of anger.

Women are more likely than men to see indignation and resentment in photographs, while men see determination. In addition, although not significant, differences were found in the recognition of anxiety, sadness, pleasure (recognized more often by women), as well as in pride, grief, indifference and tenderness (recognized more often by men). Middle-aged subjects were significantly less likely to see hatred and contempt, and more likely to see determination, compared to young and old people.

An important channel for identifying a person’s emotional state is his speech.

Differences in the accuracy of emotion recognition from voices are mainly related to the modality of emotions. The set of intonation means is sufficient to distinguish between individual groups of emotional states, but without connection with other means (communication situations, facial expressions, gestures) it is not sufficient to differentiate the shades of these states within each group.

The most accurately identified are the basic emotions, then surprise and uncertainty, and worst of all, contempt and disgust. The accuracy of emotion recognition is influenced by the speaker’s ability to convey emotional states in speech, as well as the auditor’s experience.

There are two factors that influence the accuracy of perception of an emotional state: people’s individual experience in differentiating experiences and the sign and modality of the emotion presented. The easiest state to define is joy, then admiration; The worst thing is the state of curiosity. The states of indifference, surprise, resentment, melancholy and anxiety occupied an intermediate position in terms of accuracy of definition. A tendency for better recognition of positive emotional states was revealed.

Understanding emotions has been studied for a long time. The conditions for their identification by facial expressions, common to all modalities of emotions, were identified. It is easiest to identify holistic facial expressions that include changes in all areas of the face simultaneously.

The most difficult to identify facial expressions are in the forehead and eyebrows. Emotions are recognized twice more accurately by changes in the eye area and lower part of the face. At the same time, different emotions have their own optimal identification zones. Thus, the expression of emotions of grief and fear in the eye area is more easily identified than in the lower part of the face; the expressive characteristics of anger-calmness are easily detected in the forehead-eyebrow area; the expression of joy, disgust, doubt is most accurately recognized by changes in the lower part of the face. Nevertheless, for the recognition of emotions, facial expression does not serve on its own, not in isolation, but in relation to all the specific mutual understandings of a person with others.

Emotions are also reflected in a person’s posture, but researchers have paid much less attention to this issue.

Cultural characteristics influence both the accuracy of recognizing the modality of emotions and the assessment of the intensity of their manifestation. External manifestations of emotions, representing a synthesis of involuntary and voluntary methods of response, largely depend on the cultural characteristics of a given people. For example, there is a well-known tradition of English upbringing not to show one’s emotions outwardly.

U different nations the same means of expression denote different emotions. O. Kleinber revealed that in China the phrase “her eyes were rounded and opened wide” does not mean surprise, but anger; and surprise is reflected in the phrase “she stuck out her tongue.” Clapping your hands in the East means annoyance, disappointment, sadness, and not approval or delight, as in the West. The expression “scratched his ears and cheeks” means an expression of pleasure, bliss, happiness.

Chapter II. Managing Emotions

Emotions are not always desirable, since if they are excessive, they can disorganize activities or their external manifestation can put a person in an awkward position, revealing, for example, his feelings towards another. On the other hand, emotional uplift and good mood contribute to a person’s performance of any activity or communication. R. Nelson-Jones divides emotions into appropriate and inappropriate: “Inappropriate emotions are those emotions that interfere with achieving a reasonable balance between short-term and long-term hedonism. Therefore, it is advisable to learn to manage emotions and control their external manifestation.

2.1 Controlling the expression of your emotions

The absence of external manifestations of emotions does not mean that a person does not experience them; he may hide his feelings.

Control of one’s expression manifests itself in three forms: “suppression”; "camouflage"; “simulation”, i.e. the expression of unexperienced emotions.

People who are prone to experiencing negative emotions, due to a higher degree of control over emotional expression, express negative emotions much less often and “mask” their experiences by expressing positive emotions.

In individuals with a predominance of positive emotions, there are no differences between the frequency of experiencing and the frequency of expression of various emotions, which indicates their weaker control of their emotions.

With age, the suppression of negative emotions increases. The same is true with the suppression of outbursts of anger. Children who experienced frequent anger attacks at age 10 experienced a lot of discomfort from their anger as adults. Such people find it difficult to keep their jobs, and their marriages often break up.

Expressing your emotions in different cultures has some features. In Western culture, for example, it is not customary to show not only positive, but also negative emotions, for example, that you are afraid of something. Most parents want their children to learn emotional regulation, which is the ability to deal with their emotions in socially acceptable ways.

Evoking desired emotions

Many types of human activity, especially of a creative nature, require inspiration and elation.

Actualization of emotional memory and imagination as a way to evoke a certain emotional state.

This technique is used as component self-regulation. A person remembers situations from his life that were accompanied by strong experiences, emotions of joy or grief, and imagines some emotional (meaningful) situations for him.

IN Lately A new direction in managing emotional states has declared itself - gelotology (from the Greek gelos - laughter). Laughter has been found to have a variety of positive effects on mental and physiological processes. It suppresses pain because the hormones catecholamines and endorphins are released during laughter. The former prevent inflammation, the latter act like morphine. The beneficial effect of laughter on blood composition has been shown. The positive effects of laughter last throughout the day.

Laughter reduces stress and its consequences by reducing the concentration of stress hormones - norepinephrine, cortisol and dopamine.

Evoking various emotional states is possible with the help of music.

V. M. Bekhterev considered music to be the ruler of human feelings and moods. Therefore, in one case, it can reduce excessive excitement, in another, it can transfer from a sad to a good mood, in the third, it can give cheerfulness and relieve fatigue.

True, there was another point of view, according to which music is perceived not so much emotionally as intellectually

The study of the emotional significance of individual elements of music (rhythm, tonality) has shown their ability to evoke certain emotional states in a person. Minor keys have a “depressive effect”, fast pulsating rhythms and consonances are stimulating and cause negative emotions, “soft” rhythms and consonances are calming. A large number of studies have been conducted in our country and abroad on the influence of music on physiological functions body. It was concluded that the cardiovascular system responds noticeably to music when it is enjoyable and creates a pleasant mood: the heart rate slows down, heart contractions increase, and heart rate decreases. arterial pressure. With the irritating nature of the music, the heartbeat quickens and becomes weaker. They began to talk about the coding of emotions in music, about musical emotions, which can be presented in the form of various formulas.

Considering the influence of music on the emotional sphere of a person, and the influence of the latter on his health, such a direction as music therapy is currently increasingly developing

Currently, many have been developed in various ways self-regulation: relaxation training, autogenic training, desensitization, reactive relaxation, meditation, etc.

Mental regulation is associated either with external influence or with self-regulation.

In both cases, the most common is the method developed in 1932 by the German psychiatrist I. Schultz and called “ autogenic training Along with autogenic training, another self-regulation system is known - “progressive relaxation” (muscle relaxation).

This method also corresponds to recommendations to put a smile on your face in case of negative experiences and to activate your sense of humor. Reassessing the significance of an event, relaxing muscles after a person has laughed it off, and normalizing heart function - these are the components of the positive effect of laughter on a person’s emotional state.

A.V. Alekseev created a new technique called “psychoregulatory training,” which differs from autogenic training in that it does not use the instillation of a “feeling of heaviness” in various parts body, and also by the fact that it has not only a calming, but also an exciting part. It includes some elements from the methods of E. Jacobson and L. Percival.

Changing the direction of consciousness.

The options for this method of self-regulation are varied.

Disconnection (distraction) consists of the ability to think about anything except emotional circumstances. Switching off requires volitional efforts, with the help of which a person tries to focus attention on the presentation of extraneous objects and situations. Distraction was also used in Russian healing spells as a way to eliminate negative emotions (Sventsitskaya, 1999).

Switching is associated with the focus of consciousness on some interesting activity (reading an exciting book, watching a movie, etc.) or on the business side of the upcoming activity. As A. Ts. Puni and F. A. Grebaus write, switching attention from painful thoughts to the business side of even the upcoming activity, understanding difficulties through their analysis, clarifying instructions and tasks, mentally repeating upcoming actions, focusing on the technical details of the task, tactical techniques, and not on the significance of the result, gives a better effect than distraction from the upcoming activity.

Reducing the significance of the upcoming activity or the result obtained is carried out by giving the event less value or generally overestimating the significance of the situation along the lines of “I didn’t really want to”, “the main thing in life is not this, you shouldn’t treat what happened as a disaster”, “failures are already were, and now I treat them differently,” etc.

2.2 Elimination of unwanted emotional states

* Postponing the achievement of a goal for a while if it is realized that it is impossible to do this with the available knowledge, means, etc.

* Physical relaxation (as I.P. Pavlov said, you need to “drive passion into the muscles”); since during a strong emotional experience the body gives a mobilization reaction for intense muscular work, it needs to be given this work. To do this, you can take a long walk, do some useful physical work, etc. Sometimes such a discharge occurs in a person as if by itself: when extremely excited, he rushes around the room, sorts through things, tears something, etc. A tic (an involuntary contraction of the facial muscles), which occurs in many people at the moment of excitement, is also a reflexive form of motor discharge of emotional stress.

* Listening to music.

* Writing a letter, journal entry outlining the situation and the reasons that caused emotional stress

Use of defense mechanisms.

Unwanted emotions can be overcome or reduced by using strategies called defense mechanisms. 3. Freud identified several such defenses

Escaping is a physical or mental escape from a situation that is too difficult. This is the most common defense mechanism in young children.

Identification is the process of appropriating the attitudes and views of other people. A person adopts the attitudes of people who are powerful in his eyes and, becoming like them, feels less helpless, which leads to a decrease in anxiety.

Projection is the attribution of one's own antisocial thoughts and actions to someone else: “He did it, not me.” Essentially, this is shifting responsibility to someone else.

Displacement is the replacement of the real source of anger or fear by someone or something. A typical example Such defense is indirect physical aggression (taking out evil, annoyance on an object that is not related to the situation that caused these emotions).

Denial is the refusal to acknowledge that some situation or events are occurring. The mother refuses to believe that her son was killed in the war, the child, at the death of his beloved pet, pretends that he still lives and sleeps with them at night. This type of protection is more typical for young children.

Repression is an extreme form of denial, an unconscious act of erasing from memory a frightening or unpleasant event that causes anxiety and negative experiences.

Regression is a return to more ontogenetically earlier, primitive forms of response to an emotiogenic situation.

Reactive education is behavior that is opposite to existing thoughts and desires that cause anxiety, with the aim of masking them. Characteristic of more mature children, as well as adults. For example, wanting to hide his love, a person will show unfriendliness towards the object of his adoration, and teenagers will also show aggressiveness.

Persistent attempts to influence a very agitated person to calm him down with the help of persuasion, persuasion, suggestion, as a rule, are not successful due to the fact that from all the information that is communicated to the worried person, he selects, perceives and takes into account only that which corresponds to his emotional state. Moreover, an emotionally excited person may be offended, thinking that he is not understood. It is better to let such a person speak out and even cry.

Bibliography

1) Ilyin E.P. Emotions and feelings. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2001.

2) Leontyev A.N. Needs, motives and emotions - Moscow: 1971.

3) http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotions

4) http://www.emotionlabs.ru/view/osobennosti-emocij/

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As noted, emotional reactions arise, in particular, in response to various external influences that are significant for the individual: life circumstances, communication conditions, behavior and characteristics of partners. Emotional sensitivity is the most important psychological characteristics person. In communicative behavior, what matters is how special person perceives emotional and energetic signals sent by partners. Responses can be traced at the cognitive level, that is, with the help of assessments and judgments, but first of all and most often one person reacts emotionally to the emotions of another. Emotional sensitivity of emotions characterizes the characteristics of a person’s response in response to the emotional states of a partner, as well as to the emotional atmosphere that arises in the process of joint activity.

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The form of emotional sensitivity inherent in an individual in general and the emotions of others in particular causes responses from partners - a state of comfort, uncertainty or discomfort.

Emotional responsiveness to emotions as a stable characteristic of an individual lies in the fact that he is subject to emotional and energetic influence from others and, at the same time, his response emotions are consonant with the emotional states of his partner or the emotional atmosphere that has arisen in the group.

An emotionally responsive person easily and quickly tunes in to any emotional wave of those around him. Especially if they are also emotionally responsive. He involuntarily enters different states of partners: joy or sadness, peace or anxiety, concern or fear, depression or euphoria.

It happens that emotionally responsive people are absorbed in some problems or are in an uncomfortable mood, then it is difficult to establish emotional contact with them. It also happens that an emotionally responsive person finds himself in power negative emotions partners with stronger energy. Then he himself suffers from his reactivity. Remember how very excitable people easily and quickly respond with rudeness to rudeness, with harshness with harshness. Having calmed down, they often regret what happened.

Thus, emotional responsiveness has its pros and cons. Nevertheless, free emotional and energetic exchange with others usually brings relief to both the person himself and his partners. This happens even if negative energies come out.

Emotional responsiveness causes energetic resonance between partners. The addition of their energies contained in emotions stimulates an additional psychological effect of interaction - synergy.

Human mental health

Synergy is manifested in the fact that a person’s manner of interaction with partners helps to combine energy potentials and increase the efficiency of joint activities. The unison of emotional and energetic forces causes a significant psychotherapeutic and medical effect. It is this phenomenon that the newly-minted healers of the masses are exploiting, conducting sessions in large audiences. If a doctor or nurse perceives or responds to the patient’s emotional and energetic states, then in this case a beneficial addition of energies also occurs.

Emotional rigidity (inflexibility, rigidity) is manifested in the fact that a person usually reacts poorly to the emotional atmosphere of communication. In response to the emotional states of others, inexpressive, muted, and vague emotions are manifested. In this case, the addition of the partners’ energy forces is unlikely and, therefore, any synergistic effect is unlikely.

For those who are emotionally rigid, resonance with the emotions of others rarely occurs (for example, only in communication with loved ones or with those whom they especially liked, aroused trust, and a sense of security). Two or more partners who are prone to emotional restraint can feel psychologically comfortable: their energy fields are consonant and therefore do not disturb each other.

Emotional resistance is characterized by the exclusion of the individual from the emotional atmosphere of communication. The individual finds it difficult to build relationships on an emotional basis. Emotional and energetic dissonance is often observed when the states of a partner or group cause opposite reactions in the individual. For example, if a partner experiences an increase in strength and rejoices, then a person prone to emotional resistance at this moment begins to get irritated, capricious or depressed. Some people experience something of an obsessive need to challenge others emotionally. If your partner is feeling good, then at all costs you need to say or do something to make his mood worse; If those around you are sad for some completely objective reason, then the emotionally resisting person declares: “But it’s funny to me, they found something to be upset about.”

The combination of individuals who are inclined to emotionally resist the group atmosphere has a destructive effect on joint activities. The unison of negative emotional and energetic forces usually causes a powerful wave of aggression and cruelty. Sometimes it is enough for two or three people to consolidate their negative emotional energy and oppose it to the group atmosphere, and the activity of the whole team will be destabilized. Psyche ordinary person cannot withstand the powerful onslaught of negative emotional and energetic influences from the outside.

Emotionally resistant individuals usually attract attention by falling out of the emotional context of communication. With sour faces they sit through the comedian's concert. The pop star will not receive applause from them. If a lecturer's joke makes you laugh out loud

Emotive valueology and human psychoenergetics

present in the audience, then emotionally resisting individuals can barely stretch their lips into a smile. They don't feel comfortable in fun company and they reluctantly agree to take part in the picnic. They are not able to share other people's joys and successes. In general, they always smell cold. As a rule, people try to stay away from such people; they are not liked. It’s unpleasant to even talk about the weather with such people. They especially avoid those who are unable to compensate for their communication deficiencies in any way. For example, a person does not have sufficient intelligence, professional qualities, kind heart or other virtues.

An emotionally responsive partner is, of course, the most preferable. He is able to respond to the state of others by establishing and maintaining identical psychoenergetic states. When interacting with him, partners are more likely to be noticed and appreciated, and are more likely to receive sympathy and support. Once in a consonant biopsychic field, the partner becomes trusting, susceptible to persuasion and suggestion.

Naturally, everyone would prefer to deal with an emotionally responsive partner. Husband and wife, caregiver, client, patient count on this. However, we should not forget that emotional responsiveness is associated with significant energy costs. For example, a doctor or nurse has to give their energy to the patient. But this is what a noble sacrifice is all about. When medical worker emotionally “burns out”, certain defense mechanisms: getting used to the suffering of patients, selective expression of sympathy, avoiding long and deep contacts with patients, saving philosophies come to mind, like “you can’t sympathize with everyone.”