The relationship between emotions and feelings

The relationship between emotions and feelings has been studied on many occasions and that is why today it has been possible to make all kinds of contrasts of ideas. The most interesting thing is that this relationship always ends with a comma, not a full stop, since there is still much to discover.

Both emotions and feelings are systematized over time and give each person an emotional identity. When a problem persists in a person’s life, in addition to the automation of thought processes, the emerging emotional world constitutes a pattern that becomes systematized and tends to become part of a personality style.

That emotional tone that characterizes the person is systematized in relationships and forms of interaction. It is also imprinted on the face and stereotyped gestures and has a neurochemical correlate. Thus, someone who is funny, the day he appears serious and thoughtful, those around him will question him, assuming that something is happening to him. Let’s see it in detail.

The feeling is a demonstration of consciousness

Antonio Damasio points out that a feeling is the perception of a certain state of the body together with the perception of a certain way of thinking. He also states that to have feelings requires a nervous system that is capable of mapping – that is, mapping – bodily states into neural patterns and transforming them into mental representations. Specific: Mental representations require consciousness.

The human brain is what generates the same bodily states that are then evoked in front of various objects. It also builds the concrete emotional body state to generate the corresponding feeling.

When we feel, we perceive ourselves

We feel because there are patterns of activity in regions of the brain that feel the body, regions that therefore, by feeling the body, allow us to feel ourselves and begin to perceive ourselves. Without a body, there would be no self, no consciousness, no emotions or feelings.

Richard Lazarus suggests subordinating feelings within the framework of emotions, since he understands that these encompass more. Thus, defines feeling as the subjective or cognitive component of emotions, that is, their subjective experience.

According to Lazarus, when we become aware of the sensations (or alterations) of the body when receiving that stimulus, the emotion becomes a feeling. That is, the moment we notice that the body is suffering an alteration – and we are aware of it – we name what we are feeling (the emotion) with a specific label or seal.

Time, a key distinguishing factor

One of the most marked differences in the relationship between emotions and feelings lies in time. As we said at the beginning, emotions are abrupt; They break out, many of them, unexpectedly, like anger, surprise or fear. They are automatic and although in some cases they can be regulated, we are not always aware of them when they are detonated.

Feelings develop in interaction and are more persistent than emotions., since they occur as a result of the link and the link is not a simple interaction, but rather entails a non-fortuitous relationship. Emotions, on the other hand, are primitive because they basically do not involve cognitive processes.

Damasio points out that, evolutionarily, Emotions are more primitive than feelingssince the brain mechanisms that support emotional reactions were formed before those that support feelings.

Basic emotions play a role in systems: they ensure survival and collaborate with the organism in pursuit of their defense in the attempt to ensure life. In short, they regulate vital function and facilitate social relationships and stability.

The biological mandate to survive

Maps associated with joy or happiness imply well-being and are more relevant for survival because they are substitutes for other emotions. Furthermore, they mean states of balance for the body. These states of joy are motivating, and allow social development and a greater ability to act. Therefore, someone who felt fear and overcame a difficult situation feels happy.

On the other hand, maps related to sadness correspond to functional imbalances in the body and can be disabling.. In the case of pain, the symptoms of illness indicate an imbalance in vital functions that, if not resolved, has a poor prognosis: the situation can evolve into illness and death.

Implicitly, the biological mandate is to survive and to make the experience of survival pleasurable rather than painful. The regulation condition of life is expressed in the form of affects (joy-sadness) and happiness as a good consists of getting rid of negative emotions. With this objective of surviving, throughout evolution a mechanism was developed that allows us to react and decide immediately to act quickly.

In those situations there is not enough time to plan or think consciously and then decide. They demand an automatic reaction. The time that rational thinking requires to analyze the possibilities of action decreases the probability of survival, since it reduces the possibility of deciding and acting quickly.

There are always exceptions

When faced with an unexpected situation of imminent danger, it is the brain’s amygdala that reacts. In the face of danger, it dialogues with the emotional memory (processed by the hippocampus) and analyzes it with the prefrontal (which is the center of rational and logical analysis), among other functions. This process occurs to protect us and can even save our lives.

But Joseph LeDoux discovered a circuit that consists of a shortcut of the amygdala. In these situations, it ignores the dialogue with the other interlocutors and gains seconds and milliseconds in the reaction, and that in extreme situations is important.

For his part, Ekman says that there is a database of emotional alertness that is activated by a neural network in human groups in all cultures. The body manifests each of the basic emotions differently. through specific and different muscle indicators for each type.

Triggers and emotional alerts

As we mentioned previously, The relationship between emotions and feelings is not simple. However, thanks to the different investigations we have been able to make very interesting contrasts of ideas. Now, two things must always be clear:

The brain continually monitors changes in the body. The body feels the emotion at the same time it experiences it.

In conclusion, Human beings have a complex repertoire of regulatory mechanisms for survival, which can be classified as automatic or non-automatic. The former include the emotions and feelings they give rise to, and are the foundation of a repertoire of behaviors oriented toward survival: ethical, compassionate, collaborative, etc.

The problem is that often non-automatic devices seem to conflict with automatic ones. Thus, we live in social institutions governed by mechanisms of competition, fight, aggression, power, fear, non-cooperation, denial of the other, etc., which go against our emotional basis for survival: cooperation, association and love… Wow! paradox!

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