We like positive emotions because they will bring us pleasant positive experiences, such as joy, pride and gratitude. We don't like negative emotions because they will bring us unpleasant negative experiences, such as anger, anxiety and depression. There is no difference between good and bad emotions, whether positive or negative, they all have their own functions and evolutionary adaptation significance.
Negative emotions, such as anger, fear and disgust, have played an important role in human evolution. Angry individuals will have aggressive behavior, fear will make individuals run away, and disgust will urge individuals to expel disgusting things. The thinking of individuals in a negative emotional state will become more and more limited. This process of narrowing thinking will make individuals pay attention to the dangerous stimuli they are currently facing, and their body muscles will become tense, blood flow will accelerate, and they will be ready to escape or fight at any time. For example, when our ancestors met a saber-toothed tiger instead of a wild deer when hunting, at this time, our ancestors will definitely experience fear immediately, and the adrenaline content will soar, so they will use all their energy to escape quickly, otherwise their lives will be hard to protect. Therefore, negative emotions are of great significance to human adaptation to the environment and survival and reproduction.
Now we are pursuing a happy, stable and happy life. At this time, negative emotions can't help us, because at most, they can only protect us from danger, but can't further improve our happiness level. At this time, it is the turn of positive emotions. Positive emotions not only make us feel good, but also bring us many other benefits.
Studies have pointed out that positive emotions can make individuals healthier and thus make people live longer. Later, clinical psychologists found that positive emotions can effectively alleviate the depressive symptoms of depressed patients. Clinical psychologists trained those depressed patients in positive emotional experience, and after a period of time, they found that the depressive symptoms of those depressed patients improved. It can be seen that positive emotions can effectively reduce the negative impact of negative emotions.
Later, many studies also show that positive emotions can improve people's subjective well-being, their expression can promote mental health, and they can make sick people recover faster. Positive emotions can promote people's health by improving the function of human immune system.
At the end of the 20th century, when psychologists were studying the prevention of mental illness, they found that what can effectively resist mental illness is the positive strength of human beings, such as hope, resilience, optimism and courage. Seligman, a famous American psychologist, and other positive psychologists pointed out that the study of positive psychology mainly includes three aspects: the first part is positive personal characteristics (including personality strength, talent, interest, etc. ), the second part is active organizations (including families, society, institutions, communities, etc. ), the third part is the positive subjective experience (including happiness, pleasure, gratitude and so on. In fact, positive subjective experience is mainly positive emotion, so positive emotion is one of the three major research fields of positive psychology, and its importance is self-evident. People are born to pursue happiness, but in the complicated real world, there will always be a lot of interference, especially negative and negative interference, which will always take away too much attention of human beings and make people ignore the beautiful things in life. Studying positive emotions can let people know how to pay attention to positive things, how to eliminate the interference of negative events, and how to enhance positive emotions in a scientific way, thus laying a solid foundation for a happy life.
Explore ten positive emotions
When referring to words such as satisfaction, happiness, pride and happiness, we can realize that these words represent positive emotions. So how many kinds of positive emotions are there, and what are they? Researchers have different definitions of positive emotions, which leads to their different classifications of positive emotions. In the field of positive psychology, Barbara Friederson is the representative who studies positive emotions. She divides positive emotions into ten categories: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, teasing, encouragement, admiration and love.
happy
When we get awards or rewards, when we are praised by others, when we get good grades in exams, when we play or chat happily with our good friends, when the surrounding environment is safe and familiar to you, everything develops according to your expectations, even better than your expectations, and you don't need to make too much effort. These are the conditions for a happy experience. This positive joy experience will make you feel happy and light-footed, and make you feel that the whole world is so beautiful. You meet with a smile and throw yourself into all kinds of activities.
Be grateful
When others do good things for you, you will be grateful. Similarly, when you help others, others will be grateful to you. It is not only the people around us but also the things around us that deserve our gratitude. For example, we can be grateful for the fresh air and clean and bright sky in the morning, for the healthy body we have, and for the pet cat that has been with us all the time … whenever we treat ordinary people and things as precious gifts, gratitude appears.
peaceful
You lean back on the sofa quietly, the kitten next to you snuggles on your lap, and you are holding a favorite book in your hand, slowly immersed between the lines. This is the feeling of peace. Silence is a state of concentration, which allows you to immerse yourself in the present and savor the feeling of the present. Fridzen called tranquility a sunset-like emotion, because it often appears after other positive emotions. For example, after winning the prize in the competition, you will have a positive sense of pride. You go back to your room with a medal and say to yourself, "This is great."
interest
The children are curious about everything around them. When they are eager to explore, what drives them is interest. There will be some novel things in the environment that will arouse your interest and arouse your desire to explore. They will attract most of your attention, form a mysterious push, and make you act, which requires you to put in enough effort and attention. Interest will attract you to the current exploration. When you find a book full of novel ideas, when you watch a program about the underwater animal world, when you find a quiet path that you have never walked … you can be interested. Interest makes people feel energetic, broaden their minds and broaden their horizons.
hope
Most positive emotions appear when you feel safe and satisfied, but there is one exception, that is, hope. Hope comes when things are not good for you, but you think things may still change. Hope often comes when you are almost desperate, because you believe that through your own efforts, things will turn around. Poems such as "wildfire never quite consumes them, the spring breeze is blowing high" and "There is no road but a bright future" express the hope of bringing strength to people. Going deep into the core of hope, you will find that this is also a kind of belief that things can develop in a good direction.
happy
When we are responsible for some negative behaviors, we will experience negative emotions such as guilt and shame. On the other hand, pride appears when we do good deeds. Good things are often your achievements. You invested time and energy and achieved success. Success can be that you repaired a small stool, you successfully completed the homework assigned by the teacher, you ran 5000 meters on the playground, you gained gratitude after helping people in need ... Pride can ignite our motivation for achievement, and when we experience the positive emotions of pride, it is easier for us to complete arduous tasks and succeed.
interesting
Some unexpected things make you laugh, and the positive emotion you experience at this time is teasing. For example, a child makes a face at you after knocking over the eating bowl, or a good friend shares his favorite joke with you. You didn't intend to have fun with these things in advance. This kind of fun is unexpected. There are two things that cause ridicule: first, ridicule is social, although sometimes we laugh alone, but this kind of laughter is not social; Second, the occurrence of ridicule needs safety. If your child breaks a bowl and cuts his hand, you won't feel funny. Teasing is entertainment. Sincere teasing makes you laugh, makes you want to share your happiness with others, and thus leads to social contact with others.
encourage
Motivation is a kind of positive emotion, which can pull us out of the closed space of self-concentration and let us connect with something bigger than ourselves. There are many things in the world that really excite you and cheer you up. For example, if you see vagrants begging in the street, they will also go to public places to donate money to the disaster areas when the earthquake occurs; You read a book that can touch people's hearts; You watched a top football match; You attended a concert that baptized your soul; You saw an exciting movie, and so on. Motivation can make your attention more focused, attract you to do things in the best state, and make you by going up one flight of stairs.
think
There is a close relationship between admiration and motivation. When you are completely conquered by greatness, you will have a positive emotion of admiration, which is a positive emotion beyond yourself. Facing nature, we often admire its greatness and magic. When you face the endless sea, when you look up at the towering green hills at the foot of the mountain, when you see the indomitable pine trees growing between steep rock walls ... you will sincerely admire them. Although admiration is a positive emotion, it is too close to the psychological security boundary of human beings, so that people will experience admiration with negative emotions. For example, when you witness the tsunami, the grand scene and the shock brought by the huge energy brought by the tsunami will make you admire and fear at the same time.
love
Love is not a single positive emotion, but a compound emotion of all the above positive emotions. The joy, gratitude, interest, encouragement, admiration, pride, fun, hope and serenity we mentioned before are the situations that turn these nine positive emotions into love. When these beautiful feelings are associated with safe intimacy, we call them love. In the early days of intimate relationship, both sides are full of interest and concern for each other's words and deeds, and will share fun and experience joy together. With the deepening of the relationship, you know each other better and share your hopes for the future. You appreciate what the other person has done for you. You will be proud of his achievements and inspired by his good character. Sometimes you will wonder what magical power brought you together. At this time, you will have admiration.
Think about it: What kind of positive emotions do you experience most often? Under what circumstances? What does experiencing these positive emotions bring you?