• Question: What are emotions?

    Asked by pigeonandnibbler to Aime, Akshat, Diana, Gemma, Judith on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Judith McCann

      Judith McCann answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      Tricky question!its the response of you body and mind to you external influences. Your emotions could be defined by you mind, how they affect your outlook,reasoning and concentration. It could also be defined by physiological reactions like shaking with rage or calm feelings lowers you heart rate and breathing(like yoga!)

      I guess its a hard one to define!

    • Photo: Gemma Sharp

      Gemma Sharp answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      This is such a good question. Sorry it’s taken me a while to reply!

      As Judith says, emotions are how your body and mind respond to external influences. You may know you’re sad/happy/whatever in your mind, and sometimes others will pick up on those emotions from your behaviour, but quite often there’s a physiological response too. For example, the other day I had to speak in front of a lot of people, and I was quite nervous (alright, that’s an understatement) and when I got up to talk my mouth was dry and my hands were shaking – these are physiological responses associated with the emotion.

      There is one theory that our emotions are actually CAUSED by those physiological responses. So we feel sad because we cry rather than we cry because we’re sad… But it’s possible to be really sad without crying so I don’t believe in that theory!

    • Photo: Akshat Rathi

      Akshat Rathi answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Emotions are the complex experience of an individual’s state of mind as interacting with biochemical (internal) and environmental (external) influences.

      That means emotions are very personal. Some people may feel angry about X but many others might feel sad about it. Also, your bodily state (whether you are hungry or full) and your mental state (whether you are engaged with an activity or free) both can affect the emotions that we may feel.

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