Month: August 2022

This week we learned about emotions, more specifically how emotions are constructed. Whilst watching both “Inside out”, one of my favorite movies, and the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Man of the People” I really payed attention to whether or not the emotions of the characters were created or happened to them. I think both pieces of media display examples of both. I have to say I enjoyed both of these. Star Trek is growing on me, from the few episodes we’ve watched I’ve been so invested in what is going to happen to the characters.

Emotions are wildly complex and I think the film “Inside Out” does a rather good job at portraying that. Riley has five emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear. Each of which have a large impact on Riley’s body and mind. Without emotions humans just like Riley would lack what it mean to experience life. It would be great for humans to always be happy just like Joy wants Riley to be, however this would be terrible for the world. If everyone was happy all of the time no one would be able to experience life for what it is. In order to survive humans have to feel every emotion, with anger or fear a human grows into a stronger and more intelligent person. While watching the film we see Riley become a more well rounded human when Joy comes to realize how important the other 4 emotions are to Riley’s human experience. The same goes for the other characters in the film like Riley’s mom and dad. With a look into her parents emotions we see they have the same emotions but are controlled by sadness and anger in the same way Riley is controlled by Joy for the most part.

The Star Trek episode confused me a bit at first. After digesting the episode though I think the episode highlights an idea that the relationship between ones emotions and body is very strong. As Troi is succumbed by the negative emotions of Alkars “mother” she becomes more and more unwell. I suffer from really bad anxiety and I sort of related to Troi becoming so sick. Whenever I have a really bad anxiety or panic attack my body feels like its falling apart. I really think emotions play a huge part into ones body. In this episode emotions could be transferred which I think is true to some extent in real life. When I see someone is hurting or sad I feel sadness with them especially when it’s someone you love. I think emotions are universal. Across the world we may all speak different languages or wear different clothes but we all can share the same emotions. When something tragic happens in the world everyone hurts together regardless of how far away it happened.

As we learned in lecture, emotions have subjective different views from different psychologists and philosophers. In the Film inside out, much of the film takes place in the head of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, with five emotions such as Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. Her overall goal is to make sure that Riley is always happy. But by the end of the film, Riley, and the audience learns that there is much, much more to being happy than just the thought of only positivity. Toward the end of the film,  Joy seems to take control to some of her fellow emotions, particularly Sadness, Riley seems to achieve a deeper form of happiness. I think that this film shows adults and children a deeper meaning on emotion. As part of being human, Riley allows herself to feel sadness, in addition to fear and anger. This show us at the time when she thinks of running away from home. she decides not to go through with her plan. This choice reunites Riley with her family, giving her a deeper sense of happiness and contentment in the comfort she gets from her parents, even though it’s mixed with sadness and fear.

In Star Trek episode “Man of the People” As an ambassador mediates peace talks to end a fierce civil war, Deanna Troi begins to act emotional after spending some time with him. Troi begins aging rapidly and the crew must then race against the clock to figure out what Alkar has done to her, before she dies. Turns out Alkar is using Troi as a “receptacle” to telepathically shunt off all the negative emotions that he experiences during his negotiations. This episode seems to show them being emotionally innate more so than the “Inside out” view on emotions.During out lecture we spoke about Plato.  The great philosopher.Plato as we spoke about, believed emotions typically include both pleasant and unpleasant aspects! however, Aristole believed that emotions are an original and integral part of  ethics. Emotions are an inherent part of our moral reasoning and being, and therefore they should be an inherent part of any moral deliberation.

“Emotions are a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is occurring, and a set of psychological changes and emotional behaviors begins to deal with the situation.” – Paul Ekman, PhD

As we learned he described them they describe people to have seven basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sad, contempt, disgust, and surprise!

Is it innate or is it due to a stimulus? I think it is subjective to each person. As the professor taught us… different emotions can happen differently depending on the individual!

 

Emotion can be defined and explained in many different ways. Some believe that emotion is born with you while others see emotion growing and developing along with the person that wields them. In my opinion, I believe that both of these theories are correct. One is born and brought up with some form of understanding of emotions and how to respond to the people around them. However, as that person meets others and ventures past the area they were raised in, they will immediately realize that their understanding is not always true for other people.

In the movie “Inside Out” every one of the different emotions has their own quirks and personalities relating to their specific emotion. One of them is overly happy about the situations they come across while another is always viewing the negative side and how it all can go wrong. But, even though they are polar opposites, they all use each other’s opinions to understand any situation they are put through just like our emotions. When I see a dog with no collar on the street, I immediately feel anger for the owners. But after I realize that the dog is all alone and has a very good chance of being put in a kennel, my sadness makes the anger for the owners disappear and only makes me think of finding the dog a happy home. My emotions that I have developed through my own experiences worked with each other to help me decide what I thought was the right thing to do.

In the episode “Man Of The People”, Deanna Troi has an almost tragic encounter with the negative emotions of Ambassador Ves Alkar after the death of his mother. Alkar’s people are able to read the emotions of one another but not of other species and he uses this to trick Deanna into taking all of his negative emotions. This completely contradicts everything we’ve learned about emotion by placing artificial and non-original emotions into another person’s mind. What I found very interesting about this is that the negative emotions send Deanna Troi into a spiral of rapid-aging, almost leading to her death. One example of negative emotions rapidly aging people in real life would be former president of the United States Barack Obama along with many other presidents. In only 4 to 8 years of them being in office, their difference in facial structure, hair color, and overall physique before and after becoming president is frightening. Stress and anger tend to always have a negative aspect on people both mentally and physically without the release of emotions like joy.

This week we had to watch two films that both dealt with emotions in some way. People don’t tend to realize that emotions just don’t happen, they exist because we create them. As social creatures, human go through experiences that allow these said emotions to be felt and publicly observed. Human can tell for the most part what emotion someone is feeling because emotions are socially constructed. We collectively have agreed that if someone is happy, they might be smiling and someone that is sad might be crying. With that being said, emotions aren’t just shown in one way, people express themselves differently.

In the film Inside Out Riley is a joyful person. We know this because it’s the emotion that leads all the other ones. In the film, the emotions are little characters that live in the heads of people.  Riley was a joyful little baby, but when she didn’t get what she wanted or needed, she began to cry as do most babies. This “unlocked” a new emotion, sadness. This directly connects to the Theory of Constructed Emotion because Riley constructed new emotions as she experienced feelings.

Right at the beginning of the film as we see Riley growing up, we also see the events that caused her to create more emotions. Riley not getting dessert triggers Anger and running and tripping over a cord causes Fear to be visible.

Something that I was wondering about the film was that we see Riley’s lead emotion as Joy, the Mom’s as Sadness, and the Dad’s as Anger. I wonder what it took for emotions to switch leads or if it was always Sadness/Anger. Since the Mom, Dad, and Riley all have the same basic emotions, I feel like emotions in the movie were basic and universal. The emotions all acted in similar ways, but were specific to one’s life experience.

Star Trek’s “Man of the People” also showed me the Theory of Constructed Emotion. It is not explicitly said in the film, but Deanna’s body language showed that she was trying to get with Alkar. I’m assuming this because of the way humans have socially constructed emotions and could assume without being told. Deanna quickly changed emotions when Alkar refused her. We can’t say that she constructed the feeling of disgust and anger right then and there because she probably has experienced them in the past. Emotions, the mind, and body all work together. Once the mind was able to comprehend what was happening, the emotions started being projected and shown through the bodies actions.

 

Emotions are a very powerful thing that human experience. Not everyone expresses emotion in the same way, but for the most part, others can tell what one is feeling. Emotions are essential because a human mind without emotion really won’t be a human mind.

We can assume that Deanna had her seven primary emotions, but Riley only has five. I wonder which of her five emotions picked up the other two primary emotions…