How Do Emotions Work?

Abstract

Have you ever felt happy, sad, angry, or afraid? How about jealous, ashamed, or embarrassed? Almost everybody has these different emotions from time to time, and they can have a big effect on the way people think and act. Because emotions have such a big effect on people's lives, scientists have spent a lot of time trying to understand how they work. In this paper, we will talk about how emotions work. First, we will talk about what causes emotions. Then, we will talk about what happens during an emotion, and how we figure out what emotions we are feeling. Last, we will talk about how we can change our emotions if we are feeling bad and want to feel better. WHAT CAUSES EMOTIONS? Try to remember the last time you felt scared. Do you remember what you were thinking? Scientists have discovered that our emotions are often caused by our thoughts [1]. This means two people could be in the same situation, but they might feel different emotions because they have different thoughts (see Figure 1). Maybe you have noticed this with your own friends and family. For example, imagine two people were both at a neighbor's house and this neighbor had a dog. One person might think, "This dog could hurt me!" and feel scared. This might happen if that person never had a pet dog before. The EMOTIONS Feelings like sadness and anger that people have in response to different thoughts and situations. Sometimes people can also feel more than one emotion at the same time (like feeling both excited and scared to ride a roller coaster).