Understanding and Managing Emotions Online Tutoring

Introduction

The scientists have widely studied the emotions in relation to the psychological and physiological aspects with their consequences in physical health, behaviors, cognition and social relations. A number of researches has searched for the functionality of psychology. The affective life and the related complexity have resulted in the difficulty for the specialist in finding a model classifying and explaining exhaustively all human emotional health. The diversified explanation related to the consensual way is impossibility as defined by the theories. The emotion being the construct of multi composite psychology has been agreed by all scientists. The debate is unabated regarding the primary/basic, secondary and tertiary emotions. The self-reflexive emotions have focused on then primary or basic emotions. The exploration of self-reflexive emotions has begun recently. The interest of the sociologists and the psychologists lies in finding the structure and conventional standards of the social rules that have been influencing the regulations and expression (Kross 2009).

The important characteristics of emotions focus on specific events with the involvement of the intrinsic feature appraisal of the events and the objects. Also, consistency of their motive and the benefits to the specific motives has been affecting the bodily subsystems which may be becoming synchronized to an extent. The generating of readiness of action and the precedence of control has impacted strongly on the behavior experiencing rapid change because of the unfolding of the reappraisal and the events (Frijda & Scherer, 2009).  The primary emotions are happiness, disgust, acceptance, surprise, sadness and anticipation. These emotions are universal having a biological infrastructure and having a duration that is short. These emotions have an emergence that is rapid and spontaneous with the generation of an automatic appraisal related to the specific facial expression and the stimuli.

The secondary emotions can be composed of self conscious or self reflexive emotions, such as, guilt, humility, embarrassment, shame, pride, jealousy and envy. The self-reflexive emotions are characterized by similar traits: the attitude or behavior of another person has affected the self. The emotions of self-reflexive traits are an umbrella concept consisting of all emotions having the self, and not the particular concern is at stake. The development of self-representation, self-conscious, and the understanding related to the social comparison usage of the other people ensures the appearance of them at a much later stage than the primary emotions (Nesse 2009).

Shame

The acceptance of the self development depending on the interpersonal match with respect to interpersonal settings, the learning of the children about themselves, and self knowledge are often dependant on the individual perception about themselves and how the belief depends on others perceiving him. The others evaluating the individual, particularly how it is interpreted, representing a precondition in the terms of experiences relating to the self-reflexive emotions. The shame is extracted from the perceiving of a negative evaluation related to a complex and self-reflexive emotion by other people. It is hard in managing shame, particularly in the case of an intense one, as it represents psychological discomfiture and hopelessness because of the other’s standpoint of view and the inclination of taking a murky perspective of things.   The state of conflict in relation to the self confidence and the self esteem is related to the shame.  The emotion, which is mostly painful in case of shame, has been jeopardizing the homeostazy (Nesse 2009).

The elucidation of the identity development theory with respect to the stage as the definition of a conflict is between the shame and the autonomy. The consciousness of the child regarding his emotion skills makes him wanting for the acquiring of an autonomy for which there has not been a full preparation of obtaining it. It can be argued that some shame is necessary as it is helping the child discovering his/her own limits and adapting to the behavior in the social context. However, the developmental psychologists are of the opinion that the children who was received considerable shame are lacking of confidence, withdrawn or being aggressive. The children with positive self-esteem are generally not overwhelmed in situations that are seemingly shameful situations. They try to cope with the situation with an effort to solve the problem (Roseman & Smith 2009).

The healthy emotional development of the children is important for the parenting practice. In the case of parents being ironic or hypercritic in relation to the child failing to the accomplishment of his purposes, the conditions are no good in creating psychological background and the development of identity. This is because the child starts self-evaluation that is depreciatory in nature with respect to the emotions, such as, shame and guilt. The fact that it is impossible to meet them creates a significant source psychological distress, discomfiture, shame and sadness. However, in the scenario, when the child is being able to accomplish his/her goals, face difficulty in enjoying his/her victory. This is because the child starts thinking of the keeping up with the successes. This tendency is being termed as perfectionism. The empirical evidences suggest that the perfectionists are less happy compared with the individuals having realistic standards. This is because the perfectionists are never satisfied with their performance. Apparently, it can be interpreted that this is a sign of great self-determination. However, it is noticeable regarding the negative emotions predominating and influencing more or less the affective balance (Brosschot et al. 2006). The parental shame could be generating shame, however, at the same time stimulating interest in finding out the reasons for the unsuccessful situation. The parents must be appreciating of the success as well as the effort put in for accomplishing the tasks that are diverse and which the involvement of the children is prevalent. The aversive stimulation can be having a negative impact on the functionality of the psychology (Brosschot et al. 2006).

 

Embarrassment

Another self-reflexive emotion is embarrassment. The specialists have been in pain to explain a clear distinction between embarrassment and shame. It can be assumed that the embarrassment has been a mild form of shame. It has been noticed the absence of any distinction between the two in Spanish, Dutch and Indonesian languages.  The shame as noted before is the outcome of moral standard violation and embarrassment have resulted in violation of conventional and social standards. The emphasis is of the shame in terms of phenomenological experience which is closer to guilt than the embarrassment experience and the flaw of the self image. The shame is represented by generating embarrassment and evitative behavior. This prompts the engagement in the ameliorative or remedial behavior. The characteristics of such behavior are the acute self awareness, feeling of exposure, and bodily sensations, such as, increased health rate or blushing. Moreover, there is a tendency of explaining one’s own reaction by invoke of the external attributions (Burwell & Shirk 2007).

 

Guilt

The guilt has been quite complex self-reflexive emotion mirroring a psychological conflict between the aggressivity and love.  The guilt is elucidated at the time of consciousness of the individual in terms of behavior in a manner that takes prejudice to other people as the internalized or the moral standards are transgressed.  The appearance of the emotion is carried out ontogenetically after a couple of year when the child understands that he/she is dependent on their parents. The child realizes that he/she is dependent on their parent’s love and support. The disproportionate guilt in terms of its intensity can make possible the transforming it in an overwhelming experience. The capacity of feeling culpable is reflective of the beginning of the affective maturity and the ability of realizing the healthy interpersonal relationships. There have been four theoretical approaches to the guilt: (a) approach of internal standard; (b) approach of moral transgression; (c) approach of behavioral focus; (d) interpersonal approach (Denson et al. 2008).

All approaches point guilt towards a self-reflexive emotion appearing when an individual notices a negative outcome with the acts of omission and commission. The focus of the first approach is on the specific appraisal of a situation in relation to the individual idea of consciousness that has something to do with violating of one’s own internalized standards. It is irrespective to someone’s notice of the violation as the reflection is a very important part of the experience of guilt. The refection can be defined as recurring instrumental thinking focusing on the way of reducing the discrepancy as perceived through with the solving of the problem or passionately making salience of the unattained goals. The pride is a complex emotion reflecting the individual’s social acceptance not necessarily in the presence of others who are approving.   The comparison of one’s standard with the behavior denotes to the analysis of pride. The experiencing of the pride, generally, appears late: about three years as there is requirement of self awareness in pride. The pride is not valued or communicated in the culture that is collectivistic. Instead in the western culture the self celebration or showcasing of one’s worth is very important. The pride, in the East Asian culture, is denoted with a group of people, rather than the individuals.  Success and pride are conferring honor to the in-group, parents or nation.  The general well being in America is reflected with self-celebration but not with a Japanese group.   The perspective of anthropological elucidates the explanation of the pattern that takes into consideration the cultural meaning and the relationship practices in those cultures. In the Asian culture, the upkeep of relational harmony and feeling of being connected with others is critical (Dodge 2006).

 

Conclusion

The focus is increasing on the emotions that are self-reflexive. However, the debate pertaining to the theoretical interpretation and on the aspects of methodology of the enquiries that are empirical is on the continuance. The understanding related to the rewarding and affective life experience by the specialists is with their exploration of the cultural and the gender differences have been the self conscious or self-reflective emotions. With regards to individualistic culture, emotions are the most effective way to the express one self and affirm of an individual. It is acceptable in the literature, in spite of the archetype of emotions across the cultures, the differences lies in the interpreting certain situations, particularly with respect to the involvement of the interpersonal conflicts. The examples of such conflicts can be shame, guilt, fear and sadness. As far as the western culture is concerned, the children are stimulated in talking about their feelings and concerns. These emotions are called the social sharing of emotions.   In the East Asian culture, especially in China, the perception of emotion tends to be disruptive to inter-personal relation which can be controlled strictly. The context of a culture frames the style of emotion through a cultural script (Fujita et al. 2006). The cultural script of the East Asian culture has been built on the dialectical thinking featured with tolerance of contradictions to find a middle way. This stimulates the experience of a balance between the positive and negative emotions. The future researches may be exploring of the way cultural scripts has been framing the social rules, interpretations, and appraisal governing expression of self-reflective emotions.

 

References:

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