Emotions are Social Behaviors

Behavior in human groups is regulated by displays of status, intentions, body states, needs and distress. Emotions are obvious behavioral displays that add dynamics to human interactions.  Emotions put animals and people in motion and emotional behaviors are body language communications among all animals. Emotions can be read with little or no learning and from a distance. The face is the bulletin board of emotions, complemented by head movements, arm and hand gestures.

The emotion is the outside part and feelings are the inside part of brain activity that links a human with other creatures. Feelings are inner body-mind states that are sometimes linked to emotions. The briefly popular notion of “emotional intelligence” in the USA revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the human mind. Emotions are ancient strategies of social regulation. Intelligence is built from and on top of emotions; emotions are not a side issue to be tacked on when reading and writing fail to achieve desired goals in education.

Emotions come before and go beyond the cognitive abilities that are considered to be important in schools. The education bias toward reading and writing is a weakness of formal education. Human intelligence is all about social interactions. Human nature is little understood in educational psychology. Schools are artificial societies that disturb and distort the natural flow of human intelligence; this is perhaps why “emotional intelligence” had to be re-discovered in America as if it were a new dimension of the human experience.

The primary emotions are dyads: fear and contentment, pleasure and pain, affection and anger, crying and laughing, joy and terror, surprise and disgust. Crying and laughing are communicative behaviors, prototypes of emotion. Smiling and grimacing are also emotional behaviors. Both are transitional to emotions that are more energetic. Smiling is often a signal that all is well and may progress to laugher. Grimacing is a signal that not all is well and may lead to crying or anger.  Children who are unsure about what is happening may go though the whole repertoire of emotions in rapid succession. A grimace; then a hesitant laugh; and then a flood of tears may follow a tentative smile if the right reassurance is not forthcoming.

Feelings are conscious experiences that are real and important but have the elusive quality of all inside experiences – only I experience my feelings. Humans recognize that others have feelings by watching behavior and listening to descriptions of what it feels like inside. Feelings are also monitor images of body states. Humans often cannot localize the source or the effects of their feelings and tend to blame others whenever they are not feeling well. Humans tend to become emotional when they are not doing well.

Drives are linked to feelings but not necessarily linked to emotions. Hunger is a primary feeling as is thirst – the feeling is a monitor image of a body state. Humans are usually tuned into the feelings of other people and will often pick up subtle signals that that are not conscious or explicit – hip people take about “vibes”; psychics see auras and ordinary folk have hunches, intuitions or just "feel" the body language of others. Humans might meet a new person and walk away saying “I don’t know what it was… but I didn’t feel comfortable talking to that man.”

Feelings are evanescent and can change abruptly.  Criticism, an angry remark or an insult can switch a happy person to an angry person in seconds. An overly sensitive person may walk away from an argument in deep despair and may want to die. Drastic “thinking” is common.  Pessimistic, sometimes nihilistic, thoughts are attached to this ancient feeling of dread; the occasion is always some threat to your status in a social group.