In the last two decades, the boom in the study of the nature of emotions and the relevance of their adequate management for the psychological well-being of human beings has been justified by innumerable investigations, initiated by authors such as Peter Salovey and John Mayer or Daniel Goleman. Thus, nowadays the construct of emotional intelligence is approached and included by most branches of psychology (clinical, educational, sports, organizational, etc.) as one of the basic components to reach a higher level of personal effectiveness more easily.

Let us explain, then, what is the relationship between the two phenomena: why is it important to know how to express and manage emotions?

What are emotions for?

Generally speaking, emotions have three fundamental functions that allow human beings to adapt more competently to the environment in which they are interacting. Thus, they present firstly a communicative function, from which it is possible to let others know how one feels about oneself and, from that, to be able to discern what psychological needs that individual may present.

Secondly, emotions regulate one’s own and another’s behaviour, since there is a very close link between the individual emotional state and the type of behavioural response emitted.

Finally, emotions have a strong influence on the process of social interaction, which allows for a more effective perception of the particularities of the interpersonal environment in which the subject operates, enabling him/her to achieve a higher level of psychological, intellectual and emotional growth.

Functions of basic emotions

Paul Ekman established six so-called basic emotions, since in his research carried out on the basis of the analysis of non-verbal language (facial gestures) of individuals from different cultures, he showed how the expressions of joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and surprise were common and, therefore, unconscious, innate and universal. All of them have considerable utility based on the three general functions mentioned above, but what kind of message or information does each of them convey?

1. Joy

Joy becomes a facilitator of interpersonal interaction since the social nature of human beings, according to the preservation of their own survival, tends to approach that which produces a sensation of well-being (social relations) and to flee from the stimuli that cause the opposite effect.

Moreover, joy is an enabler in the achievement of deeper vital objectives and projects, since serves as a motivational activator and promotes the individual to take action .

2. Sadness

It is the emotion experienced at the loss of an object that is valuable and meaningful to the individual. This kind of event causes feelings of grief, failure, remorse, etc. that must be processed and assimilated gradually. Thus, sadness is useful for the activation of processes such as introspection, awareness or support for the other. It could be understood as a sign of “energy saving” from which it is possible to adequately process the grief that has generated the object of such loss.

3. Rabies

This is the reaction produced by situations in which the individual perceives obstacles with respect to a specific established goal . Thus, the person feels that he/she must preserve integrity and defend him/herself, another individual/s or some other specific phenomenon. In this sense, the emotion of anger indicates that there is a potential danger that must be faced and overcome.

4. Fear

It is the warning that our mind gives before the perception of a potential danger that can compromise our own physical or psychological survival. Such a threat can be real (speeding down a poorly lit road) or imagined (fear of being fired from one’s job).

This type of notice allows you to prepare the person to give a certain response . Unlike the previous one, fear has a connotation of avoiding suffering the effects of the threat instead of orienting oneself to confront it openly.

5. Disgust

This is the emotion that is more linked to more organic aspects since the message that is intended to be sent is that of protecting the subject from ingesting food or substances that are harmful or, at least, unpleasant for him/her. Therefore, is more related to a biological level than to a psychological one .

6. The surprise

It involves the experience of an unexpected circumstance for which the person needs to gather his or her own resources and prepare for action. It is a neutral emotion since its momentary nature has no pleasant or unpleasant meaning in itself.

The benefits of expressing emotions

As has been observed, the experience of each and every one of the emotions described above has an adaptive function for the human being. An inherent characteristic of this is the fact of communicating with the environment, so one of the first reasons that supports the need to master the competence of emotional management lies in the fact of not losing this communicative and adaptive ability.

It can be concluded, therefore, that the problematic element does not lie in the manifestation and experience of the emotion itself, but that the phenomenon causing the emotional discomfort in which the person is immersed on certain occasions is the degree of intensity of that emotion and the type of management that is carried out on it.

When an emotion prevents the individual from remaining conscious in the present moment and in the reality that surrounds him in that precise moment, it is when greater emotional affectations are usually derived. That is to say, when the emotion “kidnaps” the mind and transports it out of the present, the thread of the rational, the logical or the authentic is usually lost.

According to Salovey and Mayer’s (1997) model of emotional intelligence, emotions are understood as skills that can be learned. These skills consist of emotional perception, emotional understanding, thought facilitation and regulation of emotions . It could be said that the first of these skills greatly favours the development of the others, given that a previous objective to be consolidated becomes competence in knowing how to identify and express one’s own and other people’s emotions.

From this milestone, the processes of analysing and giving meaning to emotions (comprehension ability), the integration between cognitions and emotions that orient the subject to attend to the most relevant contextual information for decision making (thought facilitation) and the promotion of intellectual-emotional knowledge or the achievement of adaptive balance with respect to pleasant/unpleasant emotions (emotional regulation) become more easily accessible.

Damage to resistance to expressing emotions

The absence of competence in the four skills listed above can lead the individual to adopt emotionally unregulated dynamics of functioning, i.e. based on the above-mentioned emotional “hijacking”. This repertoire is characterized by the following manifestations, according to three levels of performance:

1. At the cognitive level

Inability to describe and observe the present experience (one’s own and that of others) in the absence of unfair or excessive judgement and criticism of the externalised emotion; incompetence in understanding the cause that motivates the emotion and the type of information that can be extracted as personal learning.

This point relates to the use of a type of irrational or distorted cognitive reasoning with respect to the expressed emotion.

2. On an emotional level

Difficulty in finding a balance between resistance to emotion and emotional overreaction to potentially destabilising situations; inefficiency in transforming the meaning given to unpleasant emotions (initially negative) into a more accepting perspective, encouraging greater tolerance of discomfort.

Both the attitude of repressing emotions (especially unpleasant ones) and emitting them in an uncontrolled and excessive manner are equally harmful to the individual.

  • You may be interested in: “Emotional Psychology: Major Theories of Emotion”

3. At the behavioural level

Impossibility to self-control the emission of an impulsive or precipitated response that makes it difficult to adequately manage the specific situation ; deficiency in the capacity to differentiate what type of emotional consequences the person will experience in the short and long term, which usually tend to be mitigated or modified over time.

Being guided by an emotion that is not properly managed can make the experience worse and increase the initial discomfort.

By way of conclusion

It has been possible to verify in the text the indispensable character that presents an adequate level of emotional competence to favor the psychological well-being of the human being.

One of the prerequisites for consolidating this ability lies in the capacity to know how to identify and express one’s own emotions, understanding them as “warnings” that alert the individual of an experience or event that must be attended to psychologically as a priority. On the contrary, repression or resistance to emotions can lead to significant damage on a psychic level .