The Origins Of Different Emotions Article Review Example

Emotions are mental states than take place within the mind of an organism. A human being according to various gurus in psychology is just but an advanced animal. The human being can tell good things from bad ones. Likewise, the human body can tell good feelings from the distasteful emotions. Such feelings as joy, anger and sadness can occur within a person’s psychological borders within a small span of time as long as such an individual is subjected to situations that cause such changes. The role of emotions has been successfully explained by a number of social scientists and experts of psychology. Similarly, the emotions have been categorized accordingly. However, the origin of such emotions has remained a topic of debate o this day. The social scientists in the contemporary world argue that an answer to the question on the origin of emotions is not going to be discovered anytime soon.
Classical scientists argued that emotions were innate. By this they meant that the way in which a person reacts to certain situations, depended on some in-born values and qualities. It has however been argued that the emotions of human beings, are not like computer applications. The computer applications operate by instruction. Computer software or a computer program cannot perform any function without any instruction or command. On the contrary, the emotions of a human being can change without any instruction. For instance if a person abuses you, you will not need anything to tell your brain that you should get angry, the brain automatically gets mad and the feeling is immediately reflected on the face. The individual’s reaction is what can now be said to depend on the in-born qualities of a person.
I choose to disagree with the views of Ellsworth, who argues that the emotions are innate and that they do not change according to the situation. I am of the opinion that emotions have their roots in the changes in the environment. The environment modifies the way of thinking adopted by the human being. This has been explained by many psychologists through the theories of evolution. The theories of evolution take the human being through various environmental situations and circumstances. For instance, the article mentions the survival stage. The ways of man at this stage were quite different from his ways at later stages of development. This is because during the survival stage, the human being who was primitive back then was self-centered and did not care about others. This denotes lack of such feelings as sympathy back then. This was because the environment dictated so.
Essentially my opinion is rooted in the belief that the feelings of the human being change according to circumstance and environment. Much as we cannot show our emotions in some environments, the fact remains we feel them. Another reason why I choose to differ with the scholars that associate human emotions with in-born qualities is because the events that made up the environment at the time of birth were not static. They have changed over time. Some have even paved way for new ones. The inborn qualities can be altered and tampered by upbringing. The way in which the human being is brought up defines his environment. In conclusion, it is worth saying that from the analysis of the article and from my own understanding, the human emotions did not originate anywhere. They are dictated by the demands of the environment. It is therefore worth concluding that the search for the origin of emotions will remain futile eternally.