Psychology of Emotions
Cognitive and biological approaches to psychology have often been used in understanding how we experience emotions, and how they affect our behavior. In this area, we've put together articles that help to convey some of these theories.
Cognitive and biological approaches to psychology have often been used in understanding how we experience emotions, and how they affect our behavior. In this area, we've put together articles that help to convey some of these theories.
Emoting with Emoticons
Are you feeling :-D? Or is your work making you :-(? Perhaps this post’s overzealous peppering of emoticons is starting to make you a little :@? The rise of the internet gave birth to the method of communication we now recognize as emoticons. Text-based representations of feelings, such as :-) to express satisfaction, help to make email and instant...
Psychology of Color
Does color affect your mood? Psychologists have said "Absolutely!" to that question for a very long time. The psychological effects of color have such an underpinning in research that the findings of chromology, the psychology of color, are used in designing everything from hotel rooms to cereal packages. In one case that made headlines...
Brittany and Bob: Name Letter Effect
Does the name given to you at birth influence who you will choose to partner with as an adult? According to the name-letter effect, people are more likely to be attracted to someone who shares their first initials. A man named Robert, for example, may be more attracted to women by the name of Rachel or Roberta, whilst a woman named Amy might be more likely...
Brain Recognizes 'Fake' Laughter
The human brain is able to automatically differentiate between authentic and artificial emotional outbursts, according to a recent laughter study. We each make many distinct types of laughter, from brief outbursts in response to a joke, to more prolonged, often uncontrollable, cachinnating. Some people laugh to disguise their nervousness, whilst others...
Psychology of Happiness
Just how happy are you? Do you ever wish for a life that brought more moments to be joyful? Happiness is often an elusive experience - people will go to great lengths for a fleeting moment of happiness. Even the U.S. Declaration of Independence, written in 1776, asserts the right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. But what...
Emotions and Memory
The question of how our how our brains memorize daily experiences has intrigued cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists for decades. Amongst a range of theories attempting to explain how we encode and later recall information, a curious influence over memory encoding has been observed: our emotional state at the time of an event...
Unhappy Music Creates 'Pleasant' Emotions - Study
Listening to melancholic music “induces pleasant emotion”, according to a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. Conventional wisdom would hold that listening to a sad song could lead a person to experience negative emotions. The opening scene of the 2001 film Bridget Jones’s Diary typifies this idea when, as...
World's Happiest Countries to Live In
The 2017 edition of the World Happiness Report has been been published by the UN to coincide with the International Day of Happiness, which took place on March 20th. The report - the fifth edition since its first publication in 2012 - provides an intriguing insight into the differences in happiness amongst 3,000 participants across more than 150 countries....
Emotional Attraction
We all know how it feels to be attracted to someone - the old argument still lives on as to whether a person's looks or personality influence us more, but let's looks at what does attract people to each other. This factor is one of the most researched elements of attraction between couples. Good looking people, charismatic or dull, have a...
Emotion Guide
Why do people and animals experience emotions, and what makes us experience different types of emotions. Ian Heath looks at emotional states, the link between the sub-conscious and our feelings.
Emotion: Feelings
How do we define emotions?
Model of Emotions
More information on emotions.
Emotion: Unconscious Ideas
The unconscious and emotions.
Unconscious Ideas and Emotions
The link between the unconscious and emotion.
Love and Emotion: How Love Happens
Of all the ideas and concepts we come across in life, perhaps one of the most difficult to describe in any reliable wording is that of 'love'. The Ancient Greeks classified love into the types we feel between sexual lovers, friends and divinity, but first we must distinguish between a liking for someone (for example, a work colleague) and its...
How Love Happens: The Three Components of Relationships
Find out what makes a successful relationship.
Anxiety Emotion
A look at the experience of anxiety and its origins.
Envy Emotion
What is the experience of envy and how does it differ from jealousy?
Guilt Emotion
An exploration of the emotion of guilt and its relationship to self pity.
Hate Emotion
What is emotional hatred, why do people experience it and where does it come from?
Jealousy Emotion
What happens when we feel jealous of someone else? A look at jealousy as an emotion in various situations.
Love Emotion
An exploration of the emotion of love from a psychological perspective.
Narcissism Emotion
A look at narcissism, a preoccupation with oneself: what happens when we experience it?
Pride Emotion
Why do we experience pride and what happens when we do?
Self Pity Emotion
The emotion of self pity explored.
Vanity Emotion
What are the different types of vanity?
More in Psychology of Emotions:
Many thanks to Ian Heath for his contributions, Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath. All Rights Reserved
