Emotional action

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If you meet a person you like, can you choose how you will meet him: with sincere joy, warm benevolence, or admiration? These are three completely different emotions, and if you can choose between them and meet a person you like exactly the way you decided, you know what emotional shares are, and you own emotional shares.

If, when meeting a person, you cannot somehow determine your emotional reaction, and it occurs completely on your own, without your participation, determined only by your state and the behavior of the person in front of you, you demonstrate an emotional reaction and it is more difficult for you to understand what emotional action.

An emotional action is an arbitrary situational (short or medium duration) change by a person of his functional state and corresponding expressive movements to solve life problems. Emotion as a choice.

You are sitting busy. Suddenly a child comes running and gives you candy. You may not need a candy at all, but if you love children, then for pedagogical reasons you will most likely smile at him and thank him from the bottom of your heart. Here joy and gratitude are your emotional action. When a group of employees goes to congratulate a birthday person, especially their boss, the emotions expressed are not reactions, but emotional actions.

To what extent an emotional action is a free choice, see →

An emotional action is an emotion that a person has launched himself, to some extent intentionally. Emotional actions differ from emotional reactions — states and movements that have arisen as a response to external influences.

Illustration

Watch the video from the film «The Young Lady-Peasant Woman». Liza goes to beg Miss Jackson’s forgiveness («Well, I’ll appease her!») and, having such a plan, sincerely plays out all her necessary emotional experiences for her. Miss Jackson here has emotional reactions, and Lisa is in a proactive position.

Emotional actions, experience and sincerity

Emotional actions are accompanied by experiences to a very different extent. The more emotional actions are accompanied by experience, the more they are considered sincere. In other cases, they are considered either manipulation (including cute manipulations) or simply expressive movements. See Emotional Actions, Experience and Sincerity

Reasons for choosing

The choice of this or that experience can have a variety of reasons — both the basis of the mind (personal gain or concern for a partner), and the influence of feelings (the desire to please or the desire to take revenge). The more a person is involved in a situation, the more often he is guided by feelings in choosing his emotions. The more a person is distanced from the situation (he has the opportunity to cool down, think, he has time and opportunity to consult with someone), the more reasonable his emotions turn out to be.

A woman writes: “For me, the main criterion is taking into account the result that my choice of this or that emotion will lead to. Let me explain with an example: my husband is late without warning, promised to come at seven o’clock and play with his daughter, we waited all evening with the children, dinner got cold, my daughter fell asleep without seeing dad, my husband came after midnight. If I succumb to the desire to be offended (and for many women in this situation there are plenty of reasons) and upload a scandal with tears and screams, then what will I get as a result? And I will get further discord in the relationship, hassle for myself and for him, and finally ruined the evening. I do not need it, so I choose to meet my husband with a smile and enjoy the opportunity to talk alone without children, and he will play with his daughter in the morning. Of course, in this situation there is time to “prepare” mentally, and it is more difficult if the situation is spontaneous and you need to respond quickly.”

Emotional Equity Management

Of all emotions, emotional actions are the most controlled emotions, but in reality, adequately managing these emotions is not the most frequent event.

Actors are great at managing most of their emotions, but there are a lot of negative and unhappy people among actors. Many people have the ability to manage emotions, but many people lack the king in their heads and positive emotional scenarios. See Manipulative Games