0.8 The psychology of emotions, feelings and thoughts  (Page 74/89)

Also, a thought may have an emotion associated with it that you wouldn't expect or don't know about. If you think about it, with each thought, an emotion is going to be a result of the thought or would have helped bring up the thought. This is because thoughts are more complex that just the verbal thought - there is a lot of things the thought represents in your mind that also could be emotional triggers.

Why are appraisals such significant thoughts then? People must really care about how good or bad the events in their life are. Your assessment of how good or bad an event is is going to influence how good or bad the event actually is. That basically means that your attitude and thoughts about the event is going to influence feelings about the event. These thought processes are the most significant ones someone has about an event.

That makes sense - what else would someone think about something that just happened to them other than if it is good or bad for them anyway. They could think practical things about an event, but in the end it all really results if it is good or bad for them. People get emotional about if something is going to hurt them or help them, it seems.

All thoughts represent something larger in the mind and are more significant than they might appear by themselves. People have hopes, desires, and fears about each thought they think. Thoughts are also related. One thought might bring up similar hopes and fears as another thought, therefore helping to trigger or inhibit the other thought.

But surely thoughts are related more than just emotionally. Emotionally thoughts are related because they bring up similar or related emotions. But thoughts are also related because they represent similar physical things or other thoughts and ideas. Desires are ideas and thoughts, and these might be triggered by similar thoughts. When someone sees a piece of art, the art could represent desires that they have (and therefore trigger thoughts).

A child might be afraid of an animal. Since animals are similar to humans, the emotional response of the child to the animal it is afraid of might be similar to being afraid of a human. Physical the animal might look somewhat like a human. Animals and humans are certainly more related in how they look than humans and physical objects. Animals and humans both have emotions, and animals think to a certain extent. My point is that thoughts and emotional reactions have things in common with other thoughts and objects. They all represent similar and related things in the mind (such as emotions like hope, desire, fear, and beliefs).

This complex network of interacting ideas, emotions, and representations is going to determine how the emotions of humans fluctuate. Emotions and thoughts are related to each other because they each represent ideas, other thoughts (such as beliefs or facts) or other emotions. A simpler way to say that would just be that one emotion, event, or stimulus triggers a complex reaction in the mind. It triggers an intellectual reaction whereby the person goes through all the things that that event represents to them. This can be other physical things, complex thoughts and ideas (such as beliefs or facts), or hopes and other emotions.