How much emotion is actually "necessary to be human"?

[palette]

I think you're on to something interesting with this.
The role of emotions clearly is a large one. I think that the following source claims that emotions are needed to preserve a healthy mind. I personally believe that they can also create unhealthy boundaries for the mind.

Here are a few of the reasons our emotions are important in our lives. By the way, the first few chapters of Goleman's 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, have a good presentation on evolution and emotions.

Survival

Nature developed our emotions over millions of years of evolution. As a result, our emotions have the potential to serve us today as a delicate and sophisticated internal guidance system. Our emotions alert us when natural human need is not being met. For example, when we feel lonely, our need for connection with other people is unmet. When we feel afraid, our need for safety is unmet. When we feel rejected, it is our need for acceptance which is unmet.


Decision Making

Our emotions are a valuable source of information. Our emotions help us make decisions. Studies show that when a person's emotional connections are severed in the brain, he can not make even simple decisions. Why? Because he doesn't know how he will feel about his choices.

Predicting Behavior

Our feelings are also useful in helping us predict our own, and others' behavior. Here is an article on the idea that feelings predict behavior.

Boundary Setting

When we feel uncomfortable with a person's behavior, our emotions alert us. If we learn to trust our emotions and feel confident expressing ourselves we can let the person know we feel uncomfortable as soon as we are aware of our feeling. This will help us set our boundaries which are necessary to protect our physical and mental health.



Communication

Our emotions help us communicate with others. Our facial expressions, for example, can convey a wide range of emotions. If we look sad or hurt, we are signalling to others that we need their help. If we are verbally skilled we will be able to express more of our emotional needs and thereby have a better chance of filling them. If we are effective at listening to the emotional troubles of others, we are better able to help them feel understood, important and cared about.

Happiness

The only real way to know that we are happy is when we feel happy. When we feel happy, we feel content and fulfilled. This feeling comes from having our needs met, particulary our emotional needs. We can be warm, dry, and full of food, but still unhappy. Our emotions and our feelings let us know when we are unhappy and when something is missing or needed. The better we can identify our emotions, the easier it will be to determine what is needed to be happy.

Unity

Our emotions are perhaps the greatest potential source of uniting all members of the human species. Clearly, our various religious, cultural and political beliefs have not united us. Far too often, in fact, they have tragically and even fatally divided us. Emotions, on the other hand, are universal. Charles Darwin wrote about this years ago in one of his lesser-known books called "The Expression of Emotion In Man and Animal". The emotions of empathy, compassion, cooperation, and forgiveness, for instance, all have the potential to unite us as a species. It seem fair to say that, generally speaking: Beliefs divide us. Emotions unite us.

Human Emotional Needs

All humans have basic emotional needs. These needs can be expressed as feelings, for example the need to feel accepted, respected and important. While all humans share these needs, each differs in the strength of the need, just as some of us need more water, more food or more sleep. One person may need more freedom and independence, another may need more security and social connections. One may have a greater curiosity and a greater need for understanding, while another is content to accept whatever he has been told.

One of the major problems I have observed in schools is the treatment of all children as if their emotional and psychological needs were identical. The result is many children's needs are unsatisfied. They then become frustrated, as any of us do when our needs are unmet. They act out their frustration in various ways which are typically seen as "misbehavior." This is especially evident when children are expected to all do the same thing for the same length of time. The better we identify their unique needs and satisfy them, the few behavioral problems. It is also evident when they are made to do things which are not interesting to them, or when they are not challenged enough with things which are relevant to their lives. One of the things teenagers who are cutting themselves seem to have in common is they are extremely bored at school as well as emotionally neglected, over-controlled or abused at home.

In dysfunctional families it is most often the emotional needs which are not met. The children and teenagers are getting enough to eat and they have a roof over their heads, but their emotional needs are not being met.

It is helpful to become more aware of these emotional needs as a first step towards helping each other fill them.

For a more complete list these needs, go to human emotional needs list.

I saw a news story the other day about some homeless guy in New York who got stabbed saving a lady and people didn't really help him in any way as he laid dying. He died a couple hours later because of it.

Maybe it has something to do with boundaries. I'm thinking that it might be socially constructed to "fear" certain people. If it's a lack of emotions, or too many emotions making the decision I don't know. It could be fear/ it could be the lack of feeling any emotions.

Since this was about if emotions are necessary, I'd like to again point out that there are primary and secondary emotions, as well as positive and negative feelings.

Some people claim that there are ways around negative feelings. I think this implies that they aren't necessary and can be avoided.

Expressing Negative Feelings

Here are a few suggestions for communicating your negative feelings:

* Don't be dramatic.
* Don't wait till things build up.
* Be brief.
* Don't blame or lay guilt trips.
* Talk about how you feel.
* Ask how the other person feels.
* Offer a way to save face. (For example, "Perhaps I misunderstood you," or "I know your intentions were good.")

Managing Negative Emotions

General Guidelines

Here are few general guidelines for managing negative emotions. .

First, identify the feeling. Next, ask if is a healthy feeling. Then list your options and chose the one which is most likely to lead to your long-term happiness.

After asking these first two questions, the next step is to ask what would help you feel better. Try to focus on answers which are in your control, since it would be easy, but not too helpful, to think of things ways others could change so you would feel better.

Another question is to ask how you want to feel. This helps you direct your thoughts in a positive direction.

To summarize, here are some helpful questions:

* How am I feeling?

* Is it a healthy feeling?

* How do I want to feel?

* What would help me feel better (that I can control)?

From what I can see, some people do think it's possible to control your negative emotions. They also appear to believe that there is a lot of importance to invest into your "positive" emotions.

I've always thought that in many professions, it is vital to survival in those professions to have to be able to communicate your ideas effectively and openly. It's being reflected on us that emotions are a very important tool to communicate effectively.

Most the world revolves around communication. There are several people who people believe that communication and success go hand and hand.

I think it's really all about emotional maturity.

Obviously, as with everything, extremes are (usually) not a good thing.

I think there should be a good balance and sometimes even interaction between emotion and rationality.

I think that you have a good point there, RagnaToad.

On the other hand, Silver, I feel that you've provided examples that show a majority of people were incapable of finding the proper balance.

A majority of people watched the man die. Was it necessary to leave a man dying on the streets, was it healthy? Was it normal,is it human? While trying to moderate our emotions just where do we draw our lines? How do we balance our emotions? Are we being honest with our selves, just how socially constructed are we?

Emotional honesty means expressing your true feelings. To be emotionally honest we must first be emotionally aware. This emotional awareness is related to our emotional intelligence. It is our emotional intelligence, combined with the necessary learning, practice and experience, which gives us the ability to accurately identify our feelings.

Emotional intelligence may also give us the ability to decide when it is in our best interest to be emotionally honest by sharing our real feelings. There are times when it is not healthy or safe for us to be emotionally honest. In general though, I believe we would be better off individually and as a society if we would be more emotionally honest.

I think that people feel pressured to act a certain way by others. I think they are not being honest with their selves because they fear being judged.

As the site suggests, I also agree that we lose a sense of "true self".

I believe that is clear that in cases like yours, emotional honesty is important. Also, a balance between rationality and emotions, as implied by RagnaToad, is also very important.

In my eyes the question still remains, how much emotion is necessary? By nature most of us appear to be social and emotional creatures, and there could lie a major conflict.