The Complexity of the Human Mind

Emotions are fundamental aspects of human life; they influence our thoughts, actions, behaviors and more. Emotions specifically play a crucial role in how we engage with others and ourselves. While all humans experience different types of emotions, the way emotions are expressed differs among individuals, which could be due to several reasons. From how an individual was raised, other situations can vary from male to female. Human emotions are perceived differently and experienced differently, and a person’s expression and perception can change in certain situations. 

To begin with, as humans, we naturally tend to hide our vulnerabilities out of fear of appearing weak. However, when we observe others being open and vulnerable, we often view them as strong for doing so. It’s evident that the human mind perceives emotions differently, but the reasons behind this variation remain a mystery regarding how different emotions are expressed. The mind can be deceptive, influencing how we experience specific emotions, the variety of emotional states with how we view them, including the different types of tears, the perception of emotion through text, and how language perceives emotions. In an article on the National Library of Medicine’s website called, The Role of Emotion Regulation in the Experience and Expression of Emotion, scientists conducted a study that explores the concept of emotional regulation and its impact on how emotions are perceived and expressed. The article also highlights the influence of individual differences and how people regulate their emotions. The article concludes that while some individuals excel in emotional regulation, others can improve with practice.

Understanding emotions can be complex, encompassing a range of feelings, from joy and love to anger and sadness. Therefore, humans tend to confuse our vulnerabilities for fear of weakness or our expressions and actions for vulnerability. Emotions are crucial for human expression, but emotions can be viewed differently. The human mind is wired to perceive emotion, yet how the different emotions come into play is a mystery, as far as expression goes. The mind can play tricks on the human body to modulate feelings of emotion, the breadth of emotional states, and, particularly, the variety of tears. Anja J. Laan, in the journal of Individual Differences in Adult Crying: The Role of Attachment Styles, conducted a study on adults and their crying behaviors and emotional attachment styles (anxious, secure, disorganized, etc.) and how individuals with a secure attachment style had different emotional reactions to those with an anxious attachment style. The study also highlights that the frequency and intensity of crying can serve as a coping mechanism for specific individuals. The study concludes that attachment styles in adults significantly influence how individuals use crying to cope with their emotional distress.

In addition, Judith Rosenhouse, in the Journal of Phonetics: A preliminary report: an analysis of some types of a baby’s cries, conducted a study in which the different cries and tears of a baby were monitored and categorized. “In the present study, different cries of an individual baby are examined in order to better understand the differences between cries which are apparently stimulated by different causes.” Infants express themselves through cries and tears, and adults do the same in their own ways. Studying these emotions, both in humans and scenarios, is bound to provide a broader understanding of emotions and their relationship to human psychology. “Crying, as an infant’s primary mode of communication, provides significant information about their emotional and physical well-being, but this information is often misunderstood without careful analysis.” Rosenhouse highlights the importance of categorizing of infant tears in order to interpret their cries better and respond more effectively. This study could also be relevant to adults, helping us better understand and respond to individuals’ emotions.

Emotions are complex psychological states characterized by three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response. Primary emotions are typically happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. These feelings are usually short-term and appear because of different stimuli. Primary emotions play an adaptive role and promote survival. For example, fear can prompt flight-or-fight responses, and happiness can enable social bonding and cooperation. Recognizing such basic emotions permits the individual to develop ways of responding to stimuli and then find out what kinds of things elicit these responses. 

Secondary emotions also result as reactions to primary emotions and are usually shaped by personal experience or social context. These are more complex and may vary among individuals based on sex, age, etc. Some secondary emotions are shame, guilt, pride, and jealousy. For example, one may get angry because of an incident that took place, that would be a primary emotion. If he responded aggressively to the situation, then he would go into the secondary emotion of being shamed. According to Olivia Guy-Evans, in the article of Simply Psychology, “Secondary shame stems from imagining others’ judgment. You mess up, criticize yourself harshly, then assume everyone sees you that way.” Not only do we, as humans, judge others when they are in vulnerable states, but we also do the same to ourselves. 

Understanding this category can help individuals examine what is happening to their feelings and the causes leading to them. The interaction of primary and secondary emotions together may aid a person in managing their emotional actions more appropriately since they will know how to handle the root rather than the emotion itself. Imagine if we could grasp the various types of tears that humans express. Some might be tears of joy, others of sorrow, and yet others may stem from anger, mainly because our differences such as sex, age, culture etc. How we view emotions is led by these factors that control how we react to them. For example, if I saw a man crying out in public, I would assume it’s out of sadness or anger because it’s not seen often. Since I am a woman, this is how I would perceive it. To another man, they could perceive it as weak. These factors alter how we view this. 

Complex emotions further portray the task of human emotions as a complex one. These emotions usually result from a mix of primary and secondary emotions, including nostalgia, envy, and even empathetic feelings. The complex emotions are generally wider and may well involve more complicated reasoning skills, such as the ability to reflect upon past events or understanding other people’s feelings. The categorization of emotions into different groupings opens our eyes to appreciate the diversity of emotional experiences, the influences of human behaviors, and human relationships. Recognizing the categories of emotions can help in emotional intelligence about how to better negotiate one’s feelings and the feelings of others. Emotional intelligence incorporates the capability to recognize, understand, and manage one’s own and others’ emotions. 

Understanding one’s feelings with clarity and categories, reduces misunderstandings in situations. his could benefit us as humans not only for ourselves but also for our relationships. This sort of emotional intelligence is critical for successfully displaying and understanding emotions. Emotions are feelings that affect every human aspect of life. Understanding our emotions allows us to navigate our feelings with more awareness and empathy. Embracing this opens pathways for deeper self-awareness and mutual understanding, enhancing our lives and fostering a more empathetic world.

Humans naturally respond to tears in any situations or emotions that deeply affect us. Whether they are from joy, sorrow, frustration, or relief. Tears physically manifest our internal emotional states, often helping us process and release intense feelings. In times of joy or sorrow, tears express emotions that words often cannot convey, enabling us to communicate the depth of our feelings through a simple yet profound physical reaction. The different types of tears range from person to person, causing emotions and our responses to be perceived differently.

For example, tears of joy are often thought of as the body’s response to happiness or joy. However, joy can be more complex than simply feeling good in a moment of success. Take the example of a soccer team that has lost 42 matches in a row only to win their 43rd match. At first glance, the win is a simple cause for celebration. However, the parent watching this victory unfold may shed tears that are not merely joyful but are instead an outpouring of relief. Relief is crucial in the emotional response to such a long-awaited victory. The team has struggled for months, pouring their hearts into every match without seeing success. The parent, too, has witnessed this struggle, feeling their frustration and anxiety build up with each loss. When the team finally wins, the tears that follow are not just about the joy of seeing their child’s team win but about the end of an emotional journey. The victory represents the release of months of tension, anxiety, and helplessness. In this case, the joy is not just the feeling of success but the emotional relief that comes with the cessation of stress and disappointment.

Aside from tears of joy, we can also compare an alternate example, if you were part of a basketball team and have experienced game losses back to back. If there have no victories by your 43rd game, this will trigger most likely tears of frustration and hopelessness. Some may even have tears of anger. These responses are all expected because of the situation. When angry or frustrated, some people tend to overflow with tears. The other team may perceive it as tears of embarrassment, but to your coach, who has been at all games, recognizes what types of tears they are.

In this example, different emotions and tears can even trigger your opponents. “Why some partners are so triggered by our tears” an article by Yvonne Castañeda, outlines how emotions can trigger specific responses in partners or other people. “For some, seeing you break down in tears can trigger all kinds of discomfort. They might be overwhelmed because they’ve never been taught or given permission to accept and process their own feelings; they have no frame of reference. This is especially true for individuals raised in environments in which emotional expression, especially tears, was discouraged or viewed as a sign of weakness. As a result, they may react with anger when faced with your tears because it challenges their ingrained beliefs about emotional expression.” (Psychology Today, 2024).

If you could remember a moment where you cried genuine tears of joy, would you be able to recognize why you cried them ? For example, say someone is crying over finally getting a car after months of not having transportation. Would the tears of joy be because of the vehicle or because you have transportation now? One could even argue that you only cried because you no longer have to take the bus. These tears could be tears of relief, or they could be tears of excitement. It’s impossible to say precisely what every person is crying about because they could be generally crying over a variety of things or something completely different than what you see.

According to an article by the University Of Miami, an article published in 2024 by Barbara Gutierrez, argues that there are three different types of tears. “It can be because of happiness or sadness. From pain or even relief. Experts say that there are three kinds of tears: basal tears that line our eyes and keep them wet and healthy, emotional tears that are triggered by strong feelings, and reflex tears that are shed because of irritants including chemicals.” These tears are difficult to identify because they generally all look the same. All tears are clear and running down our eyes. Typically, the actions of the person who is crying help us determine their tears and cause us to react a certain way, whether it’s someone on their knees weeping, trying to hide their tears, a person who is laughing and crying, etc.

In the debate on the nature of emotions, arguments that separate emotions as an internal and personal phenomenon to make them entirely biologically driven ignore the contribution of social, cultural, and physical environments in determining our feelings and emotions. For example, the norms of a culture explain how emotions are to be enacted and interpreted. Although in all cultures, it varies; in some cultures, individuals are socialized to suppress their emotions for example, anger or sadness whereas in others, most forms of emotional expression are more tolerated. Cultures also place different levels of importance on certain emotions. For example, pride is often viewed positively in individualistic societies that celebrate personal achievement, while in collectivist cultures, it may be seen as arrogance or self-centeredness, with humility being more highly valued.

An article published by Psychology Today, How Cultures Shape Emotions, by Marianna Pogosyan, “Almost everything about emotions is cultural: what we call them, how we think about them, how we regulate them. We learn about emotions from observation, but also from how others respond to us when we have certain emotions. We learn prescriptive norms that include rules about when to have what emotions. It’s clear from the infant and child literature that we learn a lot about our emotions from our interactions with our caregivers. But social learning continues in adulthood.” She explains that while emotions have biological and universal components, their expression, understanding, and significance vary widely across cultures. Different societies have distinct emotional norms, vocabularies, and expectations, leading to culturally specific emotional responses. Similarly, emotions like anger may be considered disruptive or inappropriate in some cultures, while in others, anger can be a powerful tool for asserting one’s rights or standing up for oneself. This proves that emotions are biologically and socially influenced by the surrounding culture in which the individual lives.

Moreover, it’s essential to suggest that emotions can be divided into clear categories and neatly packaged as distinct, universal states such as “anger” or “happiness.”. Research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that emotions are much more complex and fluid than this approach would imply. For example, emotions such as sadness and fear might share some overlapping underlying neuroanatomy, making diagnostic boundaries challenging to cut clearly. Further, people frequently report experiencing multiple emotions simultaneously, challenging the discrete, definite conception of emotions. One may feel happy and sad when considering a bittersweet memory, such as leaving a familiar home for a new life. This complexity points to the need for more theories attempting to reduce emotions to a fixed set of types or reactions.

On the contrary, focusing only on the biological side of emotions ignores how much our thoughts influence our feelings. Cognitive appraisal theories are based on the idea that emotions result not directly from automatic biological responses to an event but from a person’s interpretation and evaluation. One might consider a neutral experience, such as receiving critical feedback at work, as threatening and feeling anxious or defensive. Instead, one might appraise this experience as an opportunity for growth and feel motivated or determined. In this example, emotions are occasioned by biological responses and mental frameworks through which we understand the world and make sense of what happens to us. By leaving out the cognitive aspect, we only see emotions as biological reactions without understanding how people think about and react to situations.

The view of emotions as internal processes must also recognize the vital role that social interactions play in emotional development and regulation. Emotions are not experienced in isolation but are deeply connected to relationships with others. From early childhood, humans rely on their parents/caregivers and social environments to learn how to regulate and express their emotions. Emotional intelligence demonstrates that understanding, managing, and responding to emotions in social situations is crucial for mental health and healthy relationships. People often reflect and imitate the emotional states of those around them, a phenomenon known as emotional contagion.

For example children with “helicopter parents” react emotionally different to being monitored at all times versus children who are already used to that by now. In the article, Helping or Hovering? The effects of Helicopter Parenting on College Students WellBeing, by Holly H. Schriffin studies how over involved helicopter parents negatively affect college students. While their intention may be to help it can often lead to mental health issues, change in psychological well being, and lower levels of academic performance. Nelson says,

The generalizability of the results is limited by the relative homogeneity of the sample. Although helicopter parenting has primarily been described as a phenomenon in relation to middle- to upper-middle class populations similar to this sample, the ways in which helicopter parenting behaviors are manifested and perceived in economically and ethnically diverse populations are not fully understood and deserve further research.

This also supports the idea that individuals react different because of diversity, economic statues, gender and more. This social side of emotion shows that emotions are not just internal feelings but deeply influenced by social interactions. To truly understand them, we need to consider both their biological basis and the social contexts in which they arise.

In conclusion, emotions are essential to human life. Emotions influence our thoughts, actions and interactions with others. They are complex and difficult to understand and navigate in all individuals ranging from adults to infants. We all have ranges of emotions like basics such as happiness, anger, sadness etc. to more complex emotions. How we express them depends on numerous circumstances of an individual including our past, personality, sex, age, and more.

An important factor affecting emotional expression is attachment style. Research shows that people with different levels of attachment such as security or anxiety cope with emotions in different ways. For example, those with secure attachments manage emotions well, while those with anxious attachments struggle more. These studies suggest that our emotional attachments and responses are shaped early in our lives and follow us as we develop. As mentioned in the examples it’s known that emotions aren’t exclusive to adults. Expressions and different cries in infants offer insights to how we can recognize and communicate our feelings. By understanding how we express our emotions at an early age it becomes easier as we grow to communicate and regulate our emotions and behaviors.

References

Menefee, D. S., Ledoux, T., & Johnston, C. A. (2022). The Importance of Emotional Regulation in Mental Health. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 16(1), 28–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/15598276211049771

Rowan University Federation. (2024). Rowan.edu. https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.rowan.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=rowan&id=GALE%7CA287750494&v=2.1&it=r&aty=ip

Rosenhouse, J. (1977). A preliminary report: an analysis of some types of a baby’s cries. Journal of Phonetics, 5(4), 299–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0095-4470(19)31201-x

Guy-Evans, O. (2023, February 17). Primary and Secondary Emotions. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/primary-and-secondary-emotions.html

Why Some Partners Are So Triggered by Our Tears. (2024). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-of-parallels/202406/why-your-tears-might-make-your-partner-angry

Gutierrez, B. (2024, October). Why do we cry? Miami.edu. https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/06/why-do-we-cry.html

‌Pogosyan, M. (2018, March 30). How Culture Shapes Emotions. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/201803/how-culture-shapes-emotions

Helping or Hovering? The Effects of Helicopter Parenting
on College Students’ Well-Being
Holly H. Schiffrin

‌