Systematic studies of the role of emotions in personality development are scarce, only a few of them have been completed; however, the available theoretical and empirical data reveal a close relationship between various patterns of experiencing the emotion of interest and such personal characteristics, as the ability to establish social relations, timidity and desire for achievement.
Interest and achievements
Any teacher knows that an engaged student learns better; In the same way, any boss, manager, or simply observant person knows that the employee who works more productively is the one who treats his work “with dedication” (who is interested in his work). You don't have to be an artist or a scientist to experience creativity - any task, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, can be seen in a larger context, and that context makes it important and significant. Even if a person is not interested in a job, but he cannot find another one, he can always direct his interest to relationships with colleagues or become interested in the more general, global goal that this work serves.
Evidence from studies of motivation human activity, as well as data from personality studies show that the success of human activity is determined by three factors: the strength of motivation (the desire for success), the presence of achievement values in a person’s value system, as well as the development of the necessary skills and abilities (McClelland, 1985). We will look at each of these factors separately to understand how they relate to the emotion of interest.
Motivation for success. Emotions play a primary role in motivation. Any motive can be considered as a combination of thoughts and feelings, as an affective-cognitive structure. The variety of motives of human activity is determined by the variety of combinations that are formed by various thoughts and feelings of a person. Measuring motivation for success and the desire to achieve should be approached from the point of view of the emotion of interest. The more interest you have in something, the stronger your desire to do it well.
Think about the work you are doing. What does studying mean to you? What interests you most? What doesn't pique your interest? Do you strive to find use for your intellectual capabilities or are you more interested in relationships with classmates and future colleagues? Do you strive to achieve success, do you consider it important in life?
Achievement values. Emotions also play an important role in the formation of a person’s value system. It is impossible to imagine a value that has no emotional meaning for its owner. We value what awakens certain feelings in us, and the stronger these feelings, the more significant the values that correspond to them are for us.
How are achievement values formed? No one can probably give an exact answer to this question. It is known that different cultures profess different values of achievement, although it is quite possible that it is not so much the values of achievement that differ as their ideas of what is considered achievement or success. It is also known that standards of achievement, standards of success, vary significantly from community to community and even from family to family.
Success-oriented parents may not always be able to instill the same values in their children. If in the child’s mind the achievements and successes of his parents are associated with a feeling of joy and interest, then he will probably adhere to the same values. However, if success is perceived by the child only as the result of a long, hard struggle, unbearable hardships, deprivations and sacrifices, then the likelihood of him assimilating the values and living standards of his parents is reduced; in such cases, out of a sense of protest, the child may begin to strive for a completely opposite way of life, one that is not associated with the constant pursuit of success. Thus, in order to foster a healthy desire for achievement in a child, parents must have a sincere interest in their activities and a sober attitude towards their successes and failures - otherwise, the exaggerated importance of achievement values will interfere with the formation and development of other values.
Skills and abilities. There are many types of skills. Thus, various crafts require specific skills in working with specific materials. However, skills are needed not only by those who work with their hands; they are needed by any professional, be it an athlete, a minister or a politician. So what does the emotion of interest have to do with skills? First of all, the emotion of interest plays a big role in the formation and development of a skill.
The acquisition and formation of a skill depends on a whole set of conditions, the main ones being talent (abilities) and interest. There are skills that can only be learned and developed if a person has an innate ability for them; however, no matter what talent a person has, he must hone it, polish it in practical activities, otherwise this talent will remain unclaimed. Constant practice is also necessary to maintain a high level of professionalism.
It is usually not difficult for us, even in hindsight, to know how well our abilities correspond to our interests. And John Henry’s story about his two hobbies can serve as proof of this.
There was a period when I suddenly became interested in the guitar. I realized that I had no special musical abilities, but I really liked the guitar, and I hoped that with practice I could achieve good results. I bought an instrument, but after trying for a long time to master it, I realized that I was not able to play. This realization was so bitter that I lost all interest in the guitar. This is how my hobby ended.
As for my other hobby, tennis, here everything was the other way around. I had been playing tennis for many years, and a moment came when it began to seem to me that I had exhausted my capabilities, that I could no longer play better. I couldn't hit the run-up shot, the ball usually didn't reach the net, and I also didn't get the volley. However, the delight that I felt from the very process of the game made me go out onto the court again and again. Constant training and the help of a good coach helped me not only master these strokes, but also love them.
There is no need to talk about how useful it is to realize your limitations and give up your goal, as did John Henry, who realized in time that his desire did not correspond to his capabilities. On the other hand, we see that one should not give up too quickly - practice and the help of an experienced mentor will help a person master and develop the skills necessary for a particular activity.
Thus, all of the above determinants of the success of human activity - the desire to achieve, the values of achievement and the necessary skills - are in one way or another connected with the emotion of interest. A person who is busy with some business, but has no interest in it, should probably look at this matter more broadly, try to find those aspects of it that could awaken in him such an important emotion as interest. People who are interested, who can even feel excited from time to time about their daily and work responsibilities, have a much greater chance of success and achieving personally significant goals.
SUMMARY
The emotion of interest has played a very important role in human evolution, performing various adaptive functions throughout the history of its existence. The formation and development of social relations is largely connected with the interest that a person experiences in representatives of his own species - of all the phenomena of our world, man is most interested in man. Interest also contributes to the achievement of sexual pleasure and serves as a stabilizing factor in sexual and family relations. It is necessary for the development of skills and abilities, which means it plays an important role in intellectual development person.
Interest in the unknown forms the basis of research, cognitive and constructive activity; it serves a necessary condition perceptual-cognitive development and has important for the processes of attention, memory and learning.
The emotion of interest characterizes the child’s activity from the moment of birth. It is precisely due to the focusing influence of interest on attention processes that perceptual learning and development of the child’s cognitive functions become possible. In theory differential emotions It is generally accepted that novelty of stimulation is an innate activator of interest and that the perceptual-cognitive and motor activity of a newborn child is provided by the emotion of interest.
Although the emotion of interest is innate, socialization plays a leading role in its development, and therefore in the formation of human personality. Unfavorable socio-economic conditions hinder the development and socialization of interest, while “enriched” conditions, tolerance and parental support contribute to the development of this important emotion.
The interaction of an individual’s ability to express emotions of interest with one or another socialization factor determines the nature of a person’s affective-cognitive orientation. Interest can be directed towards anything, but the greatest benefit to humanity comes from intellectual, aesthetic and other types of creative activity. One person is more interested in objects, another - ideas, a third - people. The relationship between the emotion of interest, cognitive orientation and action can determine the type of personality - thinking, acting or affective.
Emotions interact not only with each other, but also with various drives, regulating their intensity, and the emotion of interest is perhaps the most powerful regulator of drive. Interest can dull the sensation of pain when a person consciously or unconsciously directs his attention to an object, situation or phenomenon of interest. Interest, combined with joy, forms the motivational basis of play and other forms of activity. The interaction of interest with fear gives rise to a state of anxiety.
Distorted development of the emotion of interest and excitement can create psychological and even psychopathological problems. Manic patients tend to be different increased level interest-excitement. Abnormally high or low expression of the sensation-seeking motive may be an indicator of a pathologically high or low threshold for the emotion of interest and may cause adaptation disorders.
The emotion of interest plays a vital role in motivating success. The desire for achievement can be measured by the degree of expression of the emotion of interest. Interest is also necessary for the development of skills; it is this that motivates human activity aimed at improving innate abilities.
FOR FURTHER READING
Miller P. H., Zalenski R. Preschoolers" knowledge about attention. - Developmental Psychology, 1982, 18(6), 871-875.
Children's understanding of the concept of “absent-mindedness” and the motivating effect of interest on attentiveness and learning are shown.
TomkinsS.S. Interest-excitement. - In: Affect, imagery, consciousness; Vol. 1, The positive affects. - New York, Springer, 1962, 336-368.
An original and comprehensive study of the dynamics of interest and its impact on learning, creativity, and personality.
Watson D., Clark L. A. On traits and temperament: General and specific factors of emotional experience and their relation to the five-factor model. - Journal of Personality, in press (1991).
Experimental study relationship between personality and emotions. The proposed mindfulness scale may allow for the quantification of interest as an emotion, and the positive affect scale combines interest and pleasure. Both of these scales are significantly correlated with personality traits.
Intelligence. How your brain works Sheremetyev Konstantin
Feeling of interest
Feeling of interest
A sense of interest is the engine of intelligence. It has a close connection with the emotion of fear-anger. We became acquainted with this emotion when we talked about the psychology of a dog. Fear and anger are varieties of the same emotion, which prepares the body for action by releasing it into the blood. large quantities adrenaline. As a result, breathing and heart rate increase, blood clotting increases, and muscle tone increases. The body is preparing for a fight. Whether he will attack or run away depends on how the dog assesses its ability to cope with the offender.
The emotion of fear-anger performs a protective function and copes with it very well. Having experienced this emotion on dogs, nature decided to use it to protect children. Although, with pathologies of intellectual development, this emotion persists in adults.
According to the observations of Rene Spitz, a child begins to be afraid of strangers from the age of 8 months. More recent research has shown that it is not the fact that it is someone you don't know that matters, but how they behave. Fear is caused by its rapid approach. Later, the main reasons that generate the emotion of fear were identified.
This emotion is based on any unusual stimulus, if its appearance does not coincide with previous experience, and the strength of the impact exceeds a certain threshold. Thus, fear occurs when there is a loud sound, the rapid approach of an unfamiliar animal, or a sudden loss of support.
When the emotion of fear takes possession of a person, the usual actions cease to be performed, the person becomes numb and watches with horror the object that causes fear. The intellect turns off, attention sharply narrows, which creates the effect of “tunnel perception” - a person perceives only what concerns danger. He has a feeling of loss of control over the situation. The body becomes wobbly, cold sweat appears, and nausea creeps into the throat.
Simultaneously with fear, the emotion of anger develops. It is called when the stimulus does not meet expectations, but is not very frightening. Seven-month-old babies became angry when they were shown masks of human faces that had distortions. What they didn't like most was the normal face image printed on a white square panel.
The emotion of fear-anger is extremely useful for infants, as it provides at least some protection from dangerous situations. If a baby notices a large insect, its crying may attract its mother, who will save him from the terrible monster. Experiences associated with fear are imprinted in memory for a long time. If a child crawls under the bed and gets lost in the dark, he will then avoid the dangerous place for a long time.
The emotion of fear is contagious. If a child sees that the father is afraid of some object, he will also be afraid of this object. Moreover, it is not only the dangerous situation itself that is frightening, but also the fearful reaction of other people. This leads to the rapid spread of panic. Seeing someone else's fear, a person immediately experiences fear himself. If there are many such people, then fear quickly develops into panic.
Anger is also contagious. Parental abuse provokes aggressive behavior in children. Two-year-old children threw toys on the floor and kicked them if they disagreed with something.
In an aggressive crowd, a person experiences wild anger, which makes his eyes darken. He rushes to smash and destroy everything around.
The emotion of fear-anger, although it gives energy for action, is extremely destructive. Overactivation nervous system leads to the fact that the load on all organs increases to the maximum and even prohibitive. And turning off the intellect makes the experience of this emotion very dangerous.
As intelligence develops, the emotion of fear-anger gradually fades away and is replaced by a feeling of interest. If fear continued to dominate a person, then a person’s adaptation to life would become impossible. Any novelty would cause fear and a desire to defend oneself, and it would not be possible to go beyond the boundaries of the familiar and established.
The development of the frontal cortex leads to the fact that the aggressive reaction is replaced by a feeling of interest. The feeling of interest is the opposite of the emotion of fear-anger, although it is caused by the same stimuli. Very often, fear researchers are faced with the fact that experiments that, in their opinion, were supposed to cause fear, actually caused interest.
Conversely, a strong emotional reaction leads to the opposite process. Everything new causes panic. This connection “emotion of fear-anger – feeling of interest” forms a kind of foundation of the psyche and, one way or another, passes through a person’s entire conscious life.
The basis of intellectual behavior is a sense of interest. It develops from an orienting reflex, which manifests itself already on the first day of a baby’s life.
The feeling of interest also appears in early childhood. The child becomes inquisitive and learns easily.
The more developed the brain, the stronger the sense of interest becomes. In a person, the feeling of interest reaches the level of a burning sensation of mystery.
An interesting object captures and fascinates. It is the feeling of interest that gives a person a feeling of fullness of life. When interest increases, a person feels inspired and is ready to work all day long.
A sense of interest gives energy to life.
This is the secret to peak performance. If you have a big job to do, you have to make it interesting. A sense of interest will increase your strength tenfold. This explains the amazing achievements of geniuses. They developed such a sense of interest that their intellect crushed problems like a bulldozer.
Conversely, if you are bored, your intellect curls up and falls asleep. An important conclusion follows from this. You will only succeed in the business that interests you. Big mistake For many people, they choose their jobs based on prestige, salary, or proximity to home. But they don’t pay attention to how interesting she is to them. Perceiving work as a heavy burden, they cannot achieve any results in it. Management considers them worthless workers, and they themselves feel like failures.
Any business should be based on a sense of interest. The higher the interest, the higher the energy, the greater the success.
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Interest is the most frequently experienced positive emotion. It is an extremely important type of motivation in the development of knowledge, skills, and intelligence. Interest is the only motivation that can support daily work in a normal manner. It is necessary for creativity. Interest can be aroused by imagination and memory in the absence of external stimulation. A common cause of the emotion of interest is the imaginary images generated by the individual associated with achieving the goals that the individual sets for himself.
In terms of external manifestations, interest is difficult to define precisely because facial expressions of interest are not as definite as with many other emotions. Instinctive in this case may be a slight raising or lowering of the eyebrows, a slight widening or narrowing of the eyelids, a slight tilt of the head to the shoulder. In general, an interested person looks like they are paying attention or listening. A person shows signs of curiosity and excitement; with intense interest, a person is characterized by inspiration and revitalization. It is this revitalization that ensures the connection of interest with cognitive and motor activity.
The importance of the emotion of interest in the evolutionary development of civilization and in the individual development of the individual cannot be overestimated. According to S.S. Tomkins “Without interest, the development of thinking and conceptual apparatus would be seriously impaired. The relationship between interest and the functions of thinking and memory is so extensive that the lack of affective support from interest threatens the development of intelligence no less than the destruction of brain tissue. To think you need to worry, be excited, and constantly receive reinforcement. There is not a single skill that can be mastered without sustained interest.”
Interest is considered one of the fundamental innate emotions and is considered the dominant of all emotions in a normal, healthy person. It is assumed that it is the emotion of interest that is constantly present in consciousness and that it is this emotion, together with cognitive structures and orientations, that directs perception, cognition and action. At the conscious level, the key determinants of interest are novelty and change. The source of change and novelty can be both the environment and imagination, memory and thinking. The emotion of interest supports research, study and constructive activity, interpersonal and family relationships, is important for the development of the individual’s skills and intelligence, and plays a leading role in the development and formation of personality.
It is impossible to overestimate the significance that the emotion of interest and excitement has for individual development, personality formation and socialization of a person, and it is this significance - evolutionary-biological and psychological - that will be the subject of consideration in this chapter.
EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EMOTION OF INTEREST
The emotion of interest played an important role in human evolution. Even in the absence of facts that would irrefutably testify to the validity of this statement, the arguments put forward in its favor seem quite convincing, especially if we agree with the definition of the emotion of interest, which was given in the previous chapter. Hass (1970) writes:
For primitive man, this simple motor act [widening the eyes and turning the head in the right direction] was undoubtedly important, since it served as a signal for youth and other tribesmen, indicating to them where the source of interest was located - this kind of information is vital for those who hunt who are constantly in danger. When the leader (and this, as a rule, was the most experienced member of the tribe) noticed something interesting and important, the survival of the entire tribe depended on the ability of the rest of the tribe to silently determine the location of the object just by the leader’s glance (p. 113).
Interest and evolution of society
A person establishes and maintains relationships with other people largely because a human being is of greater interest to him than any other living organism, object or situation. Man is the most complex of all objects in our world, and the complexity of an object awakens interest in it. Man is the most changeable and unpredictable of the phenomena of our world, and interest, as we have already said, is aroused and maintained by change and novelty. The activity that is specific to all primates and which we call play is initiated and maintained by the emotion of interest; this activity is a means of forming and maintaining social relationships. Play brings children together, encouraging them to explore and take risks, and it also unites the parents who look after them.
Interest as a stabilizing factor in sexual and family relationships
The relationship between emotion and sexual desire was discussed in Chapter 1, but in considering the evolutionary significance of the emotion of interest, it is important to note that interest not only increases sexual pleasure, but also plays an important role in maintaining long-term relationships between members of the opposite sexes. Only those spouses and sexual partners who do not lose interest in each other as human beings will be happy in marriage and will be able to enjoy communicating with each other.
Interest and development of intelligence
We will return to this topic when considering the role of emotions in creativity, but from an evolutionary perspective, it should be noted that it is the emotion of interest that forces an individual to engage in a certain type of activity or develop a certain skill for a long time (see Figure 5-1). The acquired knowledge and skills replenish the reserve funds of intelligence. The emotion of interest also forces the individual to differentiate and describe those aspects of the world that he would like to know and explore.
Rice. 5-1. With only a rod and a tin hoop at his disposal, this little Nepalese masters the ancient international game with interest and perseverance.
FUNCTIONS OF EMOTIONS OF INTEREST
Biological function of interest
It would probably be fair to say that emotions serve as a source of energy for behavior. Of course, emotions themselves do not produce energy; a person is supplied with energy by the processes of digestion and metabolism. But emotions organize and direct the generated energy, create specific and well-defined tendencies to action, and that is why we have the right to consider emotions as a source of energy for behavior.
This energy management occurs primarily at the biological level. For example, some emotions, compared to others, provide greater blood supply to the muscles involved in instrumental activity. A study involving the presentation of human faces to newborn children found that the child's orienting response was accompanied by a decrease in heart rate. Bradycardia is also observed in an adult with a shift in attention caused by the need to collect information from the environment (Lacey, Lacey, 1970). Apparently, the slowing of the heart rate creates optimal conditions to receive sensory information. Thus, in infants, a drop in heart rate is a kind of calming factor. This relative physiological rest is necessary for the newborn baby to optimal reception and processing information and responding adequately to it. A moderate level of interest is necessary to provide energy for behavior and long-term activity. When working on a long-term project, a person must constantly be interested in it, otherwise the work will cause negative emotions in him and he will not cope well with it.
Motivational function of interest
Any emotion performs motivational functions, and these functions can be classified into one of two types. The first type of motivational functions is associated with internal processes that direct an individual in a certain direction or towards a certain goal. The second type is associated with social motivation, that is, with the process through which an individual’s emotional expression motivates the behavior of those around him and those interacting with him. For now we will consider only the first type of motivation; we will return to the second later, when we discuss the social function of the emotion of interest.
Whether a child looks at his mother’s face or, attracted by the sights and sounds of the surrounding world, looks around, whether he takes his first steps, trying to reach a parent or take possession of some object, he thus interacts with the world around him, and this interaction is largely degree motivated by the emotion of interest. The inexhaustible persistence with which a child explores this world, manipulates objects and masters more and more complex ways interactions with them, convincingly testifies to the enormous motivational power of the emotion of interest. A favorite toy or game sometimes captivates a child so much that he does not feel hungry or tired. If a mother, wanting to feed her child, interrupts his play, this can cause him frustration and an outburst of negative emotions. In such cases, you need to enter into a game with the child and try to quietly distract his attention from his favorite toy and switch him to food. If it is high time for a child to be in bed, but he does not want to part with his toys, we say that he is. In such cases, we are more likely to achieve the desired result if we turn the bedtime procedure into a quiet game.
Not only children forget about hunger and fatigue when they experience an emotion of interest and excitement. We, too, sometimes get so caught up in work that we don’t feel hungry and skip our lunch break. Excitement can even dull pain. There are often cases when an athlete, having received an injury during a game, began to feel pain only after the end of the match. It is also known that climbers forget about all physiological needs (drives) when several meters separate them from the top. Travelers endure hardships for weeks, months and even years - so strong is their thirst for discovery and the desire for their cherished goal.
Research and teaching. The child’s interest in the world around him, which contains enormous opportunities for research, manipulation and learning, greatly facilitates the process of development of the child’s cognitive functions and vital skills. Experimental results and animal observation data suggest that the richness of the environment surrounding a young individual even influences the development of its brain. The brain of a newborn baby has almost 90% nerve cells brain of an adult, but this is not a static and developmentally complete formation, since most of the relationships between its trillion cells are established after birth, and, as some studies show, their formation is due to environmental influences. It is assumed that some of these neural connections are a function of learning and undergo changes over time. If this assumption is correct, then we can conclude that the emotion of interest, being the motivating force of a person’s constant sensory interaction with the environment, contributes to the development of his brain.
Renninger and Wozniak (1985) conducted a targeted experiment to study the role of the emotion of interest in the processes of attention, memory and learning. At the preparatory stage of the experiment, psychologists, observing the play of preschool children, identified for each child two toys that aroused the greatest interest among them. Subsequently, when giving the child a specific task, the experimenters used precisely these two toys that were most attractive to him. In the first task, experimenters presented photographs to the child along with photographs of other toys and recorded the time the child spent looking at each photograph. It was found that children looked at photographs longer than photographs of other toys, which led the researchers to conclude that a child's attentional shift is determined not only by the physical characteristics of the toy, but also by the interest that it arouses in the child.
The second experiment examined the child's ability to recognize objects. The researchers developed a special game in which the child had to recognize the toys that another child - let's call him Steve - took a special one when going to visit a friend. First, the child was shown images of all the toys that Steve has in his house (twelve toys in total), and then - images of the six toys that Steve took to his friend (there was always an image among them). After some time, the child was again presented with images of these six toys, but this time together with images of toys that he had not seen before. It was found that the child better recognized those toys that aroused his interest.
The third experiment examined the effect of the emotion of interest on a child's ability to remember which toys he had just seen. Memorization - more difficult task than recognition, and therefore requires more stringent verification. It is easier for a person to recognize familiar objects than to remember them without having them before his eyes. The experimental procedure was as follows. In front of the child, the experimenter one by one lowered nine toys into the slot of a brightly colored box, and the child no longer saw them. Then the experimenter asked the child to name the toys that were in the box. This procedure was repeated several times with different sets of toys. There was only one in each set, but the child remembered it much better than the other toys. Each time she was the fifth to go into the box. Experiments on learning and memory have revealed that in a series of sequentially presented objects, a person better remembers the object that was presented to him last - in our case, it should have been the ninth toy. However, the children remembered no worse, and sometimes even better, than the last toy presented to them. Based on the results of these three experiments, the researchers concluded that a child's interest is a developed and directed emotion and that a person's interests are a reflection of the knowledge and values that he uses to organize experience, memory and action.
Social function interest
We have already said that any fundamental emotion performs a social function. And the emotion of interest is no exception. Adler (1964) considered social interest to be one of the main driving forces human behavior. Man is first and foremost a social being; his well-being and civilization require a certain degree of social organization and order; Therefore, we can say that every person, to one degree or another, is characterized by social interest. The social function of the emotion of interest is most clearly manifested in play and social communication.
The emotion of interest and excitement: development and socialization 129
A game. Representatives of almost all higher forms of life have an idea of the game. And this is especially true for young individuals. For a child, playing with objects and toys acquires the most different shapes- from throwing toys on the floor to complex fantasy constructions. Each of these forms characterizes a certain stage of child development and is extremely important. Psychologists Jerry and Dorothy Singer (Singer, 1979) have shown that imagination and fantasy forms of play serve as an indicator of a child's emotional and cognitive development.
A child learning to release his negative emotions in fantasies and play, thereby acquiring a valuable adaptive skill that will be useful to him in adulthood. Klinger (1971) concluded that experience of aggressive fantasies reduces the likelihood of actual aggressive behavior. Those children and those adults who do not release their anger and aggressiveness in play or fantasy are more likely to express them in open forms of aggression.
The driving force behind any form of play is the emotion of interest. Children play with toys that arouse their curiosity, that excite them, and those that make play interesting. Not every child is active in the game. Some children are naturally characterized by a higher level of activity, which encourages them to constantly explore the environment and manipulate objects, while others are born less active and need more external stimulation - parents and educators should devote more time to them, awaken in them interest and encourage action. Otherwise, the child's ability to explore and understand the physical world will be seriously weakened.
Expressing emotions of interest and social communication. The spontaneous manifestation of emotion clearly and clearly signals the internal state of the individual. Such manifestations are never neutral and rarely go unnoticed. When communicating with people, you react in one way or another to their emotional manifestations, just as they react to yours. Emotional expression plays a big role in interpersonal communication.
At no other age is the communication significance of emotional expression more evident than in early childhood. And it is especially clearly manifested in the interaction of a newborn child with his mother, when the expression of interest on the child’s face indicates attention. The mother's ability to attract and hold the child's attention is a sure sign of the vivacity of his reaction. As the child develops, observing the various emotional manifestations of parents and older children, he learns a lot. So, finding himself in an unfamiliar or ambiguous situation and not knowing how to behave in it, he looks at his parents - the interested expression on their faces can prompt him to interact with an unfamiliar object, person or phenomenon.
Researchers who have focused on the study of human gaze have found that eye-to-eye gaze indicates a person's desire for contact, and in some cases, intimate relationships between people (Argyle, 1972). Very often, gaze can indicate an emotion of interest, although the gaze Other emotions (eg, an angry look) as well as drives (eg, sexual arousal) may be expressed. But in young children, a gaze, and especially a direct gaze, most often indicates an emotion of interest.
DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIALIZATION OF THE EMOTION OF INTEREST
Interest characterizes the child's activity from the very beginning of his life. With the exception of those moments when the baby experiences discomfort from an unmet physiological need, he looks, listens, makes sounds and makes movements under the influence and guidance of the emotion of interest. In addition, the emotion of interest promotes the development of sensory and seisimotor coordination and related skills (White, 1975). Interest-motivated forms of activity and interaction with the outside world lay the foundation for the development of all mental spheres; the absence of these forms of activity and interaction with the environment can lead to severe developmental delays (Dennis, 1960). Hunt (1965) provides evidence that lack of interaction with the environment, so necessary for the formation positive feeling involvement, generates apathy in the child. He writes: (p. 234; italics mine. - K.I.).
Due to the fact that the child is interested in human face, he learns to distinguish his mother from other people. By interestedly tracing the movements of the mother and her face in space, the child comprehends such parameters of the external world as the distance between objects and their spatial placement. Interest in space and its exploration leads to the child learning to walk. Spurred by interest in surrounding objects, their shapes and spatial relationships between them, the child learns to operate with objects. Attracted by the brightness of certain objects, he comprehends their size. A perceptual process that appears automatic in an adult is actually the result of perceptual learning, motivated and supported by an interest in exploring and mastering the world around us. As Huxley (1954) noted, sensory information is only gradual (p. 25).
Rice. 5-2. A partially hidden object arouses increased interest in a Russian child (left); A rustling in the bushes attracted the Indian teenager's attention. living in a mountain village in northern India (right).
Development of the emotion of interest in its relationship with other emotions
Some of Piaget's remarks regarding intellectual development and Hunt's ideas about the development of intrinsic motivation are applicable to the construction of a model of emotional-cognitive interaction, a model that describes the development of the emotion of interest and its interaction with perceptual, cognitive and motor activity.
Hunt (1965) divides the development of intrinsic motivation (the innate need to process information) into three stages. The first stage is characterized by innate reactivity, the ability to respond to variability (incongruence) of the incoming signal. At this stage, the standard or norm in relation to which new signals are perceived as incongruent (and therefore give rise to processes that have motivational significance) is the sensory stimulation received by the body. Hunt, following Piaget, believes that the motivational basis of this reactivity is comparable to the concept of the orienting reflex developed by Russian scientists. However, the concept of an orienting reflex is applicable only to explain the primary sensory contact with an object, while stable reactivity is better explained by the concept of an innate emotion of interest. In addition, according to Hunt, the very concept of the affective-cognitive model implies the child’s activity: the child does not just respond to some influence, he takes an active part in interaction with the environment. Even in the first 3-4 months of life, which Hunt considers the period of reactivity (stage 1), his perceptual and sensorimotor activity is generated by the innate emotion of interest.
According to Hunt, the second stage in the development of intrinsic motivation covers the age of 4 to 9 months, it occurs at the moment when the child begins to be active in establishing perceptual contact with the source of the signal. According to Piaget (1932/1952), the child is now ready to take action in order to. Based on this observation by Piaget, Hunt concludes that at this stage the child is most interested in a spectacle that he can observe repeatedly. Hunt suggests that on a similar basis (p. 237). At this stage of development, as Hunt believes, certain objects become attractive to the child due to his repeated contacts with them; they arouse the child’s interest because he recognizes them.
If we talk about this stage of motivation development in terms of the theory of differential emotions, then we can say that the child begins to enjoy his own activity and that the interaction of the emotion of interest with the emotion of joy supports his activity. Familiar faces, places and objects now arouse in him not so much interest as joy. It is the interaction that arises as a result of the recognition of objects and phenomena in the surrounding world that fuels the child’s efforts aimed at establishing or restoring perceptual contact with familiar objects and phenomena.
Only at the third stage (at about 9 months of age), according to Hunt, the child begins to be interested in new, unfamiliar objects and phenomena. This statement does not correspond to the affective-cognitive model, according to which novelty is an activator of interest from the very beginning of a person’s life, just as it does not correspond to the results of the studies we have already mentioned, which demonstrate the influence of the factor of novelty and complexity on the child’s perception and attention. However, despite some differences, both Hunt's model and the affective-cognitive model recognize the importance of the novelty factor as an activator of the emotion of interest. The role of this factor in the development of the child during the last quarter of the first year and the entire second year of life is convincingly shown by Hunt. Hunt points out that the child's interest in novelty at this stage of development leads to three important consequences. First, interest in novelty provides motivation for (Hunt, 1965, pp. 248-249). So, for example, having an interest in such an action as letting go of an object from his hands (which in itself gives the child joy), the child soon no longer just passively drops objects, but deliberately throws them, carefully tracing the trajectory of their movement and other changes caused by this action . Secondly, interest in novelty becomes the motive for research activity, the activity that Piaget calls (p. 250). The child no longer simply reproduces familiar patterns of action, but deliberately modifies them in order to influence the environment in some new way that is not yet familiar to him. Thirdly, the child’s interest in novelty forces him to imitate the actions, gestures, words and intonations of the people around him, which is extremely important for the child’s development and his socialization.
In general, Hunt's ideas are consistent with the affective-cognitive model adopted in the theory of differential emotions, with the exception of two points. First, the theory of differential emotions postulates the innateness of the emotion of interest and considers the factor of novelty as an innate activator of interest. Secondly, we believe that the phenomena classified by Hunt as the third stage of motivation development are already present in the neonatal period.
Socialization of interest
Among the factors influencing the socialization of the emotion of interest, one can single out such a general and widespread factor as the richness of the environment. It includes socio-economic conditions, the richness and variety of stimulation the child receives, the richness of family conditions (variety of activities, hobbies and other forms of activity of family members). Poor socio-economic conditions tend to limit the variety of constructive forms of activity available to the individual and thus limit the scope of his interest. Poverty leaves less time for intellectual and creative pursuits and other forms of activity not related to the satisfaction of basic needs.
However, regardless of the socio-economic conditions of life, the child has a very low threshold for the emergence of the emotion of interest-excitement, and if the parents do not forbid him to play, if they encourage his games and exploratory behavior, then the underlying healthy emotion of interest receives its further development. But if parents, concerned about their own needs, are intolerant of certain actions of the child, dictated by interest, punish him for them, then they thereby suppress his curiosity, his research interest.
Children whose parents are curious and adventurous develop a stronger desire for knowledge than children whose parents build their lives on the basis of established views and dogmas. By their actions and words, parents either awaken curiosity in the child or suppress his interest in research. If parents themselves are open to new experiences, then they, as a rule, cultivate the same attitude towards life in their child, thereby contributing to the formation of low thresholds of the emotion of interest and forms of constructive activity motivated by it.
Giving the child freedom to play, imagine, and move from the real to the imaginary world is critical to the development of his ability to experience interest (Singer, 1966). Even if socio-economic, cultural or family conditions limit the variety of stimulation and the possibility of manifestation of the factor of novelty, the child himself, by the mere power of his imagination, which, however, must be encouraged by the adults around him, creates an infinite number of people, circumstances of action, objects and events.
A study by Singer and his associates (Singer, 1973) and a study by Klinger (1971) show the importance of imagination and fantasy play in the life of a growing child. On the other hand, there is evidence (Smilansky, 1968) that children growing up in difficult conditions show a lack of development of imagination and fantasy forms of play and need special help to develop this important ability.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE EMOTION OF INTEREST AND COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS
The problem of the interaction of interest with perceptual-cognitive processes should be considered as a development of the above ideas about early development and socialization of interest. The interaction of interest with perceptual-cognitive processes leads either to the development of constructive, intellectual, artistic, creative forms of activity, or to unconstructive or psychopathological behavior - this largely depends on the early experience of the individual, on what experiences the emotion caused him interest in early childhood, as well as the degree of its socialization.
When discussing the psychological significance of the emotion of interest, it should be emphasized that interest is the main motivational component of the processes of perception, attention and cognition. The emotion of interest forms the motivational basis of even such a fundamental process as the process of perceptual learning in a newborn child.
Interest and perceptual-cognitive development
The role of the emotion of interest and excitement in the development of knowledge, skills and intelligence is undeniable. The interaction of the emotion of interest with perceptual-cognitive functions is well described by Tomkins:
The emotion of interest ensures not only the normal course of perception processes, but also maintains a state of wakefulness. Indeed, insomnia affects a person not only when there is a disturbing negative affect, but also due to persistent intense arousal. Without the emotion of interest, the development of thinking and the formation of a person’s conceptual apparatus could be seriously disrupted... The relationships between the emotion of interest and the functions of thinking and memory are so diverse and close that the lack of affective support from the emotion of interest threatens the development of intelligence in almost the same way. as physical destruction of brain tissue. To think, you need to worry, you need to be excited, constantly receive reinforcement. There is probably not a single skill that can be mastered without sustained interest (Tornkins, 1962, p. 343).
In order for a newborn child to perceive an object, his attention must be focused on it for some time. Almost any object is too complex for an infant to perceive instantly. The child has to perceive various aspects and characteristics of an object, and at the same time he must perceive the object as a whole; he must perceive it in all the diversity and unity of its components. Interested in a particular characteristic of an object, the child maintains attention on it until he perceives it, and then his attention moves to another characteristic of the object. Only thanks to interest, a child is able to maintain attention on the same object for a sufficiently long period of time necessary to perceive the object in its diversity and unity, and not be distracted by the perception of many other stimuli coming from the environment. Without this kind of focusing of interest, the child’s attention will move chaotically from one object to another, and this can lead to disturbances in perceptual development. Tomkins, summarizing the role of the emotion of interest in perceptual development, writes:
In order to move attention from one perceptual plane to another, in order to switch from perceptual orientation to motor orientation and back, to switch from perceptual and motor levels to the conceptual level and again return to previous levels, in order to switch from one memory to another, one must at least maintain interest in those properties of the object that appear in these so diverse transactions. Without such constant motivational support, it is impossible to create a holistic image of an object that takes into account all the diversity of its aspects (Tornkins, 1962, p. 348).
Analyzing the psychological significance of the emotion of interest and excitement, we pointed out that interest plays an extremely important role in the cognitive development and intellectual activity of an individual. Interest guides and supports a person's intellectual activity. A person is unable to engage in any activity or study any subject if they do not arouse interest in him. Of course, he can memorize facts, fearing to fail the exam, to disgrace himself in front of his comrades, but such learning is worthless, it will not bear any fruit. Fruitful, creative work in any field requires complete immersion, enormous dedication, and this is only possible if a person has an interest in the chosen activity. If comprehending the depths of a subject becomes a kind of way of life for a person, then the efforts that he must make to go beyond existing knowledge, turn into an exciting adventure for him. The work of Singer (1966, 1973) suggests that it is the interaction of the emotions of interest and joy that forms the motivational basis of creative, constructive activity.
Interest, art and intellectual and creative activity
Interest plays a vital role in the development of artistic and aesthetic forms of activity. In order to become an artist, a person from early childhood must be interested in the formation and development of relevant skills. For example, ballet mastery presupposes a certain technicality of dance. Mastering the technical side in itself requires a lot of motivation and significant expenditure of energy, but technical skills alone are not enough. A ballet dancer must be able to admire the human body and its capabilities, be able to express various emotions and affects through body movements. Interest in the body and its capabilities leads to the development of kinesthetic and proprioceptive sensitivity. Somewhat similar mechanisms are involved in the process of becoming a skilled secretary, good student, a dedicated scientist. Developing the innovative ideas of Perry (1926, 1954), Schachtel (1959) and Tomkins (Tonnkins, 1962), Wessman and Ricks (1966) gave following description the role of interest in aesthetic and intellectual activity:
This feeling, this experience is almost never strong or dramatic, but it is precisely this that marks every event that is significant for an individual. This affective accompaniment accompanies the behavior of the individual at any level of wakefulness and attention, and it is also, apparently, a necessary component of cathexis - a state when something (an object, a person, a symbol, an idea) becomes so significant for the individual that it completely captures his attention, subjugates his mental activity. The emotion of interest often awakens earlier than other affects and, apparently, is constituent element any event or act of thought important enough to be registered by consciousness. and the most striking manifestation of interest is found in those states of fascinated absorption that characterize intellectual and aesthetic forms of activity. At the most full development of this affect, the experience arises instantly and is experienced as true, undeniable, it captures a person, allowing him not to notice everything that can distract him from the goal, and the goal is participation and achieving full understanding (p. 5).
Maslow, speaking about creative activity, considers the emotion of interest to be its central component, although he does not formulate this directly. He's writing:
an inspired creator lives in the present; for him there is no past or future. He is completely immersed in the subject, he is fascinated and absorbed by the immediate, what is happening here and now, the object of creativity (Maslow, 1971, p. 61).
This state of complete immersion, absorption, captivity is undoubtedly a consequence of intense interest or excitement.
Maslow talks about two stages of creativity - primary and secondary. The primary stage is characterized by improvisation and inspiration. At this stage, a person is driven by an intense emotion of interest and excitement. The secondary stage is the elaboration or development of the original inspiration, the idea that dawned on the person at a moment of great excitement; it requires self-discipline and hard, persistent work. There are many people capable of the primary stage of creativity, of inspiration, but only a few are capable of its material embodiment.
Such insight is not worth a penny. Between an inspired idea and a novel, such as, for example, Tolstoy’s, lies titanic work, enormous self-discipline, exhausting days, months and years of gaining experience, many sketches and drafts, repeated rewriting of completely unsuccessful fragments, etc., etc. (Maslow, 1971, p. 59).
If primary creativity - the improvisational stage of creativity - is characterized by excitement, then secondary creativity, which involves the development and development of the initial creation, should be characterized by a moderate level of interest. At this stage, the intensity of interest may fluctuate, but it must be strong and stable enough for the person to resist fatigue and negative emotions. Hard, routine work associated with bringing a creative product to the desired perfection is inevitably accompanied by periods of depression and fear, when a person gives up, when he acutely feels his loneliness, his isolation. It was during such periods of domination negative emotions The motivational power of sustained interest is critical to overcoming obstacles that stand in the way of a creative person.
Tomkins-Izard's idea about the role of the emotions of interest-excitement and fear in creativity is largely inspired by Kierkegaard's profound analysis of anxiety (Kierkegaard, 1844/1944). According to Kierkegaard, anxiety is generated by freedom of choice and is the result of a person’s collision with a variety of possibilities. Choice is always fraught with uncertainty, uncertainty and therefore becomes a source of anxiety. According to Kierkegaard, the more breadth an individual has, the more capable he is of creativity and the more likely the accompanying experiences of fear and anxiety are. By linking anxiety with freedom of choice and creativity, Kierkegaard thereby laid the foundations for distinguishing the positive emotion of interest-excitement, on the one hand, and the emotions that characterize the state of anxiety, on the other (lzard, 1972). We can say that he came close to this distinction, defining fear as an emotion that makes an individual flee from an object, and anxiety as the basis of an ambivalent attitude towards an object. Tomkins and Izard (1962; lzard and Tornkins, 1966) described this ambivalence in their work as a balancing act between fear and excitement. Fear is generated by the unknown, uncertainty of the properties of an object, uncertainty in the consequences of choosing one or another opportunity, while interest-excitement is generated by novelty and the very fact of the existence of various possibilities, is a consequence of research activity, which reduces the factor of uncertainty and thereby weakens fear. Fear limits a person's desire for the unknown, and interest-excitement, on the contrary, supports his research activity.
Interest-based cognitive orientations
A variety of congenital individual characteristics, individual differences in the thresholds of emotional excitability and the variety of living conditions of different individuals - all these factors, interacting with each other, give rise to a huge variety of cognitive structures and orientations formed on the basis of the emotion of interest. One person is more interested in objects (subject orientation), another - ideas (intellectual orientation), a third - people (social orientation). Within each of these three very broad spectrums of orientation, a person’s interests and activities can take on very different forms. With the same type of orientation, one person manifests himself mainly as, another - as, and for the third it is not thought or action that is important, but experience, feeling.
Formulated by Adler (1964), the concept of or can be considered as a type of cognitive orientation characterized by an interest in people and their well-being. Adler writes:
The land on which we live forces man to work and creates the need for a division of labor. Social feeling is expressed in working together for the common good. For social thinking man it is obvious that everyone must receive remuneration for his labor, that the exploitation of the labor of others cannot contribute to the good of humanity (p. 58).
Adler argued that only people with a developed social sense have the right to solve the problems facing humanity.
The types of value orientations described by Spranger (Spranger, 1928), as well as those identified by Jung psychological types(Jung, 1933) can be considered in the context of the emotion of interest, from the point of view of its focus on various objects and activities. Thus, a person who is excited by the process of thinking itself can be classified as a thinking type, and a person for whom emotional experience is most important can be classified as an affective type. A person is excited by action and its results.
The huge variety of human types is caused by innate differences in the level of emotional thresholds, differences in abilities and the degree of involvement of certain affects, but it is the emotion of interest and excitement that plays decisive role in an individual’s choice of one way of life or another. In the poetic words of Tomkins: (Tomkins, 1962, p. 347).
INTERACTION OF INTEREST WITH OTHER EMOTIONS AND DRIVES
The emotion of interest interacts with other emotions, as well as with drives. This interaction can be both conflicting and very constructive.
Interest and pain
Imagine an athlete who was injured and did not notice it. If the sensations that arise in the injured organ do not reach the level of consciousness, then the person does not feel pain. This can happen to anyone who is absorbed in some activity or thought. In this way we can even control the intensity of pain (such control, however, does not eliminate the need for treatment). Research shows that the emotion of interest, due to its focusing power, can dull the sensation of pain, although different people have different abilities to channel interest, to divert attention from the source of unpleasant stimulation (Leventhal, 1982).
Interest and joy
The interaction of the emotions of interest and joy is most clearly manifested in children's play. It is these two emotions, interacting with each other, that constitute the motivational basis of the game. A child plays or practices a skill required for a game only because he is interested in doing it. Winning a game and mastering certain skills bring him joy. Joy allows him to relax, to take a break from hectic activity motivated by interest, but after a short respite associated with the experience of joy, interest rises in the child again and he resumes play.
Even in an adult, the desire for a goal and the efforts necessary to achieve it are motivated by interest, and achieving a goal and completing urgent tasks gives him no less joy than a child. Joy gives us a break, allows us to recover expended energy, opens up new perspectives that reawaken our interest and inspire us.
Interest and fear
As already noted, the conflict described by Kierkegaard (1944) that characterizes anxiety can be interpreted as the result of the interaction of the emotion of interest with the emotion of fear. Interest propels us forward and pushes us to explore. But sometimes, while exploring an object, we find ourselves faced with the unknown. This unknown can cause fear, and this fear causes us to retreat. But if we are very excited, if the exploration promises us exciting adventures, we have a desire to continue the exploration, to get to the point, to the final destination, which is still unknown to us. But again, the closer we are to our cherished goal, the stronger our fear is that the truth we are striving for will be beyond our understanding, and this fear can again force us to retreat. This balancing act between interest and fear—both in thought and behavior—seems to happen more often than we realize. To live and develop, a person must have some tolerance for fear.
REGULATION OF INTEREST-EXCITATION
It is appropriate to ask the question: why is it necessary to regulate such a positive emotion as interest? IN Everyday life We, as a rule, don’t even think about it, but there are moments when several opportunities for the application of interest open up to us at once. It is in such cases that the need arises to regulate interest, to focus it more clearly. A person has the right to choose this or that opportunity, but the choice will be successful only if he determines for himself how much his interest in this or that field of activity corresponds to his values, abilities and skills.
The need to regulate interest may be dictated by other reasons. So, for example, a person can be so captivated and absorbed in some activity that it affects his mental and physical health. In such cases, emotional regulation becomes vital; it can be done in a variety of ways - for example, through relaxation or meditation, or simply by switching to less exciting activities.
The emotion of interest-excitement in psychopathology
Studies devoted to studying the role of emotions of interest in the development of mental disorders are few, but descriptions of some types mental disorders suggest that the emotion of interest plays a significant role in the affective symptoms of these disorders. Thus, clinicians constantly talk about depressed patients as people who have lost interest - sexual, social and interest in life in general. Observations of depressed children and adults have consistently found that depression is characterized by a deficit in the emotion of interest (Blumberg & Lzard, 1985; Lzard, 1972; Lzard & Blumberg, 1985), and the results of these observations correlate well with the fact that depressed patients are often described as apathetic , lethargic, lacking energy.
Clinical descriptions of patients with mania often speak of a chronically high level of the emotion of interest-excitement and its dominance over other emotions. Perhaps the common idea of mania as a state of heightened joy and euphoria is wrong. Mania is characterized by an increased level of excitement and accelerated occurrence of mental processes. In a manic state, a person can be extremely creative, can produce one idea after another, but this creativity is caused by lack of control, uncontrollability of mental processes, and their accelerated course. Therefore, a manic patient may not experience true joy or euphoria.
In an earlier chapter, we noted that Zuckerman's (1974) definition of the sensation-seeking motive is broadly consistent with the interest-arousal concept of differential emotion theory. The difference between them is that Zuckerman considers the cortical structures and optimal level their arousal, but despite this difference, when it comes to the motives for seeking sensations at the experiential level, there are obvious similarities in Zuckerman's approach to our concept.
It can be assumed that a very low or high level of the sensation-seeking motive characterizes pathological states of interest and arousal. Zuckerman provides empirical data indicating that increased or decreased levels of the sensation-seeking motive are associated with various adaptation problems. In their studies, Brownfield and Kish (Browntield, 1966; Kish, 1970) used the sensation-seeking motive scale developed by Zuckerman and found that patients with schizophrenia, compared with some other mentally ill people, as well as healthy people, had lower scores on the sensation-seeking motive. The authors believe that these data are consistent with those theoretical concepts that consider schizophrenia as a disease that impairs the ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli and the ability to concentrate. Because people with schizophrenia constantly suffer from sensory overload, they must avoid information rather than seek it. The theory of differential emotions states that the ability to filter stimuli, the ability to concentrate attention, from which patients with schizophrenia suffer, is provided normal functioning emotions of interest.
Zuckerman also explored the possible connection between the sensation-seeking motive and deviant behavior. Thus, he cites research data according to which female criminals, compared to patients in a psychiatric clinic, have much higher scores on the sensation seeking scale. Marshall and Izard (1972a), using the Differential Emotion Scale, found that depressed patients, both neurotic and psychotic, had extremely low scores on the emotion of interest.
EMOTION OF INTEREST IN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Systematic studies of the role of emotions in personality development are scarce, only a few of them have been completed; however, existing theoretical and empirical data reveal a close relationship between various patterns of experiencing the emotion of interest and such personal characteristics as the ability to establish social relationships, timidity and the desire for achievement.
Interest and achievements
Any teacher knows that an engaged student learns better; in the same way, any boss, manager, or simply observant person knows that the employee who works most productively is the one who is dedicated to the job (who is interested in his work). You don't have to be an artist or a scientist to experience creativity - any task, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, can be seen in a larger context, and that context makes it important and significant. Even if a person is not interested in a job, but he cannot find another one, he can always direct his interest to relationships with colleagues or become interested in the more general, global goal that this work serves.
Data from studies devoted to the study of the motivation of human activity, as well as data from personality studies, show that the success of human activity is determined by three factors: the strength of motivation (the desire for success), the presence of achievement values in a person’s value system, as well as the development of the necessary skills and abilities (McClelland, 1985). We will look at each of these factors separately to understand how they relate to the emotion of interest.
Motivation for success. Emotions play a primary role in motivation. Any motive can be considered as a combination of thoughts and feelings, as an affective-cognitive structure. The variety of motives of human activity is determined by the variety of combinations that are formed by various thoughts and feelings of a person. Measuring motivation for success and the desire to achieve should be approached from the point of view of the emotion of interest. The more interest you have in something, the stronger your desire to do it well.
Think about the work you are doing. What does studying mean to you? What interests you most? What doesn't pique your interest? Do you strive to find use for your intellectual capabilities or are you more interested in relationships with classmates and future colleagues? Do you strive to achieve success, do you consider it important in life?
Achievement values. Emotions also play an important role in the formation of a person’s value system. It is impossible to imagine a value that has no emotional meaning for its owner. We value what awakens certain feelings in us, and the stronger these feelings, the more significant the values that correspond to them are for us.
How are achievement values formed? No one can probably give an exact answer to this question. It is known that different cultures profess different values of achievement, although it is quite possible that it is not so much the values of achievement that differ, but rather the ideas of what constitutes achievement or success. It is also known that standards of achievement, standards of success, vary significantly from community to community and even from family to family.
Success-oriented parents may not always be able to instill the same values in their children. If in the child’s mind the achievements and successes of his parents are associated with a feeling of joy and interest, then he will probably adhere to the same values. However, if success is perceived by the child only as the result of a long, hard struggle, unbearable hardships, deprivations and sacrifices, then the likelihood of him assimilating the values and living standards of his parents is reduced; in such cases, out of a sense of protest, the child may begin to strive for a completely opposite way of life, one that is not associated with the constant pursuit of success. Thus, in order to foster a healthy desire for achievement in a child, parents must have a sincere interest in their activities and a sober attitude towards their successes and failures - otherwise, the exaggerated importance of achievement values will interfere with the formation and development of other values.
Skills and abilities. There are many types of skills. Thus, various crafts require specific skills in working with specific materials. However, skills are needed not only by those who work with their hands; they are needed by any professional, be it an athlete, a minister or a politician. So what does the emotion of interest have to do with skills? First of all, the emotion of interest plays a big role in the formation and development of a skill.
The acquisition and formation of a skill depends on a whole set of conditions, the main ones being talent (abilities) and interest. There are skills that can only be learned and developed if a person has an innate ability for them; however, no matter what talent a person has, he must hone and polish it in practical activities, otherwise this talent will remain unclaimed. Constant practice is also necessary to maintain a high level of professionalism.
It is usually not difficult for us, even in hindsight, to know how well our abilities correspond to our interests. And John Henry’s story about his two hobbies can serve as proof of this.
There was a period when I suddenly became interested in the guitar. I realized that I had no special musical ability, but I really liked the guitar, and I hoped that by practicing. I can achieve good results. I bought an instrument, but after trying for a long time to master it, I realized that I was not able to play. This realization was so bitter that I lost all interest in the guitar. That's how my hobby ended.
As for my other hobby, tennis, here everything was the other way around. I had been playing tennis for many years, and a moment came when it began to seem to me that I had exhausted my capabilities, that I could no longer play better. I couldn't take a running kick. the ball usually did not reach the net, and the volley was also unsuccessful. However, the delight that I felt from the very process of the game made me go out onto the court again and again. Constant training and the help of a good coach helped me not only master these strokes, but also love them.
There is no need to talk about how useful it is to realize your limitations and give up your goal, as did John Henry, who realized in time that his desire did not correspond to his capabilities. On the other hand, we see that one should not give up too quickly - practice and the help of an experienced mentor will help a person master and develop the skills necessary for a particular activity.
Thus, all of the above determinants of the success of human activity - the desire to achieve, the values of achievement and the necessary skills - are in one way or another connected with the emotion of interest. A person who is busy with some business, but has no interest in it, should probably look at this matter more broadly, try to find those aspects of it that could awaken in him such an important emotion as interest. People who are interested, who can even feel excited from time to time about their daily and work responsibilities, have a much greater chance of success and achieving personally significant goals.
SUMMARY
The emotion of interest has played a very important role in human evolution, performing various adaptive functions throughout the history of its existence. The formation and development of social relations is largely connected with the interest that a person experiences in representatives of his own species - of all the phenomena of our world, man is most interested in man. Interest also contributes to the achievement of sexual pleasure and serves as a stabilizing factor in sexual and family relationships. It is necessary for the development of skills and abilities, and therefore plays an important role in the intellectual development of a person.
Interest in the unknown forms the basis of research, cognitive and constructive activity; it serves as a necessary condition for perceptual-cognitive development and is important for the processes of attention, memory and learning.
The emotion of interest characterizes the child’s activity from the moment of birth. It is precisely due to the focusing influence of interest on attention processes that perceptual learning and development of the child’s cognitive functions become possible. In the theory of differential emotions, it is generally accepted that novelty of stimulation is an innate activator of interest and that the perceptual-cognitive and motor activity of a newborn child is provided by the emotion of interest.
Although the emotion of interest is innate, socialization plays a leading role in its development, and therefore in the formation of human personality. Unfavorable socio-economic conditions hinder the development and socialization of interest, while conditions, tolerance and parental support contribute to the development of this important emotion.
The interaction of an individual’s ability to express emotions of interest with one or another socialization factor determines the nature of a person’s affective-cognitive orientation. Interest can be directed towards anything, but the greatest benefit to humanity comes from intellectual, aesthetic and other types of creative activity. One person is more interested in objects, another - ideas, a third - people. The relationship between the emotion of interest, cognitive orientation and action can determine the type of personality - thinking, acting or affective.
Emotions interact not only with each other, but also with various drives, regulating their intensity, and the emotion of interest is perhaps the most powerful regulator of drive. Interest can dull the sensation of pain when a person consciously or unconsciously directs his attention to an object, situation or phenomenon of interest. Interest, combined with joy, forms the motivational basis of play and other forms of activity. The interaction of interest with fear gives rise to a state of anxiety.
Distorted development of the emotion of interest and excitement can create psychological and even psychopathological problems. Manic patients, as a rule, are characterized by an increased level of interest and excitement. Abnormally high or low expression of the sensation-seeking motive may be an indicator of a pathologically high or low threshold for the emotion of interest and may cause adaptation disorders.
The emotion of interest plays a vital role in motivating success. The desire for achievement can be measured by the degree of expression of the emotion of interest. Interest is also necessary for the development of skills; it is this that motivates human activity aimed at improving innate abilities.
FOR FURTHER READING
Miller R. N., Zalenski R. Preschoolers" knowledge about attention. - Developmental Psychology, 1982,18(6), 871-875.
Children's understanding of the concept and the motivating effect of interest on attentiveness and learning are shown.
TomkinsS. S. Interest-excitement. - In: Affect, imagery, consciousness; Vol. I, The positive affects. - New York, Springer, 1962, 336-368.
An original and comprehensive study of the dynamics of interest and its impact on learning, creativity, and personality.
Watson D., dark L. A. On traits and temperament: General and specific factors of emotional experience and their relation to the five-factor model. -Journal of Personality, in press (1991).
Experimental study of the relationship between personality and emotions. The proposed mindfulness scale may allow for the quantification of interest as an emotion, and the positive affect scale combines interest and pleasure. Both of these scales are significantly correlated with personality traits.
