Tim Dalgleish is a research Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Science Unit in Cambridge. He has always had a deep interest in psychological trauma, and how we cope with this emotionally. Here he gives Ever Wondered his expert perspective on what purpose our emotions serve…

"We have evolved emotions as ways of helping us to rapidly reorganise our mental and bodily resources to help us prepare for anything the world might throw at us. During our lives, each of us experiences millions of emotional reactions either consciously or unconsciously. In a world of uncertainty, we sometimes need gut feelings to negotiate our way through life’s tricky path, as the process of cold rational calculation alone can’t help us make many decisions.
Take fear for example, when you hear a strange noise in the night feelings kick in and your senses become tuned for danger. Emotional memories recall how you coped with similar situations in the past and kick in to help you deal with this one.

A more subtle example is sadness - when we suffer a loss, feelings of sadness help our minds turn inwards to release our mental resources, establishing new goals and forgetting the old ones we’ve lost.

Some emotions also have a primarily social function. Take guilt - unpleasant feelings such as this can motivate us into doing something a situation and this should help us make amends!

So you should listen to your emotions obvious and subtle, as they are essential in situations where the correct decision requires more than just rational thought."

And here are some suggestions for how to find out more about how our emotions help us cope with the ups and downs of life :

Books you can read
‘What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories.’ Paul E. Griffiths. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226308715
‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.’ Charles Darwin. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195112717

‘On the Emotions.’ Richard Wollheim. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300079745

‘Cognition and Emotion: From Order to Disorder.’ Tim Dalgleish/Michael Power. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. 1997

Links You Can Surf
For more on Tim Dalgleish and his work

Also on the Ever Wondered site : You can join Jenny Eclair to find out why we love to laugh or Simon Callow as he finds out why music makes you tingle.



If you think you might be interested in studying more about these subjects, find out what the Open University has to offer.

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