home / Business/ Matsumoto D. Psychology and culture

Matsumoto D. Psychology and culture

Two different scientific approaches have been used to study whether there are universal ways of expressing emotions. The first is that data on facial expressions is systematically collected using film and video. Then these data are presented in a specific situation to representatives of two or more cultures, and then the parameters of the subjects’ facial expressions are measured to determine in what ways they are similar and in what ways they are different. We'll call this method component approach, since with its help the similarities and differences of specific components of facial expressions of representatives of two or more cultures are clarified. The second approach involves presenting images of different facial expressions to people from different cultures to determine whether they recognize the image as expressing the same or different emotions. This method (let's call it evaluative approach, as it examines whether people from different cultures will judge the same images as expressing the same emotions) was first used by Darwin, but was not used in his cross-cultural studies.

The component approach has been less popular than the evaluative approach. There has only been one cross-cultural study using it (1972). Although we will discuss this method only at the end of our review of research evidence, we will note some of the problems that can be encountered in using the component approach to help the reader understand why researchers have avoided this methodology and opted for an evaluative approach.

Four types of problems arise in experiments using the component approach. First, the researcher must somehow ensure that he has chosen a situation that not only evokes an emotion in each culture, but also the same emotion in both cultures being studied in the experiment (otherwise differences in expressive patterns of facial expression may arise due to the fact that these emotions themselves differ from each other). Previously, in reviewing the research of Klineberg, La Barre, and Birdwhistell, we found that simply comparing the same phenomenon that causes emotions in different cultures does not guarantee that the same emotion will arise in both cases. Secondly, the researcher must make sure that the situation he chooses is not governed by the different rules of emotional expression in the two cultures. The best situation would be one in which there are no emotional expression rules at all that require the person to suppress or hide the natural expression of emotion on the face (otherwise, reports of differences in facial expression may arise from participants trying to hide true emotion - and then it will be impossible to understand whether this emotion, when it is not hidden or masked by another, is universal or determined by the cultural context).

The third and fourth problems, which we have not yet discussed, relate to how to document facial expression and how to measure it. The problem of documentation is related to three aspects: the cost of materials for filming and video recording, the need to record discreetly (so that the subject does not realize it) and deciding how much material needs to be recorded. Measurement is perhaps the most difficult challenge, since the face is capable of expressing complex emotions and the researcher has to constantly invent a method of measurement.

The evaluative approach does not have the problem of measuring facial expressions. In this approach, when faces are presented to people from different cultures for evaluation, the measurement is the interpretation of the subject's facial expression (no other measurement that describes facial expressions is required). We avoid many of the problems associated with measuring facial expressions, but we do have another difficulty: how should we respond to observers? Should they be allowed to choose their own words? Then how can a researcher then decide which words are synonyms and which express a completely different meaning and represent a new category or emotion? Or is it necessary to somehow suggest how emotions should be described? Then what words should the experimenter provide to the subjects? How does he know all the words that might be relevant to describing facial expressions of emotion? And how can he be sure that these words will have the same meanings when translated into the languages of other cultures? In all experiments using a rating approach, subjects from each culture are given a set of words to describe facial expressions of emotion (attempts have been made to ensure by back-translation 1 that the words mean the same thing across cultures). This is especially important when studying members of a culture whose language is not written and the researcher does not have a good understanding of the local spoken language. As we will see, a slightly different approach to describing emotions was used in the study of peoples who had not yet developed writing.

1 When transferring back, you need to perform three steps. A word, such as English, is translated by translator A into another language, such as Spanish, and then its Spanish translation is passed on to another translator B, who is tasked with translating the word back into English. If, during the reverse translation, the same word appears with which the work began, then the translation made by A is considered correct.

When it is necessary to record facial expressions, the problem arises of what exactly to record, how much material and how to do it unnoticed. These issues have not been discussed in most studies conducted using the assessment approach because, rather than allowing people to observe spontaneous expressions of facial expressions, almost all researchers have chosen to use still images in photographs that illustrate a pattern of some kind of facial expression. When the person depicted in the photo is posing, there is no need to hide the camera (it is enough to take the photo when the next pose and facial expression sample are ready). Evaluation studies could, of course, be carried out using samples of spontaneous expression of emotions through facial expressions (several such studies have taken place), but then some solution to the problem associated with the need to record expressions of facial expressions must be found.

Using facial expression samples from those who posed for these images as part of an evaluative approach raises two issues. First, do photographs of people posing to obtain a sample of specific facial expressions convey the same thing that we see during spontaneous expression of emotions, and are these samples at least partially similar to such ways of expressing emotions, so that the question of cultural conditioning or universality of emotional expression can be answered? ? We will be able to provide an answer when we discuss these experiments (the logic of these discoveries suggests an affirmative answer). Secondly, did the researcher choose appropriate samples: do they reflect the emotions that he needs? These challenges are similar to those of researchers using a componential approach (concerns about whether a situation evokes the emotion intended for the study and whether subjects will try to hide their true feelings).

Most researchers who have used the evaluative approach to studying facial expression within a particular culture, and some who have conducted cross-cultural studies, have felt that posing to obtain emotion samples produces overly simplistic images. They argue that if you ask a person to portray an emotion, they will do so, but if subjects disagree when asked to explain what is being depicted, the researcher concludes that facial expression cannot convey emotion, rather than asking how effective there were instructions for whoever was posing, how adequate the context of the photo was, and whether the person posing was able to portray the emotion.

There are two problems here, as with the component approach. The first is related to the task of portraying an emotion: do the phrases “feign anger,” “feign fear,” “feign irritation” mean to the person posing exactly what the experimenter intended? Maybe yes (unless the models were small children or representatives of a culture that does not have a written language, so there is a language barrier between the researcher and the participants in the experiment). But the difficulty may lie not in whether the participant in the experiment understands exactly what emotion he should portray, but in whether he is going to depict an emblematic expression of the emotion or will simulate the manifestation of the emotion. No researcher has distinguished between the two, and it is very likely that some participants in the experiment were performing emblematic expressions of emotion, some were trying to fake them, and some were doing both. Emblematic ways of expressing emotions may be culturally determined, in contrast to sincere and feigned ways of expressing emotions. There is no reason why every culture should develop the same abstract emblem. Therefore, the emblematic expression of emotions should be understandable only within the same culture, but incomprehensible to another.

Another difficulty is how the rules for expressing emotions work. When trying to fake a specific emotion, models may feel shy about showing emotion. Or there may be cultural norms that prohibit the expression of certain emotions. We (Ekman & Friesen, 1971b) have hypothesized (and have been partially confirmed) that middle-class whites in the United States (female college students) have more difficulty when asked to act angry, while young adults have more difficulty when asked to act fearful. We also found evidence that the ability to express specific emotions is related to a person's character (people with a certain personality type can express one emotion better and others worse). We further discovered that certain anatomical differences result in some people being unable to express certain emotions.

So, posing is a tricky way to capture images of emotion, although it might not seem like it at first. Some people may act out emblematic expressions of emotion, others may try to fake them. The poser sometimes cannot simulate all emotions (due to the rules of expressing emotions, character traits or anatomical features that limit his capabilities). Therefore, the researcher should try to obtain high-quality simulated expressions for each emotion from the poser. He may ask the person whether he is trying to simulate a natural feeling he might have, or whether he is trying to create an emblematic expression. The researcher can ask representatives of the same culture as the person posing whether his face expresses happiness or anger, whether it is convincingly depicted or not, whether the person feels the feelings depicted. The researcher can also measure the feeling image pattern to understand whether the desired specific muscle movement or configuration is present. We will see that those researchers who took some steps to select samples of the image of the emotions of the posing person obtained more accurate results. Next, care should be taken to use one or two different people as the poser, in order to avoid distortions due to character or anatomical features. Once again, we will find that those researchers who used different people as models obtained more accurate data from cross-cultural experiments than those who used one or two posers.

5. Results of experiments 1

1 The order in which data are presented is related to the methodological and theoretical principles of the studies and not to their chronology.

As we have already said, almost all researchers of facial expressions in various cultures have used an evaluative rather than a componential approach. According to the principles of the componential approach, people can recognize an emotion when they see a facial expression based solely on context (they have no other information). Such judgments may be based on the observer's previous experience of seeing someone else make that facial expression, or the observer himself having had that expression when he was experiencing a particular feeling, or the expression being associated with the characteristic verbal or nonverbal behavior of another person. If the emotional meaning of a facial expression is largely or entirely culturally determined, then observers of a person's facial expression within one culture will rely on different experiences associated with that facial expression, and if observers are from a different culture, they will associate it with a different emotion .

But if Darwin were right (if at least some facial expressions were universal), then all people would have some common experience associated with these emotional expressions. When subjects are presented with an image of a face in a photograph, they rate it as the same emotion regardless of their culture or native language (Figure 1 shows how this image rating occurs during the study). In summary, researchers using an evaluative approach are able to determine (based on what different cultures say about images of faces in photographs and without measuring those images of emotion in faces) whether there may be universal ways of expressing emotions through facial expressions.

Rice. 1. Logic of appreciative research. If the expressions of emotion are not related to the emotion itself, then some readers will decide that this photograph depicts anger, others - that sadness, and still others will say that this is surprise. In the USA, 90% of subjects who were presented with this photograph decided that it depicted surprise. Such unanimity may mean that those who evaluated the image had a similar experience with that particular image (even though they did not hear the voice of the person depicted, the words he spoke, did not know the context and what happened before and will happen after what is captured in the photograph). Such experiences with particular images must vary significantly across cultures if Klineberg, La Barre, and Birdwhistell are indeed correct. From their point of view, we might expect that members of one culture might see a "surprised" face rather than a person about to attack, or someone whose loved one has died rather than someone to whom something unexpected has happened (or they never I’ve never seen anyone have such a facial expression in my life). But if Darwin was right, then we don't need quotation marks for the word astonishment. This face expresses surprise from the point of view of representatives of all nations. They all experienced something that tells them what kind of facial expression is shown in this photo (presumably, something unexpected happened to the person, and at the time when this photo was taken, nothing threatened him or caused him any unpleasant feelings)

6. Attempts to substantiate hypotheses of the cultural conditioning of the expression of emotions

The first five studies we will discuss were conducted by scientists who attempted to prove that facial expressions are partly or entirely culturally determined. While each found evidence of cultural influences on facial expressions, each also found evidence of their universality. The methods of all five studies contain errors that do not allow the data to be considered conclusive evidence of the existence of both universal and culturally determined types of facial expression. After we discuss all five studies, we turn to our own and Izard's. These two studies addressed these methodological issues and provided more robust evidence for the universality of facial expressions.

Triandis and Lambert

Triandis and Lambert (1958) presented photographs of a professional actress to college students at Brown University (USA), college students in Athens (Greece), and residents of the village of Sfakera on the Greek island of Corfu. All observers rated the pictures on a scale from zero to nine (according to the parameters pleasant/unpleasant, attention/refusal to communicate, sleep/tension). In Fig. 2 you see one of the images used during the experiment. The researchers compared the ratings of three groups of observers on each of the three proposed scales and found that “there is no doubt that Greek subjects, even if they represent different populations, rated emotional expression exactly the same as American college students.”

1 Triandis, H. C., & Lambert, W. W. A restatement and test of Schlosberg’s theory of emotion with two kinds of subjects from Greece. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1958, 56, 321–328 (Copyright 1958 from the American Psychological Association, reproduced with permission).

Given the similarity obtained primarily from subjects from the three groups, Triandis and Lambert found that there was greater similarity in the scores of the two groups of college students (US and Greek) compared with the group of village subjects. The researchers linked this detail to the fact that college students watch movies more often than villagers, and therefore are more likely to see stereotypical ways of expressing emotions. Even greater similarity among college students may be because they interact with each other more often and have much more in common.

Rice. 2. Photo of actress M. Lightfoot, which Triandis and Lambert used in their experiment

Given the intelligence of college students and their familiarity with psychological research, Triandis and Lambert conducted the experiment in the same way with college students, but in a completely different way with villagers (in the form of a game rather than in the form of a test of the ability to recognize emotions).

Triandis and Lambert (1958) also found differences between college students and rural residents in the way they rated certain images.

In the Greek villages where this study was conducted, there is a custom of heckling for fun - a kind of aggressive game where you need to show anger, but also learn to curb it. Loud and furious arguments are a favorite pastime in Sfaker. It is therefore interesting to note that there were significant differences in how the image was assessed (see Figure 2), which Schlosberg [the psychologist who photographed the actress] categorizes as “an intense experience of feelings of anger during an argument.”

Compared to the Athens and Brown University groups, villagers rated the image as more pleasant and less stressful. A similar hypothesis can be applied to account for individual differences as well as group or cultural differences 1 .

This result of ratings of this image does not contradict Darwin's theory of the universality of emotional expression. But it does demonstrate how different cultures can be in the way they contribute to the emergence emotions demonstrated through facial expressions (in this case, during a language game, which is highly likely to contribute to the emergence of this particular type of anger), as well as what the typical consequences specific types of facial expressions, which we have not yet mentioned.

When a person experiences some kind of emotion, one of the consequences is a change in facial expressions (if the rules of expressing emotions do not interfere with this process). But there are other consequences, including physical sensations, verbal behavior, body movements, reactions of the autonomic nervous system and various attempts to suppress this emotion. We (Ekman & Friesen, 1969b; Ekman, 1972; Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972) believe that many of these consequences are not universal but are learned through social and cultural influences. When anger arises in a certain social context, then, for example, one person may become accustomed to expressing aggression verbally, another - to attack physically, another will express aggression in the form of caustic jokes, another will retreat, and someone will become depressed and feel guilty. From this perspective, Triandis and Lambert's experiment demonstrated that one of the consequences of anger for rural residents is different from its consequences for urban residents (this particular expression of anger will not lead to a fight, but will be associated with make-believe anger, a playful form of anger).

Another difference between cultures that Triandis and Lambert found was, by their own admission, difficult to interpret. Greek participants (college students and rural residents) tended to rate images they found unpleasant as more expressive of attention and tension on the other two scales, while American students rated attention and tension higher for images that were less intense. which they found enjoyable. We agree that this result is difficult to interpret; it may likely reflect people's different attitudes toward emotions.

However, this discovery, like some other data obtained, can be questioned, since during the experiment, samples of emotions expressed on the face were used one and the same same person. Requirements for the number of images of different people used during an experiment are much more stringent if the researcher's goal is to identify cultural differences (compared to studies whose goal is to identify evidence of universality). The strictness of the requirements for observers follows exactly the opposite principle; here, a researcher who believes that he has obtained evidence of universality must be subject to more stringent requirements than one who seeks to obtain results that prove the cultural conditioning of facial expressions.

Let's clarify these points by applying them to Triandis and Lambert's research. If we interpret one person's facial expression as a way of conveying the same emotion in different cultures, then we know that that facial expression has a similar meaning in those cultures (no matter how unusual that person may be). How else, other than the intervention of higher powers, could one explain the fact that a person can come up with such a facial expression that will become understandable to representatives of the different cultures that we compare with each other? Even if she is an extremely gifted actress, this argument will not lose its force. In order for all cultures to understand an actress's facial expression and associate it with the same emotion, the emotional meaning of that facial expression must be understood across cultures. Notice we said understandable, not universal. If different cultures interpret the same facial expression differently, can we then conclude that all facial expressions are culturally determined? No, because a person may have some characteristics. Anatomical features may limit an actress's ability to express certain feelings (that even members of her own culture may not be able to properly understand). Or she may have psychological complexes that prevent her from expressing any specific emotions (she will have either appearing or disappearing expressions of emotion or incomplete expressions of emotions through facial expressions) - they may be understandable to her fellow countrymen or other women, but not to representatives of another culture. Or she may exhibit culturally determined facial expressions, emblems, rather than expressions of emotion (these emblems may be understandable in one culture, but not in another). (For example, while modeling one facial expression, an actress might wink and stick out her tongue for another. And if observers had to choose from a list of emotions that included words such as “happiness,” “sadness,” “anger,” “fear,” "surprise", "disgust", they are likely to choose the word "happy" for a photo where the actress is winking, and the word "anger" for one where she sticks out her tongue, even if these facial emblems do not convey any emotional states.) Or an actress posing for a photo illustrating a different emotion may unknowingly portray mixed feelings (two emotions or more) - and this will be given different interpretations in different cultures.

Interpreting the data obtained in Triandis and Lambert's experiment in light of these considerations, we cannot know whether the differences they found between Greeks and Americans were related to the features of the image of this woman in the photographs. We may question not only the reliability of evidence regarding culturally determined expressions of emotion through facial expressions, but also the evidence that points to universal expressions of emotion. Remember, Triandis and Lambert found that, by and large, Greek observers, even in rural areas, attributed the same emotions to faces in photographs as American observers, despite some differences. Can we say that this is proof of our statement about the universal manifestations of emotions in facial expressions? Not necessarily, since here we are faced with a much more stringent requirement for proving the universality hypothesis compared to the cultural conditioning hypothesis. This requirement is due to the fact that there is the possibility of visual contact between representatives of different cultures (this allows them to adopt culturally determined types of facial expressions from each other). If people from two cultures communicate with each other or have access to the same visual resources, such as television, feature films, photography magazines, works of art, and illustrated children's books, then they can learn to express emotions using those types of facial expressions which are shown in these illustrations. It is the stern look of John Wayne on the TV screen, and not the history of evolution, that can shape the ability of representatives of different cultures to recognize this look from each other! Facial expressions in this case would not be universal, but simply shared among those who had access to the same visual resources. Cultures visually isolated from each other would have a completely different set of them. Triandis and Lambert's Greek subjects, even from rural areas, were not sufficiently visually isolated to allow statements about the universality of emotions to be made from their data. We will see this problem arise in almost all of the studies reviewed.

Küseloglu

The use of facial pictures in the experiment conducted by Küseloglu (1970) may at first seem to be a way to circumvent the difficulties associated with using only one person's face, but there is also a problem with the drawings themselves. Kuseloglu showed college students in the United States, Japan, and Turkey 60 images of facial expressions using the kroqui technique, which included four types of eyebrow positions, three types of eye images, and five types of mouth positions. In Fig. 3 shows the elements with which he came up with his 60 pictures. Subjects (from different cultures) were asked to rate the emotion depictions on these faces on a 7-point scale (to decide how applicable 40 emotion descriptions were to them). Küseloglu (1970) concluded that “some static features of the face most attract attention in the expression of a particular emotion, and some do not. Some of these attention-grabbing characteristics of facial expression are shared across cultures and reflect what appears to be universal in facial communication, while others appear to be specific to a particular racial or cultural group. In other words, there appears to be a kind of facial code used in the communication of affective meaning that is largely, although not completely, common to representatives of different cultures" 1 .

1 Quote by: Cüceloglu, D. M. Perception of facial expressions in three cultures. Ergonomics, 1970, 13 , 93–100.

Although schematic images of faces do not convey the individual characteristics of a person, such images are not necessarily related to the expression of emotions through facial expressions. The question is, do they represent the majority or some of the facial expressions that occur when there is movement of the facial muscles, or is it just the artist's imagination? Do they depict different types of facial expressions that cannot occur for anatomical reasons, or do they simply appear rarely?

Rice. 3. Schematic representations of facial elements with the help of which stimuli were created in Kuseloglu’s experiments

Comparison of the facial images presented by Küseloglu with those presented in studies by scientists who attempted to describe either all possible options for depicting emotions on the face, or those directly related to a specific emotion (Birdwhistell, 1970; Blurton Jones, 1972; Ekman, 1972; Ekman , Friesen & Tomkins, 1971; Hjortsjo, 1970; Grant, 1969), demonstrates that in a collection of 60 images, very few exist in reality. Moreover, by combining the image of each eyebrow position with each mouth shape, Küseloglu obtained images of faces that cannot arise due to anatomical reasons. We argue that between the fourth and third images of faces in Küseloglu's collection there are some that could never appear in real life. These may well be images about which his observers, presumably in all three cultures, could not give unanimous assessments (since they had never encountered such faces in real life).

Many of the anatomically possible facial expressions convey mixed emotions rather than single ones. Facial movements may appear related to only one emotion, which is conveyed by the position of the eyebrows, eyes and lower part of the face, or they may reflect two or more emotions at the same time, combining elements of one emotion (which are conveyed by the position of the eyebrows, muscle movements forehead or eyes) and elements of another emotion (in the lower part of the face). (Figure 4 shows two single emotions and two expressions of mixed emotions.) Single emotions are universal, but we believe that different cultures differ from each other in the specific combinations of emotions that are often found in them.

Rice. 4. An example of single and mixed emotions. The photo at the top left shows a single emotion that expresses surprise, the photo at the top right shows a single emotion of fear. The two bottom pictures illustrate mixed emotions (fear-surprise). At the bottom left, the facial expression represents a combination of surprise, which is expressed through the movements of the mouth, with fear, which is conveyed through the position of the eyebrows, forehead and eyes. Bottom right, the facial expression represents a combination of surprise, which is expressed through the position of the eyebrows and forehead, with fear, which is conveyed through the position of the mouth (© Paul Ekman)

This argument may explain what happens to feelings in Küseloglu's experiment: some expressions of emotions can be interpreted the same way in different cultures, while others can be interpreted differently in each culture (if in the first case one observes manifestations of single emotions, and in the second one observes manifestations of mixed ones) . Our final comment on Küseloglu's study is that, like almost all other studies related to emotion recognition, it does not involve the phenomenon of visual isolation among representatives of comparable cultures. His evidence for universality should be viewed as conjecture rather than valid inference.

Dicky and Nower

Dickey and Nower (1941) conducted the first evaluative study of facial expressions in which the judgments of different cultures were compared. The researchers sought to identify culturally based differences and concluded that children from Mexican schools interpreted specially filmed images of facial expressions of two American actors more accurately compared to schoolchildren from the United States. Accurately describing images in their experiment required subjects to identify the emotion being portrayed by the actor. The researchers found that in most cases, Mexicans gave more accurate descriptions of the images than North Americans. The Mexican children's better results were explained by the fact that they were able to perceive more vivid expressions of emotions characteristic of their culture every day. The researchers were not interested in the universality of certain types of emotional expression, although other scientists (for example, Vinaki, to whose work we will soon turn) interpreted the results in this vein. We are confident that in our analysis of the data they collected, we were able to find evidence of cultural differences to a much smaller extent than what the authors of this experiment and other researchers have claimed. Let's take a look at their research.

Dickey and Nover showed schoolchildren from the United States and Mexico City photographs in which an actor depicts 11 emotions, as well as 11 photographs with the same emotions performed by an actress, and asked them to correlate these photographs with a specific category of emotions. The results showed the following: 1) in almost all cases, the most common ratings for each facial emotion image were the same for both Mexicans and North Americans; 2) in a number of cases, Mexicans were more likely than North Americans to give the correct answer (when they determined the actor’s emotion). For example, for images of anger, 69% of Americans chose the word “anger,” while Mexicans chose it 86% of the time.

So, in both cultures, the most common assessments of emotions were the same, but Mexicans provided more correct answers. Although Dickey and Nower emphasized the second conclusion, we would like to emphasize the first, since it implies that facial expressions of emotion are the same in both cultures. The fact that more Mexicans gave accurate answers is explained, as the authors suggest, by cultural influences: if Mexicans are more expressive, then they should be more attentive and accustomed to displaying emotions through facial expressions. Although both cultures may differ in how accurately people interpret facial expressions, to those who do understand emotional expressions, they mean the same thing across cultures. The idea that emotions are universal would be jeopardized by studies in which a majority of Mexican subjects interpreted an image as anger, while most North American subjects labeled it as sadness, fear, or some other emotion. But that did not happen.

Dickey and Nower's conclusion about cultural difference as a factor in the differences in performance between Mexicans and North Americans can be questioned for two reasons: 1) they used images of emotions on the faces of only two people (and, as we have already explained, a wider range of images should be used). a set of images if we seek to obtain reliable evidence of the cultural conditioning of facial expressions); 2) differences in the accuracy of estimates may not apply to emotions. The study of 11 types of facial expressions includes six feelings that other researchers classify as emotions and which are considered as such by all other scientists who set out to determine what emotions can be recognized by observing facial expressions. These are happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust. Dickey and Nower also included in the list such rarities that other researchers do not mention (love of God, fortitude, desire to find an answer to a question, etc.). When we analyzed their results by separating them from emotions and attitudes, we found even more differences in how Mexicans and North Americans rated relationships versus emotions 1 .

1 A chi-square test applied to data from Dickey and Nover's studies showed a significant difference between Mexican and North American subjects in how they rated relationships (x2 = 7.50, df = 1), but not in how they assessed emotions (X2 = 2.94, df = 1).

Winkelmeier and others

Winkelmeier, Axlin, Gottheil, and Paredes (1971) recently conducted an experiment in which they attempted to show that Mexicans (relative to North Americans) are less accurate in judging the facial expressions of North Americans (although they did not cite Dickey and Nower, who came to the opposite conclusion). Winkelmeier and other scientists were aware of data that showed the universality of emotional expression (we will discuss this shortly), but interpreted our research and Izard's work as narrow, specific research. Only “strongly expressed, stereotypical expressions of emotion” are universal, they argued. If spontaneous, more habitual facial expressions were shown, observers from different cultures should judge them differently. Winkelmeier and others also believed that showing film footage of different types of facial expressions was more likely to produce culturally based differences in their perception than showing still images of facial expressions (photographs). For some unknown reason, they believed that recordings of the progressive development or formation of facial expressions, such as video recordings, would reveal greater differences in facial assessments across cultures than would results obtained by showing photographs of an emotion at its peak expression. .

In their study, Winkelmeier and colleagues presented 33 US psychology students, 31 British nursing students, and 36 Mexican nursing students with a silent video recording of 10 healthy women and 10 women with schizophrenia, who were told one happy story, one sad and one story related to anger). The results were varied, and they only partially confirmed their expectations about differences between representatives of different cultures.

Regardless of whether the woman whose emotions were assessed was healthy or had schizophrenia, there were no differences between subjects from the US, UK and Mexico. When only data from women with schizophrenia were assessed, again there were no differences between the US and UK subjects, but the data were more accurate than those provided by the Mexican subjects. One might wonder whether this latest finding was due to cultural differences, as the authors claimed, or to the fact that psychology students are better equipped than medical students to perceive human emotions.

Although Winkelmeier's experiment was not limited to the judgments of just one or two people, it did have problems with the way observers' judgments were analyzed. They could only choose from three emotions (happiness, sadness and anger). Distinguishing happiness from other emotions has been so much easier (cf. Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972) that more powerful results than this simple distinction are needed. Winkelmeier and colleagues presented their findings in such a way that it is impossible to know whether the difference between the Mexican, British, and American subjects was that they easily recognized happiness as an emotion, distinguishing it from anger and sadness, or that they had more difficulty distinguish anger from sadness. An even more serious problem with presenting the data from this experiment is that the scientists do not show whether cultural differences between subjects depended on how accurately did they estimate emotions (perhaps, for example, more American subjects were more accurate than Mexicans, but in both groups a particular facial expression was judged by most observers to be the same emotion), or from categories of the emotion being assessed. As we pointed out in our discussion of Dickey and Nower's findings, only the second result (where, for example, a facial expression that was interpreted as anger in one culture was interpreted as fear in another) would contradict the claim that some types of emotional expression through facial expressions are universal.

The conclusion suggests itself that due to the low reliability of the results and due to the fact that it was not possible to analyze the collected data in a sufficiently informative way, the study by Winkelmeier and his colleagues is very ambiguous.

Vinake

This is the last work researcher we would like to discuss. Vinache believed that the expression of emotions through facial expressions depends on culture, but admitted that he was unable to prove this. He was influenced by the research of Klineberg, Dickey and Nower. Moreover, he believed that racial differences in appearance were associated with differences in facial expressions. He (Vinacke, 1949; Vinacke & Fong, 1955) obtained evaluative judgments of what he perceived as spontaneous facial expressions of emotion (while filming hidden camera images of Whites and Asians from magazines and groups of Whites, Chinese and Japanese students at the University of Hawaii). . His findings showed that the differences between these three racial groups are so small (in their assessments of Caucasian and Asian faces) that they are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Thus, all groups of subjects are usually unanimous in assessing the expression of emotions through facial expressions, although to varying degrees 1 .

1 Vinacke, W. E., & Fong, R. W. The judgment of facial expressions by three national-racial groups in Hawaii: II. Oriental faces. Journal of Social Psychology, 1955, 41, 185–195.

Vinake explained that he was unable to identify cultural differences because all his subjects were in active contact with each other, and this erased cultural differences. He also believed that he had made a mistake by using images of spontaneous expressions of emotion (if he had used specially prepared images of faces expressing emotions, he would have been able to identify culturally determined differences). This is a paradoxical observation, since Winkelmeier and others have made precisely the opposite argument for using images of spontaneous emotional expression as evidence that evaluations of emotional expression are culturally conditioned. (When we conclude our discussion of appraisal research, we turn to the thorny issue of choosing between pre-filmed and spontaneous depictions of facial expressions of emotion, and the possible implications of this choice for cross-cultural research on emotion appraisal.)

conclusions

All five studies found evidence for the universality of emotion perception, and four of them also provided evidence for cultural differences in the assessment of emotional expression. We have seen that the existence of differences between cultures does not contradict the idea that there are universal types of emotional expression. No one has provided evidence that facial expressions that were interpreted as the same emotion by a majority of observers from one culture would be considered a different emotion by those from a different culture. But the proof of the existence of culturally determined differences in the interpretation of emotions was that not only facial expressions are “read” in a similar way among representatives of different cultures (this is the main idea), but also the context of expression of emotions, consequences expressions of emotions, assessment of manifestations mixed emotions and degree accuracy assessments may vary across cultures.

Although these studies provide evidence for rather than against Darwin's idea, they have not produced evidence that conclusively demonstrates either the universality or the cultural conditioning of facial expressions of emotion. They did not determine the universality of emotions, since none of the observers studied cultures isolated from visual contact with other cultures. In these experiments, observers most likely had the opportunity to learn patterns of emotional expression from each other through facial expressions, or could have learned a certain set of them from an accessible visual source, such as movies. The experiments failed to detect differences between cultures because either the subjects were presented with a limited number of pictures of faces, or because of inconsistencies during the studies, or because the stimuli were expressions of mixed emotions.

The question of the essence of emotions is one of those issues in which the right to truth is endlessly disputed between researchers of nature and researchers of culture. Along with the body, feelings constantly remind a person of his natural beginning, poorly controlled by culture. But, paradoxically, this most private and intimate part of the human personality is subject to significant influence from society. We constantly check with social ideas about the appropriateness of certain emotions in a certain situation, about decent and indecent forms of their manifestation. Moreover, these ideas vary in different cultures, which calls into question the universality and exceptional biologicality of emotional experiences.

History of the study of emotions

For the first time, the question of the cultural conditioning of emotions was raised by one of the founders of the historical Annales School, Lucien Febvre. The reason for reflection was the phenomenon of “psychological anachronism” he recorded. The essence of this lack of historical research was, according to Febvre, in attributing to people of other eras feelings, experiences and motives characteristic of the historian’s contemporaries: “When psychologists in their articles and treatises tell us about the emotions, feelings, reasoning of “man” in general, they are actually actually mean our emotions, our feelings, our reasoning - in a word, our mental life, the life of the white-skinned inhabitants of Western Europe, representatives of various groups of a very ancient culture.” In reality, even the same names of emotions do not at all imply identical experiences. In methodological terms, this means that the description of an era inevitably involves not identifying correspondences between different historical forms of feeling, but reconstructing each historical period’s own emotional repertoire.

L. Febvre also owns a thesis about the social conditioning of emotions, which will subsequently become fundamental for humanitarian studies of the sphere of feelings. Emotions, in his opinion, “are born... in the innermost organic depths of a given personality, often under the influence of an event that only concerns him, or at least concerns him especially tangibly, especially acutely. But their expression is the result of a whole series of experiences of coexistence, the result of similar and simultaneous reactions to depressions caused by similar situations and contacts.”

Almost at the same time, independently of L. Febvre, the German sociologist Norberg Elias also gave emotions one of the main places in historical science, presenting the history of civilization as a purposeful process of curbing and educating emotions. Developing the idea of the social origin of emotions, N. Elias paid special attention to the fact that they are characterized by intersubjectivity. Emotion is formed in interpersonal interaction as a result of the influence of team members on each other, and therefore combines both individual and social principles.

However, the ideas of L. Febvre and N. Elias, expressed in the 30s. XX century, were isolated attempts to outline the cultural and historical dynamics of the emotional sphere and did not receive an immediate response in the scientific community. Until the 1980s historians who studied emotions considered feelings to be constant and adhered to the idea of their universality. It was believed that emotions do not depend on culture, society, historical period and other extra-natural variables, and therefore the sphere of feelings remained a subject of interest mainly for representatives of the natural sciences, only occasionally falling into the field of attention of humanities research.

The situation changes in the 1980s, when constructivist approach to the study of emotions. In fact, this is the time of implementation of Febvre's ideas. Emotions are beginning to be viewed as culturally and historically determined phenomena. The idea of K. Geertz that “cultural artifacts in a person are not only ideas, but also emotions” is becoming widespread. The most radical theories of this period deny the physiological component of emotions, insisting on their purely cultural origin. At the same time, the formation of the research field of the history of emotions takes place and the terminological apparatus for its study is formed. The question of cultural factors that determine the emergence and characteristics of the expression of emotional states in each individual culture comes to the fore. The semantic result of the constructivist stage is the creation emotionology - the science of emotional norms and standards developed by Peter Stearns.

However, in studies of the 1980-1990s. the historical variability of emotions is emphasized, but their social differentiation remains unattended. Rather, a generalized idea of the emotional sphere is formed, while a legalized description of the various variations of experiences and ways of expressing them is almost absent.

Since the mid-1990s. gaining strength synthetic emotion concept, which still prevails today. According to modern concepts of the humanities, emotions are a combination of an unchanging physiological basis and a specific cultural shell. The physiological nature of feelings is universal for all people, but each culture creates its own forms of expression and its own hierarchy of experiences.

If emotional research in the 1980s. developed under the influence of P. Stearns, then at the turn of the millennium the most important role in this process belonged to two historians - Barbara Rosenwein and William Reddy. The object of attention of these researchers is not only the emotions themselves and their cultural determinants, but also the cultural conditioning of the language of their description. Thus, according to B. Rosenwein, for a long time both everyday and scientific conversation about emotions was based on hydraulic model, t.s. walked with the use of expressions that likened feelings to liquids inside a person, which, rising and foaming, tend to come out (“throw out emotions”, “beam with happiness”, “pour out anger on someone”). This idea of emotions was determined by the humoral theory, which interprets the human body as a dynamic balance of four fluids - blood, lymph, yellow and black bile. In the modern era, the hydraulic model is partially replaced by the idea of emotions as an elastic system of nerves, which gives rise to the expressions “emotional tension”, “relax”, etc.

The current stage of the fundamental study of emotions is associated, first of all, with interdisciplinary research that combines the developments of both the natural sciences and the humanities. In the humanitarian sphere itself, complex studies of individual feelings - love, fear, melancholy, boredom - are most relevant. In addition, a discursive approach to the analysis of emotions is becoming widespread, which involves a comparative study of the ways emotions are constructed in different discourses - medical, psychiatric, literary, etiquette, cinematic, etc. - as well as historical changes in discursive practices.

The study of emotions provides the key to solving other cultural problems. In particular, the importance of emotions for the implementation of the integrative and regulatory functions of culture is of interest.

Among other grounds for unity, common emotional standards play an important role. In this approach, the nation is seen as a community united not only by a political but also by an emotional regime, and the community of revolutionaries is seen as a group that shares a positive assessment of hatred. The regulatory aspect of culture is realized through the differentiation of emotions on various grounds, among which gender differences have a special place. Thus, emotion regulation becomes a way to create inequality and maintain social order.

Based on the tasks that humanitarian studies of feelings set for themselves, a fairly diverse source base for studying the emotional sphere of culture has emerged.

Ego documents(autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, private letters) are evidence of the direct assimilation of emotional norms, allowing one to judge which of the models of feelings offered by a culture become facts of everyday life, and which remain only etiquette or literary conventions.

Specific information about emotions is provided by medical reports and case histories, describing external manifestations of emotions and criteria for “normal” emotionality, because the boundary between natural emotions and symptoms of mental illness is historically variable.

Most actively used as sources on the history of emotions literary works. Fiction, on the one hand, presents examples of feelings and experiences in their nuances. On the other hand, it not only reflects cultural attitudes in the sphere of emotions, but also itself offers models of sensitivity, which are subsequently acquired by readers and become facts of cultural life.

Other works of art also contain information about feelings, in particular paintings. Unlike other sources that verbally describe ways of expressing emotions, they allow you to directly record them outside external manifestations, since the canons of depicting people in one or another emotional state reflect the conventions accepted in society.

If most sources report ways to implement the language of feelings, then etiquette books represent a kind of dictionary and grammar of this language. They make it possible to determine the status of certain feelings, the norms of their expression, the boundaries of decent and indecent emotional behavior, since the same emotion can be assessed differently depending on the situation (shows of tenderness were approved in the family circle, but were considered unacceptable in the public space) .

Thus, the study of emotions as a cultural phenomenon relies on a variety of sources. However, it should be remembered that none of them could give an objective picture of the emotional life of the era, and therefore a correct description of the cultural specifics of feelings requires the use of information from different sources.

Febr L. History and psychology // Febr L. Fights for history. M.: Nauka, 1991. P. 102.
Febr L. Sensitivity and history // Febr L. Fights for history. M.: Nauka, 1991. P. 111.
See: Elias N. On the process of civilization. Sociogetic and psychogenetic studies: in 2 vols. M.; St. Petersburg : University Book, 2001.
Geertz K. Interpretation of cultures. M.: ROSSPEN, 2004. P. 96.

In psychology, emotions are processes that reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations for a person’s life in the form of experiences. Emotions and feelings serve to reflect a person’s subjective attitude towards himself and the world around him. Among the diverse manifestations of a person’s emotional life, there are: feelings, as one of the main forms of a person’s experience of his relationship to objects and phenomena of reality, characterized by relative stability. In contrast to situational emotions and affects, which reflect the subjective meaning of objects in specific prevailing conditions, feelings highlight phenomena that have stable motivational significance. By revealing to the individual objects that meet his needs and inducing him to take action to satisfy them, feelings represent a concrete subjective form of existence for the latter. The formation of feelings is a necessary condition for the development of a person as an individual.

Let us consider the question of the origin of emotions and the evolution of human feelings. It is generally accepted that emotions arise when something significant to the individual occurs. Discrepancies begin when trying to clarify the nature and degree of significance of an event that can arouse emotion. If for W. Wundt or N. Grot any perceived event is significant, i.e. emotional, already due to the fact that at the moment of perception it is part of the individual’s life, which does not know an impartial state and is capable of finding in everything at least a slight shade of interesting, unexpected, unpleasant, etc., then according to R. S. Lazarus, emotions arise in those exceptional cases when, on the basis of cognitive processes, a conclusion is made about the presence, on the one hand, of some threat, and on the other hand, the impossibility of avoiding it. E. Claparède presents the emergence of emotions-affects in a very similar way, however, his concept states that a preliminary assessment of the threat is not produced by intellectual processes, as Lazarus believes, but by a special class of emotional phenomena - feelings.

A person’s feelings are socially conditioned and historical, just like the human personality itself, changing during the development of society. In ontogenesis, feelings appear later than situational emotions; they are formed as individual consciousness develops under the influence of the educational influences of family, school, art and other social institutions. The objects of feelings are, first of all, those phenomena and conditions on which the development of events that are significant for the individual and therefore perceived emotionally depends. A person cannot experience a feeling in general, without reference, but only to someone or something. The objective nature of feelings reflects their historical conditioning. Arising as a result of a generalization of previous emotional experience (group and individual), the formed feelings become the leading formations of a person’s emotional sphere and begin, in turn, to determine the dynamics and content of situational emotions: for example, from a feeling of love for a loved one, depending on the circumstances, anxiety can develop for him, grief at separation, joy at meeting, anger if a loved one did not live up to expectations, etc. Thoughts and beliefs can give rise to feelings.

A specific feeling always corresponds to some more general life attitude, determined by the needs and values of the subject, his habits, past experiences, etc., which in turn are determined by even more general laws of socio-historical development, and only in this context can it receive its true causal explanation.

Feelings are a reflection of relationships in the “language of personality,” or a conscious reflection. The social determination of feelings is due to the fact that it is the practical relations of people, in which their own lives become a special subject for them, that give rise to feelings as subjective relations, as experiences. The significance of what is happening for a person as a generic being, as a collective subject, is experienced. Feelings literally grow out of emotions in certain socially typical conditions. The social typicality of living conditions also determines the uniqueness of feelings among representatives of different cultures in connection with similar events: demographic, labor, political, etc.

Other news on the topic.

Introduction

1. Historical conditioning of human feelings

2. Basic functions of the senses

3. Classification of human feelings

4. Dynamics of development of feelings

5. Ways of expressing feelings and personal self-regulation in the sphere of feelings

6. Education and self-education of feelings in the process of personality formation

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction.

Cognizing reality, a person relates in one way or another to objects, phenomena, events, to other people, to his personality. Some phenomena of reality make him happy, others make him sad, others outrage him, etc. Joy, sadness, admiration, indignation, anger. shame, etc. - all these are different types of a person’s subjective attitude to reality.

Feelings express a person’s partiality, without which not a single active step is conceivable. Feelings clearly reveal their influence in production and in the family, in knowledge and art, in pedagogy and the clinic, in creativity and mental crises of a person.

Such a universal significance of feelings should indicate great interest in them and a high degree of their study. However, such interest among psychological researchers is not sustainable. This is due to failures in attempts to find sufficiently subtle and reliable means for the objective study of feelings.

Terminological differences create great confusion in the development of the psychology of feelings. To some extent, they are already embedded in everyday language. allowing us to call, for example, fear an emotion, an affect, a feeling, or even a sensation, or to unite under the general name of feelings such diverse phenomena as pain or irony, beauty and confidence, touch and fairness. But this indicates that the phenomenological material does not have clearly distinguishable features that could provide some unified initial grouping and ordering. When solving this problem in psychological theory, influence is inevitably exerted by conceptual traditions and ideas, which, due to their differences, assign different content to vague everyday concepts. Due to the existing terminological ambiguity in the psychology of the emotional and sensory sphere, it is important to take into account the conventions of names and resolve the issue based on a thorough check of what exactly they mean.

It is obvious that theories that endow every mental process with affectivity (W. Wundt, N. Grot, S. L. Rubinstein), and theories for which the affective state is a special event, meaning that some deviation has occurred in the normal course of the mental process (J.-P Sartre, P.V. Simonov), differ both in the solution of the question of what should be classified as the sensory-emotional sphere, and in the scale, nature and level of generality of the problems considered in them.

The lack of continuity between theories created in different historical eras cannot but complicate the task of becoming familiar with the psychology of feelings, combining into a single generalized picture everything that is established or affirmed in individual concepts and schools.

1. Historical conditioning of human feelings.

In psychology, emotions are processes that reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations for a person’s life in the form of experiences. Emotions and feelings serve to reflect a person’s subjective attitude towards himself and the world around him. Among the diverse manifestations of a person’s emotional life, there are: feelings, as one of the main forms of a person’s experience of his relationship to objects and phenomena of reality, characterized by relative stability. In contrast to situational emotions and affects, which reflect the subjective meaning of objects in specific prevailing conditions, feelings highlight phenomena that have stable motivational significance. By revealing to the individual objects that meet his needs, and motivating him to engage in activities and artistic satisfaction, feelings represent a concretely subjective form of existence for the latter. The formation of feelings is a necessary condition for the development of a person as an individual. (6, 445)

If there is an insignificant shade of interesting, unexpected, unpleasant, etc., then according to R. S. Lazarus, emotions arise in those exceptional cases when, on the basis of cognitive processes, a conclusion is made about the presence, on the one hand, of some threat, and on the other hand, the impossibility of avoiding it. E. Claparède presents the emergence of emotions-affects in a very similar way, however, his concept states that a preliminary assessment of the threat is not produced by intellectual processes, as Lazarus believes, but by a special class of emotional phenomena - feelings (7).

A person’s feelings are socially conditioned and historical, just like the human personality itself, changing during the development of society. In ontogenesis, feelings appear later than situational emotions; they are formed as individual consciousness develops under the influence of the educational influences of family, school, art and other social institutions. The objects of feelings are, first of all, those phenomena and conditions on which the development of events that are significant for the individual and therefore perceived emotionally depends. A person cannot experience a feeling in general, without reference, but only to someone or something. The objective nature of feelings reflects their historical conditioning. Arising as a result of the generalization of previous emotional experience (group and individual), the formed feelings become the leading formations of the emotional sphere of a person and begin, in turn, to determine the dynamics and content of situational emotions: for example, from a feeling of love for a loved one, depending on the circumstances, anxiety for him, grief can develop during separation, joy when meeting, anger if a loved one did not live up to expectations, etc. Thoughts and beliefs can give rise to feelings.

Feelings are a reflection of relationships on “linguistic personality”, or a conscious reflection. The social determination of feelings is due to the fact that it is the practical relations of people, in which their own lives become a special subject for them, that give rise to feelings as subjective relations, as experiences. The meaning of what is happening is experienced for a person as a generic being, as a collective subject. Feelings literally grow out of emotions in certain socially typical conditions. The social typicality of living conditions also determines the uniqueness of feelings among representatives of different cultures in connection with similar events: demographic, labor, political, etc. (5.)

2. Basic functions of the senses.

One of the central problems of psychological science is to clarify all the factors and determinants that motivate, guide and support the behavior of a living being. An orienting ideational subject does not directly reflect the entire complex set of factors that determine his behavior. On the other hand, the subject clearly experiences the feelings that arise in him, and it is by them that he is actually guided in life. This fact underlies the concept that feelings motivate behavior (L. I. Petrazhitsky, R. W. Leeper).

A true functional interpretation of feelings can only be obtained in the context of the position defended by Soviet psychology on the necessary and active participation of feelings in the regulation of activity. Feelings, as a subjective form of the existence of needs, signal to a person the need-based significance of objects and encourage them to direct activity towards them (S. L. Rubinstein).

Emotions and feelings are unanimously recognized as performing the function of evaluation. The ability of feelings to make an assessment is well consistent with their characteristics: their occurrence in significant situations, objectivity, dependence on needs, etc. Feelings are the language, the system of signals through which the subject learns about the need and significance of what is happening.

One of the functional manifestations of feelings is that they impose on the subject stereotypical actions, which represent a certain way of emergency resolution of situations fixed in evolution: flight, numbness, aggression, etc. It is known that such feelings as indignation, pride, resentment, jealousy “impose” certain actions on a person , even when they are undesirable for him. (T. Dembo, J.-P. Sartre).

In psychology, two complementary functions that are performed in relation to certain mental processes are especially highlighted. Research has revealed the influence of feelings on the accumulation and actualization of individual experience. The first function, discussed under different names: consolidation-inhibition (P.K. Anokhin), trace formation (A.N. Leontyev, Ya.M. Kalashnik, A.R. Luria), reinforcement (P.V. Simonov); another function is anticipatory (A.V. Zaporozhets), heuristic (O.K. Tikhomirov).

Of great theoretical interest is the function of sensory experiences as a synthesizing basis of the image, providing the possibility of a whole and structured reflection of the mosaic diversity of actually acting stimuli. (W. Wundt, A. N. Leontiev, K. G. Jung, A. R. Luria, F. Kruger).

Certain emotional states are accompanied by specific changes in pantomime, facial expressions, and sound reactions. In evolution, these reactions developed and were consolidated as a means of alerting the emotional state of the individual in intraspecific and interspecific communication. (C. Darwin). The expressive function of feelings did not lose its significance even after a more advanced form of information exchange—articulate speech—was formed in the historical development of man. Sensual expression remains one of the main factors providing non-verbal communication.

In psychology, along with the general functions of feelings, specific characteristics of individual emotional states are highlighted. Specific characteristics of such feelings as laughter, shame, sadness, grief are highlighted in the works of A. Bergson, P. Janet, Z. Freud, E. Lindemann.

3. Classification of feelings.

The versatility of feelings, their manifestation at various levels of reflection and activity, the ability to merge and combine, and their adaptive nature exclude the possibility of a simple linear classification of them.

Feelings vary in modality, intensity, duration, depth, awareness, genetic origin, complexity, conditions of occurrence, functions performed, impact on the body, forms of their development, by levels of manifestation in the mental structure (higher-lower), by the mental processes with which they are associated, according to needs, according to subject content and focus, the characteristics of their expression, and the nervous substrate.

Existing classification schemes differ in the ratio of their theoretical and empirical validity.

The most common classification of feelings distinguishes their individual subtypes according to the types of activities in which they manifest themselves. A special group consists of the highest feelings, which contain the wealth of a person’s emotional relationship to social reality. The area of moral feelings includes everything that determines a person’s attitude towards social institutions, towards the state, towards a certain class, towards other people, towards himself.

Cognitive activity gives rise to cognitive or intellectual feelings in a person. Their subject is both the process of acquiring knowledge and its result; The pinnacle of intellectual feelings is the generalized feeling of love for truth. Among the highest feelings, an important place is occupied by practical feelings associated with activity: work, study, sports. The highest feelings also include aesthetic feelings, which presuppose a conscious or unconscious ability to be guided by concepts of beauty when perceiving the phenomena of the surrounding reality. Intellectual, practical, aesthetic feelings arise in unity with moral feelings and are enriched in connection with them.

According to the degree of generalization of the subject content, feelings are divided into concrete (for example, feelings for a child, a work of art), generalized (feelings for children in general, for music) and abstract (feelings for justice, the tragic).

An example of an empirical classification is the distinction between ten “fundamental” emotions, identified on the basis of a complex criterion covering their neural substrate, expression and subjective quality (K. Izard). These include the following: interest-excitement, joy, surprise, grief-suffering, anger, disgust. contempt, fear,

shame, guilt. (2).

Emotions (and therefore feelings) can be classified depending on the subjective value of the experiences that arise. B.I. Dodonov identified the following types of such “valuable” emotions: 1. altruistic, 2. communicative, 3. gloric, 4. praxic, 5. fearful, 6. romantic, 7. gnostic, 8. aesthetic, 9. hedonistic, 10. active. (1)

Empirically, based on the form of direct experience, the following feelings have been identified: happiness, self-respect, love, shame, a sense of the comic, humor, irony, a sense of tragedy, confusion, remorse, fear, resentment. (11)

The lack of an exhaustive classification of feelings is explained by their great diversity, as well as their historical variability.

4. Dynamics of human feelings.

The problem of the temporal development of emotional processes was first posed and considered by W. Wundt. He believed that this development consists of both quantitative and qualitative changes in emotional experience. In Wundt's teachings, one more point is clearly outlined concerning the dynamics of emotional processes - the point about the fusion, connection, summation of individual emotions into more complex emotional formations. For many theories, the possibility of connecting emotions is the most important principle that explains the emergence of complex emotions from simpler ones. Thus, compassion unites through a combination of sadness and love, jealousy is a complex affect consisting of both love and hatred for a loved one and envy for the one he loves. It is advisable to consider the question of the actual dynamics of emotional phenomena, how they arise, proceed, replace each other, fade away and re-emerge, using specific examples.

In identifying and describing specific patterns

the generation of some emotions by others was done most of all by B. Spinoza. The material he provides shows that emotional relationships that develop under various circumstances from some initial emotion can, in some cases, be very complex and varied. Thus, a subject overwhelmed by love empathizes with the feelings of the one he loves. As a result of such empathy, love can spread to another person: we will also love the one who causes the object of our love pleasure, and we will hate the one who causes him displeasure. One of the consequences of love is that it generates a desire for reciprocity, which, if unsatisfied, causes displeasure. If a person believes that he is not loved through no fault of his own, then he will be overcome by a feeling of humiliation, but if he does not think so, he will experience hatred for the one whom he believes is the cause of the displeasure received from unrequited love.

Such a reason may be the object of love itself or, for example, the one whom he loves. In the latter case, a special type of hatred arises - jealousy. (7)

The emotional process includes three main components:

The first is emotional arousal, which determines mobilization shifts in the body; the speed and intensity of mental, motor, and vegetative processes increases. In some cases, excitability may, on the contrary, decrease.

The second component is an emotional sign: a positive feeling occurs when an event is assessed as positive, a negative feeling when it is assessed as negative. A positive feeling encourages actions to support a positive event, a negative feeling encourages actions aimed at eliminating contact with a negative event.

The third component is the degree of control of feelings (from complete orientation and control over feelings to complete disorientation and lack of control).

Features of the dynamics of feelings are determined objectively and subjectively. Objective reasons include the general conditions for the emergence and existence of the mental; they are revealed by the characteristics of the object, subject and their interaction.

Subjective reasons in the proper, narrow sense of the word include everything that concerns the inner world of the subject of reflection: his temperament, memory, character, abilities and orientation, previous impressions.

5. Ways of expressing feelings and personal self-regulation.

The question of the external expression of feelings is considered through the prism of a materialistic view of the manifestations of the psyche.

In Russian scientific psychology, this view was perfectly expressed by I.M. Sechenov: “Does a child laugh at the sight of a toy, does Garibaldi smile when he is persecuted for excessive love for his Motherland, does a girl tremble at the first thought of love, does Newton create world laws and write them on paper, - everywhere the final fact is muscular movement.” (9)

More than a hundred years ago, Charles Darwin laid the foundation for research into the role of facial complexes in emotions.

The special importance of facial expressions and facial feedback was first emphasized by Tomkins and then by Gelgorn. In Tomkins's language, emotions are mainly facial responses. He argued that proprioceptive feedback from facial expressions, when transformed into a conscious form, creates the sensation or awareness of an emotion. Because the nerves and muscles of the face are much more finely differentiated compared to the internal organs, facial expressions and their feedback are much faster responses than visceral ones, which play a secondary role in emotion, providing only the basis or accompaniment for individual facial expressions.

One of the variants of the process of activation of emotion may be an emotional process, the expressive expression of which is partially or completely suppressed. For example, in some situations, expressing anger is a violation of social norms. Then the subject, through an effort of will, suppresses all external manifestations that signal anger. However, he may still feel angry. Suppression of expressive expression forces the nervous system to do a lot of work - block the normal emotional process, carry it out in a roundabout way. Constant use of such an indirect process of emotion activation can lead to psychosomatic or psychological abnormalities. The process of suppression, due to which the expression is not represented in consciousness, can itself exist as a strong emotion.

Emotional process theory suggests that facial expression, when consistent with the expression of a fundamental emotion, can play a role in the control and regulation of emotional experience.

Effective functioning of the individual is based on a balanced and harmonious interaction of the emotional, cognitive and motor systems with the necessary support from other life systems and with optimal consideration of the environment, in particular the social context. Among modern authors, K. Izard pays relatively great attention to the issue of expressing emotions.

Feelings play a huge role in a person’s life from the point of view of adaptation to the environment. The fundamental starting point here is the connection between emotions and human needs.

Thus, the brain centers of emotions are anatomically close and functionally connected to the centers of thirst, hunger and other vital needs. On the other hand, a person’s emotional well-being, the harmony of his feelings are directly determined by whether his social needs are satisfied: for communication, for success, for recognition, for knowledge..

To create an emotional state, for self-regulation in the sphere of feelings, you need: 1) a correct assessment of the significance of the event, 2) sufficient awareness (varied) on this issue, event, 3) it is useful to prepare fallback strategies in advance - this reduces excessive excitement, reduces the fear of receiving an unfavorable decision, creates an optimal background for solving the problem. Reducing the subjective significance of an event helps you retreat to previously prepared positions and prepare for the next assault without significant loss of health.

When a person is in a state of strong excitement, it is useless to calm him down; it is better to help him defuse his feelings, let him speak out to the end. The same is true for self-regulation: not to encapsulate feelings, but to express them in a civilized manner. When a person speaks out, his excitement decreases, and at this moment there is an opportunity to explain something to him, calm him down, and guide him. The need to relieve emotional tension in movement sometimes manifests itself in the fact that a person rushes around the room, tearing something. In order to quickly normalize your condition after troubles, it is useful to give yourself increased physical activity, engage in any type of activity (dancing, sports, drawing, etc.)

To urgently reduce the level of tension, general muscle relaxation can be used; muscle relaxation is incompatible with a feeling of anxiety. Relaxation methods and autogenic training are very useful when you need to quickly, in 5-10 minutes, bring yourself into a calm state. Feelings can also be managed by regulating their external manifestation: to make it easier to bear pain, try not to show it.

An important way to relieve mental stress is to activate your sense of humor. Laughter leads to a decrease in anxiety; when a person has laughed it off, his muscles are less tense and his heartbeat is normalized.

If once experienced strong negative feelings in any situation are consolidated, become chronic, obsessive, then to eliminate them, special special psychological techniques or psychotherapeutic techniques are required (NLP, art therapy, gestal therapy, dance therapy, body-oriented, etc.)

6. Education and self-education of feelings in the process of personality formation.

At school age, there is usually a significant decrease in emotional excitability. Thanks to this, children 9-11 years old often give the impression of being more balanced and sometimes seem in this respect more like adults than even teenagers, who often look more excitable.

Feelings do not develop on their own. They do not have

your own history. The attitudes of the individual, his relationship to the world change, and emotions are transformed along with them.

Educating feelings is a very subtle process. The main task is not to suppress and eradicate feelings, but to properly direct them. True feelings and experiences are the fruit of life. They are not amenable to arbitrary formation, but arise, live and die depending on the changing relationship of a person to the environment in the process of human activity. You cannot arbitrarily, by order, evoke this or that feeling in yourself: feelings can be indirectly directed and regulated through mediation in which they are both manifested and formed (S. L. Rubinstein).

It is impossible, and not necessary, to completely protect a child from negative experiences. Their occurrence in educational activities can also play a positive role, encouraging them to be overcome. The important thing here is intensity: too strong and often repeated negative feelings lead to the destruction of learning activities

(for example, strong fear prevents a student from answering the material well), and, becoming stable, acquire a neurotic coloring. Of course, the teacher should mainly focus on positive reinforcement of the student’s educational activities, in order to evoke and maintain a positive emotional mood in him in the process of educational work. On the other hand, the student’s focus only on receiving positive emotions associated with success or entertaining lessons is also unproductive. The abundance of the same type of positive feelings sooner or later causes boredom. A child (like an adult) needs dynamism of feelings, their diversity, but within the framework of optimal intensity.

Feelings are difficult to regulate by will. It is useful for adults to remember this when faced with unwanted or unexpected childhood emotions and feelings. It is better not to evaluate the child’s feelings in such acute situations; this will only lead to misunderstanding or negativism. You cannot demand that a child not experience what he experiences and feels; you can only limit the form of manifestation of negative feelings. The task is to guide them indirectly, indirectly, by organizing the child’s activities.

In the question of the ontogenesis of feelings, the main emphasis is on the developing interpersonal relationships of the child. Objective relationships (partnership and subordination, cooperation and conflict) determine the formation, first, of moral, and then, within their framework and on their basis, practical, aesthetic, and intellectual feelings. A special role in interpersonal relationships belongs to sympathy and empathy, or empathy. A lack of warmth in early childhood affects a person’s personality throughout his life.

The apotheosis of the development of feelings is love, in particular a person’s love for other people: for parents, for a life partner of the opposite sex, for children, for neighbors by blood and in spirit, and in general for people. In the love of a person, the entire individual history of the formation of his feelings, all the richness of the spiritual life of the individual, is revealed.

Conclusion.

Feelings are a special form of reflection of reality; they reflect people's attitude towards each other, as well as towards the objective world. Human feelings, determined genetically, are shaped by society; they play a huge role in human behavior, practical and cognitive activity. Being signals of success or failure of an activity, compliance or non-compliance of objects and phenomena with needs and human interests, feelings thereby occupy a significant place in the regulation of people’s activities.

The sphere of feelings is very difficult to study, because... the subjective principle is expressed in it much more than in the cognitive sphere.

The properties of feelings are characterized by qualitative certainty, intensity and duration, polarity, activity, complexity, harmony.

The special value of feelings for an individual is associated with their motivating function. The extremes are scientifically untenable and flawed: both the denial of the joys of life (asceticism) and the absolutization of the role of pleasure in life (hedonism).

Feelings always imply a certain internal work to transform the psychological world of a person.

Creative, life-affirming, highly moral feelings of an individual are not only the moral basis of a truly human way of life, but also the most important components of the mental and physical health of each member of society, the key to its high vital stability and genuine, uncompromising happiness.

Literature:

1. Dodonov B.I. Emotion as a value-M, 1978

2. Izard K. Human Emotions: trans. from English M, Moscow State University, 1980-440s.

3. Kovalev A. G. Personality educates itself. - M., 1983.

4. Kon I. S. Discovery of “I” - M., 1978.

5. Workshop on general psychology: textbook. allowance, / ed. A. And Shcherbakova - M., Education, 1990

6. Psychology. Dictionary /Under general. ed. A. V. Petrovsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky. - M, Politizdat, 1990.

7. Psychology of emotions. Texts / Ed. V. K. Vilyunas, Yu. B. Gippenreiter. - M, Moscow State University - 1993.

8. Rubinshtein S. L. Fundamentals of general psychology. - M., 1946.

9.Sechenov I.M. Selected works. - M., Uchpedgiz, 1953. 10. Stolyarenko L. D. Fundamentals of psychology. - Rostov-on-Don, Logos, 1995

11. Fridman L. M., Kulagina I. Yu. Psychological reference book for teachers. - M., Education, 1991.

12. Jung K. G. The structure of the psyche and the process of individuation. - M., Nauka, 1996.

Trying to take on the study of love, both writers and scientists more often took the descriptive path. Love, as a purely human, and therefore socially given feeling, rarely gave in to deep analysis by both theorists and novelists - more precisely, it did not allow itself to be considered in an approximation greater than a phenomenon. Only researchers of the social-democratic direction were able to remove love from social relations, and maybe even create some kind of historical periodization of love: Engels, Bebel, a little Kautsky, much more successfully, although closer to agit-journalism, Kollontai, and a few others.

Conditionality of love is generally a disliked topic in cultures. That is, the influences on this feeling, of course, are described richly: in literature, in psychology, and in the very special field of family consultations. However, even in the most scientific conclusions, love either remains outside the scope of the directly stating part, or it is spoken of as something so elusive that it should be understandable only to those for whom the conclusions are written.

Here, for a classical Freudian, for example, the painful attitude of society towards love as a concept can shine through - it is either so meaningful or vague that it is better not to talk about it, not to go deeper. And, on the contrary, it is also impossible to teach here. The school subject of the perestroika era, “Fundamentals of Family Life,” which was widely ridiculed and quickly removed from the curriculum, is an example of this. And in everyday consciousness, the formula “love is a gift from God” is now common on this issue. That’s it, there’s nothing to talk about here, it turns out. God gave, God took... A timeless aura is added here - love turns out to be an eternal tuning fork in this myth, only sounding differently in different acoustics of centuries. Something is guessed by this myth - after all, the human race has not been extinguished, and it continues, not without pleasure, but it is always interesting what this “biological minimum” is meaningfully connected with.

Alas, since the time of Alexandra Kollontai, practically no one has seriously raised this question from a historical and, especially, class perspective - that is, connecting the “sublime feeling” with such base concepts as socio-economic formation, commodity-money relations, etc.

The important thing to understand here is that what is most “eternal” in love is by no means the most sublime, but rather the opposite. But behind this unexpected inversion lies not a disappointment in the concept: humanity is looking for ever new definitions of love and happy formulas for relationships because every time, as in a fraction, only the numerator changes with the same “minimum” denominator.

If you look at love from this angle as a purely historical concept and by no means eternal, you can immediately discover the frightening clarity of most family troubles: they must reflect current and inherent problems of this particular formation, class dynamics and even (oh, horror) class struggle . Few people are able to look at love and family life in exactly this way, right away, but not all at once, even theory requires getting used to. Let’s not talk about all the centuries, let’s take only the twentieth and ours, which has just begun.

Who, how and when won love for the masses

Kollontai, alas, casually and even casually writes about love in conditions of civil (that is, openly class) war. However, this is the rhythm of the manifesto. Civil: a war for the future, tectonic shifts of classes, slab to slab, a great mixing of social strata in the name of equality... On the one hand, there was scope for unexpected acquaintances, on the other - and here Alexandra Mikhailovna is exactly like a scientist - there was simply no time for everything old ceremonies.

« The class of fighters, at a time when the calling bell of revolution was incessantly ringing over working humanity, could not fall under the power of winged Eros. In those days, it was inappropriate to waste the spiritual strength of the members of the fighting collective on secondary emotional experiences that did not directly serve the revolution. Individual love, which lies at the basis of a “pair marriage”, aimed at one or the other, requires a huge expenditure of mental energy. Meanwhile, the builder of a new life, the working class, was interested in economically spending not only their material wealth, but also saving the mental and spiritual energy of everyone for the common tasks of the collective. That is why it naturally happened that at the moment of intensified revolutionary struggle, the place of the all-consuming “winged Eros” was taken by the undemanding instinct of reproduction - “Wingless Eros”.

Actually, “soldier’s love,” which the former noblewoman speaks about, is just procreation, without the stage of courtship, promises, planning and raising children. In general, lack of time is the main factor here. Tomorrow - into battle with the class enemy, today - express love, so that at least in children, but to reach a bright future, for which tomorrow you will go to give your life. “And I live on the good earth for myself and for that guy,” I want to answer Alexandra from this very conquered future with the words of R. Rozhdestvensky at the starting part of the manifesto of proletarian Eros. However, it would be naive to suspect every Red Army soldier of such lofty intentions - this was a fraction with a minimum numerator. The military-communard relations of the sexes of that period are well depicted in the film “Commissar”, in contrast with the small-town, happy within the framework of the surviving little world-farm who forcibly sheltered the heroine Mordyukova, a Jew (the role was brilliantly played by Rolan Bykov) ...

The Reds fought, of course, for more - in a broad sense, for the expropriation of that love that had previously lived only in ballrooms and noble estates, which was generously reflected in elite literature. This is where the criticism of the concept of love begins - by a new society. The civil war in this segment of social life took place precisely over time. Did the workers have it before the revolution - for love? Here Maxim Gorky answers us from the very beginning of the novel “Mother” - the partying of powerless proletarians doomed to drunkenness and sweatshops implied love only as a consequence of earnings and as an age stage. In general, the habit of being beaten by the one who, in theory, should be loved, by the one who was married according to the Orthodox rite and protected for the groom under fear of God’s punishments - this is pre-revolutionary love... The collapsed, stolen time of the most immediate love (from the “minimal” even in the newlywed period should become maximum), followed by childbirth and troubles. Yes, this same deceitful, stuffy, hopeless little world became the incubator of the revolution, there can be no dispute here.

And yet, did the proletarian know what he was fighting for in this particular issue? “So that it’s like the gentlemen” - no, and no again. To make it much better - without relics and vulgarities. Mayakovsky constantly reminded us of this, painfully criticizing even Yesenin and the poets of his circle for choosing girlfriends in accordance with dresses and scarves, for the rudiments of philistinism. This is where the time has come for manifestos, as well as attempts to expropriate not only time from the overthrown classes, but also the “mental and spiritual” (Kollontai) conquests of their former times. The stage of neoclassicism was approaching, building on constructivism - not only in architecture. The naked class structure demanded, desired, even, perhaps, desired to see itself as beautiful - otherwise the revolution would have been in vain.

Free time is the trump card of pre-revolutionary love. Millions of workers were deprived of this time, driven into cubicles and basements with their families, suffocated by religious fumes - for the sake of scooping up the surplus value of their time in monetary terms. The gentlemen had a lot of time for love and for describing the events and obstacles associated with it. Life became more interesting when cross-class love happened - most of the latest pre-revolutionary novels are devoted to this. And so a new era began: in anticipation, in repentance and decadence of the former masters.

It turned out that such an intimate (etc.), that is, completely subjective feeling, like love, also had to be conquered in masses and with a rifle in hand. And an entire generation had to give up those “pleasures”, experiences, the entire emotional love palette that the gentlemen they overthrew had, since the process of their expulsion dragged on for years and stretched to the Crimea. Without the high altruism of those “lowly” who loved at the camp minimum, this would have been impossible: without that freedom that in battle became a conscious necessity, to die in the name of future freedoms. Few generations have had such a mission - and now, the right to love has been won. Just like a peaceful space, expropriated in the 20s, infrastructured in the 30s.

Corridors and communes of new feelings

Lenin’s decree, according to which even the states that overthrow his monuments live, is not only maternity leave, it is also kindergartens for which that same (according to Lunacharsky, the second and last true communist after Lenin) Kollontai fought. It's time again! Time given by society to parents for love interrupted by inevitable troubles. After all, the new society is wise: it encourages couples to undertake new genetic feats, the society wants to grow and does not put up obstacles that were there under the previous formation, not only financial, but also communal. Socialist laws provide for an increase in living space proportional to the growth of the family. A more concrete humanism cannot be found in the history of the twentieth century - on a scale universal to the USSR and the socialist camp, we note. Not a single counter-revolution has been able to dismantle this institution - even in the current united Federal Republic of Germany, which I know for sure. Against the background of the general sagging of the former territories of the GDR in terms of economic indicators, young parents prefer to move to those ex-socialist areas and cities where the kindergartens generously built in the 1960-80s remain, since in the territory of the former neighboring Federal Republic of Germany the situation is much worse.

If the right to love was previously won through class hatred, then after the end of the direct clash between classes and systems, a long-awaited calm came. And along with the growth, technical, moral, cultural, of Soviet society, the standards of love also changed. The very same meaningful part that was previously collapsed in workers' cubicles and peasant huts was changing - in the latter, by the way, love was not implied at all, but was resolved as a business issue by matchmakers. But the workers’ and peasants’ army, presumably, fought for the right of boys and girls to look at each other, and not to marry “pig in a poke” and not to live in stone sacks, to love in the dark, etc. Conquered with time - the right admiration(here we will put *, which we will further expand in connection with this milestone term). From the previous front-line minimum in the 1950-60s, love, as a universal privilege and as recaptured time, had the opportunity to unfold in all its breadth.

This is where the old ghosts of everyday life appear - much more comfortable, but still conditioning the existence and feelings of two. And by the way, why two? If the acquaintance takes place on the territory of residence with the parents, feelings are already repressed and formatted. If you try to guess the vector that was outlined by Kollontai, then the cry “make way for winged Eros” is a call to build a completely new society, without previous taboos and remnants of feelings such as jealousy and possessiveness, through the liberation of love from all and any walls. Scabrous Belyatsky gossip about “common women” is just a crooked reflection of the starting project. It was assumed that the value of production (scientific, cultural, whatever), forming a commune, would replace the worries of the family, completely remove the financial burden from the shoulders of fathers and mothers: kindergartens were only the first stop on the path of “socialization” of children in the sense that they, starting from Kindergarten children would spend much longer in the group rather than “at home.” In turn, the concerns of the collective breadwinner, one for all, were replaced by family dominants, leaving willing couples alone only for admiration, but not allowing the feelings of couples to be saturated with everyday life and problems arising from staying in family punishment cells (see Kollontai, ibid.) ...

The main material for studying this issue at this stage for us is black and white, and then color Soviet cinema, which since the mid-1950s has devoted a lot of “meters” to studying society through the prism of love, that is, always through the eyes of young lovers. And vulgarity, and transience, and even mutual distrust (what a trifle!) are mercilessly scourged here (just remember “The Rumyantsev Case”). Here we come to the most important thing and, first, we get a little ahead of ourselves with the formula: love at the individual level only reflects the mood within society. To put it simply: if society loves itself, then it gives the right to love millions, and creates all the conditions for them to do this - however, according to previous standards, which is at first glance an inevitable matter, and at second glance completely fatal (but also about more on this a little later)… However, the general climate of society is reflected in each family, and the direction of its development is also the specific future of generations hidden in families. And, on the contrary, a society with class contradictions, with differences in income, dooms families to squabble, because even the brightest and most mutual feeling is not able to solve external problems.

In a planned economy, was there a plan for love in the USSR? Let me clarify: how did a rapidly developing society, building new cities, launching new industries, see itself through the prism of family relationships? The same Kollontai has a little about this: in 1970, she saw society as having completely forgotten what murder and money were (“New Year”...). Well, what is a family - is it necessary, because according to Engels it is only a derivative of formations, and technical and cultural growth is quite capable of erasing the former social boundaries of rooms and even dormitories. In architectural terms, this issue was resolved - but did not go further than projects. However, in the movies this vector was still more noticeable: as a rule, the conflict with parents over the choice of a bride/groom was resolved through the departure of the young people to conquer new lands. Too generalized - but the plot is like that everywhere. This spoke precisely of the “Kollontai plan”, even in the banal “I am walking around Moscow” and “Give me a book of complaints” (the heroes of both films call potential brides to newly built cities, to new hostel spaces, to a new society for brides). Alas, the expanding boundaries of generations historically prophesied in the movies, the weakening wall-like rigidity of their bonds, did not come true, and the hostels (even BAM, where the previous algorithms of relationships actually weakened, but only for a while) turned out to be a stopover before leaving for separate apartments. And to a new round of the relay of generations.

Is the revolution sexy??

The cinematic dictatorship of socialist realism, which few people noticed in this context, is one of the non-basic reasons for the Parisian May of 1968. Without the long struggle within the USSR for the “time of love” (let’s shorten it to a slogan here), the cultural revolution would not have come in the immediate vicinity of the Union. New, free people, walking as much as they liked in the new Soviet cities, became models for the entire planet. It’s not for nothing that their grandfathers died in civilian life: the movie showed how detailed, how socially responsible love can be. And it is no longer just love as a subjective phenomenon that brings two people together - but whole admiration, as the dominant mood in society, this is what Soviet cinema presented to the world. Socialist realism of the 30s and 40s, “rainbowism” became a school for neorealism and then a transformed, but new, still displayed in black and white, man walked across the screens of the world. No longer just thirsty, but able to love. At this stage, I would like to notice a new vector of struggle - a feeling growing on a new social scale (and the Italians noticed how it was still squeezed here and there by the walls of hereditary formations) was no longer fighting for love, but for admiration, that is, showing itself, it was no longer content with its former modesty and restraint. Here the most important milestone was already approaching - and in world, and not just Soviet, palettes.

You can’t show love in cinema without showing society – the second half of the 20th century left no chance for escapists. But if, nevertheless, admiration * (as a purely socialist conquest: after all, it is bestowed by time, expropriated along with ownership of the means of production) unfolds within a couple, remains the act of two, then why not lower the magnifying glass on the bed, and not on the city of new people ?

This is exactly where we have the transition from neorealism (if we leave the material of cinema) to the neo-bourgeois glorification of the body as a privilege in society. It is not love as a privilege, but beauty as a commodity. No, the “eyeliners” remain and are often socially critical – you can even find continuity here. But Antonioni is young and mature, this is exactly him before the sexual revolution and after. However, he is not alone. Here the cultural dialogue did not stop - although Soviet cinema long ago moved from aesthetic dictatorship to borrowing. And it is not Tarkovsky who is the lone epigone here. Let's say, Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky's film "Romance of Lovers" with its fragmentary eroticism allowed by censorship is socially optimistic, but at the same time quite bourgeois, and in the end it smacks of black stuff. Moreover, the questions raised there are the very outline of the solution in the USSR to the question of whether the new society needs a family at all. It is given here as a gloomy necessity, alien to love.

One can jokingly consider the destructive year of 1991, and the entire long-term post-Soviet social regression to be only a consequence of film trends, but the family issue, after the rejection of the social standards and forms won by the revolution, became much more severe. And there is a suspicion that the current, although comfortable, but emotionally pre-revolutionary cells of the new proletariat, together with traditional values, are languishing unhappy families. The state still keeps track of incremental generations in a family way: the family is an economic necessity, feelings in it are certainly secondary, citizens will somehow sort out their feelings themselves. After all, they had time for this?

Surprisingly, 1991 was, among other things, an injection of freedoms from that very sexual revolution of the late 60s - outside the formation ladder, it acted like a drug. In addition to the time of initial accumulation and outright robbery, the 90s were a time of love, the last surges of that deeply altruistic feeling, designed for many years of admiration, which was cultivated throughout the 20th century in the USSR. And this is not an idealization - just study the language of relationships of the early 90s and late 2000s. Creepy, certainly related to regression and export of formations, the speech patterns of “having sex” (well, let’s say, having sex is still similar to something, but what is “oral sex” in this case?), “sexuality” (sexuality ), in general, the very “minimalism” with which the 20th century began and how it, alas, ended, is extremely expressed. Love spoke in the language of the ruling class, just as before the intelligentsia spoke in the language of the brothers. They “engage in love” as they do business: the export vocabulary here exhaustively describes the reduction of love to a minimum, prohibiting the luxury of previous layers, which essentially meant the removal of the contradictions of the “carnal,” individual and “spiritual,” social...

The family in the era of reversionary capitalism has again become a prison - a “family of love”, if not the act of matchmakers, then a slightly better state of society, where necessity overcomes freedom, and there is no need to look for love there. Forms of love that are non-traditional for bourgeois cells are only the escape of the doomed from prison, since they obviously lose understanding of their children, that is, they break the relay of generations, although not at the “minimal” level, but at the mental level, which is a sign of crisis. Alternative communities are trying to break out of these bonds - circles, parties, any ideological cells, but they too are prescribed the rules of society. Which? Yes, the same thing - time. Like a dry residue of prosperity. And in the gaze of lovers, who previously knew how to admire without second thoughts (even in the 90s, by inertia), now anxiety about tomorrow is baked into them. It is important to choose a partner right away, not just for love, but also for calculation - otherwise there will be no love, that’s a worse verdict than matchmakers...

Thus, both the sexual revolution, which disdained the struggle for the basis, and threw all its forces into a new round of “down with shame,” and the purely basic counter-revolution, accompanied by new class shifts and the euphoria of the doomed, agreed on one thing, complete unpresentability and the curtailment of previous freedoms, so loudly declared. The very term “guest worker” expressed, if not the plan, then the strategy of the new fragmented societies of the post-Soviet space: again, free time and love flows into the hands of some, leaving others with their families in barracks and dorms, rooms rented for 10 people. They are also granted a return to their national roots and religions - so that they can be comforted.

Text: Dmitry Cherny

Illustration: Daria Kavelina