Affect - what is it? The state of affect in terms of psychology

Affect - what is this state? This term came from psychiatric and criminal practice in everyday life. How does it differ from ordinary emotions when it becomes a dangerous pathology?

Emotions are different

Emotion is a mental and physiological process that reflects a personal unconscious assessment of a situation or phenomenon. Positive changes cause joy, and unpleasant - irritation, sadness, fear or anger. Of the latter, there is an affect. What is the state is? This intense condition, which lasts for a relatively short time, but has vivid psychosomatic manifestations - changes in breathing and pulse, cramping of the peripheral blood vessels, increased sweating, impaired movement.

What kinds of affect include?

What is the affect, we found out. Now let's analyze its classification. The main types of affect are divided according to their impact on asthenic (horror, anguish - all that paralyzes activity) and sthenic (enthusiasm, anger - mobilization and motivation for action). If the situations that caused this condition are repeated often, then the stress accumulates. This is a cumulative species. The most dangerous is pathological, which is caused by a violation of the adequate functioning of the person's psycho-physiological system. This condition lasts from thirty minutes to an hour, during which a person behaves "on autopilot" and does not realize his actions. After cessation of the condition, the individual usually does not remember his actions, feels exhaustion and prostration. That is why, if a person committed murder in a state of affect, this is an extenuating circumstance, since the accused did not control his actions and did not realize them.

Legal Aspects

It is necessary to introduce certain clarifications in the issue of legal justification for such altered states. In legal practice, only pathological proven affect is a mitigating circumstance. If a person has committed a murder in a pathological affect condition, he will receive a maximum of three years in prison. All other types are taken into account only mediocrely.

Study history

"Affect" - what does this word mean? It came from Latin. Affectus means "passion," "excitement." The Greeks also knew this condition. Plato called him as an innate soul-beginning. If a person showed a tendency to affect, then he should be engaged in military affairs. The Christian view viewed these states as manifestations of the influence of dark forces, obsession. Only in the time of Descartes and Spinoza began to understand the role of the relationship of emotions, mind and body. Emotional affect fell into the circle of interests of scientists in the late nineteenth - early twentieth century. Researchers such as Moss and Durkheim found that society affects the individual through affectation. Psychological affect interested and Freud, who concluded that suppression of such conditions leads to serious mental disorders and diseases, pathologies. They can then be expressed in such physical symptoms as pain, paralysis and so on.

Example action

Let's analyze the example of how affect affects. All people have anxious moods, which are replaced by fear. This feeling is already more certain, and he usually has a certain reason. When fear reaches its culmination, horror comes. And this is a psycho-emotional state that is characterized by unusual strength and rapid expression in external actions, physiological internal processes, often uncontrolled. If a person is irritated, then this feeling can turn into anger, and then into a rage. It is the turbulent feelings, unconscious and uncontrollable, called affect in psychological and criminal practice.

Characteristic from the point of view of the central nervous system

The central nervous system in a state of affect experiences a violent irritation in view of strong emotional experiences. The concept of affect is characterized by the maximum force of inhibitory and excitatory processes in the cerebral cortex, the intensification of the activity of the subcortical centers. Excitation in the centers of the brain, which are associated with emotions, are accompanied by inhibition of cortical areas, which are responsible for analyzing what is happening and reporting on their actions. The subcortical centers liberated during the affect of the affect from the control of the cerebral cortex are responsible for the external vivid manifestation of this condition. Affect has peculiar features. The flow of this emotional experience is limited in time, as this process is excessively intense. That's why he quickly outlives himself. There are three main stages.

Stage One: Initial

In some cases, the state of affect comes unexpectedly, like a certain flash or explosion, and then instantaneously reaches its maximum intensity. In other cases, the intensity of experience increases gradually. Excitation and inhibition in different centers of the cerebral cortex and subcortical centers become more active. Thanks to this, a man loses his self-control more and more.

Stage two: central

During this stage, abrupt changes and disturbances in the body's adequate activity are observed. Excitation in the subcortical centers reaches the highest strength, inhibition encompasses all the most important cortical centers and oppresses their functions. Thanks to this, many nervous processes that are associated with social attitudes, upbringing, and morality break up. Speech and thinking are violated, attention is reduced, control over actions is lost. There is a disorder of fine motor skills. The functions of the glands of internal secretion, of the autonomic nervous system increase. Violated breathing and circulation. At this stage, the affect has more than one culminating peak, but several: the period of the active current changes in the decay period, and then the cycle repeats several times.

Stage three: final

During this stage, the internal and external manifestations of the altered state are damped. The vital activity of the whole organism is greatly reduced: huge waste of nervous forces exhausts it. A person experiences apathy, drowsiness, fatigue.

Characteristic of emotional experiences

Affect is an unconscious condition to a lesser or greater extent, depending on its intensity. This is expressed in a reduced control over the actions. During an affect, a person is not able to guide his actions, he is embraced by emotions, which he almost does not realize. However, absolute unconsciousness is observed only during particularly strong conditions, when the most important parts of the brain are completely inhibited. It is this state that is a mitigating circumstance in criminal practice. In most cases, especially in the initial, increasing stage, the control is preserved, however, in a reduced and partial form. Strong affect captures the whole person. Sharp and strong changes are observed in the process of consciousness. The volume of information processed is significantly narrowed to a small number of perceptions and perceptions. Many facts and phenomena are perceived absolutely differently, a breakthrough of personal attitudes takes place. The very personality of a person is changing, moral and ethical ideas are dumped. In these situations, people say that a person has changed before our eyes.