Feeling in psychology, is defined as “the simple agreeable or disagreeable side of any mental state which distinct from the act of knowing, which accompanies them.
IN thinking
of the mind and its activities we are accustomed to the general idea that the
mental processes are chiefly those of intellect, reason, thought. But, as a
fact, the greater part of the mental activities are those concerned with
feeling and emotion. The intellect is the youngest child of the mind, and while
making its presence strenuously known in the manner of all youngest children so
that one is perhaps justified in regarding it as “the whole thing” in
the family, nevertheless it really plays but a comparatively small part in the
general work of the mental family. The activities of the “feeling”
side of life greatly outnumber those of the “thinking” side, are far
stronger in their influence and effect, as a rule, and, in fact, so color the
intellectual processes, unconsciously, as to constitute their distinctive
quality except in the case of a very few advanced thinkers.
But there is
a difference between “feeling” and “emotion,” as the terms
are employed in psychology. The former is the simple phase, the latter the
complex. Generally speaking, the resemblance or difference is akin to that
existing between sensation and perception, as explained in a previous chapter.
Beginning with the simple, in order later on to reach the complex, we shall now
consider that which is known as simple “feeling.”
The term
“feeling,” as used in this connection in psychology, has been defined
as “the simple agreeable or disagreeable side of any mental state.”
These agreeable or disagreeable sides of mental states are quite distinct from
the act of knowing, which accompanies them. One may perceive and thus
“know” that another is speaking to him and be fully aware of the
words being used and of their meaning. Ordinarily, and so far as pure thought
processes are concerned, this would complete the mental state. But we must
reckon on the feeling side as well as on the thinking side of the mental state.
Accordingly we find that the knowledge of the words of the other person and the
meaning thereof results in a mental state agreeable or disagreeable. In the
same way the reading of the words of a book, the hearing of a song, or a sight
or scene perceived, may result in a more or less strong feeling, agreeable or
disagreeable. This sense of agreeable or disagreeable consciousness is the
essential characteristic of what we call “feeling.”
It
is very difficult to explain feeling except in its own terms. We know very well
what we mean, or what another means, when it is said that we or he “feels
sad,” or has “a joyous feeling,” or “a feeling of
interest.” And yet we shall find it very hard to explain the mental state
except in terms of feeling itself. Our knowledge depends entirely upon our
previous experience of the feeling. As an authority says: “If we have
never felt pleasure, pain, fear, or sorrow, a quarto volume cannot make us
understand what such a mental state is.” Every mental state is not
distinguished by strong feeling. There are certain mental states
which are
concerned chiefly with intellectual effort, and in which all trace of feeling
seems to be absent, unless, as some have claimed, the “feeling” of
interest or the lack of same is a faint form of the feeling of pleasure or
pain. Habit may dull the feeling of a mental state until it is apparently
neutral, but there is generally a faint feeling of like or dislike still left.
The
elementary forms of feeling are closely allied with those of simple sensation.
But experiments have revealed that there is a distinction in consciousness. It
has been discovered that one is often conscious of the “touch” of a
heated object before he is of the feeling or pain resulting from it.
Psychologists have pointed out another distinction, namely: When we experience
a sensation we are accustomed to refer it to the outside thing which is the
object of it, as when we touch the heated object; but when we experience a
feeling we instinctively refer it to ourself, as when the heated object gives us
pain. As an authority has said: “My feelings belong to me; but my
sensations seem to belong to the object which caused them.”
Another proof of the difference and
distinction between sensation and feeling is the fact that the same sensation
will produce different feelings in different persons experiencing the former,
even at the same time. For instance, the same sight will cause one person to
feel elated, and the other depressed; the same words will produce a feeling of
joy in one, and a feeling of sorrow in another. The same sensation will produce
different feelings in the same person at different times. An authority well
says: “You drop your purse, and you see it lying on the ground as you
stoop to pick it up, with no feeling either of pleasure or pain. But if you see
it after you have lost it and have hunted for it a long time in vain, you have
a pronounced feeling of pleasure.”
There is a
vast range of degree and kind in feeling. Gordy says: “All forms of
pleasure and pain are called feelings. Between the pleasure which comes from
eating a peach and that which results from solving a difficult problem, or
learning good news of a friend, or thinking of the progress of civilization between
the pain that results from a cut in the hand and that which results from the
failure of a long-cherished plan or the death of a friend there is a long
distance. But the one group are all pleasures; the other all pains. And,
whatever the source of the pleasure or pain, it is alike feeling.”
There are
many different kinds of feelings. Some arise from sensations of physical
comfort or discomfort; others from purely physiological conditions; others from
the satisfaction of accustomed tastes, or the dissatisfaction arising from the
stimulation of unaccustomed tastes; others from the presence or absence of
comfort; others from the presence or absence of things or persons for whom we
have an affection or liking. Overindulgence often transforms the feeling of
pleasure into that of pain; and, likewise, habit and practice may cause us to
experience a pleasurable feeling from that which formerly inspired feeling of
an opposite kind. Feelings also differ in degree; that is to say, some things
cause us to experience pleasurable feelings of a greater intensity than do
others, and some cause us to experience painful feelings of a greater intensity
than do others. These degrees of intensity depend more or less upon the habit
or experience of the individual. As a general rule, feelings may be classified
into those arising from physical sensations, and those arising from ideas.
The feelings
depending upon physical sensations arise either from inherited tendencies and
inclinations or from acquired habits and experience. It is an axiom of the
evolutionary school that any physical activity that has been a habit of the
race, long continued, becomes an instinctive pleasure giving activity in the
individual. For instance, the race for many generations was compelled to hunt,
fish, travel, swim, etc., in order to maintain existence. The result is that
we, the descendants, are apt to find pleasure in the same activities as sport,
games, exercise, etc. Many of our tendencies and feelings are inherited in this
way. To these we have added many acquired habits of physical activity, which
follow the same rule, i.e., that habit and practice impart more or less
pleasurable feeling. We find more pleasure in doing those things which we can
do easily or quite well than in the opposite kind of things.
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depending upon ideas may also arise from inheritance. Many of our mental
tendencies and inclinations have come down to us from the past. There are
certain feelings that are born in one, without a doubt; that is to say, there
is a great capacity for such feelings which will be transformed into
manifestation upon the presentation of the proper stimulus. Other mental
feelings depend upon our individual past experience, association, or
suggestions from others upon our past environment, in fact. The ideals of those
around us will cause us to experience pleasure or pain, as the case may be,
under certain circumstances; the force of suggestion along these lines is very
strong indeed. Not only do we experience feelings in response to present
sensations, but the recollection of some previous experience will also arouse
feeling. In fact, feelings of this kind are closely bound up with memory and
imagination. Persons of vivid imagination are apt to feel far more than others.
They suffer more, and enjoy more. Our sympathies, which depend largely upon our
imaginative power, are the cause of many of our feelings of this kind.
Many of the facts
which we generally ascribe to feeling are really a part of the phenomena of
emotion, the latter being the more complex phase of feeling. For the purposes
of this consideration, we have regarded simple feeling as the raw material of
emotion, the relation being compared to that existing between sensation and
perception. In our consideration of emotion, we shall see the fuller
manifestation of feeling, and its more complex expressions
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