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Eric Armstrong, age 15, of Annapolis, Md., for his question:

HOW MANY KINDS OF EMOTIONS ARE THERE?

An emotion is a reaction that is aroused when a person views something as either good or bad. Psychologists believe there are two types of emotion: positive emotions and negative emotions.

Positive emotions include love, joy, liking, delight and hope. Negative emotions include sadness, grief, despair, anger, fear and disgust.

An emotion does not have to be aroused by something in the outside world. It can be created by a person's thoughts.

When a person feels like running away from something he thinks will hurt him, we call this emotion fear. When he wants to remove the danger by attacking it, we call this emotion anger. The emotions of joy and love can be aroused when we think something can help us.

Everyone has emotions. Some psychologists say that babies are born without emotions arid that children must learn how to express them just as they learn to read and write. A growing child not only learns his emotions, but he also learns how to act in certain situations because of an emotion.

The first time a child meets a snarling dog, the child may have no emotion toward the dog. If the dog tries to bite the child, he develops a fear toward the dog. Because of the fear that the child learned, he will avoid snarling dogs in the future.

Emotions may be strong or weak. The differences of strength are given special names. When a person is very angry, for example, we will call his emotion rage. If the same person is only mildly angry, we could call his emotion either annoyance or irritation.

In growing up, a person usually learns to cope with the negative emotions in order to be happy. The emotions of fear and disappointment are just as natural as those of joy and love.

Emotions trigger both chemical and physical changes in the body that can often help to protect it against danger. Some strong emotions cause parts of the nervous system to send signals to various glands and organs. The glands and organs then prepare the body to defend itself.

Here's an example of how this works:

In fear, the adrenal gland empties a hormone, called adrenaline, into the blood stream. Adrenaline causes a series of changes in the body. The heartbeat increases and blood pressure rises. Much blood shifts from the digestive organs to the brain and skeletal muscles. Large amounts of sugar empty into the blood stream. The breathing rate increases.

All of these emergency measures give the body more energy to face the crisis.

Different hormones cause varying changes in the body. This helps explain why a person's face becomes pale and his mouth dries when he has stage fright.

When a person is angry, another hormone called noradrenaline goes into action. Noradrenaline causes the face to become flushed and stomach juices to flow freely.

But sometimes our emotions can harm us. If the body changes caused by emotions continue for a long time, vital tissue damage can result. For example, constant fear can produce stomach ulcers.

 

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