Motivation and emotion/Book/2022/Mixed emotions

Overview


Have you ever felt both positive and negative emotions about a situation? Have you ever felt really excited about an upcoming event but also scared at the same time? Do you ever recall feeling extremely angry at someone but at the same time love? Try to think back to a time when you were a child, and for example you were running around the house not noticing where you going, and all of sudden you run into a table that has your mother's family heirloom vase, and it falls onto the ground and shatters. Your mother is extremely angry that the vase it broken, but she is also happy because she never liked the vase.

The experiences of both positive and negative emotions at the same time has been explained as feeling mixed emotions. Although the theory of mixed emotions has been debated and questioned throughout, Hostler & Berrios (2021) characterise mixed emotions "as the coactivation of two oppositely-valance emotions such as happy and sad, amused and disgusted or fearful and hopeful" (Hostler & Berrios, 2021, p.341).

This is the experience of both emotional feelings of positive and negative towards an external event or person. Emotions have been said to be a form of "set behavioural, experiential, and physiological response tendencies that together influence how a person responds to perceived challenges and opportunities" (Gross, 2002, p.281). When people experience multiple different emotions, whether they are positive or negative, this is referred to as mixed emotions. As shown in Figure. 1 there is a wide variety of different emotions shown in people's facial expressions. Looking at the image carefully, some of the picture's show evidence of the positive and negative emotional experiences that people have.

Focus questions:
 * What mixed emotions am I experiencing?
 * Why am I experiencing mixed emotions?
 * How can I overcome and manage mixed emotions?

What are mixed emotions?
Hoemann et al. (2017) suggeststhat the original term for mixed emotions is 'Emotional Complexity' and argues that to understand emotions you need to understand how the brain works (Hoemann et al, 2017). Mixed emotions have further been described as a correlation of feeling both positive and negative stimulation at the same time (Kung & Chao, 2019). However, previous research investigates whether the occurrence of positive and negative emotions at the same does exist, and have argued that people are unable to experience positive and negative emotions such as happiness and sadness at the same time (Larsen & McGraw, 2011). In contrast, Larsen & McGraw (2011) further investigated whether positive and negative emotions can co-exist, and found a possibility of people feeling mixed emotions such as happiness and sadness at the same time, even though research has proven that positive and negative emotions are polar opposites and are separable from one another (Larsen & McGraw, 2011; Larsen et al, 2001).

Definition: Mixed Emotions are the experience of positive and negative feelings at the same time, often referred to as "emotional ambivalence" (Hung & Chao, 2019).

Example: "The pride of achieving a goal may be tainted by the sadness of one's sacrifices, and feelings of love are often complicated by feelings of jealousy" (Oh & Tong, 2022, p.283).

Positive Emotions vs Negative Emotions:
Positive emotions are the emotions that people find pleasurable or are desirable to experience (Ackerman, 2019). Whereas negative emotions are the emotions that people find unpleasant to experience (Ackerman, 2019). There are many positive and negative emotions, as shown in Figure 9.Plutchik's wheel of emotion. However, Ackerman (2019) argues that some examples of positive and negative emotions are as follows (descriptions of each emotion are from the American Psychology Association Dictionary, 2022 & Ackerman, 2019):




 * Case study

Thomas is a 12 year old at an amusement park with his best friend John who is also 12 years old and his family. John suggests going onto the slingshot ride and they both grab tickets for the ride and wait in line to go onto the ride. Thomas and John are both feeling really excited to get onto the ride, as the line gets shorter and they get to the start of the line Thomas starts feeling overwhelmed and scared. By the time its ready for them both to get onto the ride, Thomas is feeling very anxious because he is scared something bad will happen like he will fall out while it is going but also really excited because he has never been on this ride.


 * Case study:

Sally is working as a retail consultant at a clothing stall at the local shops down from where she lives. She is a full time worker, is married, has two cats and enjoys her job very much. Sally enjoys the regular hours and pay she receives from work and is looking forward to having some days off in the next upcoming holiday period. One day when arriving at work her boss sits her down and explains the shop is closing due to an increase in rent. Sally is sad that she is loosing her job,  she wonders how she will pay for her rent, bills and cat food, however, she is also glad because she has been wanting some time off for a while and is looking forward to spending days off doing nothing.

Emotion Categories & Moods:
Emotions and moods are not the same, and it is important to understand the difference when exploring mixed emotions. Many people seem to confuse a mood with feelings of mixed emotions. Figure 5 shows the Emotion categories from Basic to Self-conscious to Cognitively Complex (Reeve, 2018) Figure 6 shows the difference between Emotions and Moods, although this figure also explores a slight difference in feelings too, Emotion's are feelings of positive and Negative feelings, therefore Feelings and emotions can be characterised as the same (Kreibig & Gross, 2017).



Want to find out how high your Emotional Quotient (EQ) is? Click on this link to test yourself.

What are some of the Mixed Emotion combinations?
Mixed emotions can contain range of different emotions as long as contains two or more negative and positives at the same time it can be considered mixed. According to the history of mixed emotions some studies have found the below combination of emotions many people explain they are experiencing at the same time (Berrios et al, 2014; Hoemann et al, 2017; Kung & Chao, 2019; Larsen & McGraw, 2014). Also see Figure 7, for another example of mixed emotions or emotional instability.




 * Case study:

Tess has been offered a promotion in her job, the new job involves Tess travelling overseas for the first time and living in  country she has been to before. Tess is really happy that she has been given a promotion, her promotion involves a pay increase, her rent is paid for and she gets to visit a new country. However, Tess is also scared she is going to lose all her friends when she goes, and is scared something bad will happen as she will be in a foreign country.

Test yourself
Click on this link to complete the What Emotion am I feeling test for yourself.

What causes mixed emotions?


Mixed emotions have shown to arise from experience over a lifetime from certain life events (Braniecka et al, 2015; Berrios et al, 2015). Braniecka et al (2015) argues that mixed emotions are an affective response to complex events such as "winning a disappointing prize or remembering a lost love with warmth and joy". Mixed emotions have shown to be been more prominent in stressful life situations due to situation itself, as when being in these circumstances, it is nearly impossible to avoid negative affects associated with stressful life events, and positive affect may help alleviate the negative emotion experienced (Braniecka et al, 2014).

Theories of what causes the experience of Mixed Emotions:
Below are some theories of how mixed emotions are caused.

Function Adapting:
When people are in stressful life events, Braniecka et al (2015) suggests that adapting a function of mixed emotions maybe helpful in lowering the negative arousal associated with the negative event, and as such when manifesting the positive affect it changes the negative experience by reducing the physiological arousal without actually eliminating the negative affect itself. Allowing a decrease in distress, which in turn benefits the individual during such circumstances as it "allows them to confront adversity and find meaning in life's stressors, as well as feeling better" (Braniecka et al, 2015, p.1). This in turn reflects the James-Lange Theory of Emotion as shown in Figure 9.



Pleasant vs Unpleasant Stimuli:
Mixed emotions have been shown to be experienced over time, and have often been studied as traits (Berrios et al, 2014, p.1). Berrios et al (2014) argues that the arousal of mixed emotions draws on from the experience of alternating the presentation of pleasant and unpleasant stimulus to instigate a mixed emotion experience. For example presenting someone with a puppy (pleasant) and throwing a bucket of ice cold water (unpleasant). Berrios et al (2014) explored research from Kellog (1915) which further supported this theory of pleasant and unpleasant stimulus to drive mixed emotion behaviours, and suggested that "two opposite streams of feelings can operate continuously" (Berrios et al 2014, p.2).



Life Events:
Mixed emotions has been commonly suggested, to be triggered during situations involving goal conflict or personal dilemmas (Hostler & Berrios, 2021, p.341). Hostler & Berrios (2021) argued that mixed emotions are highly associated with "greater effort to resist temptation, which suggests a relationship between mixed emotions and self-control" and furthermore mixed emotions have also been proven to show improvement in an individuals accuracy of judgment, or even so maybe be relevant when dealing with uncertainty confusing future outcomes" (Hostler & Berrios, 2021, p.341-342). For an photographic example, see Figure 8, where the four components of emotion have been explained and Figure 10 where Arnolds appraisal theory of emotion is presented.


 * Case study:

Donald worked full time in a call center for a busy telephone company. He has 2 children and is married and is the sole income earner for his family. Donald was contempt with his job as it was a consistent income for him and his family. He found his role made him stressed and angry, due to the high demands and limited time off. He has been working at the company for 3 years and had recently applied for a promotion where he would have his own office, large pay increase and would work every second Saturday. Donald was really excited in applying, as he had plans to take the family on a special trip to celebrate with the pay increase, however, he was not successful. Donald felt sad and angry that he did not get the promotion, but was also happy and relieved as he can now spend every Saturday with his children.

Research or Laboratory Events:
When researchers are exploring the cause and understanding of Mixed Emotions, different types of stimuli have been used to enforce the emotions. Kreibig & Gross (2017) explored different paradigms and measures for understanding mixed emotions such as inducing an occurrence of positive and negative emotional states by creating a film library of mixed emotions. However, other researchers have used methods such as:


 * Recalling naturally occurring situations
 * Fictitious press advertisements
 * Listening to self-selected music
 * Paired picture paradigm
 * Excerpts from motion pictures

Test yourself
{Mixed Emotions involves both Negative and Positive emotions: + True - False
 * type=""}

{Which of the following is not an example of mixed emotion experience?: - Tim was angry that his lego tower fell over but was happy to build it up again. + Tim was happy with his ice-cream even though it was very cold. - Tim was excited to play with his new toy outside but fearful his sister may break it if she plays with him.
 * type=""}

How can mixed emotions be managed?


Managing mixed emotions can be tricky for some, and according to psychological research there are many ways mixed emotions can be managed. As Braniecka et al (2015) suggested, adapting the negative and positive emotions can help with reducing emotional complexity. Gross (2002) argued that the most successful way of deregulating emotions is the "process model of emotion regulation" (Gross, 2002, p.281) which involves two commonly used strategies, reappraisal and suppression. Reappraisal involves changing the way a situation is perceived or interpreted to decrease the emotional impact, and suppression involves preventing or minimising the outward expression of inner feelings (Gross, 2002). Below are the pro's and con's according to Gross (2002) for utilising reappraisal and suppression in emotional regulation.

Below are some further modern suggestions on how to manage mixed emotions.

Psychology Today
According to Psychology Today there are 6 ways mixed emotions can be managed:

Mental Health America


Mental Health America suggest their are helpful and harmful ways to managing mixed emotions. Mental Health America suggest you need to understand both the negative and positive ways to managing emotions. Below is the list of harmful and helpful ways to understanding mixed emotions.

Additionally Check out The Ekmans Atlas of Emotions for the first steps of emotion awareness.

Conclusion
So, what does this all of this mean for you? Is it normal to feel multiple emotions at once? and is possible to manage them all? Well, yes it is normal to feel both positive emotions (eg. happiness) and negative (eg. sadness) at the same time (Kung & Chao, 2019). There are multiple avenues to managing mixed emotions, the first and most important thing to remember is it okay to feel mixed emotions, and at one point in everyone's life people feel mixed emotions. The first step is acknowledging the feelings you are feeling and understanding why you are experiencing certain emotions. The second is letting yourself pause and reflect so you express your emotions in an appropriate manner so if you need to seek help in managing them you can. Mixed emotion's have strongly been suggested that through life experience and the situations you come by you are bound to experience both negative and positive emotion's at the same time (Hostler & Berrios, 2021). Mixed emotion's can be managed by incorporating an functional adaption (Braniecka et al, 2015) or by practicing the reappraisal and or suppression technique's (Gross, 2002) to better experience and express your emotions, the first step is to understand why the feelings of such an emotion appear and the cues that are associated with triggering the emotion, so you can better express your emotions in a way that will make you feel better about yourself.