What are emotions good for?

There are advantages to having emotions. Without emotions, we would react spontaneously and robotically to events around us. With emotions, situations have meaning, there is a lull as new information is assessed and evaluated in relation to our past experiences, our ambitions and desires. Emotions are crucial to learning and memory: positive emotions motivate us toward rewarding situations and resources, negative emotions avert us from harm and distress. Emotions also prepare our bodies internally for the action we need to take to maintain our goals and desires. Facing a mugger with a knife, fear sends blood rushing to our limbs in preparation for taking flight. On stage, addressing a crowd, adrenaline races through our veins enhancing our performance and speeding our thoughts.
Emotions also serve a social function. Our facial expression, our tone of voice, even our body language, convey to others something of what we are thinking and feeling. In the case of your job offer, the delight and enthusiasm in your voice will hopefully signal to your new employer that they’ve made the right choice. Spend a few minutes at an airport arrivals lounge and you’ll see emotional communication begins long before words are uttered, as eyebrows are raised and smiles shared in a visible display of welcoming. Indeed, around the world, across cultures there is remarkable consistency in the facial expressions associated with certain feelings like happiness, fear and anger. Again, in the presence of threat, the urgency of these signals is magnified – a look of terror warns others, a shrill scream deters the enemy.