Emotions can act in our favour

• Generally, emotions keep us safe. Feeling fear will help us survive a threatening environment, and feeling love helps us form companionship.
• Emotions can also be manipulated. It includes the act of "posturing" - making one's body look larger than it is - to seem more threatening. Humans instinctively respond to the neonatal features of babies which encourages us to protect them.
• We can alter our emotional display so as to elicit an appropriate response. For example, the teacher who is hugely frustrated, but greets with a smile.

But emotional labour can cause burnout, manipulation of emotion can cause confusion and hurt, and showing off will not always achieve the results we desire.