Search results
The situated perspective on emotion states that conceptual thought is not an inherent part of emotion, since emotion is an action-oriented form of skillful engagement with the world. Griffiths and Scarantino suggested that this perspective on emotion could be helpful in understanding phobias, as well as the emotions of infants and animals.
Learn the meaning, synonyms, history, and usage of the word emotion from the authoritative Merriam-Webster dictionary. Find out how to distinguish emotion from related terms such as feeling, passion, and sentiment. See examples of emotion in sentences and phrases.
- Overview
- What Are Emotions?
- Key Elements of Emotions
- Theories of Emotion
- Types of Emotions
- Emotions, Feelings, and Moods
- What Emotion Are You? Take the Quiz
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Trending Videos
Emotions are reactions that human beings experience in response to events or situations. The type of emotion a person experiences is determined by the circumstance that triggers the emotion. For instance, a person experiences joy when they receive good news and fear when they are threatened.
Emotions have a strong influence on our daily lives. We make decisions based on whether we are happy, angry, sad, bored, or frustrated. We also choose activities and hobbies based on the emotions they incite. Understanding emotions can help us navigate life with greater ease and stability.
"Being aware of our internal emotional state and being more mindful and present with how our mind and body respond to situations enables us to manage stress better," says Annie Miller, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW. "We can then have improved emotional regulation, as well as emotional resilience and lower levels of anxiety."
By recognizing and tuning into our own emotions, we become more self-aware, and more mindful, which allows us to make informed decisions and respond to situations more effectively.
— ANNIE MILLER, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW
In "Discovering Psychology," authors Don Hockenbury and Sandra E. Hockenbury suggest that emotions are complex psychological states that involve three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response.
In addition to trying to define what emotions are, researchers have also tried to identify and classify the different types of emotions. The descriptions and insights have changed over time.
•In 1972, psychologist Paul Ekman suggested that there are six basic emotions that are universal throughout human cultures: fear, disgust, anger, surprise, joy, and sadness.
•In the 1980s, Robert Plutchik introduced another emotion classification system known as the wheel of emotions. This model demonstrated how different emotions can be combined or mixed together, much like the way an artist mixes primary colors to create other colors.
•In 1999, Ekman expanded his list to include a number of other basic emotions, including embarrassment, excitement, contempt, shame, pride, satisfaction, and amusement.
Plutchik proposed eight primary emotional dimensions: joy vs. sadness, anger vs. fear, trust vs. disgust, and surprise vs. anticipation. These emotions can then be combined to create others, such as happiness + anticipation = excitement.
Subjective Experience
While experts believe that there are a number of basic universal emotions experienced by people all over the world, regardless of background or culture, researchers also believe that experiencing emotion can be highly subjective. Consider anger. Is all anger the same? Not necessarily. Your own experience might range from mild annoyance to blinding rage. Additionally, you may experience anger differently than someone else. While we have broad labels for emotions, such as "angry," "sad," or "happy," your own experience of these emotions may be much more multi-dimensional, hence subjective. We also don't always experience pure forms of each emotion. Mixed emotions over different events or situations in our lives are common. When faced with starting a new job, for example, you might feel both excited and nervous. Getting married or having a child might be marked by a wide variety of emotions ranging from joy to anxiety. These emotions might occur simultaneously or you might feel them one after another.
Physiological Response
If you've ever felt your stomach lurch from anxiety or your heart palpate with fear, you've already experienced the strong physiological reactions that can occur with emotions. Many of these physiological responses are regulated by the sympathetic nervous system, a branch of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls involuntary body responses, such as blood flow and digestion. The sympathetic nervous system is charged with controlling the body's fight-or-flight reactions. When facing a threat, fight-or-flight responses automatically prepare your body to flee from danger or face the threat head-on. While early studies of the physiology of emotion tended to focus on autonomic responses, more recent research has targeted the brain's role in emotions. Brain scans have shown that the amygdala, part of the limbic system, plays an important role in emotion and fear in particular. The amygdala is a tiny, almond-shaped structure that has been linked to motivational states such as hunger and thirst as well as behavior and emotion. Brain imaging studies reveal that when people are shown threatening images, the amygdala becomes activated. Damage to the amygdala has also been shown to impair the fear response. How to Prevent and an Amygdala Hijack
Behavioral Response
The final component is perhaps one that you are most familiar with—the actual expression of emotion. We spend a significant amount of time interpreting the emotional expressions of the people around us. Our ability to accurately understand these expressions is tied to what psychologists call emotional intelligence and these expressions play a major part in our overall body language. Sociocultural norms also play a role in how we express and interpret emotions. For example, research has found that Western cultures tend to value and promote high-arousal emotions (fear, excitement, distress) whereas Eastern cultures typically value and prefer low-arousal emotions (calmness, serenity, peace). Some expressions are considered universal, such as a smile to indicate happiness or a frown to indicate sadness. Are Emotional Expressions Universal?
Charles Darwin proposed the evolutionary theory of emotion, which suggests that emotions are adaptive to our environment and improve our chances of survival. According to this theory, emotions like love are adaptive because they promote mating and reproduction while fear is adaptive because it keeps us safe from predators.
The James-Lange theory of emotion maintains that our physical responses are responsible for emotion. If someone sneaks up on you and shouts, for instance, your heart rate increases, causing you to feel fear.
The facial-feedback theory elaborates on the James-Lange theory and suggests that facial movements influence emotion. If you force a smile, for instance, you will feel happier than if you didn't smile.
The Cannon-Bard theory refutes the James-Lange theory, asserting that people experience emotional and physiological responses at the same time, with each response acting independently. An example would be feeling fear when you see a deadly snake while your body prepares to run.
The Schachter-Singer theory is a cognitive theory of emotion that suggests our thoughts are actually responsible for emotions. Similar to this theory is the cognitive appraisal theory. It posits that someone must first think before experiencing an emotion. For instance, your brain judges a situation as threatening, and as a result, you experience fear.
6 Major Theories of Emotion
In addition to different theories about the development of emotions, there are also various theories as to how many types of emotions humans experience. As mentioned, psychologist Paul Ekman established the following six universal emotions:
•Happiness: Many people strive for happiness as it is a pleasant emotion accompanied by a sense of well-being and satisfaction. Happiness is often expressed by smiling or speaking in an upbeat tone of voice.
•Sadness: All of us experience sadness now and then. Someone might express this emotion by crying, being quiet, and/or withdrawing from others. Types of sadness include grief, hopelessness, and disappointment.
•Fear: Fear can increase heart rate, cause racing thoughts, or trigger the fight-or-flight response. It can be a reaction to actual or perceived threats. Some people enjoy the adrenaline rush that accompanies fear in the form of watching scary movies, riding roller coasters, or skydiving.
•Disgust: Disgust can be triggered by a physical experience, such as seeing or smelling rotting food, blood, or poor hygiene. Moral disgust may occur when someone sees another person doing something they find immoral or distasteful.
•Anger: Anger can be expressed with facial expressions like frowning, yelling, or violent behavior. Anger can motivate you to make changes in your life, but it's also important to find a healthy outlet to express anger so it doesn't cause harm to yourself or others.
In everyday language, people often use the terms emotions, feelings, and moods interchangeably, but they actually mean different things. Emotions are reactions to stimuli, but feelings are what we experience as a result of emotions.
An emotion is normally quite short-lived, but intense. Emotions are also likely to have a definite and identifiable cause. Feelings are influenced by our perception of the situation, which is why the same emotion can trigger different feelings among people experiencing it.
Take the example of disagreeing with your friend. You might both walk away from the conversation having experienced the emotion of anger. Your anger might feel like frustration because you feel that your friend never listens to you when you speak. Your friend's anger, on the other hand, might feel like jealousy because they feel you know much more about the topic than they do.
Both of you have the same emotion, but your feelings are different based on your separate interpretations.
A mood can be described as a temporary emotional state. Sometimes moods are caused by clear reasons—you might feel everything is going your way this week, so you're in a happy mood. But in many cases, it can be difficult to identify the specific cause of a mood. For example, you might find yourself feeling gloomy for several days without any clear, identifiable reason.
If you've been struggling with low mood or difficult emotions, talk to a physician or a mental health professional about your concerns. They can offer support, guidance, and solutions that can help you get back to feeling your best. Our National Helpline Database also provides different resources that might help.
Our fast and free emotion quiz can help you better understand your emotional responses to certain situations, and why you may think or behave the way you do.
Most of us experience a wide variety of emotions. The feelings that stem from these emotions can feel overwhelming at times, but a helpful first step can simply be to label the emotion. Understand that it's okay to experience any type of emotion—even emotions that can be difficult to cope with like sadness or anger.
Learn what emotions are, how they are influenced by subjective, physiological, and behavioral responses, and how they are classified by different theories. Explore the six basic emotions, the wheel of emotions, and the dimensions of emotions.
Emotions are brief, felt mental states that arise from the mind’s interpretation of bodily sensations and stimuli. They influence decision-making, behavior, and social interactions. Learn about the roots, regulation, and expression of emotions, as well as the difference between feelings and emotions, emotional intelligence, and negative emotions.
- How do emotions arise?Emotions are thought to originate in the amygdala, as it codes the nature of incoming stimuli. Through bundles of two-way circuitry, the prefrontal...
- What are the core emotions?While all emotions are important and serve as a source of information, emotions are generally classified as positive or negative. Positive emotions...
- Is there a difference between feelings and emotions?Scientists distinguish between feelings and emotions, even though they sometimes colloquially use the two terms interchangeably. Emotions are consi...
- What are the component skills of emotion regulation?Self-awareness —noticing what you feel and being able to name it; emotional acceptance —particularly accepting the discomfort of negative emotions...
- What is emotional intelligence ?Because emotions matter and stimulate so much of human behavior, people benefit from the capacity to be aware of, control, and express their emotio...
- What are the key components of emotional intelligence?The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence identifies five component skills of emotional intelligence: recognizing, understanding, labeling, expres...
- Why are negative emotions so harmful?If sustained, negative emotions generally are associated with detrimental physiological effects. The quick burst of physiological arousal we usuall...
- Why is it hard to read other people’s emotions?People can mask their emotions, and accurately perceiving the emotions of others hinges not just on detecting their facial expression, even the sho...
Dec 1, 2022 · Disgust is another of the original six basic emotions described by Eckman. Disgust can be displayed in a number of ways including: Body language: turning away from the object of disgust. Physical reactions: such as vomiting or retching. Facial expressions: such as wrinkling the nose and curling the upper lip.
Learn about the five basic emotions and how to recognize and express them. Find out how emotions can affect your physical and mental health and what to do when you feel them.
Sep 25, 2018 · emotion is a complex state, an AB, with [appraisal] A as cause and B as a combination of an action tendency, physiological change, and subjective affect, (Lazarus 1991a: 819) whereby the appraisal is not just a cause of emotion but also a part of it (see Moors 2013 for a critique of this assumption).
