Describe the word emotion

Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.^[1][2][3][4] There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition.^[5][6] Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.^[7]

Research on emotion has increased over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, medicine, history, sociology of emotions, and computer science. The numerous attempts to explain the origin, function and other aspects of emotions have fostered intense research on this topic. Theorizing about the evolutionary origin and possible purpose of emotion dates back to Charles Darwin. Current areas of research include the neuroscience of emotion, using tools like PET and fMRI scans to study the affective picture processes in the brain.^[8]

From a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as «a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity.»^[4] Emotions are complex, involving multiple different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior.^[9][10] At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on. More recently, emotion is said to consist of all the components. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline. In psychology and philosophy, emotion typically includes a subjective, conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states. A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology. For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and the appraisal of situations and contexts.^[11] Cognitive processes, like reasoning and decision-making, are often regarded as separate from emotional processes, making a division between «thinking» and «feeling». However, not all theories of emotion regard this separation as valid.^[12]

Nowadays most research into emotions in the clinical and well-being context focuses on emotion dynamics in daily life, predominantly the intensity of specific emotions, and their variability, instability, inertia, and differentiation, and whether and how emotions augment or blunt each other over time, and differences in these dynamics between people and along the lifespan.^[13]

Etymology[edit]

The word «emotion» dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means «to stir up». The term emotion was introduced into academic discussion as a catch-all term to passions, sentiments and affections.^[14] The word «emotion» was coined in the early 1800s by Thomas Brown and it is around the 1830s that the modern concept of emotion first emerged for the English language.^[15] «No one felt emotions before about 1830. Instead they felt other things – ‘passions’, ‘accidents of the soul’, ‘moral sentiments’ – and explained them very differently from how we understand emotions today.»^[15]

Some cross-cultural studies indicate that the categorization of «emotion» and classification of basic emotions such as «anger» and «sadness» are not universal and that the boundaries and domains of these concepts are categorized differently by all cultures.^[16] However, others argue that there are some universal bases of emotions (see Section 6.1).^[17] In psychiatry and psychology, an inability to express or perceive emotion is sometimes referred to as alexithymia.^[18]

History[edit]

Human nature and the accompanying bodily sensations have always been part of the interests of thinkers and philosophers. Far more extensively, this has also been of great interest to both Western and Eastern societies. Emotional states have been associated with the divine and with the enlightenment of the human mind and body.^[19] The ever-changing actions of individuals and their mood variations have been of great importance to most of the Western philosophers (including Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Aquinas, and Hobbes), leading them to propose extensive theories—often competing theories—that sought to explain emotion and the accompanying motivators of human action, as well as its consequences.

In the Age of Enlightenment, Scottish thinker David Hume^[20] proposed a revolutionary argument that sought to explain the main motivators of human action and conduct. He proposed that actions are motivated by «fears, desires, and passions». As he wrote in his book A Treatise of Human Nature (1773): «Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will… it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will… The reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them».^[21] With these lines, Hume attempted to explain that reason and further action would be subject to the desires and experience of the self. Later thinkers would propose that actions and emotions are deeply interrelated with social, political, historical, and cultural aspects of reality that would also come to be associated with sophisticated neurological and physiological research on the brain and other parts of the physical body.

Definitions[edit]

The Lexico definition of emotion is «A strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.»^[22] Emotions are responses to significant internal and external events.^[23]

Emotions can be occurrences (e.g., panic) or dispositions (e.g., hostility), and short-lived (e.g., anger) or long-lived (e.g., grief).^[24] Psychotherapist Michael C. Graham describes all emotions as existing on a continuum of intensity.^[25] Thus fear might range from mild concern to terror or shame might range from simple embarrassment to toxic shame.^[26] Emotions have been described as consisting of a coordinated set of responses, which may include verbal, physiological, behavioral, and neural mechanisms.^[27]

Emotions have been categorized, with some relationships existing between emotions and some direct opposites existing. Graham differentiates emotions as functional or dysfunctional and argues all functional emotions have benefits.^[28]

In some uses of the word, emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something.^[29] On the other hand, emotion can be used to refer to states that are mild (as in annoyed or content) and to states that are not directed at anything (as in anxiety and depression). One line of research looks at the meaning of the word emotion in everyday language and finds that this usage is rather different from that in academic discourse.^[30]

In practical terms, Joseph LeDoux has defined emotions as the result of a cognitive and conscious process which occurs in response to a body system response to a trigger.^[31]

Components[edit]

According to Scherer’s Component Process Model (CPM) of emotion,^[10] there are five crucial elements of emotion. From the component process perspective, emotional experience requires that all of these processes become coordinated and synchronized for a short period of time, driven by appraisal processes. Although the inclusion of cognitive appraisal as one of the elements is slightly controversial, since some theorists make the assumption that emotion and cognition are separate but interacting systems, the CPM provides a sequence of events that effectively describes the coordination involved during an emotional episode.

• Cognitive appraisal: provides an evaluation of events and objects.
• Bodily symptoms: the physiological component of emotional experience.
• Action tendencies: a motivational component for the preparation and direction of motor responses.
• Expression: facial and vocal expression almost always accompanies an emotional state to communicate reaction and intention of actions.
• Feelings: the subjective experience of emotional state once it has occurred.

Differentiation[edit]

Emotion can be differentiated from a number of similar constructs within the field of affective neuroscience:^[27]

• Emotions: predispositions to a certain type of action in response to a specific stimulus, which produce a cascade of rapid and synchronized physiological and cognitive changes.^[9]
• Feeling: not all feelings include emotion, such as the feeling of knowing. In the context of emotion, feelings are best understood as a subjective representation of emotions, private to the individual experiencing them.^{[32][better source needed]}
• Moods: diffuse affective states that generally last for much longer durations than emotions; they are also usually less intense than emotions and often appear to lack a contextual stimulus.^[29]
• Affect: used to describe the underlying affective experience of an emotion or a mood.

Purpose and value[edit]

One view is that emotions facilitate adaptive responses to environmental challenges. Emotions have been described as a result of evolution because they provided good solutions to ancient and recurring problems that faced our ancestors.^[33] Emotions can function as a way to communicate what’s important to individuals, such as values and ethics.^[34] However some emotions, such as some forms of anxiety, are sometimes regarded as part of a mental illness and thus possibly of negative value.^[35]

Classification[edit]

A distinction can be made between emotional episodes and emotional dispositions. Emotional dispositions are also comparable to character traits, where someone may be said to be generally disposed to experience certain emotions. For example, an irritable person is generally disposed to feel irritation more easily or quickly than others do. Finally, some theorists place emotions within a more general category of «affective states» where affective states can also include emotion-related phenomena such as pleasure and pain, motivational states (for example, hunger or curiosity), moods, dispositions and traits.^[36]

Basic emotions[edit]

For more than 40 years, Paul Ekman has supported the view that emotions are discrete, measurable, and physiologically distinct. Ekman’s most influential work revolved around the finding that certain emotions appeared to be universally recognized, even in cultures that were preliterate and could not have learned associations for facial expressions through media. Another classic study found that when participants contorted their facial muscles into distinct facial expressions (for example, disgust), they reported subjective and physiological experiences that matched the distinct facial expressions. Ekman’s facial-expression research examined six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.^[37]

Later in his career,^[38] Ekman theorized that other universal emotions may exist beyond these six. In light of this, recent cross-cultural studies led by Daniel Cordaro and Dacher Keltner, both former students of Ekman, extended the list of universal emotions. In addition to the original six, these studies provided evidence for amusement, awe, contentment, desire, embarrassment, pain, relief, and sympathy in both facial and vocal expressions. They also found evidence for boredom, confusion, interest, pride, and shame facial expressions, as well as contempt, relief, and triumph vocal expressions.^[39][40][41]

Robert Plutchik agreed with Ekman’s biologically driven perspective but developed the «wheel of emotions», suggesting eight primary emotions grouped on a positive or negative basis: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation.^[42] Some basic emotions can be modified to form complex emotions. The complex emotions could arise from cultural conditioning or association combined with the basic emotions. Alternatively, similar to the way primary colors combine, primary emotions could blend to form the full spectrum of human emotional experience. For example, interpersonal anger and disgust could blend to form contempt. Relationships exist between basic emotions, resulting in positive or negative influences.^[43]

Jaak Panksepp carved out seven biologically inherited primary affective systems called SEEKING (expectancy), FEAR (anxiety), RAGE (anger), LUST (sexual excitement), CARE (nurturance), PANIC/GRIEF (sadness), and PLAY (social joy). He proposed what is known as «core-SELF» to be generating these affects.^[44]

Multi-dimensional analysis[edit]

Psychologists have used methods such as factor analysis to attempt to map emotion-related responses onto a more limited number of dimensions. Such methods attempt to boil emotions down to underlying dimensions that capture the similarities and differences between experiences.^[46] Often, the first two dimensions uncovered by factor analysis are valence (how negative or positive the experience feels) and arousal (how energized or enervated the experience feels). These two dimensions can be depicted on a 2D coordinate map.^[4] This two-dimensional map has been theorized to capture one important component of emotion called core affect.^[47][48] Core affect is not theorized to be the only component to emotion, but to give the emotion its hedonic and felt energy.

Using statistical methods to analyze emotional states elicited by short videos, Cowen and Keltner identified 27 varieties of emotional experience: admiration, adoration, aesthetic appreciation, amusement, anger, anxiety, awe, awkwardness, boredom, calmness, confusion, craving, disgust, empathic pain, entrancement, excitement, fear, horror, interest, joy, nostalgia, relief, romance, sadness, satisfaction, sexual desire and surprise.^[49]

Theories[edit]

Pre-modern history[edit]

In Buddhism, emotions occur when an object is considered as attractive or repulsive. There is a felt tendency impelling people towards attractive objects and impelling them to move away from repulsive or harmful objects; a disposition to possess the object (greed), to destroy it (hatred), to flee from it (fear), to get obsessed or worried over it (anxiety), and so on.^[50]

In Stoic theories, normal emotions (like delight and fear) are described as irrational impulses which come from incorrect appraisals of what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Alternatively, there are ‘good emotions’ (like joy and caution) experienced by those that are wise, which come from correct appraisals of what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’.^[51][52]

Aristotle believed that emotions were an essential component of virtue.^[53] In the Aristotelian view all emotions (called passions) corresponded to appetites or capacities. During the Middle Ages, the Aristotelian view was adopted and further developed by scholasticism and Thomas Aquinas^[54] in particular.

In Chinese antiquity, excessive emotion was believed to cause damage to qi, which in turn, damages the vital organs.^[55] The four humours theory made popular by Hippocrates contributed to the study of emotion in the same way that it did for medicine.

In the early 11th century, Avicenna theorized about the influence of emotions on health and behaviors, suggesting the need to manage emotions.^[56]

Early modern views on emotion are developed in the works of philosophers such as René Descartes, Niccolò Machiavelli, Baruch Spinoza,^[57] Thomas Hobbes^[58] and David Hume. In the 19th century emotions were considered adaptive and were studied more frequently from an empiricist psychiatric perspective.

Western theological[edit]

Christian perspective on emotion presupposes a theistic origin to humanity. God who created humans gave humans the ability to feel emotion and interact emotionally. Biblical content expresses that God is a person who feels and expresses emotion. Though a somatic view would place the locus of emotions in the physical body, Christian theory of emotions would view the body more as a platform for the sensing and expression of emotions. Therefore, emotions themselves arise from the person, or that which is «imago-dei» or Image of God in humans. In Christian thought, emotions have the potential to be controlled through reasoned reflection. That reasoned reflection also mimics God who made mind. The purpose of emotions in human life are therefore summarized in God’s call to enjoy Him and creation, humans are to enjoy emotions and benefit from them and use them to energize behavior.^[59][60]

Evolutionary theories[edit]

19th century[edit]

Perspectives on emotions from evolutionary theory were initiated during the mid-late 19th century with Charles Darwin’s 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.^[61] Darwin argued that emotions served no evolved purpose for humans, neither in communication, nor in aiding survival.^[62] Darwin largely argued that emotions evolved via the inheritance of acquired characters. He pioneered various methods for studying non-verbal expressions, from which he concluded that some expressions had cross-cultural universality. Darwin also detailed homologous expressions of emotions that occur in animals. This led the way for animal research on emotions and the eventual determination of the neural underpinnings of emotion.

Contemporary[edit]

More contemporary views along the evolutionary psychology spectrum posit that both basic emotions and social emotions evolved to motivate (social) behaviors that were adaptive in the ancestral environment.^[63] Emotion is an essential part of any human decision-making and planning, and the famous distinction made between reason and emotion is not as clear as it seems.^[64] Paul D. MacLean claims that emotion competes with even more instinctive responses, on one hand, and the more abstract reasoning, on the other hand. The increased potential in neuroimaging has also allowed investigation into evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain. Important neurological advances were derived from these perspectives in the 1990s by Joseph E. LeDoux and Antonio Damasio. For example, in an extensive study of a subject with ventromedial frontal lobe damage described in the book Descartes’ Error, Damasio demonstrated how loss of physiological capacity for emotion resulted in the subject’s lost capacity to make decisions despite having robust faculties for rationally assessing options.^[65] Research on physiological emotion has caused modern neuroscience to abandon the model of emotions and rationality as opposing forces. In contrast to the ancient Greek ideal of dispassionate reason, the neuroscience of emotion shows that emotion is necessarily integrated with intellect.^[66]

Research on social emotion also focuses on the physical displays of emotion including body language of animals and humans (see affect display). For example, spite seems to work against the individual but it can establish an individual’s reputation as someone to be feared.^[63] Shame and pride can motivate behaviors that help one maintain one’s standing in a community, and self-esteem is one’s estimate of one’s status.^{[63][67][page needed]}

Somatic theories[edit]

Somatic theories of emotion claim that bodily responses, rather than cognitive interpretations, are essential to emotions. The first modern version of such theories came from William James in the 1880s. The theory lost favor in the 20th century, but has regained popularity more recently due largely to theorists such as John T. Cacioppo,^[68] Antonio Damasio,^[69] Joseph E. LeDoux^[70] and Robert Zajonc^[71] who are able to appeal to neurological evidence.^[72]

James–Lange theory[edit]

In his 1884 article^[73] William James argued that feelings and emotions were secondary to physiological phenomena. In his theory, James proposed that the perception of what he called an «exciting fact» directly led to a physiological response, known as «emotion.»^[74] To account for different types of emotional experiences, James proposed that stimuli trigger activity in the autonomic nervous system, which in turn produces an emotional experience in the brain. The Danish psychologist Carl Lange also proposed a similar theory at around the same time, and therefore this theory became known as the James–Lange theory. As James wrote, «the perception of bodily changes, as they occur, is the emotion.» James further claims that «we feel sad because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and either we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be.»^[73]

An example of this theory in action would be as follows: An emotion-evoking stimulus (snake) triggers a pattern of physiological response (increased heart rate, faster breathing, etc.), which is interpreted as a particular emotion (fear). This theory is supported by experiments in which by manipulating the bodily state induces a desired emotional state.^[75] Some people may believe that emotions give rise to emotion-specific actions, for example, «I’m crying because I’m sad,» or «I ran away because I was scared.» The issue with the James–Lange theory is that of causation (bodily states causing emotions and being a priori), not that of the bodily influences on emotional experience (which can be argued and is still quite prevalent today in biofeedback studies and embodiment theory).^[76]

Although mostly abandoned in its original form, Tim Dalgleish argues that most contemporary neuroscientists have embraced the components of the James-Lange theory of emotions.^[77]

The James–Lange theory has remained influential. Its main contribution is the emphasis it places on the embodiment of emotions, especially the argument that changes in the bodily concomitants of emotions can alter their experienced intensity. Most contemporary neuroscientists would endorse a modified James–Lange view in which bodily feedback modulates the experience of emotion. (p. 583)

Cannon–Bard theory[edit]

Walter Bradford Cannon agreed that physiological responses played a crucial role in emotions, but did not believe that physiological responses alone could explain subjective emotional experiences. He argued that physiological responses were too slow and often imperceptible and this could not account for the relatively rapid and intense subjective awareness of emotion.^[78] He also believed that the richness, variety, and temporal course of emotional experiences could not stem from physiological reactions, that reflected fairly undifferentiated fight or flight responses.^[79][80] An example of this theory in action is as follows: An emotion-evoking event (snake) triggers simultaneously both a physiological response and a conscious experience of an emotion.

Phillip Bard contributed to the theory with his work on animals. Bard found that sensory, motor, and physiological information all had to pass through the diencephalon (particularly the thalamus), before being subjected to any further processing. Therefore, Cannon also argued that it was not anatomically possible for sensory events to trigger a physiological response prior to triggering conscious awareness and emotional stimuli had to trigger both physiological and experiential aspects of emotion simultaneously.^[79]

Two-factor theory[edit]

Stanley Schachter formulated his theory on the earlier work of a Spanish physician, Gregorio Marañón, who injected patients with epinephrine and subsequently asked them how they felt. Marañón found that most of these patients felt something but in the absence of an actual emotion-evoking stimulus, the patients were unable to interpret their physiological arousal as an experienced emotion. Schachter did agree that physiological reactions played a big role in emotions. He suggested that physiological reactions contributed to emotional experience by facilitating a focused cognitive appraisal of a given physiologically arousing event and that this appraisal was what defined the subjective emotional experience. Emotions were thus a result of two-stage process: general physiological arousal, and experience of emotion. For example, the physiological arousal, heart pounding, in a response to an evoking stimulus, the sight of a bear in the kitchen. The brain then quickly scans the area, to explain the pounding, and notices the bear. Consequently, the brain interprets the pounding heart as being the result of fearing the bear.^[4] With his student, Jerome Singer, Schachter demonstrated that subjects can have different emotional reactions despite being placed into the same physiological state with an injection of epinephrine. Subjects were observed to express either anger or amusement depending on whether another person in the situation (a confederate) displayed that emotion. Hence, the combination of the appraisal of the situation (cognitive) and the participants’ reception of adrenaline or a placebo together determined the response. This experiment has been criticized in Jesse Prinz’s (2004) Gut Reactions.^[81]

Cognitive theories[edit]

With the two-factor theory now incorporating cognition, several theories began to argue that cognitive activity in the form of judgments, evaluations, or thoughts were entirely necessary for an emotion to occur. One of the main proponents of this view was Richard Lazarus who argued that emotions must have some cognitive intentionality. The cognitive activity involved in the interpretation of an emotional context may be conscious or unconscious and may or may not take the form of conceptual processing.

Lazarus’ theory is very influential; emotion is a disturbance that occurs in the following order:

1. Cognitive appraisal – The individual assesses the event cognitively, which cues the emotion.
2. Physiological changes – The cognitive reaction starts biological changes such as increased heart rate or pituitary adrenal response.
3. Action – The individual feels the emotion and chooses how to react.

For example: Jenny sees a snake.

1. Jenny cognitively assesses the snake in her presence. Cognition allows her to understand it as a danger.
2. Her brain activates the adrenal glands which pump adrenaline through her blood stream, resulting in increased heartbeat.
3. Jenny screams and runs away.

Lazarus stressed that the quality and intensity of emotions are controlled through cognitive processes. These processes underline coping strategies that form the emotional reaction by altering the relationship between the person and the environment.

George Mandler provided an extensive theoretical and empirical discussion of emotion as influenced by cognition, consciousness, and the autonomic nervous system in two books (Mind and Emotion, 1975,^[82] and Mind and Body: Psychology of Emotion and Stress, 1984^[83])

There are some theories on emotions arguing that cognitive activity in the form of judgments, evaluations, or thoughts are necessary in order for an emotion to occur. A prominent philosophical exponent is Robert C. Solomon (for example, The Passions, Emotions and the Meaning of Life, 1993^[84]). Solomon claims that emotions are judgments. He has put forward a more nuanced view which responds to what he has called the ‘standard objection’ to cognitivism, the idea that a judgment that something is fearsome can occur with or without emotion, so judgment cannot be identified with emotion. The theory proposed by Nico Frijda where appraisal leads to action tendencies is another example.

It has also been suggested that emotions (affect heuristics, feelings and gut-feeling reactions) are often used as shortcuts to process information and influence behavior.^[85] The affect infusion model (AIM) is a theoretical model developed by Joseph Forgas in the early 1990s that attempts to explain how emotion and mood interact with one’s ability to process information.

Perceptual theory

Theories dealing with perception either use one or multiples perceptions in order to find an emotion.^[86] A recent hybrid of the somatic and cognitive theories of emotion is the perceptual theory. This theory is neo-Jamesian in arguing that bodily responses are central to emotions, yet it emphasizes the meaningfulness of emotions or the idea that emotions are about something, as is recognized by cognitive theories. The novel claim of this theory is that conceptually-based cognition is unnecessary for such meaning. Rather the bodily changes themselves perceive the meaningful content of the emotion because of being causally triggered by certain situations. In this respect, emotions are held to be analogous to faculties such as vision or touch, which provide information about the relation between the subject and the world in various ways. A sophisticated defense of this view is found in philosopher Jesse Prinz’s book Gut Reactions,^[81] and psychologist James Laird’s book Feelings.^[75]

Affective events theory

Affective events theory is a communication-based theory developed by Howard M. Weiss and Russell Cropanzano (1996),^[87] that looks at the causes, structures, and consequences of emotional experience (especially in work contexts). This theory suggests that emotions are influenced and caused by events which in turn influence attitudes and behaviors. This theoretical frame also emphasizes time in that human beings experience what they call emotion episodes – a «series of emotional states extended over time and organized around an underlying theme.» This theory has been used by numerous researchers to better understand emotion from a communicative lens, and was reviewed further by Howard M. Weiss and Daniel J. Beal in their article, «Reflections on Affective Events Theory», published in Research on Emotion in Organizations in 2005.^[88]

Situated perspective on emotion[edit]

A situated perspective on emotion, developed by Paul E. Griffiths and Andrea Scarantino, emphasizes the importance of external factors in the development and communication of emotion, drawing upon the situationism approach in psychology.^[89] This theory is markedly different from both cognitivist and neo-Jamesian theories of emotion, both of which see emotion as a purely internal process, with the environment only acting as a stimulus to the emotion. In contrast, a situationist perspective on emotion views emotion as the product of an organism investigating its environment, and observing the responses of other organisms. Emotion stimulates the evolution of social relationships, acting as a signal to mediate the behavior of other organisms. In some contexts, the expression of emotion (both voluntary and involuntary) could be seen as strategic moves in the transactions between different organisms. 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.

Genetics[edit]

Emotions can motivate social interactions and relationships and therefore are directly related with basic physiology, particularly with the stress systems. This is important because emotions are related to the anti-stress complex, with an oxytocin-attachment system, which plays a major role in bonding. Emotional phenotype temperaments affect social connectedness and fitness in complex social systems.^[90] These characteristics are shared with other species and taxa and are due to the effects of genes and their continuous transmission. Information that is encoded in the DNA sequences provides the blueprint for assembling proteins that make up our cells. Zygotes require genetic information from their parental germ cells, and at every speciation event, heritable traits that have enabled its ancestor to survive and reproduce successfully are passed down along with new traits that could be potentially beneficial to the offspring.

In the five million years since the lineages leading to modern humans and chimpanzees split, only about 1.2% of their genetic material has been modified. This suggests that everything that separates us from chimpanzees must be encoded in that very small amount of DNA, including our behaviors. Students that study animal behaviors have only identified intraspecific examples of gene-dependent behavioral phenotypes. In voles (Microtus spp.) minor genetic differences have been identified in a vasopressin receptor gene that corresponds to major species differences in social organization and the mating system.^[91] Another potential example with behavioral differences is the FOCP2 gene, which is involved in neural circuitry handling speech and language.^[92] Its present form in humans differed from that of the chimpanzees by only a few mutations and has been present for about 200,000 years, coinciding with the beginning of modern humans.^[93] Speech, language, and social organization are all part of the basis for emotions.

Formation[edit]

Neurobiological explanation[edit]

Based on discoveries made through neural mapping of the limbic system, the neurobiological explanation of human emotion is that emotion is a pleasant or unpleasant mental state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain. If distinguished from reactive responses of reptiles, emotions would then be mammalian elaborations of general vertebrate arousal patterns, in which neurochemicals (for example, dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin) step-up or step-down the brain’s activity level, as visible in body movements, gestures and postures. Emotions can likely be mediated by pheromones (see fear).^[32]

For example, the emotion of love is proposed to be the expression of Paleocircuits of the mammalian brain (specifically, modules of the cingulate cortex (or gyrus)) which facilitate the care, feeding, and grooming of offspring. Paleocircuits are neural platforms for bodily expression configured before the advent of cortical circuits for speech. They consist of pre-configured pathways or networks of nerve cells in the forebrain, brainstem and spinal cord.

Other emotions like fear and anxiety long thought to be exclusively generated by the most primitive parts of the brain (stem) and more associated to the fight-or-flight responses of behavior, have also been associated as adaptive expressions of defensive behavior whenever a threat is encountered. Although defensive behaviors have been present in a wide variety of species, Blanchard et al. (2001) discovered a correlation of given stimuli and situation that resulted in a similar pattern of defensive behavior towards a threat in human and non-human mammals.^[94]

Whenever potentially dangerous stimuli is presented additional brain structures activate that previously thought (hippocampus, thalamus, etc.). Thus, giving the amygdala an important role on coordinating the following behavioral input based on the presented neurotransmitters that respond to threat stimuli. These biological functions of the amygdala are not only limited to the «fear-conditioning» and «processing of aversive stimuli», but also are present on other components of the amygdala. Therefore, it can referred the amygdala as a key structure to understand the potential responses of behavior in danger like situations in human and non-human mammals.^[95]

The motor centers of reptiles react to sensory cues of vision, sound, touch, chemical, gravity, and motion with pre-set body movements and programmed postures. With the arrival of night-active mammals, smell replaced vision as the dominant sense, and a different way of responding arose from the olfactory sense, which is proposed to have developed into mammalian emotion and emotional memory. The mammalian brain invested heavily in olfaction to succeed at night as reptiles slept – one explanation for why olfactory lobes in mammalian brains are proportionally larger than in the reptiles. These odor pathways gradually formed the neural blueprint for what was later to become our limbic brain.^[32]

Emotions are thought to be related to certain activities in brain areas that direct our attention, motivate our behavior, and determine the significance of what is going on around us. Pioneering work by Paul Broca (1878),^[96] James Papez (1937),^[97] and Paul D. MacLean (1952)^[98] suggested that emotion is related to a group of structures in the center of the brain called the limbic system, which includes the hypothalamus, cingulate cortex, hippocampi, and other structures. More recent research has shown that some of these limbic structures are not as directly related to emotion as others are while some non-limbic structures have been found to be of greater emotional relevance.

Prefrontal cortex[edit]

There is ample evidence that the left prefrontal cortex is activated by stimuli that cause positive approach.^[99] If attractive stimuli can selectively activate a region of the brain, then logically the converse should hold, that selective activation of that region of the brain should cause a stimulus to be judged more positively. This was demonstrated for moderately attractive visual stimuli^[100] and replicated and extended to include negative stimuli.^[101]

Two neurobiological models of emotion in the prefrontal cortex made opposing predictions. The valence model predicted that anger, a negative emotion, would activate the right prefrontal cortex. The direction model predicted that anger, an approach emotion, would activate the left prefrontal cortex. The second model was supported.^[102]

This still left open the question of whether the opposite of approach in the prefrontal cortex is better described as moving away (direction model), as unmoving but with strength and resistance (movement model), or as unmoving with passive yielding (action tendency model). Support for the action tendency model (passivity related to right prefrontal activity) comes from research on shyness^[103] and research on behavioral inhibition.^[104] Research that tested the competing hypotheses generated by all four models also supported the action tendency model.^[105][106]

Homeostatic/primordial emotion[edit]

Another neurological approach proposed by Bud Craig in 2003 distinguishes two classes of emotion: «classical» emotions such as love, anger and fear that are evoked by environmental stimuli, and «homeostatic emotions» – attention-demanding feelings evoked by body states, such as pain, hunger and fatigue, that motivate behavior (withdrawal, eating or resting in these examples) aimed at maintaining the body’s internal milieu at its ideal state.^[107]

Derek Denton calls the latter «primordial emotions» and defines them as «the subjective element of the instincts, which are the genetically programmed behavior patterns which contrive homeostasis. They include thirst, hunger for air, hunger for food, pain and hunger for specific minerals etc. There are two constituents of a primordial emotion – the specific sensation which when severe may be imperious, and the compelling intention for gratification by a consummatory act.»^[108]

Emergent explanation[edit]

Emotions are seen by some researchers to be constructed (emerge) in social and cognitive domain alone, without directly implying biologically inherited characteristics.

Joseph LeDoux differentiates between the human’s defense system, which has evolved over time, and emotions such as fear and anxiety. He has said that the amygdala may release hormones due to a trigger (such as an innate reaction to seeing a snake), but «then we elaborate it through cognitive and conscious processes».^[31]

Lisa Feldman Barrett highlights differences in emotions between different cultures, and says that emotions (such as anxiety) are socially constructed (see theory of constructed emotion). She says that they «are not triggered; you create them. They emerge as a combination of the physical properties of your body, a flexible brain that wires itself to whatever environment it develops in, and your culture and upbringing, which provide that environment.»^[109] She has termed this approach the theory of constructed emotion.

Disciplinary approaches[edit]

Many different disciplines have produced work on the emotions. Human sciences study the role of emotions in mental processes, disorders, and neural mechanisms. In psychiatry, emotions are examined as part of the discipline’s study and treatment of mental disorders in humans. Nursing studies emotions as part of its approach to the provision of holistic health care to humans. Psychology examines emotions from a scientific perspective by treating them as mental processes and behavior and they explore the underlying physiological and neurological processes, e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy. In neuroscience sub-fields such as social neuroscience and affective neuroscience, scientists study the neural mechanisms of emotion by combining neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood. In linguistics, the expression of emotion may change to the meaning of sounds. In education, the role of emotions in relation to learning is examined.

Social sciences often examine emotion for the role that it plays in human culture and social interactions. In sociology, emotions are examined for the role they play in human society, social patterns and interactions, and culture. In anthropology, the study of humanity, scholars use ethnography to undertake contextual analyses and cross-cultural comparisons of a range of human activities. Some anthropology studies examine the role of emotions in human activities. In the field of communication studies, critical organizational scholars have examined the role of emotions in organizations, from the perspectives of managers, employees, and even customers. A focus on emotions in organizations can be credited to Arlie Russell Hochschild’s concept of emotional labor. The University of Queensland hosts EmoNet,^[110] an e-mail distribution list representing a network of academics that facilitates scholarly discussion of all matters relating to the study of emotion in organizational settings. The list was established in January 1997 and has over 700 members from across the globe.

In economics, the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, emotions are analyzed in some sub-fields of microeconomics, in order to assess the role of emotions on purchase decision-making and risk perception. In criminology, a social science approach to the study of crime, scholars often draw on behavioral sciences, sociology, and psychology; emotions are examined in criminology issues such as anomie theory and studies of «toughness,» aggressive behavior, and hooliganism. In law, which underpins civil obedience, politics, economics and society, evidence about people’s emotions is often raised in tort law claims for compensation and in criminal law prosecutions against alleged lawbreakers (as evidence of the defendant’s state of mind during trials, sentencing, and parole hearings). In political science, emotions are examined in a number of sub-fields, such as the analysis of voter decision-making.

In philosophy, emotions are studied in sub-fields such as ethics, the philosophy of art (for example, sensory–emotional values, and matters of taste and sentimentality), and the philosophy of music (see also music and emotion). In history, scholars examine documents and other sources to interpret and analyze past activities; speculation on the emotional state of the authors of historical documents is one of the tools of interpretation. In literature and film-making, the expression of emotion is the cornerstone of genres such as drama, melodrama, and romance. In communication studies, scholars study the role that emotion plays in the dissemination of ideas and messages. Emotion is also studied in non-human animals in ethology, a branch of zoology which focuses on the scientific study of animal behavior. Ethology is a combination of laboratory and field science, with strong ties to ecology and evolution. Ethologists often study one type of behavior (for example, aggression) in a number of unrelated animals.

History of emotions[edit]

The history of emotions has become an increasingly popular topic recently, with some scholars^[who?] arguing that it is an essential category of analysis, not unlike class, race, or gender. Historians, like other social scientists, assume that emotions, feelings and their expressions are regulated in different ways by both different cultures and different historical times, and the constructivist school of history claims even that some sentiments and meta-emotions, for example schadenfreude, are learnt and not only regulated by culture. Historians of emotion trace and analyze the changing norms and rules of feeling, while examining emotional regimes, codes, and lexicons from social, cultural, or political history perspectives. Others focus on the history of medicine, science, or psychology. What somebody can and may feel (and show) in a given situation, towards certain people or things, depends on social norms and rules; thus historically variable and open to change.^[111] Several research centers have opened in the past few years in Germany, England, Spain,^[112] Sweden, and Australia.

Furthermore, research in historical trauma suggests that some traumatic emotions can be passed on from parents to offspring to second and even third generation, presented as examples of transgenerational trauma.

Sociology[edit]

A common way in which emotions are conceptualized in sociology is in terms of the multidimensional characteristics including cultural or emotional labels (for example, anger, pride, fear, happiness), physiological changes (for example, increased perspiration, changes in pulse rate), expressive facial and body movements (for example, smiling, frowning, baring teeth), and appraisals of situational cues.^[11] One comprehensive theory of emotional arousal in humans has been developed by Jonathan Turner (2007: 2009).^[113][114] Two of the key eliciting factors for the arousal of emotions within this theory are expectations states and sanctions. When people enter a situation or encounter with certain expectations for how the encounter should unfold, they will experience different emotions depending on the extent to which expectations for Self, other and situation are met or not met. People can also provide positive or negative sanctions directed at Self or other which also trigger different emotional experiences in individuals. Turner analyzed a wide range of emotion theories across different fields of research including sociology, psychology, evolutionary science, and neuroscience. Based on this analysis, he identified four emotions that all researchers consider being founded on human neurology including assertive-anger, aversion-fear, satisfaction-happiness, and disappointment-sadness. These four categories are called primary emotions and there is some agreement amongst researchers that these primary emotions become combined to produce more elaborate and complex emotional experiences. These more elaborate emotions are called first-order elaborations in Turner’s theory and they include sentiments such as pride, triumph, and awe. Emotions can also be experienced at different levels of intensity so that feelings of concern are a low-intensity variation of the primary emotion aversion-fear whereas depression is a higher intensity variant.

Attempts are frequently made to regulate emotion according to the conventions of the society and the situation based on many (sometimes conflicting) demands and expectations which originate from various entities. The expression of anger is in many cultures discouraged in girls and women to a greater extent than in boys and men (the notion being that an angry man has a valid complaint that needs to be rectified, while an angry women is hysterical or oversensitive, and her anger is somehow invalid), while the expression of sadness or fear is discouraged in boys and men relative to girls and women (attitudes implicit in phrases like «man up» or «don’t be a sissy»).^[115][116] Expectations attached to social roles, such as «acting as man» and not as a woman, and the accompanying «feeling rules» contribute to the differences in expression of certain emotions. Some cultures encourage or discourage happiness, sadness, or jealousy, and the free expression of the emotion of disgust is considered socially unacceptable in most cultures. Some social institutions are seen as based on certain emotion, such as love in the case of contemporary institution of marriage. In advertising, such as health campaigns and political messages, emotional appeals are commonly found. Recent examples include no-smoking health campaigns and political campaigns emphasizing the fear of terrorism.^[117]

Sociological attention to emotion has varied over time. Émile Durkheim (1915/1965)^[118] wrote about the collective effervescence or emotional energy that was experienced by members of totemic rituals in Australian Aboriginal society. He explained how the heightened state of emotional energy achieved during totemic rituals transported individuals above themselves giving them the sense that they were in the presence of a higher power, a force, that was embedded in the sacred objects that were worshipped. These feelings of exaltation, he argued, ultimately lead people to believe that there were forces that governed sacred objects.

In the 1990s, sociologists focused on different aspects of specific emotions and how these emotions were socially relevant. For Cooley (1992),^[119] pride and shame were the most important emotions that drive people to take various social actions. During every encounter, he proposed that we monitor ourselves through the «looking glass» that the gestures and reactions of others provide. Depending on these reactions, we either experience pride or shame and this results in particular paths of action. Retzinger (1991)^[120] conducted studies of married couples who experienced cycles of rage and shame. Drawing predominantly on Goffman and Cooley’s work, Scheff (1990)^[121] developed a micro sociological theory of the social bond. The formation or disruption of social bonds is dependent on the emotions that people experience during interactions.

Subsequent to these developments, Randall Collins (2004)^[122] formulated his interaction ritual theory by drawing on Durkheim’s work on totemic rituals that was extended by Goffman (1964/2013; 1967)^[123][124] into everyday focused encounters. Based on interaction ritual theory, we experience different levels or intensities of emotional energy during face-to-face interactions. Emotional energy is considered to be a feeling of confidence to take action and a boldness that one experiences when they are charged up from the collective effervescence generated during group gatherings that reach high levels of intensity.

There is a growing body of research applying the sociology of emotion to understanding the learning experiences of students during classroom interactions with teachers and other students (for example, Milne & Otieno, 2007;^[125] Olitsky, 2007;^[126] Tobin, et al., 2013;^[127] Zembylas, 2002^[128]). These studies show that learning subjects like science can be understood in terms of classroom interaction rituals that generate emotional energy and collective states of emotional arousal like emotional climate.

Apart from interaction ritual traditions of the sociology of emotion, other approaches have been classed into one of six other categories:^[114]

• evolutionary/biological theories
• symbolic interactionist theories
• dramaturgical theories
• ritual theories
• power and status theories
• stratification theories
• exchange theories

This list provides a general overview of different traditions in the sociology of emotion that sometimes conceptualise emotion in different ways and at other times in complementary ways. Many of these different approaches were synthesized by Turner (2007) in his sociological theory of human emotions in an attempt to produce one comprehensive sociological account that draws on developments from many of the above traditions.^[113]

Psychotherapy and regulation[edit]

Emotion regulation refers to the cognitive and behavioral strategies people use to influence their own emotional experience.^[129] For example, a behavioral strategy in which one avoids a situation to avoid unwanted emotions (trying not to think about the situation, doing distracting activities, etc.).^[130] Depending on the particular school’s general emphasis on either cognitive components of emotion, physical energy discharging, or on symbolic movement and facial expression components of emotion different schools of psychotherapy approach the regulation of emotion differently. Cognitively oriented schools approach them via their cognitive components, such as rational emotive behavior therapy. Yet others approach emotions via symbolic movement and facial expression components (like in contemporary Gestalt therapy).^[131]

Cross-cultural research[edit]

Research on emotions reveals the strong presence of cross-cultural differences in emotional reactions and that emotional reactions are likely to be culture-specific.^[132] In strategic settings, cross-cultural research on emotions is required for understanding the psychological situation of a given population or specific actors. This implies the need to comprehend the current emotional state, mental disposition or other behavioral motivation of a target audience located in a different culture, basically founded on its national, political, social, economic, and psychological peculiarities but also subject to the influence of circumstances and events.^[133]

Computer science[edit]

In the 2000s, research in computer science, engineering, psychology and neuroscience has been aimed at developing devices that recognize human affect display and model emotions.^[134] In computer science, affective computing is a branch of the study and development of artificial intelligence that deals with the design of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, and process human emotions. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer sciences, psychology, and cognitive science.^[135] While the origins of the field may be traced as far back as to early philosophical enquiries into emotion,^[73] the more modern branch of computer science originated with Rosalind Picard’s 1995 paper^[136] on affective computing.^[137][138] Detecting emotional information begins with passive sensors which capture data about the user’s physical state or behavior without interpreting the input. The data gathered is analogous to the cues humans use to perceive emotions in others. Another area within affective computing is the design of computational devices proposed to exhibit either innate emotional capabilities or that are capable of convincingly simulating emotions. Emotional speech processing recognizes the user’s emotional state by analyzing speech patterns. The detection and processing of facial expression or body gestures is achieved through detectors and sensors.

The effects on memory[edit]

Emotion affects the way autobiographical memories are encoded and retrieved. Emotional memories are reactivated more, they are remembered better and have more attention devoted to them.^[139] Through remembering our past achievements and failures, autobiographical memories affect how we perceive and feel about ourselves.^[139]

Notable theorists[edit]

In the late 19th century, the most influential theorists were William James (1842–1910) and Carl Lange (1834–1900). James was an American psychologist and philosopher who wrote about educational psychology, psychology of religious experience/mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. Lange was a Danish physician and psychologist. Working independently, they developed the James–Lange theory, a hypothesis on the origin and nature of emotions. The theory states that within human beings, as a response to experiences in the world, the autonomic nervous system creates physiological events such as muscular tension, a rise in heart rate, perspiration, and dryness of the mouth. Emotions, then, are feelings which come about as a result of these physiological changes, rather than being their cause.^[140]

Silvan Tomkins (1911–1991) developed the affect theory and script theory. The affect theory introduced the concept of basic emotions, and was based on the idea that the dominance of the emotion, which he called the affected system, was the motivating force in human life.^[141]

Some of the most influential deceased theorists on emotion from the 20th century include Magda B. Arnold (1903–2002), an American psychologist who developed the appraisal theory of emotions;^[142] Richard Lazarus (1922–2002), an American psychologist who specialized in emotion and stress, especially in relation to cognition; Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001), who included emotions into decision making and artificial intelligence; Robert Plutchik (1928–2006), an American psychologist who developed a psychoevolutionary theory of emotion;^[143] Robert Zajonc (1923–2008) a Polish–American social psychologist who specialized in social and cognitive processes such as social facilitation; Robert C. Solomon (1942–2007), an American philosopher who contributed to the theories on the philosophy of emotions with books such as What Is An Emotion?: Classic and Contemporary Readings (2003);^[144] Peter Goldie (1946–2011), a British philosopher who specialized in ethics, aesthetics, emotion, mood and character; Nico Frijda (1927–2015), a Dutch psychologist who advanced the theory that human emotions serve to promote a tendency to undertake actions that are appropriate in the circumstances, detailed in his book The Emotions (1986);^[145] Jaak Panksepp (1943–2017), an Estonian-born American psychologist, psychobiologist, neuroscientist and pioneer in affective neuroscience.

Influential theorists who are still active include the following psychologists, neurologists, philosophers, and sociologists:

• Michael Apter – (born 1939) British psychologist who developed reversal theory, a structural, phenomenological theory of personality, motivation, and emotion
• Lisa Feldman Barrett – (born 1963) neuroscientist and psychologist specializing in affective science and human emotion
• John T. Cacioppo – (born 1951) from the University of Chicago, founding father with Gary Berntson of social neuroscience
• Randall Collins – (born 1941) American sociologist from the University of Pennsylvania developed the interaction ritual theory which includes the emotional entrainment model
• Antonio Damasio (born 1944) – Portuguese behavioral neurologist and neuroscientist who works in the US
• Richard Davidson (born 1951) – American psychologist and neuroscientist; pioneer in affective neuroscience
• Paul Ekman (born 1934) – psychologist specializing in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions
• Barbara Fredrickson – Social psychologist who specializes in emotions and positive psychology.
• Arlie Russell Hochschild (born 1940) – American sociologist whose central contribution was in forging a link between the subcutaneous flow of emotion in social life and the larger trends set loose by modern capitalism within organizations
• Joseph E. LeDoux (born 1949) – American neuroscientist who studies the biological underpinnings of memory and emotion, especially the mechanisms of fear
• George Mandler (born 1924) – American psychologist who wrote influential books on cognition and emotion
• Jesse Prinz – American philosopher who specializes in emotion, moral psychology, aesthetics and consciousness
• James A. Russell (born 1947) – American psychologist who developed or co-developed the PAD theory of environmental impact, circumplex model of affect, prototype theory of emotion concepts, a critique of the hypothesis of universal recognition of emotion from facial expression, concept of core affect, developmental theory of differentiation of emotion concepts, and, more recently, the theory of the psychological construction of emotion
• Klaus Scherer (born 1943) – Swiss psychologist and director of the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences in Geneva; he specializes in the psychology of emotion
• Ronald de Sousa (born 1940) – English–Canadian philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of emotions, philosophy of mind and philosophy of biology
• Jonathan H. Turner (born 1942) – American sociologist from the University of California, Riverside, who is a general sociological theorist with specialty areas including the sociology of emotions, ethnic relations, social institutions, social stratification, and bio-sociology
• Dominique Moïsi (born 1946) – authored a book titled The Geopolitics of Emotion focusing on emotions related to globalization^[146]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

• Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). «Emotion». Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• «Theories of Emotion». Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Definition

Emotions are concerned with reactions, mood, creativity, and expression.

Denoted as ‘E’

---

1E

The 1st Emotion identifies the Divine with the highest and brightest experience («God is love» 1 Jo.4.8.) and leaves only the «soul», the heart essence in itself, to live beyond the grave.^[1]

Resultative/Unconscious-

Principal/Introverted-

High/Subjective-

According to BestSocionics

Each first function is selfish in its own way. Therefore, if you have a processional emotion (2E and 3E), it will undoubtedly seem to you that 1E are egoists, unable to understand other people’s feelings and imbued with them. On the one hand, this is true — 1E it is very difficult to feel in the place of another person: to imagine — yes, but to feel — no. But on the other hand, this is not their fault — 1E are simply hostages of their psychotype.

It is very important not to confuse Emotion with SE in socionics. Although the expression “ethics of emotions” used by many socionics is the word “emotion”, CE does not describe the emotional state of a person, but only determines the form of a person’s perception of information. The Black Ethic characterizes how we express and perceive reactions, and not what we feel.

Emotion is a state that every living being has. In the process of communication, we transmit our emotional state to others or accept other people’s states. In this case, a feature of 1E is their closeness to other people’s emotional states, their attention is simply riveted to themselves and they do not know how to adopt someone else’s state without experiencing it on themselves. That is, 1E it is difficult to understand other people’s experiences until they themselves go through a similar experience. In such situations, if it is necessary to feel sorry for someone and show their involvement, 1E can say “yes, it happened to me too” or “I feel sorry for you, I can’t imagine how you feel.”

1E likes to feel strong emotions, experience them in oneself. One way or another, they live in “their own world”, it can be both magical and beautiful, as well as tragic or dull, but it is always fenced off from reality and autonomous, the owner of 1E is immersed in himself most of the time.

Don’t expect 1Es to talk about your feelings at length — they just don’t know how to talk about it for so long. After all, a dialogue with another person is a special process, it requires a two-way discussion, counter questions and a depth of interest in another person. On the other hand, 1E can tirelessly express its own feelings in words (2L), physical care and attraction (2F), or deeds (2B).

If 1E is bad, it is necessary that this bad mood “burn out” inside, so that it catches fire even more, and then goes out. Therefore, if the mood is sad, 1E fills its life with sadness, if it is cheerful, with joy. If you do the opposite, 1E simply will not be able to survive the feelings that overwhelm her inner world. By the way, this is typical not only for 1E, but also for 3E. This is a sign of the dominant Emotion, which cannot be “infected” with feelings from the surrounding world, but produces its own.

From the outside, such people are striking with their increased expression, free expression of feelings, infectious laughter, often with bright facial expressions and a radiant look, or vice versa, with an expression of universal sorrow on their faces. They are not characterized by clamps of the vocal cords, so the voice is usually deep and full, or sonorous. Often they involuntarily begin to raise their voice, not controlling themselves. Their emotions are easy to see, they do not pretend and do not hide the manifestations of their inner world.

In a company, such people can both immerse themselves in themselves and attract everyone’s attention, which primarily depends on their internal mood. It should be said that 1Es, like 3Es, often give the impression of introverts, which, again, is a sign of a dominant Emotion that is fixated on itself. They do not need energy recharging from the outside, they can only share, but they always have something, so they need periods of recovery.

2E

Conscious — 

Extroverted — 

Subjective — 

Second Emotions provoke the expression of reactions, showdown. They encourage acting in other people. 2Es, like 2Ls, often troll in order to get an interesting reaction from people, create a delicate situation, wake up, and then extinguish passions. They like to pull frankness out of people without promising anything. Often their communication style is like endless flirting. «Dilute» a person to a declaration of love, and then beautifully «remain friends» — a favorite game of the Second Emotion.

3E

Conscious — 

Introverted —

Objective —

The Third Emotion gravitates toward a showdown, but you won’t understand it right away, because 3E is afraid to seem intrusive, and restrains itself from long conversations about feelings. But if you start a conversation on the topic “How do you feel about me?”, then you will probably see a flash of interest in the eyes of the 3E, and then you will have a long discussion (“thinking about what is not clear”) on this topic. At the same time, 3E may have problems with the choice of words (“well … I don’t know how to say … you know what I mean?”) If he really cares about you. There will be many interrogative intonations and expectant looks, as if the person is hoping for your help in expressing their feelings.

The Third Emotion has a similar reaction to questions like “Why are you sad?” or “Why are you so upset? What’s wrong with your voice?» Probably, a person will first answer “Yes, I don’t know …”, but then he will begin a long soul-searching, where the role of a patient listener awaits you. At the same time, it is important! — do not ask “How do you feel?”, because this question is often followed by stupor and panic thoughts in an attempt to understand your feelings at the moment.

3E often write poetry or music, and usually on the table. They can draw or play a musical instrument, or express themselves in another form of art, but only to restore spiritual harmony. They are ashamed to bring the fruits of their creativity to the public — not because they are imperfect, but because they see the inner world of the 3E, which they carefully try to hide.

If you’re not very close with the 3E and suddenly decide to show him friendly attention, you’re likely to get a fright-like reaction. It is pleasant to him — in the depths of his soul; but he doesn’t know how to respond properly so as not to push you away and disappoint you.

Next to 3E, it often “freezes”, because these people are very tense in the presence of unfamiliar people, and intrusive with loved ones, require constant confirmation of closeness, sometimes take offense and withdraw into themselves without explaining the reasons.

4E

Unconscious —

Extroverted —

Objective —

Fourth Emotions in critical situations are surprisingly calm. That is, they think sensibly, act, and are aware of the situation. They are very stress resistant. At such moments, it seems that she has no weaknesses and nothing can hook her, as if she is a robot, not a person. But this approach does not always justify itself: for example, if a stressful situation is a showdown, the partner may wait for the manifestation of some emotional reactions, while 4E does not have them. But in a normal, relaxed state, the Fourth Emotions are able to absorb other people’s emotions and vividly reflect them on their face — a “man-meme”. They can be very noisy, loud — so much so that they can easily be confused with the First Emotions. But if you look closely, you can see that for 1E emotions are a reflection of their inner world, the energy that breaks out, and for 4E it is a reflection of the atmosphere, created by the feelings of others. 4E will never be sad in a cheerful company — he will easily join the general fun.

source for all definitions: https://bestsocionics.com/psychosophy/ (Used with permission)

Written and maintained by PDB users for PDB users.

Emotions
Basic
Anger Fear Sadness Happiness Disgust Surprise
Others
Aggression Apathy Anxiety Boredom Contempt Depression Doubt Empathy Envy Embarrassment Euphoria Frustration Gratitude Grief Guilt Hatred Hope Horror Hostility Hunger Hysteria Loneliness Love Paranoia Pity Pleasure Pride Rage Regret Remorse Shame Suffering Sympathy

Emotions are what people feel. In terms of evolution, they are very ancient, and can be seen in all mammals.

Emotions are caused by a complex mixture of hormones and the unconscious mind. Only with great difficulty can we control our emotions by conscious effort. They cause mammals to change behaviour according to changes in their situation. In our case they sometimes run against our attempt to live our lives in a logical way.

A scientific definition is not simple;over 90 definitions have been offered by experts. A definition of emotion needs to includes three things:

1. conscious experience (feelings)
2. expressions which can be seen by others
3. actions of the body (‘physiological arousal’)

Here is one definition:

«Emotion is a complex psychological phenomenon which occurs as animals or people live their lives. Emotions involve physiological arousal, appraisal of the situation, expressive behaviours, and conscious experience. Emotion is associated with feeling, mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation».

In physical terms, emotions involve body systems which have operated for hundreds of millions of years. These are the hormone system, the autonomic nervous system and the ‘lower’ brain centres (hindbrain and midbrain).

Etymology, definitions, and differentiation

The word «emotion» dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means «to stir up». The term emotion was introduced into academic discussion as a catch-all term to passions, sentiments and affections. According to one dictionary, the earliest precursors of the word likely dates back to the very origins of language. The modern word emotion is heterogeneous In some uses of the word, emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. On the other hand, emotion can be used to refer to states that are mild (as in annoyed or content) and to states that are not directed at anything (as in anxiety and depression). One line of research thus looks at the meaning of the word emotion in everyday language and this usage is rather different from that in academic discourse. Another line of research asks about languages other than English, and one interesting finding is that many languages have a similar but not identical term

Emotions have been described by some theorists as discrete and consistent responses to internal or external events which have a particular significance for the organism. Emotions are brief in duration and consist of a coordinated set of responses, which may include verbal, physiological, behavioral, and neural mechanisms. Psychotherapist Michael C. Graham describes all emotions as existing on a continuum of intensity. Thus fear might range from mild concern to terror or shame might range from simple embarrassment to toxic shame. Emotions have also been described as biologically given and a result of evolution because they provided good solutions to ancient and recurring problems that faced our ancestors. Moods are feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that often lack a contextual stimulus.

Emotion can be differentiated from a number of similar constructs within the field of affective neuroscience:

• Feelings are best understood as a subjective representation of emotions, private to the individual experiencing them.
• Moods are diffuse affective states that generally last for much longer durations than emotions and are also usually less intense than emotions.
• Affect is an encompassing term, used to describe the topics of emotion, feelings, and moods together, even though it is commonly used interchangeably with emotion.

In addition, relationships exist between emotions, such as having positive or negative influences, with direct opposites existing. These concepts are described in contrasting and categorization of emotions. Graham differentiates emotions as functional or dysfunctional and argues all functional emotions have benefits.

Components

In Scherer’s components processing model of emotion, five crucial elements of emotion are said to exist. From the component processing perspective, emotion experience is said to require that all of these processes become coordinated and synchronized for a short period of time, driven by appraisal processes. Although the inclusion of cognitive appraisal as one of the elements is slightly controversial, since some theorists make the assumption that emotion and cognition are separate but interacting systems, the component processing model provides a sequence of events that effectively describes the coordination involved during an emotional episode.

• Cognitive appraisal: provides an evaluation of events and objects.
• Bodily symptoms: the physiological component of emotional experience.
• Action tendencies: a motivational component for the preparation and direction of motor responses.
• Expression: facial and vocal expression almost always accompanies an emotional state to communicate reaction and intention of actions.
• Feelings: the subjective experience of emotional state once it has occurred.

Classification

A distinction can be made between emotional episodes and emotional dispositions. Emotional dispositions are also comparable to character traits, where someone may be said to be generally disposed to experience certain emotions. For example, an irritable person is generally disposed to feel irritation more easily or quickly than others do. Finally, some theorists place emotions within a more general category of «affective states» where affective states can also include emotion-related phenomena such as pleasure and pain, motivational states (for example, hunger or curiosity), moods, dispositions and traits.

The classification of emotions has mainly been researched from two fundamental viewpoints. The first viewpoint is that emotions are discrete and fundamentally different constructs while the second viewpoint asserts that emotions can be characterized on a dimensional basis in groupings.

Basic emotions

For more than 40 years, Paul Ekman has supported the view that emotions are discrete, measurable, and physiologically distinct. Ekman’s most influential work revolved around the finding that certain emotions appeared to be universally recognized, even in cultures that were preliterate and could not have learned associations for facial expressions through media. Another classic study found that when participants contorted their facial muscles into distinct facial expressions (for example, disgust), they reported subjective and physiological experiences that matched the distinct facial expressions. His research findings led him to classify six emotions as basic: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.

Robert Plutchik agreed with Ekman’s biologically driven perspective but developed the «wheel of emotions», suggesting eight primary emotions grouped on a positive or negative basis: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation. Some basic emotions can be modified to form complex emotions. The complex emotions could arise from cultural conditioning or association combined with the basic emotions. Alternatively, similar to the way primary colors combine, primary emotions could blend to form the full spectrum of human emotional experience. For example, interpersonal anger and disgust could blend to form contempt. Relationships exist between basic emotions, resulting in positive or negative influences.

Function of emotions

The study of emotions became one of Darwin’s books after The Descent of Man. He published The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in 1873. He had discovered, by sending letters and a list of questions worldwide, that in different societies emotions were expressed in almost the same way.

If so, the mechanisms which made the expressions must be inherited. They must have been developed in the same way as all other features of man, evolution by natural selection. It was already known from anatomy that the muscles and nerves of the face were the same or similar in all humans.

Darwin illustrated the expression of the emotions with a series of photographs and woodcut illustrations. Ekman did the same thing on a research visit to New Guinea, where he asked villagers to identify the emotions shown in the photographs. This was part of a long-term effort to test and extend Darwin’s insights into emotions. Some of Ekman’s conclusions are:

1. Micro expressions last only a fraction of a second. They occur when people conceal their feelings. (p15, p222)
2. Emotions are autoappraisers, reactions to matters which seem to be very important to our welfare. (p21)
3. Emotions often begin so quickly that we are not aware of the processes in our mind which set them off. (p21)
4. Autoappraisers scan for events which are critical to our welfare and survival. (p23)
5. Our evolutionary heritage makes a major contribution to the shaping of our emotional responses. (p26)
6. The desire to experience or not to experience an emotion motivates much of our behaviour. (p217)
7. An efficient signal – clear, rapid and universal – informs others of how the emotional person is feeling. (p217)

• List of emotions

Images for kids

• 

• 

  Simplified graph of James-Lange Theory of Emotion

All content from Kiddle encyclopedia articles (including the article images and facts) can be freely used under Attribution-ShareAlike license, unless stated otherwise. Cite this article:

Emotion Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.

As we move through our daily lives, we experience a variety of emotions. An emotion is a subjective state of being that we often describe as our feelings. The words emotion and mood are sometimes used interchangeably, but psychologists use these words to refer to two different things. Typically, the word emotion indicates a subjective, affective state that is relatively intense and that occurs in response to something we experience ([link]). Emotions are often thought to be consciously experienced and intentional. Mood, on the other hand, refers to a prolonged, less intense, affective state that does not occur in response to something we experience. Mood states may not be consciously recognized and do not carry the intentionality that is associated with emotion (Beedie, Terry, Lane, & Devonport, 2011). Here we will focus on emotion, and you will learn more about mood in the chapter that covers psychological disorders.

We can be at the heights of joy or in the depths of despair or. We might feel angry when we are betrayed, fear when we are threatened, and surprised when something unexpected happens. This section will outline some of the most well-known theories explaining our emotional experience and provide insight into the biological bases of emotion. This section closes with a discussion of the ubiquitous nature of facial expressions of emotion and our abilities to recognize those expressions in others.

THEORIES OF EMOTION

Our emotional states are combinations of physiological arousal, psychological appraisal, and subjective experiences. Together, these are known as the components of emotion. These appraisals are informed by our experiences, backgrounds, and cultures. Therefore, different people may have different emotional experiences even when faced with similar circumstances. Over time, several different theories of emotion, shown in [link], have been proposed to explain how the various components of emotion interact with one another.

The James-Lange theory of emotion asserts that emotions arise from physiological arousal. Recall what you have learned about the sympathetic nervous system and our fight or flight response when threatened. If you were to encounter some threat in your environment, like a venomous snake in your backyard, your sympathetic nervous system would initiate significant physiological arousal, which would make your heart race and increase your respiration rate. According to the James-Lange theory of emotion, you would only experience a feeling of fear after this physiological arousal had taken place. Furthermore, different arousal patterns would be associated with different feelings.

Other theorists, however, doubted that the physiological arousal that occurs with different types of emotions is distinct enough to result in the wide variety of emotions that we experience. Thus, the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion was developed. According to this view, physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously, yet independently (Lang, 1994). So, when you see the venomous snake, you feel fear at exactly the same time that your body mounts its fight or flight response. This emotional reaction would be separate and independent of the physiological arousal, even though they co-occur.

The James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories have each garnered some empirical support in various research paradigms. For instance, Chwalisz, Diener, and Gallagher (1988) conducted a study of the emotional experiences of people who had spinal cord injuries. They reported that individuals who were incapable of receiving autonomic feedback because of their injuries still experienced emotion; however, there was a tendency for people with less awareness of autonomic arousal to experience less intense emotions. More recently, research investigating the facial feedback hypothesis suggested that suppression of facial expression of emotion lowered the intensity of some emotions experienced by participants (Davis, Senghas, & Ochsner, 2009). In both of these examples, neither theory is fully supported because physiological arousal does not seem to be necessary for the emotional experience, but this arousal does appear to be involved in enhancing the intensity of the emotional experience.

The Schachter-Singer two-factor theory of emotion is another variation on theories of emotions that takes into account both physiological arousal and the emotional experience. According to this theory, emotions are composed of two factors: physiological and cognitive. In other words, physiological arousal is interpreted in context to produce the emotional experience. In revisiting our example involving the venomous snake in your backyard, the two-factor theory maintains that the snake elicits sympathetic nervous system activation that is labeled as fear given the context, and our experience is that of fear.

This figure illustrates the major assertions of the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, and Schachter-Singer two-factor theories of emotion. (credit “snake”: modification of work by “tableatny”/Flickr; credit “face”: modification of work by Cory Zanker)

It is important to point out that Schachter and Singer believed that physiological arousal is very similar across the different types of emotions that we experience, and therefore, the cognitive appraisal of the situation is critical to the actual emotion experienced. In fact, it might be possible to misattribute arousal to an emotional experience if the circumstances were right (Schachter & Singer, 1962).

To test their idea, Schachter and Singer performed a clever experiment. Male participants were randomly assigned to one of several groups. Some of the participants received injections of epinephrine that caused bodily changes that mimicked the fight-or-flight response of the sympathetic nervous system; however, only some of these men were told to expect these reactions as side effects of the injection. The other men that received injections of epinephrine were told either that the injection would have no side effects or that it would result in a side effect unrelated to a sympathetic response, such as itching feet or headache. After receiving these injections, participants waited in a room with someone else they thought was another subject in the research project. In reality, the other person was a confederate of the researcher. The confederate engaged in scripted displays of euphoric or angry behavior (Schachter & Singer, 1962).

When those subjects who were told that they should expect to feel symptoms of physiological arousal were asked about any emotional changes that they had experienced related to either euphoria or anger (depending on how their confederate behaved), they reported none. However, the men who weren’t expecting physiological arousal as a function of the injection were more likely to report that they experienced euphoria or anger as a function of their assigned confederate’s behavior. While everyone that received an injection of epinephrine experienced the same physiological arousal, only those who were not expecting the arousal used context to interpret the arousal as a change in emotional state (Schachter & Singer, 1962).

Strong emotional responses are associated with strong physiological arousal. This has led some to suggest that the signs of physiological arousal, which include increased heart rate, respiration rate, and sweating, might serve as a tool to determine whether someone is telling the truth or not. The assumption is that most of us would show signs of physiological arousal if we were being dishonest with someone. A polygraph, or lie detector test, measures the physiological arousal of an individual responding to a series of questions. Someone trained in reading these tests would look for answers to questions that are associated with increased levels of arousal as potential signs that the respondent may have been dishonest on those answers. While polygraphs are still commonly used, their validity and accuracy are highly questionable because there is no evidence that lying is associated with any particular pattern of physiological arousal (Saxe & Ben-Shakhar, 1999).

The relationship between our experiencing of emotions and our cognitive processing of them, and the order in which these occur, remains a topic of research and debate. Lazarus (1991) developed the cognitive-mediational theory that asserts our emotions are determined by our appraisal of the stimulus. This appraisal mediates between the stimulus and the emotional response, and it is immediate and often unconscious. In contrast to the Schachter-Singer model, the appraisal precedes a cognitive label. You will learn more about Lazarus’s appraisal concept when you study stress, health, and lifestyle.

Two other prominent views arise from the work of Robert Zajonc and Joseph LeDoux. Zajonc asserted that some emotions occur separately from or prior to our cognitive interpretation of them, such as feeling fear in response to an unexpected loud sound (Zajonc, 1998). He also believed in what we might casually refer to as a gut feeling—that we can experience an instantaneous and unexplainable like or dislike for someone or something (Zajonc, 1980). LeDoux also views some emotions as requiring no cognition: some emotions completely bypass contextual interpretation. His research into the neuroscience of emotion has demonstrated the amygdala’s primary role in fear (Cunha, Monfils, & LeDoux, 2010; LeDoux 1996, 2002). A fear stimulus is processed by the brain through one of two paths: from the thalamus (where it is perceived) directly to the amygdala or from the thalamus through the cortex and then to the amygdala. The first path is quick, while the second enables more processing about details of the stimulus. In the following section, we will look more closely at the neuroscience of emotional response.

THE BIOLOGY OF EMOTIONS

Earlier, you learned about the limbic system, which is the area of the brain involved in emotion and memory ([link]). The limbic system includes the hypothalamus, thalamus, amygdala, and the hippocampus. The hypothalamus plays a role in the activation of the sympathetic nervous system that is a part of any given emotional reaction. The thalamus serves as a sensory relay center whose neurons project to both the amygdala and the higher cortical regions for further processing. The amygdala plays a role in processing emotional information and sending that information on to cortical structures (Fossati, 2012).The hippocampus integrates emotional experience with cognition (Femenía, Gómez-Galán, Lindskog, & Magara, 2012).

The limbic system, which includes the hypothalamus, thalamus, amygdala, and the hippocampus, is involved in mediating emotional response and memory.

Link to Learning

Work through this Open Colleges interactive 3D brain simulator for a refresher on the brain’s parts and their functions. To begin, click the “Start Exploring” button. To access the limbic system, click the plus sign in the right-hand menu (set of three tabs).

Amygdala

The amygdala has received a great deal of attention from researchers interested in understanding the biological basis for emotions, especially fear and anxiety (Blackford & Pine, 2012; Goosens & Maren, 2002; Maren, Phan, & Liberzon, 2013). The amygdala is composed of various subnuclei, including the basolateral complex and the central nucleus ([link]). The basolateral complex has dense connections with a variety of sensory areas of the brain. It is critical for classical conditioning and for attaching emotional value to learning processes and memory. The central nucleus plays a role in attention, and it has connections with the hypothalamus and various brainstem areas to regulate the autonomic nervous and endocrine systems’ activity (Pessoa, 2010).

The anatomy of the basolateral complex and central nucleus of the amygdala are illustrated in this diagram.

Animal research has demonstrated that there is increased activation of the amygdala in rat pups that have odor cues paired with electrical shock when their mother is absent. This leads to an aversion to the odor cue that suggests the rats learned to fear the odor cue. Interestingly, when the mother was present, the rats actually showed a preference for the odor cue despite its association with an electrical shock. This preference was associated with no increases in amygdala activation. This suggests a differential effect on the amygdala by the context (the presence or absence of the mother) determined whether the pups learned to fear the odor or to be attracted to it (Moriceau & Sullivan, 2006).

Raineki, Cortés, Belnoue, and Sullivan (2012) demonstrated that, in rats, negative early life experiences could alter the function of the amygdala and result in adolescent patterns of behavior that mimic human mood disorders. In this study, rat pups received either abusive or normal treatment during postnatal days 8–12. There were two forms of abusive treatment. The first form of abusive treatment had an insufficient bedding condition. The mother rat had insufficient bedding material in her cage to build a proper nest that resulted in her spending more time away from her pups trying to construct a nest and less times nursing her pups. The second form of abusive treatment had an associative learning task that involved pairing odors and an electrical stimulus in the absence of the mother, as described above. The control group was in a cage with sufficient bedding and was left undisturbed with their mothers during the same time period. The rat pups that experienced abuse were much more likely to exhibit depressive-like symptoms during adolescence when compared to controls. These depressive-like behaviors were associated with increased activation of the amygdala.

Human research also suggests a relationship between the amygdala and psychological disorders of mood or anxiety. Changes in amygdala structure and function have been demonstrated in adolescents who are either at-risk or have been diagnosed with various mood and/or anxiety disorders (Miguel-Hidalgo, 2013; Qin et al., 2013). It has also been suggested that functional differences in the amygdala could serve as a biomarker to differentiate individuals suffering from bipolar disorder from those suffering from major depressive disorder (Fournier, Keener, Almeida, Kronhaus, & Phillips, 2013).

Hippocampus

As mentioned earlier, the hippocampus is also involved in emotional processing. Like the amygdala, research has demonstrated that hippocampal structure and function are linked to a variety of mood and anxiety disorders. Individuals suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show marked reductions in the volume of several parts of the hippocampus, which may result from decreased levels of neurogenesis and dendritic branching (the generation of new neurons and the generation of new dendrites in existing neurons, respectively) (Wang et al., 2010). While it is impossible to make a causal claim with correlational research like this, studies have demonstrated behavioral improvements and hippocampal volume increases following either pharmacological or cognitive-behavioral therapy in individuals suffering from PTSD (Bremner & Vermetten, 2004; Levy-Gigi, Szabó, Kelemen, & Kéri, 2013).

Link to Learning

Watch this video about research that demonstrates how the volume of the hippocampus can vary as a function of traumatic experiences.

FACIAL EXPRESSION AND RECOGNITION OF EMOTIONS

Culture can impact the way in which people display emotion. A cultural display rule is one of a collection of culturally specific standards that govern the types and frequencies of displays of emotions that are acceptable (Malatesta & Haviland, 1982). Therefore, people from varying cultural backgrounds can have very different cultural display rules of emotion. For example, research has shown that individuals from the United States express negative emotions like fear, anger, and disgust both alone and in the presence of others, while Japanese individuals only do so while alone (Matsumoto, 1990). Furthermore, individuals from cultures that tend to emphasize social cohesion are more likely to engage in suppression of emotional reaction so they can evaluate which response is most appropriate in a given context (Matsumoto, Yoo, & Nakagawa, 2008).

Other distinct cultural characteristics might be involved in emotionality. For instance, there may be gender differences involved in emotional processing. While research into gender differences in emotional display is equivocal, there is some evidence that men and women may differ in regulation of emotions (McRae, Ochsner, Mauss, Gabrieli, & Gross, 2008).

Despite different emotional display rules, our ability to recognize and produce facial expressions of emotion appears to be universal. In fact, even congenitally blind individuals produce the same facial expression of emotions, despite their never having the opportunity to observe these facial displays of emotion in other people. This would seem to suggest that the pattern of activity in facial muscles involved in generating emotional expressions is universal, and indeed, this idea was suggested in the late 19th century in Charles Darwin’s book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). In fact, there is substantial evidence for seven universal emotions that are each associated with distinct facial expressions. These include: happiness, surprise, sadness, fright, disgust, contempt, and anger ([link]) (Ekman & Keltner, 1997).

The seven universal facial expressions of emotion are shown. (credit: modification of work by Cory Zanker)

Does smiling make you happy? Or does being happy make you smile? The facial feedback hypothesis asserts that facial expressions are capable of influencing our emotions, meaning that smiling can make you feel happier (Buck, 1980; Soussignan, 2001; Strack, Martin, & Stepper, 1988). Recent research explored how Botox, which paralyzes facial muscles and limits facial expression, might affect emotion. Havas, Glenberg, Gutowski, Lucarelli, and Davidson (2010) discovered that depressed individuals reported less depression after paralysis of their frowning muscles with Botox injections.

Of course, emotion is not only displayed through facial expression. We also use the tone of our voices, various behaviors, and body language to communicate information about our emotional states. Body language is the expression of emotion in terms of body position or movement. Research suggests that we are quite sensitive to the emotional information communicated through body language, even if we’re not consciously aware of it (de Gelder, 2006; Tamietto et al., 2009).

Connect the Concepts: Autism Spectrum Disorder and Expression of Emotions

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a set of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by repetitive behaviors and communication and social problems. Children who have autism spectrum disorders have difficulty recognizing the emotional states of others, and research has shown that this may stem from an inability to distinguish various nonverbal expressions of emotion (i.e., facial expressions) from one another (Hobson, 1986). In addition, there is evidence to suggest that autistic individuals also have difficulty expressing emotion through tone of voice and by producing facial expressions (Macdonald et al., 1989). Difficulties with emotional recognition and expression may contribute to the impaired social interaction and communication that characterize autism; therefore, various therapeutic approaches have been explored to address these difficulties. Various educational curricula, cognitive-behavioral therapies, and pharmacological therapies have shown some promise in helping autistic individuals process emotionally relevant information (Bauminger, 2002; Golan & Baron-Cohen, 2006; Guastella et al., 2010).

Summary

Emotions are subjective experiences that consist of physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal. Various theories have been put forward to explain our emotional experiences. The James-Lange theory asserts that emotions arise as a function of physiological arousal. The Cannon-Bard theory maintains that emotional experience occurs simultaneous to and independent of physiological arousal. The Schachter-Singer two-factor theory suggests that physiological arousal receives cognitive labels as a function of the relevant context and that these two factors together result in an emotional experience.

The limbic system is the brain’s emotional circuit, which includes the amygdala and the hippocampus. Both of these structures are implicated in playing a role in normal emotional processing as well as in psychological mood and anxiety disorders. Increased amygdala activity is associated with learning to fear, and it is seen in individuals who are at risk for or suffering from mood disorders. The volume of the hippocampus has been shown to be reduced in individuals suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.

The ability to produce and recognize facial expressions of emotions seems to be universal regardless of cultural background. However, there are cultural display rules which influence how often and under what circumstances various emotions can be expressed. Tone of voice and body language also serve as a means by which we communicate information about our emotional states.

Self Check Questions

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Imagine you find a venomous snake crawling up your leg just after taking a drug that prevented sympathetic nervous system activation. What would the James-Lange theory predict about your experience?

2. Why can we not make causal claims regarding the relationship between the volume of the hippocampus and PTSD?

Personal Application Question

3. Think about times in your life when you have been absolutely elated (e.g., perhaps your school’s basketball team just won a closely contested ballgame for the national championship) and very fearful (e.g., you are about to give a speech in your public speaking class to a roomful of 100 strangers). How would you describe how your arousal manifested itself physically? Were there marked differences in physiological arousal associated with each emotional state?

Answers

1. The James-Lange theory would predict that I would not feel fear because I haven’t had the physiological arousal necessary to induce that emotional state.

2. The research that exists is correlational in nature. It could be the case that reduced hippocampal volume predisposes people to develop PTSD or the decreased volume could result from PTSD. Causal claims can only be made when performing an experiment.

Glossary

basolateral complex  part of the brain with dense connections with a variety of sensory areas of the brain; it is critical for classical conditioning and attaching emotional value to memory

body language  emotional expression through body position or movement

Cannon-Bard theory of emotion  physiological arousal and emotional experience occur at the same time

central nucleus  part of the brain involved in attention and has connections with the hypothalamus and various brainstem areas to regulate the autonomic nervous and endocrine systems’ activity

cognitive-mediational theory  our emotions are determined by our appraisal of the stimulus

components of emotion  physiological arousal, psychological appraisal, and subjective experience

cultural display rule one of the culturally specific standards that govern the types and frequencies of emotions that are acceptable

emotion  subjective state of being often described as feelings

facial feedback hypothesis facial expressions are capable of influencing our emotions

James-Lange theory of emotion emotions arise from physiological arousal

polygraph lie detector test that measures physiological arousal of individuals as they answer a series of questions

Schachter-Singer two-factor theory of emotion emotions consist of two factors: physiological and cognitive

Princeton’s WordNetRate this definition:3.5 / 10 votes

1. emotionnoun

   any strong feeling

WiktionaryRate this definition:3.0 / 4 votes

1. emotionnoun

   A person’s internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data.

2. emotionnoun

   A reaction by an non-human organism with behavioral and physiological elements similar to a person’s response.

3. Etymology: From émotion, from émouvoir based on Latin emotus, past participle of emovo, from e- (variant of ex-), and movo.

Samuel Johnson’s DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Emotionnoun

   Disturbance of mind; vehemence of passion, or pleasing or painful.

   Etymology: emotion, French.

   I will appeal to any man, who has read this poet, whether he finds not the natural emotion of the same passion in himself, which the poet describes in his feigned persons?
   Dryden.

   Those rocks and oaks that such emotion felt,
   Were rural maids whom Orpheus taught to melt.
   George Granville.

WikipediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Emotion

   Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.Research on emotion has increased over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, medicine, history, sociology of emotions, and computer science. The numerous theories that attempt to explain the origin, function and other aspects of emotions have fostered more intense research on this topic. Current areas of research in the concept of emotion include the development of materials that stimulate and elicit emotion. In addition, PET scans and fMRI scans help study the affective picture processes in the brain.From a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as «a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity.» Emotions produce different physiological, behavioral and cognitive changes. The original role of emotions was to motivate adaptive behaviors that in the past would have contributed to the passing on of genes through survival, reproduction, and kin selection.In some theories, cognition is an important aspect of emotion. Other theories, however, claim that emotion is separate from and can precede cognition. Consciously experiencing an emotion is exhibiting a mental representation of that emotion from a past or hypothetical experience, which is linked back to a content state of pleasure or displeasure. The content states are established by verbal explanations of experiences, describing an internal state.Emotions are complex. There are various theories on the question of whether or not emotions cause changes in our behaviour. On the one hand, the physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous system. Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency. Extroverted people are more likely to be social and express their emotions, while introverted people are more likely to be more socially withdrawn and conceal their emotions. Emotion is often the driving force behind motivation. On the other hand, emotions are not causal forces but simply syndromes of components, which might include motivation, feeling, behaviour, and physiological changes, but none of these components is the emotion. Nor is the emotion an entity that causes these components.Emotions involve different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior. At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on. More recently, emotion is said to consist of all the components. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline. In psychology and philosophy, emotion typically includes a subjective, conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states. A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology. For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and the appraisal of situations and contexts.
   Nowadays most research into emotions in the clinical and well-being context focuses on emotion dynamics in daily life, predominantly the intensity of specific emotions, and their variability, instability, inertia, and differentiation, and whether and how emotions augment or blunt each other over time, and differences in these dynamics between people and along the lifespan.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:2.5 / 4 votes

1. Emotionnoun

   a moving of the mind or soul; excitement of the feelings, whether pleasing or painful; disturbance or agitation of mind caused by a specific exciting cause and manifested by some sensible effect on the body

FreebaseRate this definition:3.0 / 4 votes

1. Emotion

   In psychology, philosophy, and their many subsets, emotion is the generic term for subjective, conscious experience that is characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states. Emotion is often associated and considered reciprocally influential with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation, as well as influenced by hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline, serotonin, oxytocin, cortisol and GABA. Emotion is often the driving force behind motivation, positive or negative. An alternative definition of emotion is a «positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity.»
   The physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous system with various states and strengths of arousal relating, apparently, to particular emotions. Although those acting primarily on emotion may seem as if they are not thinking, cognition is an important aspect of emotion, particularly the interpretation of events. For example, the experience of fear usually occurs in response to a threat. The cognition of danger and subsequent arousal of the nervous system is an integral component to the subsequent interpretation and labeling of that arousal as an emotional state. Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency.

Chambers 20th Century DictionaryRate this definition:4.5 / 2 votes

1. Emotion

   e-mō′shun, n. a moving of the feelings: agitation of mind: (phil.) one of the three groups of the phenomena of the mind.&mdasmdash;adj. Emō′tional.—n. Emō′tionalism, tendency to emotional excitement, the habit of working on the emotions, the indulgence of superficial emotion.—adv. Emō′tionally.—adjs. Emō′tionless; Emō′tive, pertaining to the emotions. [L. emotion-em—emovēre, emōtum, to stir up—e, forth, movēre, to move.]

Editors ContributionRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. emotion

   A feeling.

   Emotion comes in many forms e.g. joy, love, peace etc.

   Submitted by MaryC on January 27, 2020  

Suggested ResourcesRate this definition:5.0 / 1 vote

1. emotion

   The emotion symbol — In this Symbols.com article you will learn about the meaning of the emotion symbol and its characteristic.

British National Corpus

1. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ’emotion’ in Nouns Frequency: #1253

How to pronounce emotion?

How to say emotion in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of emotion in Chaldean Numerology is: 6

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of emotion in Pythagorean Numerology is: 1

Examples of emotion in a Sentence

1. Joe Crowley:

   Obviously, everybody in there was a friend of Joe’s, it was basically disbelief, shock, a lot of outpouring of emotion and sympathy for Joe.

2. William Shatner:

   You have done something… I mean, whatever those other guys are doing, I don’t know about that. What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine, i’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. I just… it’s extraordinary. It’s extraordinary.

3. Bill Murdock:

   Its been painful for years, says Scott Love, Shelleys brother and an Asheville pediatrician. It just comes in waves of emotion…. url.

4. Andre Bakhos:

   The market is being driven by oil, technicals and on pure emotion rather than tangible fundamentals, notwithstanding the recent rally, we’re starting to enter a period that’s going to give us greater volatility, choppiness and erratic behavior.

5. J. Ezra Merkin:

   As long as investors remain human, and thus subject to greed, fear, pressure, doubt, and the entire range of human emotions, there will be money to be made by those who steel themselves to overcome emotion.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

emotion#10000#10424#100000

---

Translations for emotion

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

• emosieAfrikaans
• المشاعر, إحساس, عاطفة, عواطفArabic
• emosiya, duyğuAzerbaijani
• эмо́цыя, пачуццёBelarusian
• емо́ция, чу́вствоBulgarian
• emocióCatalan, Valencian
• emoceCzech
• følelseDanish
• Empfindung, Emotion, GefühlGerman
• συναίσθημαGreek
• emocioEsperanto
• emoción, afectoSpanish
• emotsioonEstonian
• احساس, هیجانPersian
• tunneFinnish
• émotionFrench
• mothúchánIrish
• reachd, faireachdainnScottish Gaelic
• emociónGalician
• भावनाHindi
• érzésHungarian
• զգացմունքArmenian
• emocoIdo
• geðshræringIcelandic
• emozioneItalian
• 感情Japanese
• ემოციაGeorgian
• сезім, эмоцияKazakh
• 感情, 감정Korean
• эмоцияKyrgyz
• adfectusLatin
• ອາລົມLao
• emocijaLithuanian
• emocijaLatvian
• panapanaMāori
• емо́цијаMacedonian
• сэтгэлийн ходолгөөнMongolian
• emozzjoniMaltese
• စိတ်ရှုတ်ခြင်းBurmese
• følelse, emosjonNorwegian
• emotieDutch
• følelseNorwegian
• emocjaPolish
• احساسPashto, Pushto
• emoçãoPortuguese
• emoțieRomanian
• эмо́ция, чу́вствоRussian
• осећај, чувство, čuvstvo, emocija, емоција, osećajSerbo-Croatian
• emóciaSlovak
• čustvoSlovene
• emocionAlbanian
• emotion, känslaSwedish
• эҳсос, кайфиятTajik
• อารมณ์Thai
• duýgyTurkmen
• damdamin, emosyonTagalog
• duyguTurkish
• почуття́, емо́ціяUkrainian
• بهاوناUrdu
• emotsiyaUzbek
• cảm xúcVietnamese
• 情感Chinese

Get even more translations for emotion »

Translation

Find a translation for the emotion definition in other languages:

Select another language:

• — Select —
• 简体中文 (Chinese — Simplified)
• 繁體中文 (Chinese — Traditional)
• Español (Spanish)
• Esperanto (Esperanto)
• 日本語 (Japanese)
• Português (Portuguese)
• Deutsch (German)
• العربية (Arabic)
• Français (French)
• Русский (Russian)
• ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
• 한국어 (Korean)
• עברית (Hebrew)
• Gaeilge (Irish)
• Українська (Ukrainian)
• اردو (Urdu)
• Magyar (Hungarian)
• मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
• Indonesia (Indonesian)
• Italiano (Italian)
• தமிழ் (Tamil)
• Türkçe (Turkish)
• తెలుగు (Telugu)
• ภาษาไทย (Thai)
• Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
• Čeština (Czech)
• Polski (Polish)
• Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
• Românește (Romanian)
• Nederlands (Dutch)
• Ελληνικά (Greek)
• Latinum (Latin)
• Svenska (Swedish)
• Dansk (Danish)
• Suomi (Finnish)
• فارسی (Persian)
• ייִדיש (Yiddish)
• հայերեն (Armenian)
• Norsk (Norwegian)
• English (English)

Word of the Day

Would you like us to send you a FREE new word definition delivered to your inbox daily?

---

Citation

Use the citation below to add this definition to your bibliography: