In the book Passion and Reason Richard and Bernice Lazarus list fifteen different emotions: aesthetic experience, anger, anxiety, compassion, depression, envy, fright, gratitude, guilt, happiness, hope, jealousy, love, pride, relief, sadness, and shame. Ellsworth worked with him and agreed on the same structure of emotions. Paul Ekman devised six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. Here is what we know: William James proposed four basic emotions: fear, grief, love, and rage, based on bodily involvement. Like in the Chinese parable of the sage pointing and the moon while the student focuses on the finger, I invite you to not focus on the limitations of the English language but rather look at the deeper underlying message I’m attempting to convey in this article. You will see below for example that some of the lists established in the past themselves label as emotion what technically is more of a feeling (e.g., happiness, a feeling that comes over you when you know life is good and you can’t help but smile) but that’s because we don’t have a better way of clearly expressing the difference. I’d like to give you a clear list of universally recognized emotions but unfortunately (1) such a list does not exist and (2) the English language is too limited anyway. This means that they are illogical, irrational, and unreasonable because the limbic system is separate from – sitting literally behind – the neocortex, the part of our brain that deals with conscious thoughts, reasoning and decision making. Important note: Emotions are carried out by the limbic system, our emotional processing center.
Emotions can be measured objectively by blood flow, brain activity, facial expressions and body stance. For example: You are on your own and on foot in the savanna wilderness, you see a lion, and you instantly get scared. While they are complex and involve a variety of physical and cognitive responses (many of which are not well understood), their general purpose is to produce a specific response to a stimulus.
They have been programmed into our genes over many, many years of evolution and are hard-wired. What Are Emotions?Įssentially emotions are physical and instinctive. At stake is the way you behave in this world. Of course they are closely related and yes this is a complex topic, but there is a fundamental difference and understanding it is important. We tend to use the words emotions, feelings and moods interchangeably. Let’s be honest: conveying internal feelings in words in not easy, and that explains a lot of the confusion on this topic.
This article discusses the difference between feelings and emotions.
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