6 Types of Basic Emotions and Their Effect on Human Behavior
6 Types of Basic Emotions and Their Effect on Human Behavior | Various emotions significantly shape our lives and interpersonal interactions. At times, it may feel like our actions, choices, and perceptions are governed by these emotions. Psychologists have endeavored to categorize and explain the multitude of emotions people experience, leading to the identification of different theories.
In the 1970s, psychologist Paul Ekman proposed six basic, universally experienced emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. Subsequently, he expanded this list to include emotions like pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement. Another approach, presented by psychologist Robert Plutchik, conceptualizes emotions as a wheel, allowing for combinations that form more complex feelings.
Recent studies challenge the notion of a limited set of basic emotions, suggesting that people experience a broader spectrum along a gradient. Examining some key emotions, such as happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise, offers insights into their impact on human behavior.
Happiness
often pursued fervently, is characterized by contentment, joy, gratification, satisfaction, and well-being. Cultural influences often shape expectations of what leads to happiness, but the reality is complex and individualized. Research links happiness to various positive outcomes, including increased longevity and marital satisfaction.
Sadness
Sadness, a transient emotional state, involves feelings of disappointment, grief, hopelessness, and disinterest. Coping mechanisms like avoidance, self-medication, and negative rumination can exacerbate prolonged sadness.
Fear
Fear, a crucial emotion for survival, triggers the fight or flight response in the face of danger. Expressions include widened eyes, attempts to hide, and physiological reactions. Anxiety often involves an anticipated fear of potential threats, while exposure therapy helps reduce fear through gradual familiarization.
Disgust
Disgust, identified by Ekman, involves physical reactions like turning away or vomiting. It likely evolved as a response to potential harm, particularly related to unpleasant tastes, smells, or sights. Moral disgust can arise from observing behaviors deemed immoral or distasteful.
Anger
Anger, a potent emotion, encompasses feelings of hostility, frustration, and antagonism. While it can be constructive in clarifying needs and motivating action, unchecked anger has detrimental mental and physical consequences, linked to health risks such as coronary heart disease and aggressive behaviors.
Surprise
Surprise, characterized by a physiological startle response, can be positive, negative, or neutral. It triggers the fight or flight response and significantly influences human behavior, leading to heightened attention and memory retention.
- These six basic emotions are just a fraction of the emotional spectrum. Ekman later introduced additional emotions, but not all could be conveyed through facial expressions. Other theories propose different classifications, with some suggesting only two or three basic emotions and others proposing hierarchies with primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions.
A recent study suggests at least 27 interconnected emotions, challenging the traditional view of isolated emotional states. Understanding the complexity of emotions can contribute to advancements in treatments for psychiatric conditions by exploring how emotions underlie brain activity, behavior, and mood. Emotions, as a collective and nuanced force, profoundly shape our lives and emotional landscapes.
- Amusement
- Contempt
- Contentment
- Embarrassment
- Excitement
- Guilt
- Pride in achievement
- Relief
- Satisfaction
- Shame
Other Theories of Emotion
As with many concepts in psychology, not all theorists agree on how to classify emotions or what the basic emotions actually are. While Eckman’s theory is one of the best known, other theorists have proposed their own ideas about what emotions make up the core of the human experience.10
For example, some researchers have suggested that there are only two or three basic emotions. Others have suggested that emotions exist in something of a hierarchy. Primary emotions such as love, joy, surprise, anger, and sadness can then be further broken down into secondary emotions. Love, for example, consists of secondary emotions, such as affection and longing.
These secondary emotions might then be broken down still further into what are known as tertiary emotions. The secondary emotion of affection includes tertiary emotions, such as liking, caring, compassion, and tenderness.
A more recent study suggests that there are at least 27 distinct emotions, all of which are highly interconnected.11 After analyzing the responses of more than 800 men to more than 2,000 video clips, researchers created an interactive map to demonstrate how these emotions are related to one another.
“We found that 27 distinct dimensions, not six, were necessary to account for the way hundreds of people reliably reported feeling in response to each video,” explained the senior researcher Dacher Keltner, faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center.
In other words, emotions are not states that occur in isolation. Instead, the study suggests that there are gradients of emotion and that these different feelings are deeply inter-related.
Alan Cowen, the study’s lead author and doctoral student in neuroscience at UC Berkeley, suggests that better clarifying the nature of our emotions can play an important role in helping scientists, psychologists, and physicians learn more about how emotions underlie brain activity, behavior, and mood. By building a better understanding of these states, he hopes that researchers can develop improved treatments for psychiatric conditions.
