Emotions

Type of psychology: Emotion
Field of study: Motivation theory
Emotion is a basic aspect of human functioning. Emotions are personal experiences
that arise from a complex interplay among physiological, cognitive, and situational
variables. Theories and measurement of emotion allow psychologists to understand diverse
expressions of behavior, and they form the cornerstone of many approaches to the
treatment of psychological problems.

Key concepts

• cognitive appraisal
• emotional intensity
• primary emotions
• psychosomatic disorders
• secondary emotions
• state emotion
• trait emotion
• visceral responses

An emotion is a valenced experience that is felt with some degree of intensity,
involves a person’s interpretation of the immediate situation, and is accompanied
by learned and unlearned physical responses. Emotions are transitory
states, and they have five characteristics. First, emotions are experiences, not
specific behaviors or thoughts. Although thoughts can sometimes lead to
emotions, and behaviors can sometimes be caused by emotions, an emotion is
a personal experience. Second, an emotional experience has “valence,”
meaning that the emotion has a positive or negative quality. Because emotions
have valence, they often motivate people toward action. People tend to
seek activities, situations, and people that enhance their experience of positive
emotional states, and they tend to avoid situations that are connected
with the experience of negative emotions.

Third, emotions involve cognitive appraisals. That is, one’s interpretation
of the immediate situation influences which emotion is experienced.
For example, a child may experience either joy or fear when being chased,
depending on whether the child interprets the chase as playful or dangerous.
Fourth, emotions involve physical responses. Physical responses may be
internal, such as changes in heart rate, blood pressure, or respiration
(called visceral responses); physical responses can also be external, such as
facial expressions. In addition, the bodily responses that characterize emotions
are partly reflexive (unlearned) and partly learned. An increase in
heart rate is a reflexive response that accompanies intense fear. That which a
person fears, however, and his or her accompanying bodily response may be
the product of learning; crying when afraid is an emotional expression that is subject to learning experiences. Fifth, emotions can vary in intensity: Anger
can become rage, amusement can become joy, and fear can be heightened
to a state of terror.

Psychologist Robert Plutchik contends that there are eight innate, primary
emotions: joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise, fear, and
acceptance. Like the colors of a color wheel, primary emotions can combine
to produce secondary emotions: surprise plus sadness can produce disappointment;
anger plus disgust can produce contempt; and fear plus surprise
can produce awe. Because each primary emotion can vary in intensity,
and each level of intensity for one emotion can combine with some other
level of intensity of another emotion, the total number of possible emotions
runs to the hundreds. Although many psychologists agree that there exist
primary emotions, there is no way that a person could distinguish such a
large number of personal emotional experiences. Moreover, psychologists
have not even attempted to measure such an unwieldy array of secondary
emotions.